The "I Hate to Blog" Blog

How I Spent my 2008 Alumni Weekend

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Dan WolfeMarch 23, 2014

This is another rerun — actually my first ever blog entry. This started out as an email about my RV adventure and grew until it was this… thing. Response was so positive that I used it to start this blog.

Regarding the last post about who’s the better drum major, me or Jeff Tobin, there may be some additional information about that toward the end of this essay which may help you decide.

The trip began innocuously enough. I headed out on schedule, stopped by the Safeway to get some soda, beer, condiments and chips for the Saturday party I was hosting. I picked up my seven long-sleeved business shirts from the cleaners, light starch. I climbed into the RV and proceeded northbound on I-95 happy as the proverbial clam. Traffic was a little heavy for what one would expect from a Thursday night, and as I got closer and close to Maryland, things slowed and slowed. Once on the northernmost part of the Washington Beltway, things slowed to a crawl with stop-and-go traffic being somewhat the norm.

At one point, I had to stop short. You know how that works, you’re behind some guy and yeah, I was probably going a tad faster than I should have, and he slams on his brakes. Well, I had never had to perform such a maneuver with a 31-foot long big rolling turd.

I slammed on the brakes and it wasn’t enough. I pushed harder and still the inertia of the RV and all the liquid in the water tanks propelled me forward. I stood on the brakes with both feet and only THEN did I feel the BRT begin to slow. That’s good. Very good.

However, anything in the RV that WASN’T stowed came crashing forward. In fact, so short was the stop that the cabinet drawer with all the pots and pans in it ejected itself from the cabinet and ran screaming along the floor finally coming to rest because of the friction of the carpet it encountered along the way.

Relieved to have avoided a collision with the car ahead of me, and yet surprisingly calmly, I continued up 95 toward Baltimore stopping once along the highway to put everything away that had come flying out in the near miss. (Didn’t George Carlin do a bit about “near-misses”? A near miss constitutes a hit, he says and I’d agree! A near-miss should technically be called a “near hit.”)

Anyway for the next oh, I dunno, thirty miles or so, everything was just fine.

Until I got to the Harbor Tunnel in Baltimore.

Was at the toll booth just about to pay my $2.00 or whatever it was to head through when I saw it. A sign, lord a sign! “Recreational Vehicles exit at Such-And-Such Street Before Tunnel.”

Shit. Damn. Oh, crap, my GPS battery is dead!

So I get to the toll booth and talk to the young and rather attractive toll collector asking her how I get where I am supposed to go. She tells me that there are signs (A sign, lord, a sign!) that will instruct me in the proper route to get back to a more appropriate crossing place. I sigh, and thank the comely young toll collector and proceed to the exit for Such-And-Such Street. I make a rolling stop at a stop sign and realize that there’s a big truck facing me down attempting to make a turn onto the street from which I am turning.

Like dogs at a dog park, when the bigger, less fragile Peterbuilt wants the road, my meager Tioga does precisely what’s expected. The RV equivalent of rolling on your back and surrendering. I backed up, shot the trucker a rather sheepish smile and a wave and allowed him to pass first. I am sure that if he would have had one hand free, I would have received a greeting in return, but I suspect it would have been a lot less friendly in nature than my poor attempt at an apologetic gesture.

Onward.

I follow the alternate route signs, but they quickly disappear. But in their place, a regular sign for I-95 appears and so I get in line with the rest of my Thursday night travelers and head towards Delaware.

Not so fast, kemosabe.

Yeah, THIS line is the line for the Fort Mc Henry Tunnel along I-95. Sigh. Shit! Sigh. (Verb. Expletive. Verb. Just to clarify the middle one is NOT a verb.)

No toll booth in sight. No one to remind me that I can’t go through the tunnel with propane in my tanks until I get to the other side. Hmmmm… Yeah, the fuel trucks go through this tunnel all the time! What’s the big deal? I am already stressed out, feeling wary of travelling without the benefit of the TomTom GPS software on my phone, I decide to brave the elements, damn the torpedoes, and remember the Alamo and proceed. And proceed I did.

Without incident.

Paid my couple o’ bucks at the toll booth on the other side of the tunnel and accelerate toward Delaware confident that the worst is over.

Not so fast, kemosabe.

I get about 50 or so miles – without a GPS how the hell would I know – and make it to Maryland House service plaza. I pull off, pull up to the gas pump and fill up with around 20 gallons or so of fuel and proceed. Just not very far.

The Susquehanna River ran very close to my neighborhood when I lived in Harrisburg, PA back in the late 60’s and early 70’s. So I know it’s a really big river at its best, and thank goodness the State of Maryland saw fit to put a bridge across its part of the river on I-95. What was unfortunate is that the State of Maryland chose my Thursday night to perform some sort of maintenance on the span. So traffic was slimmed down to one lane from the usual 3. That also created a commensurate increase in travel time from the bridge to ME from about 12 minutes to… Well, it was about an hour, but it seems as though it was already Labor day.

Sigh. Shit! Sigh. Repeat, PRN.

Finally get through all that and it’s an uneventful trip to Radnor, PA, just another hour and eleven minutes from the Susquehanna River Bridge.

Radnor? I was going to Wayne, not Radnor. So yeah, you have probably already figured out that, just like in the Star Trek movies, the adventure continues.

I zip through Delaware and on into Pennsylvania and up the Blue Route about 12 miles through the western ‘burbs of Philadelphia. By this time, I have successfully recharged my cell phone (Technically found an extension cord to I could run it off AC from the RV’s on board generator.) TomTom tells me to get off at Route 30, Lancaster Avenue and proceed straight under the railroad bridge and on to the school a couple miles away.

For those of you in the audience who are from Philadelphia, you’ll already know that the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad was built roughly straight west from Philadelphia. Over the decades, this area has become known as the Main Line. My school, Valley Forge Military Academy is located on the Main Line. But to get to the ol’ Alma Mater, I have to cross the main line of the Pennsylvania Rail Road.

There are multiple bridges which carry the former PRR, now probably part of CSX or Conrail or AMTRAK or God only know who knows what government-subsidized conglomerate owns the right of way that used to be the main line of the Pennsylvania Rail Road. Those bridges are old. VERY old. And not much clearance for taller vehicles to get through. I had anticipated this and figured that one of them would be just fine for my nearly 12-foot RV to pass underneath without incident.

Just not the one in Radnor.

A sign, lord a sign!

“10 feet , 7 inches.” As usual, that wasn’t the exact response I was hoping for with my little impromptu appeal to whatever gods there might be.

I make a hard right into an alley of some sort which services the Radnor station of the commuter train and just as the wheel is spinning back to the straight ahead position, I realize there’s no way to pull through. I’m trapped with my only possible exit strategy to back out onto the street unguided and risk getting plowed into from someone less cognizant of their surroundings screaming under the bridge from the blind approach on the other side.

I slowly begin to back down the alley past the parked car without a problem.

“Hey, I am getting pretty good at this!” I said to myself and here’s where I made the significant error in judgment.

I stop the car, still VERY wary about backing out into traffic and inspect the situation. The alley is really fairly wide with a low curb on the right. No obstructions. Hmmmm. I’ll bet I can make a “K” turn here and if I am careful, set myself up to nose-out of the alley none the worse for wear.

Good initiative. Bad decision.

I hop back in, swing the wheel right and begin moving the tail of the vehicle over toward the open area ever so slowly. Gently. Listening for every little peep of a sound which would indicate some obstacle to the swift and safe completion of my task. Or a curb. A curb would be good.

Awright. I can now start to go the other way. The “K” turn evolves into a “ * ” turn. I am making progress, though, just like Austin Powers did in his golf cart in one of his movies. It’s just really slow progress. Ok. I am all set. The next time, I will be clear up front. Then I can swing the steering wheel hard left and pull out and find another bridge. Gently I accelerate. Veeeerrrrrryyyyy gently.

Not so fast, kemosabe.

Crunch!

Sigh. Shit! Sigh. Repeat. Yeah, now’s the time. It’s definitely necessary.

A longer vehicle such as an RV does not have the rear wheels at the very end. So when you turn the front end to the left the back end turns to the right commensurately. In this particular case, against one of those old, creosote covered telephone poles.

Sigh. Shit! Sigh. Repeat.

I’m suddenly feeling less like the confident RV owner I am and more like Will Smith in “I Am Legend” when he keeps saying “I can still fix this!” Matter of fact, I think in between the fortieth “Sigh.” and the twentieth “Shit!” I actually said it out loud, though I successfully expressed the urge to shout “HELL no!” as Will does in just about each of the movies in which I have ever seen him.

Assess damage. Shoot, I am already scuffed up where the pole rubbed against the back right corner of the RV. I almost made it, too – just a couple of inches more and I’d already be parked with a cold beer soothing my deflating ego. (Think the Hindenburg’s legendary deflation, here, and you’ll get a sense of it.)

Sit in driver’s seat. Ease her forward until she’s loose, then cut ‘er hard left and we’ll be good to go. In gear. Inch forward. Endure horrendous scraping sounds as the telephone pole eliminates any surface imperfections on the last few inches of the RV’s right side.

Boing! Pop! I’m clear! Woo Hoo.

I turn the wheel hard to the left ready make my exit. Touch the accelerator ever go gently. No resistance. Good. Moves forward an inch or two.

Not so fast, kemosabe.

Meeting a little resistance, but I am by golly fully committed to this obviously dubious course of action.

Boing! Pop! I’m clear! Woo Hoo.

This time, I really AM clear and roll the RV ahead in the shadows of the furiously swinging power lines which were attached to my opponent, the telephone pole.

I find a suitable crossing point, hold my breath, drive underneath with no collision whatsoever and make it to my destination where I finally set up camp and went to bed.

Next morning, I discover that the second little bit of resistance that I encountered as I wrenched myself free was the pole catching on the passing rear bumper, which now presented a subtle but definite misshapen appearance. Eh, what are you gonna do?

The rest of the weekend continued without incident, except for one other time when my fellow alum and I broke a metal piece to the support structure of the awning we were trying to stow. But to offset that little gaffe, which took about fifteen minutes to fix, I DID get the automatic retractable step working again by tapping ever so gently on the actuator switch causing it to un-stick and begin performing its designed mission again. I told myself that’s like offsetting penalties in football, so really there was only one incident not two as you’d think from casual observance of the weekend.

Oh there was ONE more little thing. It didn’t involve the RV, or contracting some strange disease or anything truly tragic. But people will be talking about it for a long time, I hear.

Fridays of homecoming weekend, the alumni are encouraged to line up and march with their respective organization at second mess formation. (Second mess is lunch, for the uninitiated.) Former Bandsmen are invited to play with the band and march along for old time’s sake. I was the drum major, so I politely asked the Bandmaster and the current drum major if I would be able to lead the band and they all agreed this would be cool.

So at the appropriate time, I position myself in front of the band, the regimental commander orders “Forward, March!” and off we go.

One thing about being the band’s drum major is that your routine is so well practiced and you do it so often, you remember precisely how to do it all, just as everyone allegedly remembers how to ride a bike. I start out with what we called curling, moving the mace in time with the beat of the march. As I approached the reviewing stand I started to spin the mace, stopping it with a satisfying snap into the vertical position, grab it at the top near the ball of the mace and execute a salute as if I had been doing it every day for the last 35 years:

Spin out of it. Take a few paces. Stroll. That’s where you walk with the mace using it more like a walking stick than anything else, I guess. Next, two column lefts bring the band back around just as we should so that they can reposition themselves in front of Wheeler Hall as the rest of the Corps passes the reviewing stand. Kind of like the marching version of a legal U-turn. After this second column left, we always gave the mace signal for a “forward march” and the band stepped off in unison to their final destination.

Not so fast, kemosabe.

I knew that the mace manual that we did back in my day was very different from what the bandsmen now know. What I DIDN’T know was that our old signal for “forward march” was the current band’s signal to “halt.”

And halt they did.

I’m doing my thing, executing the forward march just as perfectly as I had back in 1975 or so. I’m out there curling away keeping time with the music, just having a grand old time. But the music is suddenly getting quieter. That’s odd.

I sneak a look over my right shoulder to see what was going on and it was at this point that it became apparent that somewhere along I had goofed. Well, actually, no one had goofed. I did what I was supposed to do. Precisely. Magnificently, if I may brag a bit. I just wasn’t speaking their language.

I had signaled forward march and the band stopped right where they were, leaving me to lead oblivious to the fact that the bad had jumped ship about 50 feet behind me. No one was more surprised than I. The bandmaster, a fine Englishman by the name of Phil Evans explained to me that the band had followed my command not knowing that I meant something else. You say “tomato.” I say “tomahhhhto.” That sort of thing.

Anyway, it was all that anyone talked about when they saw me for the rest of the weekend. It was an honor to be able to be in front of the VFMA band again after 30-some years away. And even though I screwed it up, I think people will remember that alumni drum major who lost his band for years to come.

All in all, it was a fabulous weekend filled with friends, fond reminiscences and fantastic camaraderie. I saw people I haven’t even thought about in 35+ years, and bringing up all of that was just absolutely delightful.

We had a tailgate party Saturday night at the RV, and even though the weather was cold and damp, the spirits were anything but.

I’m Calling You Out, Jeff Tobin! (Redux)

Posted on March 20, 2014 by Dan WolfeMarch 20, 2014

This is a rerun of a post I made in December, 2013 and unfortunately lost in a giant computer and database crash. I believed it to be lost to the ages, however, I found a copy unexpectedly today while assisting another blogger in site management. I am reposting it here because… Well, because I liked it and was disappointed to have lost it. More importantly, it celebrates a terrific friendship dating back to 1972 and continues to this day.

But MOST importantly, I hope to settle this highly contentious disagreement once and for all.

I’m the better Drum Major.

Now SOME might try to mislead you to the conclusion that I’m not, but I am. Seriously, I’m not kidding around here.

I’m the better Drum Major.

This misinformation campaign has been going on since 1974 and I think it’s time for the definitive work on this subject to be written, disseminated and entered into the public record. So make note of this. You’ll be tested on this at some point and I expect y’all to have the right answer:

I’m the better Drum Major.

Someone is spreading lies about this. And I think I know. Who is it that dares to challenge decades of Drum Major greatness? Well, that would be the SECOND best (by a long shot) Drum Major, Jeffrey Tobin. While I respect Mr. Tobin and actually consider him to be a friend – perhaps even his ONLY friend, I’m just tired of the whining. Get over it, dude! Here’s a hanky. Go dry your eyes, put on your big boy pants and get a life.

“Come and take it – Slogan at the Battle of Gonzales”

(Yeah, I searched Google for that. Dammit Jim, I’m the better Drum Major not a military historian.)

This all goes back to the Valley Forge Military Academy and Junior College Band. I was a member from 1971-1976. The aforementioned Mr. Tobin joined me in my second year. It was during that second year that I started practicing to lead this talented and accomplished group (including Mr. Tobin) of high school and college musicians while on the march. You’ve probably seen photos of military bands each with a brightly dressed Drum Major in front of the band with a mace, a roughly five-foot long staff, weighted at one end and adorned with all sorts of flashy accoutrements. The Drum Major uses the mace to move the band forward, turn left or right, or perform some other maneuver all while the band performs martial music to stirring effect. The Drum Major’s specific movements are rehearsed so often that just a glance from any member of the band and they know what the hell is going on.

Make sense?

Being the Drum Major was a big deal at Valley Forge. The Drum Major had a different uniform and a huge, ornate sash sewn with gold thread. The sash weighed a ton, but it looked awesome and as soon as I saw the Drum Major my plebe (first) year, I knew that’s where I wanted to be.

Greg Ream was the Drum Major my plebe year. Jeff Zimmerman was the Drum Major the next two. That gave me three years to practice and get good at it. Somewhere along the way, Jeff Tobin also developed an interest in being the Drum Major, but as I was hoping to be the heir apparent, he’d have to get in line behind me where he belonged. And much to his credit, he did.

Tobin and Wolfe, early to mid 1970’s.

We were friends – still are, really. Best of friends. For the years we were at Valley Forge, we practiced the mace manual, which is what the movements are collectively called, almost every day. Yeah, we were both pretty damned good. Jeff even developed a modification of the manual for the mace in which we could both participate simultaneously. Yeah, he’s creative AND talented. Best friends, yes, but I hate his guts anyway.

So the year comes and the Bandmaster, Col. D. Keith “Duke” Feltham notified me that I’d be the Drum Major in my fourth year and since there was another after that before graduation, probably my fifth year as well.

It was a lock. When Duke said something, it happened. Period.

That’s me on the left with the mace.

So in the 1974-75 academic year, I was the Drum Major of the Valley Forge Military Academy Band.

But Mr. Tobin, that rat in sheep’s clothing, never let me forget he was waiting in the wings for me to have a heart attack at the tender age of 19 or some such other debilitating event.

Never.

Tobin’s taunts, in pencil (Click to examine closely.)

In fact, while digitizing some music from reel-to-reel tapes of the era, I found this on the back of one of the boxes. My note mentions my cadet rank at the time “M/Sgt Drum Major.” Please note Mr. Tobin’s handwriting reads “But not for long, Ha Ha!”

Jackass.

So anyway, as I said, there I was in the fall of 74, leading the band as the Drum Major. That was, until drummer Pat Parker was involved in a serious automobile accident taking him out of the four-man drum line for a number of weeks prior to the band’s VERY important performance at the Harrisburg Horse Show. We’d already learned the marching routines thoroughly. Reorganizing the band to account for Pat’s absence and relearning everything was far harder than sending me back to the drum line where I’d been the previous two years. Fortunately, there was one man who was prepared to step in and lead the band while I was back in the drum line.

Ha! Revenge, in whatever minute quantity, is still sweet.

That’s right. Jeffrey Tobin, back stabber.

I jest. (I don’t.)

So Jeff led the band until Pat came back healthy, took his place on the drum line and I went back to the front of the band where I belonged, Jeff in the trombone section behind me where he belonged.

I was the Drum Major for Harrisburg and the rest of the year proceeded without incident. I did my job as the Drum Major proudly and with all the dignity, flair and precision that I could muster – and that was a lot. WAY more than that wanna-be in the trombone section.

The next year, to make a long story short, as expected, I was again selected to be the Drum Major. Until they needed a trumpet player on the march. But this time, it wasn’t temporary and I was asked by Col. Feltham if I’d go back and play trumpet instead of being the Drum Major.

Yeah, not part of the plan, but we were all being paid generous scholarships and Duke always stressed professionalism and all that happy horseshit (all of those things are true, but it felt like happy horse shit at the time) and so of course, I reluctantly agreed to step aside and play trumpet.

So Jeff Tobin could take the mace.

Jerk.

So a few weeks in to the 1975-76 academic year, Jeffrey Edwin Tobin became the next in a long line of bandsmen to lead the VFMA band.

Tobin and Wolfe, circa 2002.

Did I mention we’re still friends?

Well we are. Thoroughly.

And I could not have been more fortunate to hand over the mace to a finer cadet, a finer person and yes, even a fine (Ha! You thought I was going to say “finer,” didn’t you?) Drum Major. If I were going to give up something that was that important to me, I would have wanted it to go to someone worthy and who deserved the opportunity as much as any of us who led the band.

Jeff performed admirably. We still kept at the double-man mace manual often. We continued to be a team through those years at VF, then at Westminster College. When we discovered that we both had some talent for radio, we were a team there too, doing all sorts of crazy stunts at our respective radio stations.

Ok, so maybe I wasn’t the best Drum Major. (But I was.) But Jeff was damned good, too. Really good. Really, really good.

I like to think that I’ve mellowed over the decades, but I’m still bitter and I’m still better.

I jest. (I don’t.)

No, seriously. I’ve mellowed. The long-standing feud about who’s the better Drum Major is now, due to advancing age, a long-sitting feud. But there’s no person alive or dead who I’d consider a peer when it comes to being a Drum Major other than Jeff.

I didn’t say that out loud, did I? (I did.)

So ok, you can believe whatever you want to about who’s the better Drum Major.

Just lie to me about it when you see me, ok? I have feelings, you know. Thanks.

Tobin and Wolfe, circa 2012. (Long story about the USS Enterprise in the background.)

Bella

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Dan WolfeMarch 27, 2019

The initial sting and sorrow at losing our beloved Bella, the dachshund, on Friday has abated. And the house continues to seem unusually quiet. This probably stems from the lack of profanities being uttered as one of the occupants residing herein found a pile of puppy poop the hard way, if you know what I mean.

Many of you have followed her since we got her last year. Many of you don’t know the backstory of how she came to be such a huge part of our household and how she won our hearts. So for my own mental health and in an attempt to capture these memories, I’m going to tell you Bella’s story.

I was desperate.

Now that’s not something that’s really unusual for me. I’m desperate for a number of reasons, but just a year and a few weeks ago, I was really, REALLY desperate to come up with a birthday gift for the lovely, talented and buxom Beth Geyer, my dearest significant other. (And before you get all weird on me, she not only approves of the aforementioned description, some time ago she insisted on it and it stuck.) She had mentioned a few times that she was longing for a pet, namely a kitten.

I’m fine with cats. In fact, this is one of the few places I’ve lived in which I do not have a feline patrolling the premises. So I had been on the lookout for a kitten for a number of weeks, making it a point to hit up the PetSmarts and Petcos of the world in search of a small furry feline. I even scoped out the Prince William County animal shelter when I was in the area. But, as it was the tail end of winter, small kittens were in short supply.

I should have seen it coming. February 28, 2013 was upon me more quickly than I had anticipated, the invariable progress of time notwithstanding. Two days. I was down to two days and I was desperate.

I gathered Nate, the younger of Beth’s small humans, and departed for some such adventure, as was our routine in those days before permanent employment. Shortly after our departure, we found ourselves in the vicinity of the Prince William County Animal Shelter. I asked Nate if he wanted to stop in and he agreed.

Nate hadn’t been there before, but I had. So I knew where to guide him to have a look at the kittens and cats available for rescue. On our way past, I noticed a small cage sitting on the floor of the hall in which was a tiny brown furry creature of some sort. But since we were in search of a kitten, we both breezed past pretty quickly. Upon determining that there were no kittens that fit the bill, Nate and I turned around and headed back through the hall toward the kennels in which the dogs were housed.

There again on the floor of the hall was the same tiny brown furry creature but this time, it was facing us.

Bella as we first encountered her.

It was a very tiny dachshund. In a very tiny cage.

I should mention that I’m a sucker for a hard luck cases. This poor little puppy practically defined the term. She was clearly frightened, dejected and not at all well. Nate and I bent closer to have a look at this pup and she scooted over toward us. After determining that this little dear heart wasn’t in a defensive mood, we moved in even closer and the puppy started sniffing and licking our fingers through the cage as puppies do.

I don’t remember if her tail was wagging at all or not. She was still confined to the small wire-framed kennel in which she’d just been surrendered and didn’t have much room to maneuver.

Just then, one of the shelter’s employees happened by and I stopped her and asked if we could pet the new arrival. She gladly obliged my request and let the puppy out of her kennel.

Nate, of course, was excited but having not been around pets at all very much, he didn’t know exactly how to behave. It was hilarious to watch Nate! It was a classic approach-avoidance scenario. He wanted so badly to interact with the puppy, but when she tried to hop up and lick his face or sit on his lap, he was alternately welcoming and terrified. The more he tried to get away from her, the more she’d try to get close to him. And the more she tried to get close to him the more he’d wriggle away, not sure just what to do about this small creature.

Bella and Nate’s dance on day one.

I tried to tell him that the puppy wouldn’t hurt him — she just wanted to play with him. I instructed him to sit still and she’d come to him, but he wasn’t having any of that whatsoever! Their “I’m-going-to-get-you!-No,-you’re-not!” dance continued much to my delight.

This dance would define their relationship.

Here’s the big problem. This was a dachshund puppy. This was the one breed of dog that Beth mentioned as being her least favorite breed of dog. Not just that she didn’t like them. She specified that they were her least favorite.

Damn!

Seeing Nate’s alternating joy and slowly abating horror at the puppy in his presence, I started to think that this could seriously solve the birthday present problem, but there was great potential to create a longer-term issue of bringing home to Beth a pet that she’d dislike.

The words “least” and “favorite” kept buzzing around my head like annoying, biting flies.

I asked the shelter employee about her backstory? Why was she surrendered to the shelter? Where did she come from? The dog had been given the name Rosie. As I recall it now, Rosie had lived with someone who was at first provided a loving home. They had paper-trained her for peeing, but she hadn’t completed the housebreaking process and still pooped somewhat indiscriminately.

At some point, Rosie’s original owners had to go away on vacation or some such event that forced them to be away and made arrangements for a third party to care for her. This continued for some time and the people never came back to claim her. I don’t know why or how someone could do this to any living creature, but in the days and weeks following, Rosie had been essentially ignored. By the time she arrived at the shelter, she was horribly underweight, she had infections in both of her ears, and a number of skin lesions.

She was a mess.

Remember when I told you I was a sucker for hard luck cases? Here’s where it’s becomes relevant.

I could not allow this poor defenseless puppy to be placed into the general population of shelter dogs. Even if she were only there for an overnight, it was unthinkable for such a sweet, small, sick puppy to bear such a thing. You’ve been to those places. You know what it’s like. The dogs are often stressed to the breaking point just from being in a strange, uncomfortable kennel with other dogs. The yelping and howling of other shelter dogs would undoubtedly unnerve poor baby Rosie were she to enter the general population. She was far too fragile and far too sweet and Nate was far too engaged with her for me to allow that to happen.

So we rescued her.

$45, I think was the adoption fee and that included shots. The shelter was sure to explain the contractual obligation to have her spayed through the shelter when she was healthy enough to tolerate the surgery. $140 for the surgery. $30 for post-operative pain meds. No problem.

I recall the staff at the shelter being such wonderful people and made the process as easy and as stress free as it could be. I really was delighted with the process though I found myself terrified about bringing home a wiener dog to Beth. That’s ok. I was committed to taking the ass chewing, if necessary. But there was no way I could allow Rosie to suffer any more injustice at the hands of an overburdened animal control facility.

Nate and I dashed over to the closest ATM, which was just a minute down the road. We got the cash for the adoption fee, drove quickly back to the shelter and sealed the deal.

I took Rosie and Nate home. Beth had been napping that day and so after putting Rosie in the living room with Nate, I proceeded upstairs and gently woke Beth.

“Your birthday present is downstairs and wants to meet you.”

Bella and Beth, March 2014

It was love at first sight. And I was thrilled at the reception Beth gave her. Beth was all smiles and so very affectionate with Rosie that any sense of “least favorite” was gone.

Rosie was home.

That afternoon, I took her to the local veterinary clinic to address her health issues. When I got to the clinic, there were a few larger dogs there and to keep her calm, I held her close and rocked her gently from side to side as anyone who’s ever had children does almost instinctively. She snoozed a little, trembling at the loud noises but settling back into my arms with a relieved sigh when the immediate threat was gone.

After a long wait, we were escorted into the treatment room, she was examined and determined to be the mess I thought she was:

“Thank you for bringing Rosie in to see us today. She is such a sweet little lady and did great for her exam. We are sending home medication to treat Rosie’s skin and ears. Please monitor the mass on Rosie’s side for any change in size or character. If the mass hasn’t resolved in the next 4-6 weeks or were to increase in size we would recommend rechecking it.”

They gave me three prescriptions, a long list of instructions and some gentle shampoo for her skin.

Bella in her usual state.

By the time I got home, Garrett, the older of Beth’s boys, arrived home from school and greeted his new family member enthusiastically. The boys played with her, and Beth cuddled her. From that moment on and for the year or so she was with us, there wasn’t a moment that Rosie, who got the name Bella after a day or two, wasn’t engaged with one of her human family.

Bella in the dog nest.

When Garrett woke up in the morning, Bella would stay with him on the couch watching cartoons snuggled up close by until it was time to go to school. Garrett would often say that Bella was in her dog nest when they were cuddling together. When Nate darted downstairs and around the house, Bella would chase him and growl at him playfully, reinvigorating the dance they’d started on the floor of the hall in the shelter the day they met. She’d grab at his pant legs and hang on for dear life. We always said that Nate was Bella’s own personal chew toy and Bella would never pass up a moment to engage him in raucous play. During the day, Beth and Bella would snuggle up and read or watch TV. Bella would accompany Beth around the house when she was doing housework. Rarely was Bella out of sight from at least one of us. And at night, Bella would demand to lick my face as we watched TV together, and after repeated refusals, would finally settle for falling asleep on my outstretched legs.

I’m out of words now. Writing this has made me laugh. It’s also made me sob. I miss Bella terribly. She spent all of 379 days in our world and I can’t remember a day in which her little brown face didn’t enrich me in some way.

379 days. How can someone so small who was with us for such a short time have affected our family and me so profoundly? I have no explanation nor am I really interested to find out. All I know is that I miss her. And as I move about the house, I’m filled with reminders of her presence. The baby gates that kept her and the carpets upstairs safe are gone. Her bowls are washed and stored away, her puppy food no longer nearby. Bella’s dog toys no longer adorn the living room floor. The dog spit she chose to deposit on my face with her boundless affection has been replaced with my tears.

Goodbye, sweet puppy. You made a difference in my life.

Bella exhibiting her strong snoozing game.

Bella’s paw print.

This Is Just Between Us, Right?

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Dan WolfeFebruary 8, 2014

I’m going to admit it: I miss being in the Army.

It’s heresy to admit you miss it once you’ve been retired from active military service. Most people can’t wait to retire, take all their old uniforms to the post thrift shop for consignment and do something different.

I was like that at first.

When I finished my 20 years of active duty (jammed into a nearly 29 year overall Army career), I was ready to retire. Lucky for me that the law requires officers like me who hold Reserve commissions to retire when they rack up 20 active years of service. This keeps the most senior jobs open for those officers with regular Army commissions – the professionals, as it were. So even if I could have found another job in uniform, by law I couldn’t have taken it. I had done and accomplished far more than I ever expected but there was really nowhere left for me to go.

It had been a crappy couple of years. Late in 2005, my marriage failed and failed spectacularly. A few weeks after that, I changed assignments. (Changing jobs is reported to be one of the more stressful life experiences and a new assignment is essentially the same.) Late in 2006, nearly a year after we separated, my spouse was diagnosed with breast cancer. I became her caregiver throughout her recovery. The day in August that I had my retirement ceremony was the day after she completed her last radiation treatment and was declared cancer free. At the ceremony, she got a standing ovation when I shared with my colleagues and friends her courage and determination. I had gained about 40 lbs. by then.

Those last nearly two years were just plain miserable. I did my best at work, but I wasn’t all there most of the time. I emerged from all that beaten and defeated.

I was a hot mess.

I retired on November 1^st, 2007 and within a few months, took a government contracting job supporting an Army agency. It took me awhile to make that transition from colonel to contractor, but I did it. I only answered the phone as “Colonel Wolfe” once.

Time passed. I grew apart from the Army in many ways. I still subscribed to the Department of Defense news service to keep track of my friends and former colleagues who got promoted to general officer ranks. I continued to receive and read the Army’s daily feature “Stand To!” And I still sorta felt like a part of it.

After about four years of the contracting job, nearly two years of unemployment and near financial ruin, I got hired about two months ago to work as a government employee at another Federal agency. A couple weeks ago, I turned off all the military themed news feeds and email blasts because I’m not reading them and when I do, the people, terms and acronyms are generally unfamiliar to me now.

I wore a uniform of some sort since I was high school. By the time I entered the Army in 1979, I was well aware that I was a part of something that was way bigger than me. Of course, as I navigated my very odd and by Army standards very unconventional career, I came to appreciate being a part of it and knowing that even when I was sitting in a TV production truck among my entertainment industry colleagues, I was still a part of the Army. Still belonging. Still immersed in a system of doing business that I understood and in which I was comfortable and successful.

There are still quite a few uniforms hanging in a closet upstairs. Not like I even notice them, or take them out or anything quite like that. But they’re there, just down the hall just like the military school uniforms I’ve carried all over the world since I graduated back in 1976. More and more, I need the closet space, so that stuff is going to be out of there one of these days when I get the urge to reorganize. But since they’re all stored in an out-of-the-way closet, it’ll probably be there for a while unless I make a honest effort. The likelihood of that actually occurring is questionable.

Most of the time, I don’t give it much thought. I don’t actively sit around wringing my hands lamenting that my Army career is done. But I gotta tell you, there are days. Usually when I’m out on post for some reason, all of the positive feelings about being a part of the Army come to the forefront of my consciousness. I drive past old haunts on post, much as I do when I’m in my home town in Ohio. Mom says I like to drive around and make sure that everything’s where I left it and I think she’s right. And I think I do that for the familiar Army haunts as well.

You can say what you want about the Army and trust me, Soldiers do. I know I did. For me, the Army was my life long companion. And like all long-term companions, our relationship had its ups and downs. The Army provided me with more than a job and income and a title. I carry with me so much experience and so many positive lessons that I learned in 29 years. It’s a welcome part of me.

But there are days when I long to be back in uniform. It’s not every day, and it’s not even most days. Frankly, memories of the last two horrendous years of my career keep me from really savoring the success of the other 27. I don’t like thinking about that. But when I go on post even just to the commissary I find myself standing a little taller and walking a little more smartly. I find myself exchanging more smiles and everyday courtesies with everyone I encounter. It’s such a strong, positive, shared professional and cultural experience. I realize how much I miss it when I’m back on post and immersed in it like that again.

I miss it. There, I said it. Out loud and everything.

“Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling…”

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Dan WolfeFebruary 20, 2014

This is another one of those “True Confessions” moments. The names have not been changed to protect the irrational loser, in this case, me.

When I was six years old, we moved from a small nondescript house in a small nondescript subdivision on Glenwood Avenue in Fostoria, Ohio to an older house on Cory Street. 900 Cory Street to be precise. Even though it was a distance that was easily walkable, when you’re six, moving is a big deal and it seemed like a long way away.

The Cory Street house today, sadly in disrepair. (Stolen from Google Street View)

The Cory Street house was older. As I recall, it was about 50-60 years old back then which would make it over 100 years old plus or minus today. It was a three-bedroom home with a tiny den downstairs. There was no heat on the second floor, so we all experienced in our bedrooms the extremes of weather that existed over the six years we lived there.

The house also had a basement. It was divided into two rooms. The first was the laundry area and had enough room for a couch that was there for a while, but wasn’t a permanent fixture. The Siamese cat, Samantha, lived down there and so did the associated lingering stench of the litter box, which later became my job to maintain. I was really bad at cleaning up poop — a characteristic of my being which I embrace to this day.

The second room was the furnace room. Dad set up his workbench in there and for a time, Dad actually practiced his mantra of “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Of course, his self-compliance was cyclical and I recall the workbench being cluttered as much as it was orderly.

The furnace was a large, old coal furnace which some years before had been converted to burn natural gas. It was a monstrous, roughly cylindrical presence, extending from ceiling to floor, with multiple cylindrical ducts jutting angularly out of the top on their way to the floor above. Samantha used to hop up on top and sleep on top of the furnace for obvious reasons.

Next to the furnace was the blower. We called it the fan box. It was a strong fan encased in a large sheet metal enclosure. When I think about it today, I wonder why it had to be so large but I guess that’s the way they built stuff back then.

When the thermostat upstairs got cold enough, it activated the furnace and fan. The fan in the fan box roared to life and the furnace ignited warming the house and making my childhood memories of that house as warm and as cozy as it made the air upstairs.

I was downstairs in the basement with Dad as he was organizing the workbench for the first time. My six year old self had never really given a lot of thought to the heating system in the house. Unless it breaks, who the hell does that anyway let alone a six year old kid? Anyway, there I was standing right next to the furnace when the thermostat kicked on the furnace.

When the heat kicked on, the gas jet on the front of the old coal combustion chamber activated. It made a loud whirring noise, almost a screech as the methane gas roared and was shot into the combustion chamber. The jet had three louvers on the side which opened allowing air to get in and my little six-year-old eyes could see the first controlled explosion of the gas as it began its way to the combustion chamber.

So put this all together. You’ve got a loud fan, a screeching set of louvers opening up to reveal a fire-breathing dragon looking thing and the roar of the combustion itself ringing in my ears; all in the span of a second or so. So naturally I did what any self-respecting six-year-old might do.

I panicked.

Well, I didn’t really panic. I screamed first. THEN I panicked. Then I kept on screaming. Loudly. Then I ran. The screaming alone probably would have scared me even though I was the one doing the screaming.

I beat feet out of there at warp factor eight, even though Star Trek wouldn’t be thought up for another four years or so. (Even then, I wouldn’t see it regularly until it was well into syndication. But that’s another story.)

I don’t remember what happened after that except to say that I must have calmed down before too awfully long. But the sheer terror of that moment remained behind and I was scared shitless of that furnace for a long, long time.

I eventually got over the fear of that furnace room, eventually setting up my electric trains, my chemistry set and my own little version of my Dad’s workbench in there. But it took a long time for me to make friends with that furnace. I would slowly open the door and peek inside and announce myself out loud to the furnace as though it had been expecting me. I talked to it, told it that I was a friend and that I knew it wasn’t going to hurt me, knowing secretly that this was a bald-faced lie. Over time, though that furnace and I made friends and it wasn’t too long before I barely noticed the roar of the gas jet or the rumble of the fan box when the thermostat issued its orders. I could play there quietly or with my friends in perfect harmony with that big, scary old converted coal furnace.

Earlier this week, I was trying to find the office gym and the locker room. The locker room is in the basement. To get there, you have to leave breadcrumbs so you can find your way back. Much to my dismay, the path from the locker room to the gym leads…

… through the boiler room.

My nemesis. You can just feel the malevolence, right?

The first time I opened the door to the boiler room and I wasn’t expecting it, I about shit my pants. In a split second, that moment of panic (less the screaming, thankfully) consumed me. All of my smarts and education went out the window and I instantly transformed myself into 187 lbs of irrational panic.

There was NO WAY IN HELL I was going to go through that goddamn boiler room.

Ever.

I slammed the door, eyes wide and pulse racing. (And this was on the way TO the gym!)

Damn.

Once I recovered a bit, I found a way to get to the gym by going around the evil boiler room which, like its distant cousin, the converted coal furnace on Cory Street, roared and rattled and screeched at me like it knew I was terrified of it and it was enjoying it. I think it was laughing at me.

It was. I swear it. I’d bet a month’s pay on it.

Now, a week at the gym has passed. I’ve discovered that I can get to the gym and back by going around the boiler room. However, that means going from the Turner Building to the Fairbank Building and THEN around to the Annex building and ascending the sixty-six steps to the attic gym where my then elevated heart rate has some real use.

I’m getting a little better.

I can actually bypass the longer trip through the Fairbank Building IF and only IF I cut through a tiny corner of the boiler room. Tiny. It’s literally two steps and two doors. I could do it with my eyes closed if the evil boilers weren’t there. But they are and embarrassingly enough, I still have a hard time opening that first door and scurrying across the smallest part of the boiler room floor. If that second door is ever locked, I will have a heart attack and die right there. Of course, maybe that’s their sinister plan all along.

It’s not any better when I come back from the gym.

I can do it now. I can. I really can. I don’t like it, and I try not to look around. If the lights ever go off in there mid scurry, you can bet your boots I’ll be reversing course and doing my exercise by way of LA Fitness or Gold’s Gym or something.

It’s embarrassing to think that here I am a grown man still unnerved by pipes and furnaces. I mean seriously! What the hell? But for that heart-stopping moment when I crack the door and I dash two steps to the other door, I am not a grown man. I’m six and I’m in my new house on Cory Street.

And I have a new friend to make before it’s home.