Hell Year - Part 2

When we left off in my previous post, our hero had just completed his planned Hell Month task list and had headed off to Wiser Times to recharge before starting prep activities for the annual Burk family picnic. We pick up the action on Saturday morning of Memorial Day Weekend, 2014.

Early that day the sad phone call came that my dad had slipped away. It was not unexpected, but you are never really ready to receive such news. Nancy and I gathered ourselves and made plans to return to Florida forthwith.

Upon our return home in early June, we headed back to the cottage and took stock of what lay ahead. To my surprise, there were a number of additional projects that appeared to need attention. That's what I get for taking inventory.

The first of these was the Wiser Times deck. This was a mild shock to my fragile system as we had taken pains in the past to make sure that both decks - home and Wiser Times - wouldn't need maintenance in the same year. However, nature, in the form of snow and melting ice dripping from the roof, had carved out a few bare spots on the deck, especially around the bay window. And there was a thriving culture of green mold threatening to take over the step down from the family room. So we resigned ourselves to our second re-staining job in two months. So much for the plan.

And since we had to stain, the Board decided to expand the difficulty just a little bit by going with a complete color change, instead of just touching up the bad spots. The argument for doing this was that we could change from the old burgundy shade, that was originally picked to match the pre-gazebo tent canopy we used to pitch on the deck, to a dark green that would blend in nicely with the natural surroundings.  Of course, the argument against was that this would require hand painting about 600 square feet of deck as well as roughly 140' of railing frames and spindles.

Now, those of you who have been paying attention are likely asking yourselves, "Why would he care? Nancy does all the painting?" Nice try, but no cigar. There's a little competition in our family called "Father of the Year". Thanks to a relatively small field, I've won the award every year since its inception. But I haven't enjoyed this run of luck by ignoring some pretty basic rules of family life.

One of those rules is "don't sit around and enjoy yourself if your bride is conducting home improvement projects" (a little tip I picked up at a Home Depot self-help session). This means that if Nancy's prepping and painting the entire deck, I better find myself something that at the very least looks like it's a nasty job. Something that requires two or three steps, a trip to the hardware store, and a power tool or two is best.

So I signed up to reclaim and refinish our pine picnic table and the deck shutter table (a sentimental favorite from Nancy's side of the family; got extra points for that). Fortunately, I was able to drag out the table work to last nearly as long as the deck work. I did this mainly through natural talent - I'm pretty slow in general - but also by cleverly adding extra coats of varnish to the shutter table.

These projects took just about four days, and turned out with very satisfying results. First below are some shots of the deck work, starting with the problems.

Here's a shot of the paint crew captain locked and loaded (or should I say plugged in and hosed up), ready for action. Note the stylish headgear. This wasn't her first rescue mission.

And some pics of the battle raging.

And a couple shots of the battle won.

Regarding my own "marriage maintenance" tasks, here I am armed for battle with my opponents strewn around the front yard. 

Here are pics of the picnic and shutter tables shortly into the prep phase. Ycch.

The picnic table was pretty beat up, so I opted to stain the top and seat boards to match the deck, while preserving the natural pine look for the frame. I think it turned out pretty well. I got an extra cherry in my Manhattan that day as a reward for "clever use of left over stain".

Due to a scheduling problem (taking the "after" photos toward the end of an extended happy hour), no shot can can be found of the finished shutter table. Just picture in your mind the side of an old Ford woody wagon with about three coats of Simonize.

Since I needed a little filler to stretch my tasks out a couple more hours to end simultaneously with the deck work, I convinced the Board that our old blue canvas wall tent needed to be pitched and aired-out for possible use during the Labor Day weekend. Here I am posing with this classic pitched in its usual spot on the north side of the cottage.

Here is a shot of the airing-out phase (this task was the only one of the day rated "easy"; if you remember from my last post, that means I could do it while sitting down and watching).

After the airing-out came the tricky task of re-stowing Big Blue. Here is a brief review of the key steps. First, removing the poles and spreading the canvas out for packing.

Then the removal of the stakes and folding of the canvas for rolling, sweeping each surface as you go.

Followed by the rolling (if done correctly through this step, the tent should be reduced to a volume slightly smaller than the capacity of the bag; that's the tricky part).

And then voila! A 13' by 10' wall tent 8.5' high at the ridge neatly tucked in a bag roughly 30" deep and 18" in diameter.

Here's a final shot of me and Big Blue complete with her poles - two old friends that have been hanging out together off and on for over 40 years.

What's that I hear you thinking? "Enough should be enough; surely Hell Month - even the extended version - should be over now, right?" Oh that it would have been true.

After a couple of months of entertaining family and friends, including two quick-turnaround trips to Florida, I felt safe in the knowledge that further home improvement was finally locked into next year's planner pages. But after a few days of recovery from hosting, I realized that there was one other situation that had started to nag at me, and I just couldn't leave it alone. It was the fact that the current lighting over the family room dining table wasn't very good when the table was extended for a large crowd (something that had happened a lot during the family visits, and was going to happen again with the Labor Day party). So, I broke with protocol and decided to do something about it. What a mistake.

What I hadn't foreseen was that I was about to come face to face with one of the orneriest tasks of my cottage life - installing track lighting over the family room dining table. While on the surface not that daunting, think about it. Here's a guy who once again is going to flirt with electricity, this time working overhead while balancing one foot on a chair and the other in the middle of drop leaf table with eight castors. Further complicating the ordeal was 40 year old wiring, probably installed by an out-of-work charter-boat fisherman.

The work unfolded pretty much as I had feared - frustration with trying to pull and bend short, stiff wires inside of a small electrical box 18" above my head, all the while dropping tools and small joining connectors at the rate of about two a minute. Aggravating the ordeal further was trying to do this work while craning my neck at various angles trying to see what I was doing through the one square centimeter in my blended-lens bifocals that was in focus at that distance. I'm sure many of you over the age of 40 have had similar experiences.

Here's a shot of me sizing up the job, hoping against hope that some parts of the kit were missing so the job could be postponed for another day (or fully deferred to an electrician). No such luck, I'm afraid.

Here I'm removing the old lamp that was relieved of duty because of its limited range (something that could eventually happen to us all).

This light was actually reassigned to an easier and perhaps more fun assignment of lighting the smaller game and puzzle table in the back room. So far it's enjoying its new job and doing very well.

Here I am waging war with gravity, aging optics, diminishing fine motor skills and, not surprisingly, a chronic lack of commitment. Fortunately, having worked with me before, the Board shored up the commitment level with encouraging remarks like, "no light-ee no drink-ee".
 

I eventually muddled through to victory, as shown below with me making final placement of the new lights, which now fully illuminate the dining table even with all five leaves inserted.
 

In the spirit of full disclosure, there was one performance setback during the installation of the new lighting. Upon initial testing of the connections, the light worked fine - but the four sets of wall plugs at the other end of the family room had no power (remember the out-of-work fisherman). 

As a result I had to take the whole assembly down and rewire the connections. During this process, I removed a small wire that ran directly from one of the live wires (white) to one of the ground wires (black). Odd, I thought, as my limited knowledge of electricity led me to believe that such a connection should short things out. To my surprise, and delight, removing this wire resulted in power being restored throughout the family room. And the light still worked. That small and magical wire now resides on a nearby bookcase as a tribute to the home repair gods who after toying with me, obviously sensed my desperation and took pity. 

But my happiness that the new lights were installed and functioning didn't last long. It seems I had set an unfortunate precedent by letting my post-Hell Month concern about the lighting get the better of me. The floodgates had been opened. And I was defenseless.

In September, Nancy reminded me that we had discussed replacing the cottage kitchen floor this year. But with the deck work sneaking its way onto our list, the floor had been put on the back burner. What could I say but, "Hey, wow! Let's get to it! Great!" I know when I'm toast.  

The floor project went off just fine, and was actually chronicled in my recent Notes from the Lab post. At that time, it had become the home improvement project completed latest in a calendar year. But that record was soon to be eclipsed.

The new kitchen floor had one down side - by contrast it emphasized a couple of other undesirable room features that were long overdue for correction. So in October we returned to the lake to complement the new floor by painting the orange counter top and red fake-brick wall covering that adorned a portion of our kitchen cabinets (yes, red and orange, and fake brick veneer; this project had been percolating since the day we moved in). Also, the cabinet doors under the orange counter were made of some kind of fiberglass matting that had started to come apart. The doors had to be repaired prior to painting. Here are a couple of shots of the pain, to make the point.

My contribution to this effort was to replace the cupboard doors. But, here's where I caught one of my few breaks during Hell Year. Knowing that the cupboard doors would eventually have to be replaced, quite some time ago I had asked my handyman buddy Dave Dyle to cut new plywood panels for the doors on his table saw (I own no tools that require tables; Nancy says we couldn't afford the resulting increase in our health insurance premiums). So in September when we were doing the new floor (again to look busy while my Bride was productively engaged), I had removed the doors and replaced the old matting with the new panels. Here is a pic of that preliminary work. Note the evident glee I experience when being as one with my beloved tools.

So all I had left to do on this task was to reinstall the doors.

Nancy successfully transformed this cabinet with the magic of paint, reducing the variety of colors found in our kitchen to an acceptable range.

Now, the Hell Year story would not be complete without the telling of the final chapter (at least what I hope will be the final chapter, as I have a few more weeks to sweat out). And this has to do with - the garage.

Way back in September, shortly after Labor Day, Nancy and I decided to build a garage. This is a rather involved story that will be told in detail at a later date, when the garage is complete. But for now suffice it to say that we obtained the needed permits and hired a builder by the end of September, and asked the builder to proceed with the cement work as soon as possible, to beat the coming freeze. We then went off for our October visit to Florida, confident that the garage construction would proceed in our absence.

So what does this have to do with Hell Year, you say? As according to my own definition of work, this would qualify as an "easy" task, with me watching the entire endeavor from a variety of sitting devices. That was my original intention. But, as has happened throughout the year, things didn't quite go according to plan. 

When Nancy and I returned to Wiser Times to complete the kitchen painting work, we were happy to see that the 16' by 22' concrete slab for the garage foundation had been poured. However, in order to locate the slab in the proper spot, the builder had to push our shed and its 10' by 10' wooden base about four feet out of the way. As the shed is scheduled for removal once the garage is done, the damage the shed suffered in this forcible eviction is not the issue. 

The real problem is that the shed was jammed with tools, toys, bikes, beach furniture, lawn and snow equipment, and more, all packed away awaiting installation in the new garage. Moreover, there was about two face cords of wood stacked next to the shed. As a result of the shed being unceremoniously shoved four feet (by back hoe), a modicum of disarray arose. The shed was about 30% off its moorings, the contents looked like something you normally see on the Weather Channel's storm chaser series, and the wood, well, the wood was everywhere. A little photo evidence.

My original plan, clever boy that I am, was to leave the contents of the shed in place until the garage was built. Then, move everything one time, including the wood, to its new home inside of or suitably around the garage. But with the shed teetering on collapse and the wood pile in ruins (and sort of in the way of the building crew), I resigned myself to a tedious Plan B - moving everything to a temporary storage location and then, when able, moving it all again to the garage.  In retrospect, Hell Year having been what it had, I should have seen this coming.

So, while Nancy painted, I spent two full days lifting, sorting, packing, piling, and stumbling over wood, cement blocks and piles of dirt, executing Plan B. Here are some shots of the action. Note - none of this activity involved me sitting in a cushy chair watching someone else.

 

Here's a pic of the new temporary shed contents storage site in development. Before it was completed, another row of cabinets and equipment was added, as well as a second tarp and a bevy of bungy cords.

   

And the new (and now likely permanent) home of first the hardwood stack (suitable for use in the living room fireplace) on the south side of the house,

And the pine wood stack (beach use only) on the north side of the house.

And a final shot (I hope) of the shed, free of contents and firewood, sitting idle, prepared for removal to a better (or at least another) place. 

Well, that about does it. After the kitchen painting and what I call "the great shed caper", Nancy and I self-medicated, packed up, and headed back to Grosse Pointe to convalesce. I'm happy to report that as of this writing, no additional home repair projects - at home or at the cottage - have reared their ugly heads. And with any luck, my Hell Year of tools, toil, temper tantrums and trips to hardware stores is over. Just in time for 2015 to start.

Thanks for listening. I feel better now.

--Grosse Pointe Charles (marginally successful retiree)

Hell Year - Part 1

Okay. Nobody pay the ransom yet. I haven't actually escaped, but I've almost wriggled out of the duct tape. Let me explain.

In a previous post I discussed the Burk family notion of Hell Month, during which Nancy and I conduct an intense program of house and yard cleanup projects along with a slate of home improvements, in anticipation of our annual spring picnic. I've also made a reference or two to Heck Week, a simpler undertaking of similar tasks at our cottage. But this year has been different. Painful, even. The clean-it/fix-it/replace-it/or upgrade-it projects exploded much earlier in the calendar than normal, and haven't yet ended. And as I'm sure you are fearing, this scary development has lowered my DCT ratio (dawdling to chore time) to its lowest levels since retirement, with some of the calculations actually involving decimal points.

Now, as I wrote in my earlier post Wendell, I lost my father this year. That was a difficult and sad period for our family. But that's not what I'm talking about here. My father had a full and active life, including a nearly 30 year retirement, and was mentally alert and fun to be with right to the end. His passing was difficult for us all, but we accepted it as part of life and have moved on, taking much joy from remembering and sharing our good times with Pop. No, that isn't what has made this my Hell Year.

It's been nearly nonstop (meaning almost weekly) use of an array of complicated and dangerous implements, chemicals, techniques, unnatural positions, undignified language (what Mr. Spock would refer to as "colorful metaphors") and even - power tools. It has not been pretty.

It all started with a classic empty-nester undertaking - converting a former live-in-kid's room to a guest room. The Board concluded (with one abstention) that redoing Christy's room couldn't wait until the normal Hell Month program for two reasons. The first was that we might have guests before then that would need a fitting place to sleep. Actually, since we had already converted Cathy's old digs to a perfectly fine guest room a couple of years ago, I guess we were really worried about having multiple guests at the same time that would need suitable accommodations.

Yeah. I know. Pretty thin. But that brings us to the second and more defensible reason for the early conversion - it was a chance to buy another new bed, continuing our tradition of buying ourselves new beds and moving our current models to the new guest rooms. Oddly, as our bones continue to age, we have found ourselves preferring softer and softer sleeping equipment. Counting our cottage upgrades and redos, it would be our third new bed in the last five years. But I will admit that with this last purchase we have finally solved the problem. Our new "marshmallow pillow top" (I think that's what it's called) is roughly equivalent to climbing into a hammock lined with memory foam. It's fabulous.

But back to Hell Year. Buying and moving the bed for the new guest room was the easy part. I define easy, by the way, as any job I can sit comfortably in a chair and watch someone else do. Any job that I have to actually participate in myself must be rated on a scale of "difficult" to "nearly impossible" or on the medical scale of "a couple of Ibuprofen tablets" to "overnight at the Alpena Regional Medical Center".

Fortunately, nearly all my tasks involved with the room redo were just of the "difficult" variety, owing to my Bride's cool-headed management (she is routinely in charge of such activities) of the limited resource available to her (me). This included moving old furniture out, new (non-bed) furniture in, assembling the new headboard, upgrading electrical plugs, mounting power strips, and organizing bookshelf items in alphabetical order (one of my specialties). Despite this grueling list, I have to admit that Nancy did have the more arduous task of prepping and painting the walls and ceiling back to one, mood-friendly color (under the previous administration - my creative and artsy elder daughter -  each wall and the ceiling were different colors. It was sort of like living inside of a solved Rubik's cube).

For the record, here are a couple of after shots of the new guest room, now complete with cable TV, clothing management facilities, 40 years of National Geographic magazines (for those tough-to-get-to-sleep nights) and a feng shui-approved crystal demon-blocker by the door (can't be too cautious about what goes bump in the night).

Having survived this early, pre-Hell Month burst of productivity, Nancy and I embarked on our great out-west adventure, chronicled in my series of posts last February and March (starting with The Getaway). This trip was planned with a leisurely pace, to afford a bit of R&R from the January ordeal and recharge for the normal Hell Month period set to gear up upon our return. Unfortunately, the trip was extended a few thousand miles due to my father's illness. The extra time on the road with my parents was a very positive experience for me, allowing involvement in family support activities and decisions that I was very glad to have. But I have to admit that I didn't return home quite as rested and ready for Hell Month as I might have been.

So after getting home from my 28 days and 8000 miles on the road, I unpacked, had a big honkin' Manhattan, and attended the Hell Month planning meeting. The usual task list was generated and plannerized. But before actual Hell Month tasks began, there was a little more road work to attend to. Nancy and I were so happy with our new bed at home, we decided to connive a reason to get yet another bed - a similar super-softie for Wiser Times. Our solution was, of course, to upgrade the second bedroom.

This project was also in the range of "difficult" as I did have a couple of tasks to perform myself. The easy part - watching the Oscoda furniture delivery men relocate our current bed (a fairly new but only medium soft model) into the second bedroom followed by placement of our new bed in the master bedroom - went just fine. Our new cottage bed isn't quite marshmallow grade, but it's pretty good. I'd describe it more like sleeping on a giant Dr. Scholl's gel insole.

But back to my part, which was to assemble the new headboard/bookcase combination and changeover the old broken, foam insulation-stuffed electrical outlets with shiny, grounded new ones. Both of these tasks were tricky. The headboard assembly because it had way too many steps (which is more than two), and the plugs because it involved playing patty cake with electricity. But with a slight excess of proper supervision, I muddled through. Here are a couple of shots of the fancy new second bedroom which has morphed from the original bunk beds, to a daybed-with-trundle arrangement, to a fairly new queen bed complete with storage capacity, reading lamps and smartphone charging facilities.  

 

With hopefully all of our bedroom work done for awhile, we returned home in late April to take up the traditional Hell Month challenge. In my previous post on Hell Month, I included a sample of the typical project task list. 2014's was no different. This year included the usual cleaning, sweeping and varnish touch-up chores, plus a few special items. One of these was re-staining our new deck of only two years. Despite how vigorously we attacked the grime and leaf stains that had accrued, we couldn't get the new surface back to its original state. So we opted for a power wash and application of a slightly darker stain.

As the primary painter in the family, Nancy was responsible for the actual application of the stain. But she did save a couple of especially fun tasks for me. One of those was clearing out all of the furniture and equipment that normally resides on the deck to a temporary storage site. This wasn't too onerous and only barely made it to the "difficult" level. But the second task more than made up for this good fortune.

Our deck surrounds a large maple tree whose favorite pastime is to drop leaves and small twigs into the cracks between deck planks. The base of the tree rises through an opening in the deck filled with dirt and pea gravel. Not to be outdone by the falling leaves and twigs, the pea gravel likes to join in the fun of finding its way into the same cracks. You see where I'm headed, right? The deck couldn't be stained properly until all of the leaves, twigs and pea gravel were removed from the cracks.

So, with a deck roughly 30' in length and 40 planks wide, that comes to approximately 1200 linear feet of crack to clear. Now the uninitiated might say, "What's the big deal? Why just not take a stiff broom and sweep the deck? 15 minutes, right?" Uh, no. Tried that. The pea gravel and little knobby joints in the twigs (which are ever so slightly larger than the cracks, keeping them from just falling through to the ground below) just laughed at me from their snug hiding places. The broom phase removed about 10% of the problem.

But like Billy Murray's character "Carl the groundskeeper" in Caddyshack, I was not to be deterred, though I didn't resort to plastic explosives. Rather, a flat head screw driver, a utility knife, and a shop vac were my weapons. Stealthily, methodically, and with Navy Seal-like tenacity, I ferreted out every last twig, leaf and stone. It was intense, at times rising past the level of "difficult" to "I can't take it anymore" (the mid-point of the difficulty scale). But with patience and something called a garden scooter, I endured the nearly 12 hour ordeal and prevailed. Here's a shot of the newly stained deck, complete with all of the accoutrements restored including new deck furniture. And not a leaf, twig or stone in sight.

Another part of this year's task list was some reworking of our new putting green, installed during last year's Hell Month. As some of you noted during attempts to use the new surface, it was a bit bumpy. Or as one former acquaintance declared, "This is like putting on firewood." So we rolled back the turf carpet and added another six bags of crushed stone. We then replaced the surface and had at it with a power tamper (that weighs about 150 pounds) for a good 30 minutes. If you've never used a power tamper, it's sort of part floor polisher and part jack hammer. Fun, but not recommended for people with a lot of dental work. Here's an action shot of me holding on for dear...I mean operating the tamper, with aplomb.

The result of the extra stone and power tamping were a distinct improvement in puttability of the surface, from "firewood" maybe all the way to "patio block".

To be sure, my Bride has not been sitting idly by while fate has had its way with me. She has been very helpful with my activities (front office support is always a plus) while coping with her own Hell Month agenda. In addition to the heavy lifting on the deck refurbishing, she's completed a number of independent assignments. One was a thorough power washing of our fence gate, which was crusted with years of green mold. Here are before and after pics of her handiwork.

An even more impressive undertaking was Nancy's refinishing of her Grandmother LeRoy's dining room table; it had been in deep storage under our stairway for at least 15 years, waiting for a new opportunity to shine. The restored table is now sitting proudly in Christy's apartment, serving a new generation. Here are before and after pics of this family classic.

This brings my sad tale to just about the end of May, when Hell Month generally ends. Nancy and I usually look forward to spending the rest of the year (or at least the rest of the summer) lollygagging our lives away in deck chairs, Adirondacks, beach floaties and the like. But no. Not this year. Hell Month has refused to fade away and leave us in peace.

Unfortunately (perhaps fortunately for you), break time is over for now and I must return to my labors. So I'll have to wait for a follow-up post to share (as Paul Harvey used to say) the rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrest of the story.

Until then, toodles.

Grosse Pointe Charles (or at least what's left of him)

Wendell

Wendell was my Dad. He passed away this year on May 22nd. It was the end of an era. I'd like to share a little about my Dad as part of my celebration of his life. A great deal of who I am and how I have gone about living my life, was my Dad.

My Dad and I were quite different in many ways. He was quiet by nature. A man of few words. I on the other hand, love talking. My father was an excellent cook and baker, having worked as such much of his adult life. The closest I ever come to cooking is microwaving a Lean Cuisine that requires two separate heating periods with a little stirring in between. Our politics were also different. From what I can deduce from his seldom-expressed opinions, Pop (which is what I usually called him since my early adulthood) was a Nixonian conservative, and a "school of hard knocks" realist (although in later life he was more supportive of Democratic/labor positions on issues). I have always been a flaming liberal, a true child of the 60s, complete with all the idealism and naiveté typical of that era.

But I like to think that at heart we were cut from the same cloth. We both had and have a high degree of respect for others. We've showed it in different ways over the years, but understood the importance of viewing others as equally entitled to the important things in life - honesty, fairness, consideration of their well-being. We also shared a belief that there is no free lunch. One almost always reaps what he or she sows. This went hand in hand with a strong faith in hard work, prudent management of available resources (waste not, want not), and preservation of relationships. As a small business man most of his life, my Dad knew early on the value of retaining customers.

I must add that it wasn't always seriousness and work with my Dad. We both loved our play time. For me, as evidenced in many of my previous posts, it's movies and music, sports, and hanging with a fairly large group of friends (often as many as we can jam into one venue at a time). For Dad, it was spending time with a couple of couples - life long friends - and during the Bay City years (where he and Mom lived until retirement in the late 80s) periodic weekends in the Indian River area with these same friends and a few others who had relocated to that area (about 120 miles north of Bay City).

And to be clear, he knew how to party. Upon occasion Nancy and I accompanied my parents on Indian River weekends. Invariably we would be dragging and begging to return to our motel rooms long before the "Ps" were willing to call it a night. 

We also shared a love of the Tigers, listening to nightly games on the radio during my childhood, and later watching games on a variety of TV hookups, from the original satellite dish (the 10' in diameter kind) to current cable and Internet connections. Pop took up with the Rays in the last 10 years, as he was a full time resident of Zephyrhills on the north side of Tampa. But he kept up with the Tigers as well through my Mom who still watches every game on MLB.TV.

As a matter of fact, I'm very grateful that my last night with my Dad, who was in home hospice care during his final few months, was spent watching a Rays game on the big-screen TV we put in his room for just that purpose. To the end he was conversant on the status of the team, their upcoming talent and the details of the American League East race. He would probably be pretty put out with the Rays' recent trade of David Price to the Tigers, as it signified to true Rays fans that they were giving up on this year's chances for reaching the playoffs.

Another activity Pop loved was playing cribbage, which we did on a daily basis whenever we were together. In between my visits, he cribbed with my Mom who is a pretty capable player in her own right. In the last couple of years Pop also developed a liking for Mexican Train, a very popular domino game these days (action shots of my parents deep in battle in both of these games was captured in my earlier post Hanging with the Ps).

In that post, I also described a typical visit to my parents, something we did four or five times a year since they settled permanently in Florida in 1999. Those trips usually included a few days at a Disney resort as well as a number of side trips to local points of interest. Among them was a memorable trip to Key West (the real one) in 2010 for their 60th wedding anniversary. It concluded with a beautiful seafood dinner overlooking the ocean sunset. I am very grateful that Nancy and I had the time and the means to make those 40+ visits to Florida during a time when my Dad's health allowed him to enjoy them.

I think it's time to add some art. Here are a few pictures of my Dad. This first one is the oldest one I have, taken with his Dad, Fred, in 1926. Fred was a Bay County deputy sheriff. Pop was a babe in arms.

This one is at age five. Note the intensity. When he needed it, my Dad could always summon this steely gaze, often when he knew I or one of my siblings wasn't sharing "the whole truth".

And this somewhat lighter shot at age nine, hinting at the dapper side of my Dad that would emerge in his 20s.

I don't have a lot of photographs from my Dad's early teens, but I know that he grew up fast. It was the 40s, and there was a war on. He spent some time serving as a cook's mate on a Great Lakes freighter, and then enlisted in the Army Air Corp as soon as he was old enough. Here are a couple of classic shots from his Army days. The first is of his basic training squad in 1944. He was 18. He's second from the left in the back.

And this shot of Dad's B-29 crew. He was a waist gunner (operating out of one of those glass bubbles) and is second from the left kneeling in front. Pop didn't talk about his service much, as was his way and typical of the "greatest generation". But he did tell me once that he never had to fire his weapon in an actual fire fight. Apparently the armament on B-29s was so intimidating that Japanese fighters simply headed the other way when they saw them.

After the war my Dad spent several months on Saipan waiting for the ship home. In retrospect, notwithstanding the war, I think Pop liked the military, the opportunities it offered young men, and the sense of dignity and pride that went with service in World War II. Every once in a while he would let slip that he might have stayed in the Army for the 20 year retirement if he had it to do over again.

After the war, my Dad landed a job managing a supermarket. He soon parlayed that experience into ownership of first one, then two Borden's dairy stores in Bay City, one on the east side where he grew up and one on the west side close to where our family moved when I was in the 2nd grade. He eventually let the east side store go working the west side store for over 20 years. This store played a huge role in my childhood. It was a combination grocery store/short-order grill that filled the niches that would eventually be taken over by convenience stores (like 7-11s) and drive-ins. Here's an early shot of "Wendell's Dairy Store".

During this period Pop was active in local business organizations, like the Kiwanis Club, and attended regular social events with his fellow west-side business owners. One of these in the late 50s/early 60s was a three or four day cruise around the great lakes. Having sailed as a cook's mate during his teen years,  Pop loved the return to the lakes that these outings provided. Here is a shot of Pop relaxing topside during one of these cruises.

Here are a few more pics of my Dad from the family archives. This first one is with my Mom and his mother Catherine, circa 1961, I believe at Grandma's birthday party. In the 50's and 60s I remember a number of social events in the south end of Bay City where most of my Dad's relatives resided (he had four sisters).

This shot from '74 was taken at the cabin of friends during one of the regular Indian River weekends.

Note the pipe. On August 21st, 1973, each fearful for the health of the other, my Dad and I made a "quit smoking" bet. The first one to smoke a cigarette had to pay the other $100. I was 25 and had smoked for five years. My Dad had the greater burden by far as he had smoked for about 30 years. Neither of us ever had another cigarette. And a few months after this picture was taken (Christmas of 1974 to be exact), we added pipes and cigars to the bet, with equal effectiveness. So Pop with a pipe is a real blast from the past.

This pic was taken during the Ps 25th anniversary. My siblings and I hosted a big blowout at sister Wendy's house in Essexville, a suburb on the northeast side of Bay City. That's Wendy sitting with my Mom and younger sister Cindy with my Dad. A good time is obviously being had by all. The shirts in the background without heads are my brother Jeff and I.

This next shot is from a typical family gathering (Xmas '76) with my Dad and Mom entertaining a gaggle of grandchildren. That's Wendy again on the left (with a very 70s do) and from left to right on the laps, her Jennifer, my Ted, her Melanie, and the fuzzy one is Reka (short for Eureka), the Ps beloved dog.

The next pic is a family classic. It's from '81, but it could have been from any year as this was a favorite spot for my Dad during family gatherings - spread out on the living room carpet with this over-sized pillow, dozing off dinner and waiting for a grandchild to discover his vulnerable condition and pounce. This pillow is now a permanent fixture at our family cottage, Wiser Times, and still gets its fair share of use.

My Dad always liked Chinese food and had a favorite restaurant in Freeland (not too far to the southwest of Bay City). Here is a shot of him with my Mom enjoying a little egg foo yung on their anniversary in 1981. As their anniversary was only a few days after Nancy's and mine in June, this was a scene often repeated. Of course, they were 30 years ahead of us. Note the fashionable leisure style Pop was sporting. Hey, it was the 80s. And I'm pretty sure I was wearing sans-a-belt pants.

In the 70s, after raising four kids and pushing them all out of the house, Mom and Dad bought a ranch-style home on a country road a little north of Bay City. The new home had a big yard fit for entertaining kids and grandkids and perfect for gardening, which my Dad did a lot of over the years. He even started his own grape vines to feed his home-made wine habit. It was not unusual for him to have a dozen jugs of wine fermenting in his utility room, made from all sorts of things he had grown. This pic is of Mom and Dad relaxing on the porch at the back of the house during one of our frequent weekend visits to "the country", as we called it.

In 1999, with both Mom and Dad having been retired for several years and growing weary of winters, they finally made the move to Florida on a full-time basis. All through the 90s they were snow-birds, wintering in the Tampa area in a small mobile home close to my Grandma Katy, but spending the summers in Linwood, gardening and enjoying the fine Michigan weather. This is a shot of them in their then new, much larger double-wide in the Tippecanoe Park in Zephyrhills, about 20 miles northeast of Tampa. The Tippecanoe home served as the new family gathering place for years, often hosting large groups over the Xmas and Easter holiday breaks.

My parents had many happy years at Tippecanoe, making new friends and adopting the comfortable and leisurely Florida lifestyle. They socialized quite a bit in the early years, including regular attendance at the  Friday night bingo session. Pop loved bingo. Here is a shot of him hovering over his array of cards, waiting for the action to begin. Of course, Nancy and I joined Mom and Dad for bingo night whenever we were in town on a Friday, but we were bingo wimps, usually playing a paltry five cards. Real, power-bingo players play at least eight cards and often reach into double digits. And arrive an hour early to get their pick of the best cards. I knew I was over my head, but put in as good a showing as I could to not embarrass my parents.

As noted above, Mom and Dad often joined Nancy and me for a few days at a Disney resort whenever we made it to Florida. In the 2012 pic below we are enjoying a weekend at Vero Beach, one of my Dad's favorite spots. Until walking became an issue for him around 2008, he loved to get up early and cruise around the ocean beach a bit. The last few years, we would spend more time relaxing, watching baseball, thumping each other at cribbage, and enjoying a libation or two in the resort bistro, The Green Cabin Room, where this shot was taken.

The most recent picture I have of my Dad is this photo of him and my Mom taken last fall for the Tippecanoe Park directory. I like this picture a lot as I think it captures my Dad's and my Mom's inner glow, that predisposition for fun. At this sitting, he was 87, she 89.

I hope that this brief look into my Dad's life arc will give you a feel for who he was, and through me and my siblings, who he still is. There will be more of Wendell, of course, as I resume my journey through the family photo conversion project. But for now, I think this is a good start on my Dad's story.

Of course, we miss him greatly. Personally, I miss his alert sense of humor and his razor-sharp mind for business and money. I miss that single raised eyebrow that let me know he was on to me when I was stretching the truth a bit. And I miss his good-natured accusations that I was cheating anytime I had a cribbage hand of eight points or more (my Mom has been filling in on that item pretty well of late). But most of all, I miss knowing he'll be there to greet me the next time I complete the 1200 mile drive to Zephyrhills.

We're all in the family entering a new chapter now, especially my Mom who shared her life with my Dad for over 60 years. But we're doing well making the adjustment to his absence, and remembering him every day in a positive way. And that, to a large extent, has been possible because of how well he prepared us emotionally, practically, and financially, for this time.

Thanks for everything, Pop. Hope you are well.

Grosse Pointe Charles

Lunch Poetry Redux 1998 - Part 1

In honor of our lunch/baseball outing today, I think it's time to share another chapter in Lunch Poetry history. In previous posts I recounted how this tradition started, and shared many examples from its inception in 1996 through the end of 1997. It was a difficult time for many of us as the IRS, especially the Collection Division within which many of us worked, had sort of lost its philosophical way. Our mission seemed to change on a regular basis, sending top leaders into frequent tailspins and the rest of us scrambling to figure out what to do to keep the ship afloat. Times where tense, and the weekly lunch outing provided a few moments of sanity in an otherwise unpleasant situation.

Today, we'll move on with a look into 1998. According to my day planner records, 1998 was a banner year for the Lunch Bunch, with 28 outings. That's a bit too many to cover at once, even in one of my (lengthy) posts. So here are some highlights from the first part of the year.

As noted in my last lunch poetry post, by the end of 1997 the Lunch Bunch had emerged from a nomadic period of searching for a decent lunch spot and had settled on the Mexican Town restaurant in the Mexican Town neighborhood of western Detroit, about a mile from the office. This distance also gave rise to the practice of traveling to lunch in the Burk family van, one of the many important jobs our vans performed over a 20+ year span. As a result, the vans in service during the Lunch Bunch era had a way of showing up in the rhymes (for more on the history of our vans, see Vans Part 1 - The Tiara Years and the two followup posts).  

Our first lunch invitation in 1998 was on January 21st, dead of winter, cold and snowy. Resuming our Lunch Bunch outings to lift spirits in the typical post-holiday funk was quite welcome, as I remember. The poem is set to the tune of the Mamas and Papas' Monday, Monday. It's called Wednesday, Wednesday (our traditional lunch day). And a tip. For full enjoyment of the song parodies, I recommend reading them while listening to the source music. That's the way they were written.

Wednesday, Wednesday, so good to me.
Wednesday Morning, it's when
  I hope it's you'll I see.
But Wednesday morning, Wednesday morning
  can't guarantee,
That Wednesday lunch you'll all be there
  to eat with me.

Wednesday, Wednesday, can't trust that day.
Wednesday, Wednesday, sometimes work gets
  in the way.
Oh Wednesday morning, you give me no warning
  of who'll be free
For Wednesday lunch. How could they eat
  and not take me?

Every other day, every other day,
  every other day of the week is fine, yeah.
But when Wednesday comes, but when Wednesday
  comes, you can find me smilin' out of my mind.

Wednesday, Wednesday,
Hope you'll turn out today.
Wednesday, Wednesday,
Won't go away.
Oh Wednesday, Wednesday,
It's here to stay.

In early February, one of my musical favorites, that pop queen of the 60s Petula Clark, made her lunch poetry debut. (By the way, if anyone's musical collection is short some Petula, I can probably fill the gaps, including a suite of her French recordings muled directly from Paris by an agent of my former rare-music connection, Unmitigated Me herself). This poem's called I Know a Place, to the tune of Petula's hit I know a Place. Not very original on my part, I know.

Everyday, as the pain starts to blind you, and
Your boss (what a bore) lays more work at your door,
You must get away, where those people 
  can't find you.
If you like, well, I'll tell you more.

Don't let the day get the better of you.
'Cause when lunch time comes,  
  there's some people who
Will put forth their best and wear a smile.
You better come with us awhile.

'Cause I tell you...

We need some lunch,
Where the food is so fine
  and the tab is always low.
I know a place, and we should go.

A couple of weeks later we lunched again with this short invitation set to the meter of the old English nursery rhyme Sing a Song of Sixpence. I call it Sing a Song (of Incense).

Bring along your mood (tense?)
And hock it for a smile.
More than plenty good words,
To make it worth your while.
When our lovely entrees,
The waiters finally bring,
We'll pig-out unsaintly-ish.
Can't help it, it's our thing!

February continued to be a hot month for lunch as the Bunch headed out for a third week in row to this poem, set to the tune of another Mamas and Papas' hit Do You Wanna Dance. I call it Do you Wanna Lunch?

Do you wanna lunch?
  Hungry for Mex-light?
Cheese, meat, all gooed-up
  just right.
Oh maybe, you just
  wanna lunch.

Do you wanna lunch,
  and ride my van?
Tell me, I'm your
  driver man.
Oh-oh-oh maybe, 
  you just wanna lunch.

Do you wanna lunch,
  and join our bunch?
C'mon and just maybe,
  I've got a hunch,
Hey maybe, you just 
  need a lunch.

We closed February out with this takeoff on our national anthem. I call it The Star Spangled Burrito.

Oh say, won't you please,
  Help us do lunch up right?
We'll so loudly inhale
  (With our wide smiles fast beaming)
Those broad chips and hot sauce. 
  I could eat them all night.
And the nachos are tops,
  Heaped with melted cheese steaming.

Our eye sockets will flare, 
  Peppers hot as we dare.
Need proof? Well all right.
  There'll be sauce in your hair.
So, hey where's tha-at heart-angled
  vanner-er ye-et wai-ait?
By the curb, oh yes he'll be!
  So please come, and don't be late.

Our February momentum rolled full-bore into March, with this dandy inspired by Jay and the Americans.  I call it Come and Get a Bit Closer. The term "The Border" is from earlier Taco Bell commercials in which they referred to themselves as such. Our reference, of course, is to the Lunch Bunch's Taco Bell origins.

There's a little cafe (though it's not
  quite so nice as "The Border".) 
We will sit in there drooling while
  waiting to place a big order.
Then when "Jose" saunters our way,
  we'll belong to badness, hooray!
Yes we'll choose, things that ooze,
  then we'll schmooze,
And at last we'll be gay-ay-ay.

Come and get a bit closer,
We'll take the green van,
  so big and so long.
Come and get a bit closer,
You're not alone, and it's nice
  to belong.

As you start on your lunch, the sauce,
  it looks so inviting.
And you cannot resist, dipping one
  little chip, so exciting.
Then you scream, "It's the hot!"
  with dismay.
We say, "Chill, Jose's on his way."
Yes he knew, ice water'd do,
  just for you,
And again you'll be gay-ay-ay.

Come and get a bit closer.
We'll make the lunch grand,
  it won't take so long.
Come and get a lot closer.
You'll feel at home, and it helps
  us be strong.

Our second March lunch invitation was inspired by the title song from the musical Oklahoma. I call it McNamara, after the Federal building in which most of us worked at the time.

Maaaaaac - Na-mar-a,
Where the work comes quick
  and quite insane.
And the ravin' meet,
To get complete,
And to try and leave behind the pain.

Maaaaaac - Na-mar-a,
It's a sight, not funny, man, no lie.
There's a lot of talk,
But not much "walk", 
Makes us crazy, mirthless, you and I.

We need to be strong as we can,
So today, we belong in the van!

So when you hear,
  "It's time to go, hooray!"
You know we're saying,
"You need some time out of there-a,
McNamara, go 'way!"
 
Our third and final lunch invitation in March was set to Simon & Garfunkel's I am a Rock. I call it I am a Wreck.

A winter's day?
I'm asleep, and can't remember.
Am I still at home?
Gazing at my in-box, two more piles to go.
I have strangely fallen silent. Now I know!
I am a wreck, I am in "why?" land.

I see halls, a fortress cheap and blighty,
That none dare to update.
I have such need of friendship, friendship eases pain.
It's laughter and it's lunching I must gain.
I am a wreck, I need my van.

I need some food, and my poetry to correct me.
I'll be healed, in my ardor.
Smiling as I swoon, sated just like you-un.
It's so much fun, to go and lunch with thee.
I am a wreck, but I'll be fine again.

And we'll rock, feel no pain.
Come in my van, just your size.

Let me wrap up this first look at 1998 lunch poetry with these two invitations from April. The first came just after a family trip to Disney World, where I ran into - you guessed it - Estelle of the Bell (the lady of the night that has been the subject of many previous Lunch Bunch limericks). She was up to her old tricks, of course, this time with the world's most well-known corporate logo. I call it Ears, Too (Yah) (and please forgive the mild ribaldry, as a true limerick must have some form of it).

While in line to see Goofy I stood,
I heard someone moan, "Ooh that's good!"
So I turned to see who
Had uttered that "ooh".
What I saw I'd forget if I could.

She was stroking those world famous ears.
He was blissful, and nearly in tears.
Estelle and the Mouse?
Right here in Walt's house!
For passion, Estelle has no peers.

This final offering from late April is set to the tune of the rock and roll classic Proud Mary, and is entitled Proud (But Wary).

Workin' my job in the city,
Humpin' for the tax man night and day,
But I'm lost in thought, every now and then,
Dreamin' 'bout the way things should'a been.

"Big wheels" keep on worryin',
Proud (but wary) we be scurryin',
Mopin', hopin', to Mex we'll be delivered.

Seen a lot of waste so senseless,
Felt my little brain, out of new ideas.
But I never saw, the worst fright (wasn't pretty),
Till I hitched a ride with the "never-notes" team.

"Big wheels" keep on churnin',
Too proud, to care 'bout learnin'.
You're knowin', we're goin',
To Mex we'll be delivered.

Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, especially those of you who lived it the first time. I had a great time. Talk to you soon.

Grosse Pointe Charles

He Has a System for Everything

For those of you who don't recognize that line, it's from a favorite Burk family movie My Blue Heaven. And a perfect place to start this post.

In the movie, FBI agent Barney Coopersmith (Rick Moranis) is being jilted by his wife Margaret, a physical therapist specializing in baseball players, for a twenty-something relief pitcher. The reason is that Margaret, who speaks the line serving as title to this post, finds Barney to be no fun. This is owing to his rather routinized approach to life, as she notes, even having a system for eating pancakes.

While I wouldn't equate myself to Barney Coopersmith (I'm taller), I do have a systems view of life. I've never really understood if this is due to a loss of oxygen to the brain during birth or an extra chromosome. But I've been out of denial for quite a while now and have learned to live with it. And as many of you know, inflict it on others whenever possible.

I must admit it's not a bad life despite the common aversion to this affliction, often confused with habit. However, there is a difference. A habit is a behavior pattern usually driven by convenience or personal need. Habits can be good (flossing, saying please and thank you, looking both ways before stepping off the curb) or bad (binge drinking, texting while driving, messin' with Sasquatch).

A system on the other hand is a behavior pattern designed to meet a goal. I know the "g" word can be offensive, and foster bad memories of planning, effort and requirements foisted upon us by others. But if one has goals of one's own choosing, either small in scope or more significant, systems can come in handy. I guess I've always had a lot of goals, because I can trace my need for and use of systems back even to my adolescence (3x5 index cards pasted to the back of my early vinyl sleeves with pertinent sorting information). So to understand my predeliction for systems, we need to talk about goals.

Now there are the heavy weights, like getting an education, having a career, raising a family, etc. Goal-setting for such monumental outcomes is fairly common place, and practiced even by those not encumbered by an inherent systems orientation. One of the great mysteries of life for me is why so many people who appreciate systems for securing big things utterly disregard their effectiveness in creating smaller, day-to-day, but highly desirable states of being.

One reason I theorize for this breakdown in logic is the general notion that systems must be complicated, high-maintenance and often more trouble than they're worth. If this is your impression, as my former Franklin guru Hyrum Smith would say, you have an error in your "belief window". Actually, a system must be exactly the trouble it's worth or you shouldn't use it. And if you've experienced systems more burdensome than their benefits, you've been doing it wrong. I realize these are bold claims, but I stand by them (and am available for personal consultation for those who suffer from systems phobias; I work for food).

But back to my goals. For one, I like to minimize the cost of, well, everything. I learned long ago from an unlikely source (which I will only disclose to anyone interested over a glass of my favorite libation) that it's not how much you earn that dictates your financial fortunes, it's how much you don't spend. There are of course exceptions to this principle. If you earn nothing, it doesn't matter how much you spend. You'll always be in the red. But on the whole, I've found this idea very constructive and instructive.

So how do you minimize costs? First you have a system to track expenses, to the extent that interests you (you don't need to track income; the IRS and others like banking institutions will do that for you). Second, you need to get the most out of what you do spend. This is a little trickier, as it often means keeping things a little longer, re-purposing old items for new jobs, and being able to resist having the latest and greatest of everything. It's always been my thinking that the longer you use anything, the more prudent your original investment in that item was.

So, a system for maintaining your possessions, storing them when no longer in use for possible future needs, and doing so in such a way that you can find them when you want them, can be very useful in meeting this goal. All it really takes to manage such a system is a few designated bins and the discipline to put things in their respective bins when not in use. Simple, right? Oh. Yeah. I did use the "d" word. Sorry. I know that can be a challenge for some.

Just this morning I was able to replace my failing garage cassette player at no cost. It was a favorite as it was my grandmother's. She liked to sit in her sun room and listen to gospel music on it. But it's now starting to eat tapes, so I replaced it with a little bit fancier model from my retired electronics storage bin. This one was Nancy's Mom's, and it has a dual-deck relay system - sweet. What? You don't have a garage cassette tape player?

Another tip I would offer here is that keeping old things in storage has one drawback. Things, especially things that plug in, liked to be used. They endure much better in service than they do sitting and waiting. So I suggest every so often just pulling them out, dusting them off and firing them up for a time. A far better idea is to give each of these lasting treasures a job, even if it's a small one, while it's waiting for return to full-time employment (we all like to have purpose).

I have done this with a number of my old toys. Like the 20" Sony Trinitron that I bought with my first management cash award in 1980. Long since pushed aside by modern flat screen HDTVs, this gem now sits on my furnace room workbench and gets occasional use during fix-it projects or those beloved moments on the treadmill.

Another example is my old PDA. Having been replaced as a pocket organizer by today's smart phones (synced with my day planner, of course), it now serves as a portable home for my book and movie listings. This device comes in handy when I'm browsing used movie and book store stacks, looking for treasure (which in the past had upon occasion resulted in purchase of treasure I already owned but didn't remember).

But let's move on. Another goal I have is to fit as much fun into life as possible (one could argue the moral and ethical merits of such a goal, but save your breath; not interested in overcoming this character flaw). A planning system or two to inventory options, schedule events, secure facilities and complete preparations is a necessity here.

My personal choice for planning since 1989 has been the Franklin system appropriately modified to suit my idiosyncrasies. But there are several other subsystems that support my quest for max fun. Among these are the Disney Vacation Club point tracking system (of my own design, of course), the extended family calendar, my loading and packing protocols, and since the mid-90s a little group we call the Burk/Dyle Vacation Club. I could wax at length on the virtues of long-term thinking and planning systems, but their magic is succinctly summed up by my good friend Dave Dyle with the words "if it's in the planner, it happens". QED

I have many other areas of activity that benefit from simple but useful systems. There are my book and movie listings (noted above) and music collection index that keep track of those respective items, what I have, where they are, what's yet to be read, viewed or digitized. I maintain these lists during late evening lab viewings of old movies or live sporting events, in between the good parts. There are my hobby cubbies where I keep all supplies needed to support music and photo projects (card stock, blank CDs, jewel boxes, labels, etc.) And there is my daily fitness system that monitors sleep, exercise, diet and stress management investments (and their occasional shortcomings).

Another essential system we have nurtured in the family for as long as we've been a family is our internal communication. More elaborate in the past (see previous post Family Meetings), our weekly reviews of events and discussions of items of interest have over the years helped us all succeed in our various pursuits and served to strengthen relationships. Now, in retirement, the system is reduced to a Monday (or for the well-informed "Second Sunday") morning review of issues and/or chores we need to address, and desired joint movie or golf outings for the week. More importantly, this regular check-in helps us avoid taking just being together (which we almost always are) for actually doing things together. 

There are still other important systems in my life that I would like to talk about - those that support activities like the Spinner Invitational (my former bowling team's annual golf outing) and my relentless quest to track down and own as many cheesy sci-fi movies as my allowance will permit. But I'll save discussion of these close-to-my-heart matters for future posts.

Suffice it to say that, like Barney Coopersmith, I guess I really do have a system for everything (or almost everything; I haven't mastered the pancake thing yet). But it's only because I see the world as an endless set of integrated systems within which we all live. So we each have a choice. We can cruise through life accepting (and often complaining about) the limitations set for us by the systems of nature or other people (which as the Hawaiians believe are really just a peculiar part of nature). Or, we can do our best to sort out the systems that affect our lives, understand them, and try to manage them to our advantage by intervening in just the right way at just the right time. I've always felt the latter was worth the effort.

As always, comments welcome.

Grosse Pointe Charles

Romantic Comedies

I began the series of posts on my favorite movies a little over a year ago with Westerns. I followed that up with a post on Love Stories. In this third edition of the series I'd like to touch on romance and comedy.

Now from my perspective, there are two closely related but fundamentally different sub-genres of films with romance and comedy. The first I call romantic comedies. These are films whose primary story line is a romance, or at least the pursuit of romance (sometimes the guy/girl doesn't get the girl/guy) and delivers its story primarily through comedic or lighthearted scenes. It is this sub-genre that will be the focus of this post.

The second variety of film is comedies that have romance in them but not as the primary story line. I will discuss this type of film in a follow-up post. I know the distinction is subtle, and many films are hard to classify. But making life a little more complicated is one of my best things, so let's get to it.

As with previous movie posts, my intent is not to propose the best romantic comedies ever. I'll leave that to others. My aim is to share my favorites and to explain why I like them so much. So here is my A-list.

First, let's deal with Woody. He's sort of in a class by himself in this genre. Woody Allen has made so many romantic comedies that it's hard to keep track of them. I pretty much like them all, though the early years were special. Many of his films have a darker side, and might not quite fit in this category. This includes films like Crimes and Misdemeanors (a special favorite of mine) or Hannah and Her Sisters. But at the core of his long filmography is a body of pure romantic comedies, with Woody playing the socially awkward, neurotic characters he's made into screen legends. Here are my A-list Woodies.

My all-time favorite Woody is Broadway Danny Rose (1984). Here is Woody playing "himself" to perfection. A little more subtle and self-accepting of himself than the main characters in some earlier Woody favorites, like Play it Again Sam and Annie Hall, Danny Rose journeys through a series of misadventures as the tireless, good-hearted, ever-optimistic manager of low-brow, down-on-their-luck theatrical acts (such as a team of balloon folders, a water glass musician, a blind ventriloquist and a one-legged tap dancer). And as if representing these acts wasn't challenge enough, Danny typically finds himself abandoned in favor of more traditional management by any of his clients that seem to have a little success. But Danny doesn't wallow in his misfortunes. Rather, he follows a bit of the advice he so often gives to his needy clients and accepts such setbacks as only temporary, and then moves on. It's Danny Rose's belief that eventually everything will work out that is his most endearing quality and the trait that for me sets this version of the neurotic Woody character a little above the rest. He is able to avoid his own self pity by constantly stamping it out in others.

The movie begins with a group of (actual) comedians sitting around at lunch in a New York deli catching up with each other and reminiscing about the good old days. The name of Danny Rose comes up as the quirky talent manager about whom everybody has a funny story to tell. After a couple of memories are shared, one of the comedians claims to have the best Danny Rose story ever, warns the others to get comfortable as this will take a while, and relates the tale that is the rest of the movie. This narration style is very enjoyable as each of the key scenes in the movie is introduced and framed by the narrator, helping the viewer keep up with the convoluted plot line. 

As the movie unfolds Danny is about to hit the big time as one of his acts, an Italian has-been singer named Lou Canova (played deftly by Nick Apollo Forte), is about to score a comeback due to a nostalgia craze. Unfortunately, things get complicated when Danny finds out that Nick, already on his second wife, is hopelessly in love with a fiery ex-mob wife named Tina Vitale (Mia Farrow in an atypical but very entertaining role). Tina, a blonde queen of tacky whose husband was rubbed out by competitors, is also being courted by another mob boss who is smitten with her. Through a misguided attempt to help Lou sort things out, Danny manages to insert himself into this love triangle and finds himself fleeing - with Tina - from a couple of mob hit men (brothers of the new mob suitor) who believe he is actually her secret lover, not Lou.

The antics of Danny and Tina in trying to avoid the hit men are hilarious, and the dialogue throughout the film is snappy and smart (birthing one of my favorite Woody lines, "We have a complete definite type of situation", trying to explain his predicament to Lou). And Woody's story telling is at its finest weaving the tale of how these two individuals from extremely different worlds share experiences and grow to understand - and in their respective ways - care for each other. There are several other twists and turns in the story that I will leave for you to discover on your own, as well as just how Danny and Tina end up. But I highly recommend repeated viewings of this movie.

My second favorite Woody is Play It Again Sam (1972). I admit that my obsession with Casablanca is a strong influence here as Play It Again Sam is Woody's tribute to that classic love story and especially to Bogart. The movie starts with Woody's character Allan sitting in a theater mesmerized by the closing airport scene in Casablanca. The camera switches back and forth between the screen and Allan's facial expressions which mimic Bogart's as Allan vicariously lives the scene himself.

We then quickly learn that Allan is grossly insecure about women owing to a long string of failed relationships, including a recent divorce. Being a big fan of movies, Allan turns to an imaginary Bogart (played superbly by Jerry Lacy) to lament his woes but also to get advice. The Bogart character then returns frequently throughout the movie - complete with trench coat, fedora and cigarette - observing and urging Allan on with lines like "Dames are shimple; I never met one that didn't undershtand a shlap in the fashe or a shlug from a 45". Of course, Allan is about as far across the spectrum from Bogart as he could be, and his attempts to emulate the Bogart style are significantly beneath mediocre.

Allan is joined in the story by two friends, a married couple Dick (played by Tony Roberts) and Linda (Diane Keaton in her first Woody Allen role). Dick and Linda (the story's loose counterparts to Casablanca's Victor and Ilsa) do their best to comfort Allan and introduce him to new women. Unfortunately, Allan proceeds to have one disastrous dating encounter after another, each of which he candidly shares with a sympathetic Linda. And as they spend more time together, Allan and Linda slowly come to realize that they are perfect for each other, as Linda shares a lot of Allan's interests, sensibilities and, yes, insecurities. The relationship is further fueled by Dick's preoccupation with his business affairs and resulting insensitivity to Linda's needs. Things finally boil over in a passionate tryst.

As Allan and Linda assess their situation and discuss a possible future, Linda is conflicted, realizing that despite her strong attraction to Allan, she stills loves Dick. Then, Dick confides in Allan that he suspects that Linda is having an affair and engages Allan in an effort to find out who, not suspecting Allan in the least. As things progress into deeper complexity, Allan finds himself in a position to actually live the famous Casablanca airport scene for himself, with a clever twist. Brilliant.

The film contains the usual steady diet of comedic scenes and witty banter typical of early Woody, as well as a series of fantasy scenes with Allan discussing developments with a variety of imaginary characters. All in all, an excellent way to spend a couple of hours and a must for any fan of Casablanca. 

No A-list of Woody Allen films would be complete without Annie Hall (1977), so mine isn't either. Annie Hall has all the wit and humor of the first two films I've discussed and is generally considered Woody's finest work (and most awarded - four Oscars and 20 odd other awards). The story is narrated by Woody's character Alvy Singer, a fairly well-known (and paranoid) New York screen writer and TV personality, as he reflects on his relationships with women in general but most significantly with Annie Hall, a ditzy and equally neurotic young woman and the love of Alvy's life, played by Diane Keaton. Yes, this film is considered to be very autobiographical. The story runs from the couples first meeting, a hilarious tennis date, to their last, heartfelt conversation about marraige. Tony Roberts joins the cast, once again playing Alvy's best friend and continual straight man (Rob).

The structure of the movie suits Woody's style perfectly, allowing him to tell his story in free form with numerous flashbacks and fantasy scenes, shameless hyperbole, rapier wit and a host of interesting supporting characters played by notable actors (Colleen Dewhurst, Christopher Walken, Paul Simon and Shelley Duvall to name a few). The result is a true manifesto of Woody's views on love, life, relationships and 70s society in general. A couple of my favorite lines are the now famous "lah-di-dah, lah-di-dah', uttered by Annie whenever she's lost for words, and Alvy's explanation of his draft status "I was classified 4P; in case of war I'm a hostage".

I realize there are many other Woody Allen movies we could consider here, but I need to move on to the non-Woody world. A few more A-listers and why I like them so much.

The American President (1995): Though the central theme of this movie is rooted in love, it is too lighthearted to qualify in my Love Story category (no great sacrifice or loss), but it has just enough comedy to fit here. Unlike my Woody selections, The American President is not a laugh a minute. But it is a great feel-good movie that blends humor with a bit of drama to tell the story of a President (the one many of us wish we had) and the trouble he runs into when he falls in love with a lobbyist. Andrew Shepherd (played by Michael Douglas) is a widower who meets and attempts to develop a romantic relationship with an environmental lobbyist named Sydney Ellen Wade (Annette Bening).

The movie also has several notables in supporting roles (Martin Sheen, Michael J. Fox, Richard Dreyfuss) and follows Andrew as his popularity and political influence wane due to his relationship with Sidney. The plot weaves political themes we see in the news everyday with the natural complications of love between public figures, with a focus on backroom arm twisting and political bargaining. But the main story line is how Sidney's idealism and devotion to principle bump up against Andrew's experienced-hardened sense of political reality and expediency. In the end, Andrew must make some tough choices, both personally and politically. And for the idealists among us, when Andrew finally decides what he must do he delivers one of the most enjoyable and uplifting speeches of recent film history. Every time I hear it I just want to stand up and hug someone. It's right up there with George Bailey's (Jimmy Stewart's) dressing down of old man Potter in It's a Wonderful Life.

But The true charm of this movie is how it portrays life in the White House, both in the residence and the West Wing. Written by Aaron Sorkin, The American President sort of serves as the pilot episode of his follow-on TV series The West Wing, my favorite TV of all time (even over Star Trek if you can believe that). Enhancing the link is the fact that several actors from The American President (Martin Sheen among them) also appear in The West Wing, which through its seven years was able to take both personal relationships and political issues to much deeper, realistic levels, while still keeping the positive, honorable flavor of politics so much a part of The American President. I watch this movie often, whenever I want to reset my expectations of how I would like the real world to work.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994): This film follows Charles, a young British single man (Hugh Grant), and his immediate circle of friends through a series of weddings and the funeral of one of their own. The story line centers on Charles' infatuation with an American woman, Carrie (Andie McDowell), whom he meets and trysts with at the first wedding in the series. Charles then meets and interacts with Carrie in a variety of manners during the subsequent weddings, one of which is hers and another of which is his. The problem is that Charles has a fear of commitment and blows repeated opportunities to secure a serious relationship with Carrie while all around him others, seemingly with less savoire-faire, succeed in love.

The fun of the movie for me is the interplay between Charles and his friends (including his deaf brother) as they look for and find love, often in unexpected places. All except Charles, of course, who seems destined to miss out on true love. Also fun are the actual wedding scenes and the receptions which are fraught with typical British (read ribald) humor and a host of hilariously awkward moments. The funeral scene is nested smoothly into the flow of events and provides a poignant reminder (in and amongst the lightheartedness) of why love is such a powerful part of life.

In the end, Charles, despite his inability to take control of his love life, finds himself with one last chance to overcome his bad karma and find happiness. Hugh Grant and Andie McDowell are charming in their respective roles, as is the impressive supporting cast (which includes Kristen-Scott Thomas, Simon Callow and John Hannah). Rowan Atkinson also makes a brief but classic appearance as a bumbling  priest who riotously butchers the vows portion of wedding ceremony number two. I find myself sitting back and enjoying a viewing of this film after each time I attend an actual wedding.    

Groundhog Day (1993): I've always seen this clever film as a modern retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story, with Bill Murray's character, an arrogant and self-important weather man named Phil Conners, stuck in time on a day and a place he didn't care for, until he could change his ways and earn the love of another. The other turns out to be his producer from the TV station, Rita (played by Andie McDowell - hmm, where have I heard that name before). Phil, much hated by his station peers, is dispatched to Punxsutawney Pennsylvania with Rita and clueless cameraman Larry (played superbly by Chris Elliott) to cover the annual emergence of Phil (get it?) the groundhog on February 2nd - Groundhog Day. The crew arrives the night before and checks into a couple of B&Bs (Phil's more upscale, of course) to await Punxsutawney Phil's arrival.

At 6:00 am the next morning, we see Phil awakened by his alarm to the dulcet tones of Sonny and Cher blasting out I've Got You, Babe on the local radio station. Phil arises, has no hot water for his shower, bumps into a few (in his view) country hicks, insults his kindly old landlady and steps off a curb into a foot deep puddle, all on his way to meet Rita and Larry for the shooting of the groundhog segment. This, of course, puts him in an even worse mood than normal, and he blows off the coverage assignment with a sarcastic snit and first-class dissing of the whole groundhog tradition and everyone associated with it. Despite Rita's protestations, he refuses to clean up his act and re-shoot the commentary, and stomps off.

Later that day as Phil, Rita and Larry try to return home, they are trapped in a blizzard (that Phil the weatherman had no idea was coming). The freeway is closed and the crew must return to Punxsutawney. They check back into their respective B&Bs and wait for the storm to pass. The rest of the day is filled with Phil, totally disgusted with the turn of events, insulting as many townspeople as possible, as well as Rita and Larry.

The next morning Phil is awakened again by Sonny and Cher. And as he arises, prepares for the day and heads out of the B&B, he runs into all the same people and events he did on the previous day, only no one else seems to recognize the pattern. He then realizes that everyone else thinks it's Groundhog Day. And it turns out, it is.

Phil then relives Groundhog Day for an unspecified period of time (some references I've seen refer to 10 years) knowing exactly what's going to happen but unable to convince anyone else of his plight. At first, he resents it, and in keeping with his egotism uses his foreknowledge of what's going to happen to make fun of and exploit others. He eventually tires of this and decides to test the limits of his new situation by taking ever-increasing risks to see if he can end it all. There is an oddly funny series of suicide attempts during this period including one in which he kidnaps the groundhog and teaches him to drive - off a cliff.

Over time, however, Phil runs out of ideas for abusing himself and others and actually starts to understand what a jerk he is. And he begins to change, now using his foreknowledge of events to help others and improve himself. A main activity during all of his repeated days is his wooing of Rita, first awkwardly in pursuit of shameless gratification, then playfully out of budding attraction, and eventually out of an honest but hopelessly frustrating love.

The story progresses to fairly predictable outcomes, but the beauty of the movie isn't a surprise ending. It's the surprising and consistently interesting ways Phil decides to engage and influence events he knows he can't prevent or avoid, and that he knows he will face again tomorrow. Phil's evolution from self-absorbed snob to hopeless victim to curious observer and finally to positive acceptance of his fate is great story-telling and a fun ride. I recommend annual viewing of this film on - can you guess what day?     

Let me wrap up my discussion of romantic comedies with a few additional favorites I would recommend. 

When Harry Met Sally (1989): My favorite movie about opposite gender friends and their struggle to sort out the true nature of their relationship. The film covers several years in the lives of Harry (played by Billy Crystal) and Sally (played by Meg Ryan) as they first meet to split expenses on a cross country drive to New York, keep in touch over the years as close friends and confidants through various romances with others, and finally collide as lovers unprepared for the unavoidable transformation of their feelings for each other. A fun movie with excellent performances by Billy and Meg (as well as strong supporting roles by Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby). The movie also portrays a number of classic scenes of typical couples' crises, not to mention the legendary Meg Ryan "restaurant" scene.

LA Story (1991): A crazy Los Angeles weatherman, Harris K. Telemacher (played by Steve Martin), is in an unsatisfying relationship with self-absorbed Trudi (Marilu Henner). He meets and falls in love with Brit Sara (Victoria Tennant) and survives mysterious (even mystical) weather events, an ex-husband, freeway shooters, the attentions of a free-love flower child (played by a very young Sarah Jessica Parker), roller-skating "performance art", juice-bars and Patrick Stewart as a snobbish French restaurant reservations interviewer (finally qualifying for the chicken) to find true love. This is Steve Martin at his whacky best, lampooning his way through one fantasy scene after another including a few conversations with the city of LA herself as personified through electronic traffic signs. Weird? Yes. But worth a look if you like Steve Martin.

Sleepless in Seattle (1993): Best known, perhaps, for its play off the Empire State Building scene from the classic An Affair to Remember, this movie tells the story of recent widower Sam (played by Tom Hanks), his son Jonah, and cross-country love interest Annie (Meg Ryan) as they journey through loss (on Sam and Jonah's part) and unfulfillment (on Annie's part) to find each other. The story is a bit schmaltzy, true. Okay. It's way schmaltzy. So what? What could be cuter than Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan falling in love at first (really second) sight at the top of the Empire State Building all because Jonah calls a love-advice radio talk show, books his own cross-country flight (with the help of another preteen) and forgets his backpack on the Empire State Building viewing platform. There is a strong supporting cast (including Bill Pullman, Rita Wilson, Rosy O'Donnell and Rob Reiner). I remember this movie as the one where Bill Pullman (Annie's overly sensitive, allergic-to-everything boyfriend) doesn't get the girl.

While You Were Sleeping (1995): I remember this movie as the one where Bill Pullman does get the girl; in this case, Sandra Bullock. Sandra plays Lucy, a pretty but shy and lonely Chicago Transit Authority toll-taker who has been fantasizing over Peter, an overtly handsome man (Peter Gallagher) who comes through her toll booth everyday. Through an act of fate, Lucy saves Peter's life when he is mugged right outside of her booth. He falls unconscious onto the tracks in front of an oncoming train. Lucy jumps down and manages to roll Peter over out of harm's way. Unfortunately, Peter stays in a coma for weeks. Through a series of misunderstandings, the family takes Lucy for Peter's new fiance, embraces her fully, and welcomes her into the family. Finding Peter's family a welcome tonic for her loneliness, Lucy can't find a way to tell them the truth. Further complicating things, Peter's brother Jack (Bill Pullman) is falling for Lucy himself - and she for him. Right when things couldn't get more troublesome, Peter comes out of his coma. What ensues is a delightful story of love, regret, family, good intentions and unexpected developments. Enriching the story is an interesting supporting cast of established character actors (Peter Boyle, Jack Warden and Glynis Johns). This movie didn't get a lot of acclaim when it was released, but I think the vulnerability and charm Sandra Bullock exhibits in this film sent her career spiraling up. It certainly spurred my interest in her future work.

Well, that's my take on romantic comedies. As usual, your thoughts and comments and any recommendations for new films are welcome.

Grosse Pointe Charles