this is a super small example of why the day countdown (Oct Gallery) matters as much as it does to me. because once bella leaves home, the family dynamic we have known since our family with children began is forever changed. and it is not about the giant factors like having an empty bed or one less dinner plate but these small daily moments that i will likely miss the most. these innocent interactions which most people seem to pay no mind are sort of thing i have most coveted and enjoyed watching. perhaps it is because i am an only child and never got to be part of such inter-play. unsure. but it is something i will miss dearly.
From: Troy Dearmitt
Sent: Friday, January 17, 2014 9:09 AM
To: Marty Walter
Subject: tonight
walt,
apologies for my hesitation at your offer to ride to chesterfield this evening. i was dripping wet having ran from the shower to answer the phone and was simultaneously trying to decipher a long, cryptic, truly, note just placed in my wet hand from anthony, so you know, just another moment from our life with kids. in any other state i would have jumped to spend time with my stunningly beautiful, effortlessly funny, and endlessly charming wife. i would love to take a mini-road-trip with you. please plan on it if you haven't un-invited me yet.
love you.
t
From: Marty Walter
Subject: RE: tonight
Date: January 17, 2014 11:11:54 AM CST
To: Troy Dearmitt
I might be able to relate to your experience.
I've already lined up a gaggle of Russian male gymnasts to escort me tonight, but if they fall through you might do.
Marty
the above screen shot shows a web page i look at nearly every day. it is part of a collection of webpages i use to motivate and remind me of things important to me. i originally made the above page to look at before leaving the office to help me shift from work mode to family mode. when i first made it, the day count in red had thousands of days. now it has hundreds of days, and barely so.
View in Gallery >>>
you know how when people take a picture they sometimes yell an instruction like "everyone smile" or "everyone be goofy"?
I think for this picture the instruction yelled was "everyone be their genuine selves".
i say this because i've never seen a picture that so perfectly captures the essence of these four people.
going around the circle.
Marty just bleeds natural and confident hap ...
there is a handful of humans who think i have it too easy. they believe that the world just opens up before me and provides me undue rewards and riches. these boons come in all sorts of sizes and looks. my assumption has always been that everyone gets these sorts of things. they can be as big as scoring the mother i did and as small as getting the good table by the window. those that don't know me...
four years ago i received word that they were going to replace the college football stadium that was near my childhood home. while i wasn't a season ticket holder, i did have a respectable number of memories in the place, most notably sneaking in on weekend nights with my friends to play hide in seek in the sprawling facility under a moonlit sky, well, play hide and seek until we were chased out by security which was admittedly part of the sport and appeal. upon hearing the news, i made immediate plans to see one last game there in the last year the CSU Rams would play in the storied Hughes Stadium which butted right up against my Fort Collins foothills.
so i made a proper trip of it, and bookguy joined me, and we met up with boyhood pal snake and had some great laughs and panhandler's pizza and bookguy, and i biked a century up through estes park and into rocky mountain national park. in short, it was a lovely and memorable weekend.
then the next year i returned to fort collins to take in a game at the new stadium. no bookguy this time as he was out of the country but snake and i shared time, and i made the estes ride up the big thompson canyon solo. it was again a lovely and memorable weekend.
then this year snake reached out and asked if i would be coming out for another CSU game. i countered saying i thought those couldn't be very exciting for him since they were in his backyard and suggested he pick a game somewhere in the country he would like to see and we could meet there. he said he would get back to me. a few weeks later he sent a note outlining the following weekend. a few days of golf followed by a historic SEC matchup, Tennesee @ Auburn. then on sunday we would travel an hour north and take in some nascar at Talledegha. right away i could tell i should have put snake in charge of planning our weekends years ago.
part of the itinerary was influenced by snake's brother tommy and their long-time friend paul (who was the nascar guy). they have been golf buddies for lots of years. since i'm not a golfer, i said i would meet up with them on friday for the saturday game and sunday race. so i had a lovely drive down to alabama on friday. i imagine it has been said before, but i love driving. part of it is i love my car, a 91 bmw 318i (or an E30 for those in the know). i became its second owner in 1998, and it has brought me an unreasonable amount of joy since then. a slight problem i have is i have not driven to work for more than twelve years AND i live in a community where i can walk to nearly everything i need which means i can go long stretches without ever rolling it out of the garage. but another thing i love about driving, distance driving particularly, is the simple act of unplugging from the daily firehose (simple to do, hard to make happen). these cross-country treks are highly therapeutic and meditative for me. on these day-long drives, i cover lots of desolate mentalscape that rarely sees travelers pass through.
a quick aside to address the number one question people ask when they see my nearly 30-year-old car, how many miles does it have? i can't really tell you because the odometer broke about six years ago. when it stopped merrily rolling along, the dial read 130k miles. i reckon since i don't drive a whole lot locally, i could count up the trips i've taken and get you a respectable ball-park number, but those sorts of things don't really tickle me like some. it's like the price of gas. whatever it is isn't going to keep me from buying some, so i don't bother giving it any of my precious neurons.
back to our story. i put myself fully in their hands and was told just to show up as they would take care of all of the arrangements, right down to our lodging. marty will attest to my excellence on being able to follow that sort of plan and my travel day went off without a hitch, and i pulled into the hotel parking lot five minutes before the fellas returned from their double round of golf and the weekend was off and running.
tommy got us the football tickets and had us in the second row of the end zone facing their mega screen and just to the right of the visiting band. it there was a better seat in the house, i'm not sure where it might have been. tommy and i struck an immediate over/under bet on how many times the tennessee band would play Rocky-Top (not as many as he wagered by far more than i would have ever imagined). it was an excellent day with lots of blue skies and belly laughs. and i didn't learn/recall until after the day began that it was snake's 50th birthday. by my math, it would have been challenging to dial up a better celebration than what we were in the midst of.
paul was in charge of the nascar tickets as he had family in the south who were regular patrons. shortly after meeting paul i said i heard he was a nascar guy. he said nothing but held up a finger instructing me to hold that thought, went to his bag, rummaged a second and then turned, holding to his chest his very own ricky bobby wonder bread race suit. with my mouth still agape, he turned to his bag again, this time announcing that if you didn't want to be ricky bobby you could always wear his race team partner cal naughton's old spice suit which he held before him with equal flourish. yeah, i guess he'd fall into the nascar guy column.
but, it turns out snake had some nascar connections of his own and was able to get us passes into pit row. this is the racing equivalent of scoring backstage passes to your favorite band. while the race was going on and paul was texting with friends telling them where he was right now, his phone almost caught fire from all the envy and hate being sent in reply.
the only downside to this mega-weekend is what in the heck could we ever do to follow it up. and/because it will be followed up as i'm hoping to make this trek to some college rivalry/experience a new annual tradition. too many interesting places and cultures in this country to not stick your head in the room at least once and soak it up.
there have been multi-day stretches where anthony hasn't worn more than a pair of underwear and a robe, and sometimes just one of those. so when he was told that he had to dress up for his elementary concert we expected some grousing and an insistence to wear shorts and a t-shirt. we did not expect to hear him ask how bow-ties work. nor did we expect to hear him ask what suspenders were all about. ...
many people are FIT through many approaches and means. some must work harder than others to achieve those goals but still find a way. some are dealt a worse hand than others but still find a way.
and many people are SUCCESSFUL through many approaches and means. some must work harder than others to achieve those goals but still find a way. some are dealt a worse hand than others but still find a way.
it's taken me a long time to learn, realize and accept that there are many ways to run a winning game. there was a time i thought, well this worked for me so it is what will work for you. it took me an embarrassingly long time to learn that the real (and only) key is to run YOUR game and not someone else's game. as the kids say today, "you gotta do you". this is something i wished i learned thirty years sooner than i did. if i had, not only would i have been a lot more successful sooner, i would also have been a lot more happy sooner.
there is a young man i visit with once a month. i met him through my former employer where he is a rising star. this ascension, by my estimation, is largely connected to a number of things: he is capable at his craft, his has a very likable nature, a unique upbringing, an obsession for improvement, and possibly most of all, he has a wildly energetic and engaging way of communicating. if you picked...
the school day was over. alex was sitting in marty's classroom waiting for her to be done so they could go home. there were a few other students in the room hanging out (yes, marty's room is a bit of a hangout room as you might guess it would be). a girl commented to another student about a creative writing group she was starting up. after a beat or two alex spoke up from his side of the room, asking about the club. marty's eyes raised looking at her son, surprised. the girl turned and brightly shared the details of the club--what they do, when they meet and the like. she said if he'd be interested he was more than welcome. he said he might be.
as we went to bed marty shared the story with me. we looked at one another a bit perplexed. i asked about the girl, wondering if that was why alex was interested. or perhaps it was the boy the girl was talking to. we didn't know. but we thought it must be one of those two things because we also didn't know our 15-year old alex had an interest in creative writing to the point of joining an after-school club to do it.
a few weeks later alex asked if he could read something to me. it was his first piece for the creative writing club. he read:
The halls were silent, almost seeming empty. The only noise was the heavy breathing of a man. He clutched his bleeding arm as he shivered, sweat pouring down his head. He flinches as a shriek comes from above, echoing through the halls. It is followed by the sound of metal against metal, colliding and grinding. The sound slowly fades into the background near the back of the facility. The man slowly makes his way out from the dark and peaks around the corner. In the adjoining hallway were corpses, their blood making the floor a dark red tint. The man looks away. A single tear runs down his face knowing his fate was as sealed as the bodies on the ground. He moves down the hall towards the flashing emergency light at the other end. A tremble runs through the entire facility. The man is sent into complete darkness. There is a flash of red as the backup generator turns on. There is a faint sound in the distance. It gets louder to the point the man needs to cover his ears. He closes his eyes and clenches his teeth. Tears roll down his face and he screams.
Then it all stops.
so maybe marty and i mis-read this situation and it wasn't the boy or the girl and our aleo would like to take a cut at some story telling. we were bound to be wrong about something one of these days ;-). i'm happy to chalk it up as yet one more happy surprise in our turn at this parenting thing. and this being his first go at this, i'm also eager to see what else might be swimming around the gelatinous folds of aleo's brain.
growing up i remember goofing on my mom at how quickly she could get emotional at something. i have a crazy, vivid memory of a coke commercial that ran for awhile in the eighties that made her cry not just once but upon every viewing. it depicted a family adopting a little girl and then raising her, showing pivotal snippets of maturation (riding a bike, blowing out birthday candles, graduating hig...
Bella DeArmitt
Ms. Gray
African American Literature ACC
August 20 2018
The Impact of a Tradition
My family holds great value for traditions: Sunday mornings are reserved for cuddling in my parents' bed, winter breaks are spent holed up with our favorite action heroes--my family will take Jason Bourne and Lieutenant Ripley over the Grinch and Frosty the Snowman any yea ...
my uncle tim had two grandpas. one was a minister and one worked the train lines.
when tim went to the minister grandpa's house as a kid, the three children in the family (tim, my mother and their sister) would sit stone-still while the adults caught up. i remember my mom telling stories about how tim, the family prankster, would try to get the girls to make noise. he would whisper funny...
and to think the inventor of the cabbage patch doll is way richer.
if i could have invented one thing made in the past few decades, it would be highway rumble strips. those things are the greatest. so simple. so clever. so effective. can you imagine how many lives they have saved? there is no way it is not in the millions, the tens of millions even.
if you think that number is high, i would guess you have never had your car drift off the pavement into the dirt/grass/stone/whatever at 60 miles per hour (or better). maybe you were just distracted or maybe you had just fallen asleep. either way you would be challenged as hell to recover from the moment because to keep a car on the predictable cement and off the crazily unpredictable terrain next to the cement is what it's all about. once you're in the dirt, life gets real unpredictable real fast (and that tenet applies to more than just driving). and someone figured out a crazy-simple and super-effective way to keep you on that smooth and comfy asphalt. and not only does it let the occupants of the offending car know to get re-focused, the noise made alerts cars around the car floating out of their lane to be on alert for the driver that is droswy, distracted or messing with their phone. great on so many levels.
as far as life-saving goes, that has to be right up there with the most note-worthy medical advances seen over time.
i tried to look up who invented them and closest i got (not that i looked long) is some guy says his grandfather made them, or at least made the machine that makes them. not that receiving credit gets you much, especially if there are no monetary spoils (or you're dead), but it surely would have been satisfying to have divined something that saved, and therefore changed, so, so many lives.
as mentioned yesterday, i recently took a road trip. it is an annual trip east i have been taking since the kids got old enough they did not require a full-time staff of two. on this trek i visit friends and family and since starting the company, i mix a work stop or two along the way. the time for me is restorative and joyful and one of my favorite annual traditions (amidst many).
this year i got ambitious and over-planned the week, seeking to milk every day and hit every drivable connection. after getting home-sick i decided to trim a bit off the end and head home a full day early. in thinking on it further i thought i had a neat opportunity to surprise my family with a premature return (because we do like surprises: New Car Story).
so i planned my eleven hour drive out so i would arrive just before sunday dinner, fifteen minutes before to be precise. once home, i parked a few houses down the street to walk the last bit (so no one accidentally spied my car out front). using my cell, i called our home line and got marty. we exchanged hellos and then i said that i might not be home on monday night. there was a long pause. i knew her mind had already started thinking through the implications of me being a day late since the kids were to start school on tuesday. as she processed the news, i walked through the front door. i found bella knitting on the living room couch. on seeing me she dropped her needles shot her arms into the air and bellowed, "dad's home!!!".
i walked into the breakfast room in time to see marty hanging up the phone. she turned and gave me a wry smile. after separating from our hug i asked if i was going to find a shirtless college boy or two jumping out of our bedroom window. she said i would not, they left earlier in the day.
i recently took my annual friends and family tour back east. this is a solo trip i've been making the last few years, or put differently, since the kids have been old enough to not overwhelm a single parent. i am fortunate that a few of my closest friends and a portion of my family are clustered in a remarkably small area, an area i did not grow up in (but did finish college in) which makes it all ...
it was the last day of elementary for anthony and it was the last day of middle school for alex. when anthony and i were walking to school, our last one-mile walk to school ever (next year he will be taking the bus), i asked him if we would remember this final day with any sort of vividness or if it would just blend into the soup like most days. he said we probably wouldn't remember it in any special way other than it happened. sadly, i had to agree.
after dropping anthony off and returning home, i went to alex's middle school graduation. when the ceremony was over he came home with me to start his summer. we were home for about an hour before we had to walk back up to anthony's school to greet him for his end of school and start of summer. alex and i got there a few minutes before the last bell and grabbed a comfy spot on this bench in front of the school. we waved and chatted with the other families as they arrived. many people commented on how big alex (and his hair) had gotten. then the kids started getting released and there were lots of whoops and cheers and smiles.
anthony spotted us and joined us on the bench. we sat for a bit chatting with each other and folks passing by. after a bit the boys asked if we should start heading home. i said we should wait a minute. they asked why. i told them that when you were a celebrity it was good to make yourself available to the people, so they could see you out in public and take you in. the boys looked at each other and then started taking turns making jokes about me. the short story was that if i WERE a celebrity sticking around might be a nice thing to do BUT since i was just a loser who didn't know how to dress, we were probably safe to start home. when they were mostly done, i said that i would bet them that in the next minute someone would ask to take our picture. they looked at one another, deemed it a safe bet and said i was on. with some ceremony, anthony raised his wrist, called out the time, and the game was afoot.
he held his hand out so both he and alex could see the second hand charging around the watch face. they called out the times. 30 seconds left. 20 seconds left. 15. 10. just after they called out the number 5, a woman stepped forward and said, "well look at this handsome set of men, would you mind if i took your picture?"
the boys looked at each other in shock and disbelief. they then fell into hysterics, aided by my tickling them. while they reacted i calmly said to the lady, "yes, of course, we would love to have our picture taken." and that is what led to the below series of photos.
now part of me feels that fathers, like magicians, should never reveal their trade secrets but in this case it is only fair to let you in a bit more on this moment. as the boys started suggesting we head home i noticed a woman had seen us on the bench and was making her way toward us. and it wasn't just any woman but marty's best friend jona. i had seen a phone in her hand so had a sense she was going to ask for a picture since marty couldn't be here at pickup (marty had to go back to work after alex's graduation), and jona is thoughtful like that. on her way to us a family stopped jona to chat. this was when the boys started asking if we could go and i brokered the bet. i was hoping, desperately in the end, that jona could peel away from her conversation before my minute was up. my hope almost didn't come true, as you could see the boys got all the way to 5, but because of the last second save, it made the moment all the more dramatic. as you'd imagine, jona was a bit perplexed at the boys reaction and is why she thankfully snapped this series of images, images i am super-grateful to have.
the best part of this expertly and luckily executed plan is anthony and i will now forever remember not only his last day of elementary, but his last moment of elementary.
that's my daughter's response, at times, to advice i give her. you know, life advice, the fatherly kind. i ask her what that means, why i don't count. she says my advice doesn't count because i love life too much, i love my job too much, i love my wife and marriage too much, i love every waking morning too much. because you like everything you're doing, nothing is w...
i took anthony to his first concert last week. it was a live show by a you-tuber anthony follows, a young man named jack septiceye. i didn't know what i was getting into but anthony (11) kept asking me if i looked into tickets AND the show was within walking distance of our house so after a third ask, i got us a few tickets.
the presentation out-performed whatever meager expectations i might have had. on one hand, it was all a bit ham-fisted but on the other hand, this 27 year old kid was surely handling his business in a much more impressive manner than i did at 27 AND had a standing-room only crowd frothing at his every word so who am i to judge. in short, it involved some humorous storytelling. that is not super remarkable i guess. a part i found curious was that the spirit of the stories meant to move and motivate the audience. again, it was a bit fumbly but i applaud the young man's ambition and attempt to help some folks out.
one common thread throughout his stories was there was a lot of drinking going on. he was from ireland and there seemed to be no lack of imbibing. the next night marty and i were at a party and i met a guy about my age who seemed very irish so i asked him if there is really as much drinking in the irish culture as is portrayed. he said, "i'm not sure but can tell you that when i was growing up, my dad replaced our kitchen sink's spray nozzle with a beer tap."
one of the larger parental debates between marty and i has revolved around bella and sex. marty's for it, and i'm against it. let me clarify that a bit. marty's open to that journey beginning in high school, and i think it has less to do with someone's age and more to do with their maturity or state of readiness if you will. marty's core argument, "what, you want to send your daughter to college w...
bella has a new beau. he recently loaned her his wrestling sweatshirt which she wore for three, maybe four days straight. after a few days i commented on it. when i did she smiled, lifted the fabric to her nose and in a completely stereotypical and squeally way said "it smells like joshua vance plus puppies."
for those who have not had the privilege, joshua vance is a dreamy and uber-cool young man we know. you can get a glimpse of him here teaching alex how to wake-board. we won't get into the nuances of her comparing the smell of this boy to the smell of another boy. those feel like dangerous waters.
but i am perfectly ok admitting that i am nearly absolutley certain no one in the history of my life has ever said, "oh my god, this smells like troy dearmitt and puppies." maybe "this smells like troy dearmitt and the week-old newspapers beneath a bunch of puppies" but never just troy and puppies.
i'm a regimented person. so much so that people mock and ridicule me for the amount of structure in my life. i have talked to many people who say that sort of daily rigor is not for them--even if we have just discussed some challenge in their life where a routine is the exact answer to a problem they might be battling. this is most certainly my family's position on this matter. dad's schedules are...
