August 29, 1964. 5 PM. A garage in Moncks Corner, South Carolina.

A mechanic is down by my 1962 Chevy 2, cleaning graffiti and rice off and out of it.

It’s my wedding day.

I was, as usual, impatient. Tapping my foot. Anxious to get back on the road and off toward New York for our honeymoon.

He looked up at me from down by the car, noting my body language and said…

“Hey buddy. You got from now on.”

“From now on” translated to over 61 years.

Yeah, I’m crying again. But my thumb still works.

Why do we rush to get to a destination and forget about the journey?  And it’s a long one.  “You got from now on”

My grandson, Josh, and his lovely wife, Cierra just welcomed Emmitt Donald into this world. Their third child and, Glory Be, my third great gran’.

Three children. Wow!! An almost-5, an almost-2, and an infant.

To them I say, “Hey, you wonderful people, you got from now on!!”

Parenthood is forever. What a journey.

First comes the diaper phase. That’s the easy part.

Then they get mobile. Walking, running, jumping. That’s now for Josh and Cierra.

Then school starts. For a good part of the day, you are not there. That’s when your control starts to slip away. You begin to notice strange habits developing. Wow, you are not the only influence on them.

Good freakin’ luck.

Elementary. Middle. High School. Maybe College. Graduation.

Now you’re done, right?

Wrong!!

It’s just starting. They finish school and find a job. Love it. Hate it. They find the love of their life. Doesn’t matter. 

Life is a risky business. No guarantees. You’ll still get the “Uh, Dad” calls.

I know from which I speak. I’m eighty freakin’ seven years old. My kids are middle aged. One is a Grandma.

Who’d a thunk?

I still love, care about, worry about, and will do anything I can for my kids, their kids, and yes, their kids.

It Never Ends.

Thank the Lord.

Enuf?

There we were. Marjorie and I, hiding in Haagen-Dazs at the Charleston City Market.

Well, “hiding” is a strong word. We’d gotten separated from the kids somewhere between vendor stalls, the way you do at the market. It’s Charleston City Market, not the wilderness. The kids were fine. Ten, twelve, somewhere in there, old enough to wander, young enough to still be our problem.

We just wanted some ice cream. So we ducked into Häagen-Dazs.

And that’s when we saw them. Out the window, walking up and down the market, looking for us.

We weren’t hiding, exactly. We just didn’t run out and invite them into the air conditioning to share the treat. There’s a difference. A small one. But a difference.

Here’s a flash for ya: parents are human. Ergo, they f— up now and then.

Lucky for me, I’ve got plenty of material.

Ants in the Pants

Denver, summertime. Marjorie and I are driving with our youngest, Jeffrey, snug in his car seat in the back. Snug and miserable.

First whining. Then sobbing. Then yelling.

I was not happy either. Nothing like trying to drive with a deafening howl coming from a not-yet-two-year-old three feet behind your head.

We figured he was just acting out. Kids do that. We pulled over anyway, mostly to make it stop.

Marjorie checked his diaper. I stood there, impatient, waiting for nothing to be wrong.

Something was wrong. There was a giant black ant in that diaper, biting the heck out of him.

He had an ant in his pants. Literally. And I’d spent the last ten minutes yelling at him for it.

No Parent of the Year here.

Spoiled Milk

You insist? Fine. One more.

Burger Chef, near Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. The kids and I were having lunch with the old man.

Jim wanted milk with his burger. The kids sure did love milk, so I got him milk. He took one sip and said it tasted funny.

“Drink your milk,” I said. Impatient.

He fussed again.

“Drink. Your. Milk.” Louder this time.

More whining. Fine. I grabbed the carton and took a good swig myself, ready to prove a point.

Yuk.

It was sour. I had just about forced my “innocent” child to drink spoiled milk over a case of him being right and me being wrong.

No Parent of the Year Award, round two.

Enuf About Me

Josh and Cierra just had number three. Somewhere out there, a fun family outing is already headed sideways as a kid is melting down, a parent running out of patience. It happens. It happened to me. Three times, at least, that I’ll admit to in writing.

Patience was never my best virtue. They’ll do better ‘n’ me. LOL

Here’s what I’d ask the rest of you… kids, grandkids, the whole crew: what’s your Häagen-Dazs story? The one where you knew, even as it was happening, that you weren’t winning any parenting awards, but you did it anyway? Send them my way. I could use the laugh, and I bet you could too.

Parents generally do the best they can.

Good luck.

Enuf.

Hank walked into the Club looking disheveled, like he’d been through something. Dirt on his uniform.

“Oh hi, Boss, what’s up? Where ya been?”

He looked right at me and sorta shouted, “You didn’t tell me about that car.”

I avoided the obvious wise-ass response (You didn’t ask me) and just waited for him to continue.

How did we get here.  Let me back up a few hours…

It’s Friday afternoon at the Air Force Accounting and Finance Center in Denver, Colorado. Circa 1972.

I’m a newly promoted major. I administered the pay accounts of around 300 wives of Air Force POW/MIA during the Vietnam conflict. The most rewarding, entangling job of my 30-year Air Force career.

Col Hank Roth, my boss, came into my office while I was on the phone with one of my clients. He had somewhere to be and didn’t want to interrupt, so he kept it quick. “Don, I need to borrow your car. Mine’s in the shop, and I need to go get something.”

I reached in my pocket and tossed him the keys. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll see you at the Club.” That meant Happy Hour at the Lowry AFB Officers’ Club, around 5PM. The usual camaraderie gathering for about 4-6 of us younger officers with our elder leader. Hell, he was almost 40. We were all 30-ish.

It was about 5:30, and neither Hank nor my car was at the Club yet. We weren’t really watching for him. We were enjoying each other’s company and the cheap Happy Hour booze.

That’s when Hank showed up. Late, dirty, and pissed.

“Why are you dirty, Hank?”

“Well, it was kinda warm, so I turned the AC on.”

Uh oh, I thought. The AC hadn’t worked in months. The compressor was dead.

“It blew dirt on me.”

Of course it did. Flip the switch, and all that fan does is stir up whatever’s been sitting on the floor.

“When I went to park, there’s no ‘Park’ gear and that damn parking brake wouldn’t hold on the hill I was on.  So I had to find a pole and back up to it just to keep the thing from rolling.”

It was a ’61 Plymouth Fury.  Not my typical car.  I was an “Oldsmobile man” for most of my Air Force and family life.  Needed a second car for my longer commute to the new job, and a friend of a friend had one to sell.  I’m about as trusting a shopper as they come, and this car was a “good deal.”  Yeah, the oddities I learned after I already owned it.  The kids loved the car, though.  It was peach and had power windows, which back then was something.  Up and down, up and down.  The kids couldn’t get enough of them.  Now, the manual crank is the novelty, as my granddaughter used to refer to them, “Ooh, your car has those rolly-downy thingies.”

Hank’s epic return continues…

“Then on the way back, I’m at a light, and the car just cuts off.”

Of course it did. That transmission again, I thought.

The Fury had a push-button transmission, a Chrysler novelty already fading out by ’72. If you weren’t around back then, you’ve probably never seen one, and that’s alright.

“I restart it, hit ‘Drive.’ Button just goes in. Doesn’t do a damn thing.”

That’s when he saw the screwdriver and put 2 and 2 together. I kept a Phillips in the compartment between the seats for exactly this.

“So there I am, horns blowing, and I calmly” (yeah, I bet) “unscrew the plate, pop the Drive button back out, and get the thing in gear.”

Then he drove to the Club. Not in a great mood.

By the time he got to the part about the screwdriver, he wasn’t mad anymore. He was laughing. So was I.

Enuf.

This is an “Uh Dad” sequel of sorts. Not the same story, just another one that came to mind.

Phones still rang in those days. No caller ID either. Mid-afternoon, some fall weekend, mid-to-late ’80s. This one’s earlier than the last “Uh, Dad.” Jim was in college, his brother Jeffrey a few years behind him, still in high school.

Phone rang. I answered. “Hello.”

“Uh, Dad—”

Oh s—. Here we go again.

“Uh, Dad. I had a little accident in the car. I’m ok, but I did some damage to the bottom. Jeffrey’s with me. We’re ok, but I need you to come get me. Oh yeah, police are here, and I got a ticket.” (Not sure about that part.)

It was raining. Streets were wet. He’d had to make a turn, going a little too fast for the conditions, and ran the car right over the median.  The car was no longer drivable.

Here’s what I thought. Self-censored a bit. What!! You little #%¥£~%^£. That’s my car. How could you be so careless?

But what I said was, “I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Ain’t I cool?

Luckily, the twenty-five-minute drive gave me time to calm down.

When I arrived on scene, I saw the mess. And I saw them. The fear in their eyes, and the great news that they were sort of ok, brought the parent instinct right to the front. Their recollection may differ, but I believe I became comforter-in-chief. Rather than chief punisher.

Now, this is what they told me. Can’t remember who said exactly what.  They were both talking, nervously, of course. Jim had been picking Jeffrey up from football practice, bringing him home. Jeffrey still had his uniform on, helmet in his lap.

I asked how the windshield got cracked.

They told me Jeffrey had his seat belt on, helmet in his lap, and when the car hit the island and the bottom scraped, the impact threw the helmet up into the windshield. No visible injury on Jeffrey, so I believed it.

Wrong.

About forty-five years later, Jeffrey told me that was BS. He wasn’t wearing his seat belt. It wasn’t the helmet that cracked that windshield. It was his head.

Can you imagine the “what ifs” of that situation? Scares the hell outta me to think about it. So I won’t.

I dunno the statute of limitations on lying to your old man, but I wasn’t ready to prosecute… then or now.

Rightly or wrongly, it’s all part of parenthood.

How lucky and blessed we were, as parents. Our kids grew up safely and strongly. All three of ’em wonderful adults and parents themselves now, raising great kids of their own, with all the challenges that go along with that particular journey.

We must’ve done something right.

Enuf.

P.S. I’ve got several other “Uh, Dad” stories I could share, involving Christine or Jeffrey. But this one Jim asked for himself. Now that’s enuf.

A note before we start. This one’s a little different.

Jim, my editor/son, gave me some sage advice about my blog posts. He says he, among others, would like to hear what I thought about events, rather than just reporting on events.

Not sure I can do that, but I’ll give it a shot. I won’t be digging into anybody else’s business here.  It’s theirs to tell, not mine. But my own reaction, in the middle of somebody else’s crisis, that’s fair game. And Jim tells me that might be worth knowing, someday, for the grandkids and great-grandkids. What was going on in the old man’s head.

One quiet evening, for Marjorie and me at Scott AFB, our solace was disturbed by a ringing phone.

I answered it. “Hello.”

It was Jim. His response was a bit hesitant.  “Uh Dad.”

That’s a dreaded preface. Some bad news is coming, and I gotta react to it right, because a bad verbal reaction to a crisis could damage our relationship. I’ve gotten that call more than once over the years. This is one of ’em.

So I thought, “Oh s—. Here goes.” 

“Dad, can you come to the Mascoutah jail and bring $200 in cash to bail me out. I got arrested.”

What I thought but did not say was, “You gotta be f—–g kidding me. Arrested? Never.”

What I said was, “Can I use a credit or debit card?” Again thinking but not saying, “Who the hell has $200 in cash in his wallet?”

He answered, tremble in his voice, “No, it’s gotta be cash or I’ll have to spend the weekend in an East St Louis jail.”

If you know anything about the East St Louis crime situation, you don’t want your 19-year-old son to spend a weekend in that jail.

I answered as any decent dad would. “I’ll be there within the hour.” It was about 30 minutes away, but I had a problem. This was the mid 80’s. No ATMs! Where to get $200?

I became a thief.

At the office we had just had a bake sale to raise money for a Christmas party next month, for our department’s kids. There was about $300 in cash in our possession. I was the boss, you see.

I became a freakin’ embezzler for about 18 hours until I could get to the bank the next day.

Yes. I fleetingly thought, and may have voiced it to my wife, that maybe we oughta let him go to jail for a weekend to learn a lesson. Mayberry RFD, maybe. East St Louis. Never. I woulda borrowed from every Air Force friend I had to keep that from happening.

So, I drove to the Mascoutah jail with $200. Walked in and saw how scared my son was. And also noticed his busted lip and bruises.

Fact was, he was charged with underage drinking. Now, if you don’t think 19-year-old college kids drink beer, I got a bridge to sell ya. The police officer told me that rarely do they go after underage drinking on its own. It’s usually connected with some activity that attracts their attention. In this case, a fight.

My lucky Scooler son was trying to verbally break up the fight. He opened his car window to ask them to stop and was punched in the face.  Apparently, he also got out of the car to do more bruising of the perps knuckles with his face

Yay.

Bottom line. It turned out ok. I bailed him out. Paid some court fees and the charges were dropped.

It was a valuable lesson for a young man and for his dad. I had never actually been in a small-town jailhouse before.

I think my son also knows his dad will pull out all the stops to defend him, as required. Actions speak louder than words, but the wrong words at the wrong time can do irreparable damage.

Enuf.

Every August, I turn into two things I never trained for. A meteorologist and an actuary.

I watch the spaghetti models. I do the math in my head. Is the money and the hassle of evacuating worth the risk of riding it out? Ninety percent of the time, it’s a big nothing burger.

But.

I call it “White Knuckle Season” down here. August and September. Three storms stand out as why.

Cleo. August 29, 1964.

My wedding day.

Hugo. September 21, 1989.

The worst storm Charleston took in my lifetime here.

Floyd. September 16, 1999.

It cost our governor his job, and had me, Marjorie, and our cat Nicole driving to Atlanta for safety. Charleston never even got hit. Didn’t matter. We went anyway.

So why do I stay for this every year?

Because Charleston and I have a history.

September, 1962. The Air Force sent me down to Charleston Air Force Base to navigate C-130s, and later C-141s. Five very full, happy years later, I left the “Holy City” with the love of my life, Marjorie, our daughter Christine, and our son Jim, born March 6, 1967.  Five months later we packed up and moved our young, growing family away from what I’ll forever call my “home town.” 

Thirty years in the Air Force took us all over. But we came home to Charleston for visits and vacations whenever we could, and I got lucky enough to be assigned back to Charleston AFB for my last two years of service. We retired in 1991. Thirty-five years here now.

I don’t plan to ever leave.

Storms and all.

I do stay at the edge of my seat through August and September, though. Real hurricane season, in my book, even though Michael showed up on October 11, 2018, and either proved me wrong or proved the exception to my rule. Rightly or wrongly, I relax a little once October hits, even though the official season doesn’t end until November 30.

The other thing that makes it White Knuckle Season is the news.

The weather people start covering these things while they’re still off the coast of Africa. A week, sometimes more, before they could possibly touch land here. Good news, you get plenty of warning. Bad news, you get to stress out for a week about a storm that, nine times out of ten, never shows up at your door.

Hence. White Knuckles.

So here we are again. August 6. Two months to go.

Four, according to the meteorologists.

Sixty-five years in, and I’d still rather white-knuckle it here than be anywhere else.

Wish us well.

Enuf

I met a couple from Connecticut. He was dressed as something resembling a Scottish Viking (if there is such a person) wearing a helmet, kilt, among other things.

His companion was dressed all in silver and reminded me immediately of the Chrysler Building, my favorite skyscraper.

I smiled. “Are you folks in a show, by any chance?”

“No,” they said. “We just came from a wedding.”

OMG. Can you imagine that wedding party?

Only in New York.

Here, at Rockefeller Center, is considered my happy place.

Marjorie and I always found our way here, on every trip up to the Big Apple. The Today Show at 6:15 AM, if we were ambitious. St. Patrick’s Cathedral, just across Fifth Avenue. Saks. FAO Schwarz. And always, eventually, a bench in the Plaza, looking out at the golden statue of Prometheus and the skating rink, with 30 Rock straight above.

Getting here this trip, with Christine, was its own adventure.

“Walking distance,” they’ll tell you. Six blocks from the Edison Hotel — 47th to 50th (that’s the easy part), then Seventh Avenue to Fifth. What they neglect to mention is that avenues are three times longer than streets in Manhattan. So-called “walking distance” is a relative term. Different for this octogenarian than for me in my 50’s.

Six blocks/26.2 miles. 

Same thing.

We arrived around eleven. Lovely morning. Christine went off to Saks and FAO Schwarz to shop for her grans. I found my bench.

I sat. I watched people.

Within a few minutes, I’d met a couple from Little Rock and a woman from Honduras. Then came the couple from Connecticut.

You already know how that went.

Christine returned a while later carrying an FAO Schwarz bag. Grandma had been busy. We sat a spell, then noticed the taco stand nearby. A fine choice for a light lunch.

Then came the trudge back to the Edison.

Six blocks.

Yes. Rockefeller Center is still my happy place.

Enuf.

The Circle in the Square didn’t feel like most Broadway theaters. The stage sat in the middle, the audience wrapped around it, and that night it felt like the old Copacabana.

Christine and I were there for “Just in Time,” the Bobby Darin musical biography, with Jeremy Jordan exceptional at playing Bobby. Great music and dancing. The whole room was in it.

I remembered Bobby Darin’s music well. He was a great entertainer. His recordings were part of my young adult life, from 1959 all the way to 1973. I knew he died young.

But I would have guessed he was in his fifties.

He was 37.

I didn’t know that until that night.

I also didn’t know how he died. He almost died as a child from rheumatic fever.  He survived, but the fever left him with a faulty heart valve. That valve is what finally took him.

Alone in my room at the Edison Hotel after the show, it hit me.  

My dad, Jerome C. Scooler, had rheumatic fever as a child. It left him with a faulty heart valve. He survived one heart attack.

But a few months later, he succumbed to a second.

He was 39 when he died in 1943.

I was four.

Yes, that was way too close to home.

Enuf.

My daughter and I tried it again, just a few weeks ago. Still an adventure, but some of the fun has dissipated with age.
The deluxe bedroom is the largest sleeper accommodation in Amtrak’s menu. It is , in fact, tiny. In 2003 we fit two adults and a 9-year old in one.
He and I will never forget him in the “deluxe” bathroom banging from wall to wall as the train sped on rather roughly while he was in it. A true adventure.

Let’s talk a minute about the deluxe bathroom and shower. No, it’s a deluxe bathroom shower. The whole enclosed bathroom IS the shower. Better cover the toilet paper. Shower when you get home.

Here are the highs and lows of my latest similar adventure with my daughter.
It started out fine. The beds were ready. That was ok cause it was 11 PM when we boarded the 8:35 train at Charleston. Christine lithely climbed into the top bunk. ( not trusting her ancient, arthritic dad to do it without calling 911). We slept ok, eventually and got up to have a nice breakfast in the dining car and watch DC go by.
Saw a little, but not much. We had fallen a couple hours late due to freight train traffic, which has priority over Amtrak since freights own the track. Hence Amtrak will most probably be late.

The steward said our room would be made up so we could sit in it comfortably when we returned from breakfast in the dining car. NOT.
Our one and only steward could not keep up. Too many beds to make. We didn’t get to sit in our made up compartment until about an hour out of NYC, about 3 hours late. Arrived in NYC at 2:30PM.
That was ok, cause we couldn’t check in to the Edison til 3PM. Worked out fine.

After a great visit to my City, we boarded Amtrak again for our “sayonara” NYC trip home This segment was more comfortable than trip up, but we still encountered a three + hour delay. The ” meantime” on this trip was fun
Since we boarded on time at about 2PM, we enjoyed a wonderful steak dinner in the dining car; with a nice glass or two of red wine. We also met and enjoyed dinner with a great couple, Lynda and Obie.
Because I blab a bunch, I told them about my Scoolerisms Blog. A cool result — Lynda found it, commented on our meeting in the blog and is now a subscriber. How cool is that?

The reasons for our delays were threefold. First a barge ran into a bridge we were to cross between Phillie and Baltimore. We got to sit and wait for inspectors to survey damage and clear us to cross ( or not).
Second, the usual fright train delays, and third, a vehicle was stuck on the track.
The good news about the delay is that the sun was up when we arrived. I got to drive home in daylight. Yay.
I was exhausted. And yes, glad to be home, after quite an adventure. I vowed I’d never do it again. When are we going? LOL Enuf.
.

The show was outstanding. Every performer on that stage earned the standing ovation they got.

I just couldn’t give them a proper one.

At eighty-seven, with a potful of arthritis, standing up after two-plus hours in a cramped theater seat is its own performance. I gotta hold on, with at least one hand, to the seat in front of me, or I’ll fall back into my own. Or worse, between the two rows. Yay.

Which means I can’t clap with the hand that’s left. I had to settle for hollering “Bravo.” Or slapping the seat in front of me.

Not a pleasant discovery. But quite natural, I’m afraid.

That was Hadestown, the Tony winner that’s been packing Broadway for years, and my daughter Christine was the one who got me there.

I learned two things watching that show. First: Hades wasn’t just a place you went, as in “Go to Hades.” He was a dude. God of the Underworld, played in his Broadway debut by Gary Dourdan (he stole the show!).  Christine recognized him instantly as Warrick Brown from CSI. I had no idea who he was. I’m a little ignorant on some things these days.

The second thing I learned was (as you read above) what it sounds like of one hand clapping.

This was my first trip back to New York in a long while. Marjorie and I used to come up regular, always to catch great shows, go to iconic NY restaurants, visit with my cousin Nancy. We did it right.

Then Marjorie’s mobility issues became too much, and that put a stop to it. The subway-shoving stories on the news didn’t help either, if I’m honest. Marjorie’s mobility was the real reason. The news just gave us an excuse.

So it had been a while.

This time, I had Christine.

She was my crutch, the one I hung onto when I felt a bit wobbly.  We stayed close and didn’t need taxis or subways, but with her I could’ve if we really wanted to.  I think I coulda done the e-ticket and e-reservations with the dang apps if needed, but I had her as backup.

That’s the only reason I made it back to this city at all.

I can’t do this city the way I used to. But I can still do it.

Christine made sure of that.

“Bravo!” will have to do.

Enuf.