Trampoline Nights

 We don’t have central air conditioning at my house. We don’t even have a window air conditioner. And up until the end of June we didn’t even have our swamp cooler operational. With temperatures reaching 100 degrees F. we were very warm in the house. Long after the sun sets, when the temperatures starts dropping off outside, inside the temperature remained in the 90’s. In the winter this phenomenon is a blessing; in the summer, a curse. The master bedroom is on the west side of the house and catches all the afternoon heat. A few nights ago I woke up at 2 a.m. feeling like I was suffocating, my bed wet with sweat. I went and stood in the dark on the porch in my underwear and looked at the stars and let the cool night air absorb my excess body heat. Night air never felt so pleasurable. But I couldn’t stand there all night and eventually had to return to the heat of my room.

The next day it was even warmer. Rather than suffer another long night in the dead heat of my room I decided to sleep out on the trampoline in the back yard. I grabbed my pillow and a sleeping bag and tried to sneak out the back door. But trying to sneak anything in my house is like a celebrity saying something stupid and hoping no one heard.

                “What are you doing , Dad?” Story, my seven-year-old,  had caught me.

 His words alerted Glory, my nine-year-old. She came peering around the corner.  “Are you sleeping outside?” she asked.

                I was caught and denial was futile.  I nodded and they both ran to get their pillows and blankets. There were no questions asked. Dad was sleeping on the trampoline and so they would too. Sleeping on the trampoline with the kids is a natural thing to do, but it doesn’t usually lead to a great night’s sleep. The main problem is that objects with any weight tend to roll to the center of the trampoline. We won’t be asleep long before we will all be lying in a heap in the middle.

                Story is the first one outside with me. We get his blankets on the trampoline, but then he does a little dance when suddenly nature calls him. He wants the flashlight so he can go back inside to the bathroom. I direct him over to a dark corner of the yard where he can take care of business under the stars. It’s one of those great lessons a father can teach a son about how great it is to be a guy. He’s still young enough that his shorts come all the way down around his knees when he goes. I shine the flashlight on his white buns and yell, “Look, it’s a full moon!”

                “Dad!” he yells, and then giggles.

                Glory comes out a few moments later and I light the way for her with the bright beam of the LED flashlight. We got everyone arranged and then lay, only half covered, in the warm night breeze looking up at the stars. They can both recognize the big dipper and the star Betelgeuse (Beetle Juice). It isn’t long before they ask for a story and I am making up a Mr. Potato Head vs. the Potato Peeler story.  Then my seven-year-old returns the favor and starts telling me a story, but he falls asleep before he is finished. Glory and I stay awake long enough to catch a whiff of a skunk carousing somewhere upwind.

                It’s not long before I doze off and my nine-year-old is pushing on me in her sleep because I am nearly lying on both her and her brother due to the black hold affect at the center of the trampoline. I scoot as far away as I can and turn at an angle, but it doesn’t work. An hour later I am crowding in on them again.

                Sometime in the night I had to get up to relieve myself. This is where the second problem of trampoline sleeping comes in.  As I struggle out of my bag and to the edge of the trampoline the two kids start to bounce and almost catch air. Somehow they both sleep through this. They sleep bounce again as I get back in my bag.

                I awake each hour to the breeze puffing in my face or because the trampoline, although stretchy, is not soft. Also I keep sliding into my kids. I watch the Big Dipper make its rotation around the North Star. At 4 a.m. I give it up and crawl off the trampoline to go to my bed in the house. I’m hoping it will be cooler by then.  It isn’t.  The room is still hot and stifling, but at least I won’t be sliding into my kids. Before I get into bed I hear little voices coming in the back door. These aren’t middle-of-the-night voices, but awake voices talking and giggling. I learn that our stray cat had joined them on the trampoline and tried to crawl into bed with Glory. The cat smelled a little like a skunk. With the cat’s arrival and my departure they had decided to come in too. They went off to their respective rooms and I sweated the next few hours in mine until dawn. 

I finally got the stand for the swamp cooler built and with it pumping in the cool night air sleep comes a little easier. Like a character in a horror movie who is drawn to the old house on the hill even against his better judgment, for some unknowable reason I find myself wanting to try another night out on the trampoline. There must be a way I can make it work.

A Blonde and a Corvette or a Boot to the Head?

When I reached forty I was in a rut. I had been married for eighteen years. I had six children. I had been in the same job for ten years. Partying for me was going out to a movie with my wife and putting extra butter on the popcorn. A rebel I was not. My life was in dire need of something to wake me out of my walking, waking stupor, but I was too “stuporfied” to know it. I was at the point in my life where I needed something to validate my life—something to help me remember that I was a living, breathing man.

A beautiful woman and a hot car can do that for a man. We’ve all seen the gray-haired man with the sun glasses zipping by in his red corvette with the young busty blond at his side. Clearly he is feeling far younger than he looks. But maybe that is how we middle-aged men are looking to feel. If a Corvette and a blond are the answer to the midlife blues maybe doctors should prescribe them. But then again maybe the feelings that come with the ‘vette and the blonde are more an illusion than anything else. My problem was I didn’t know any blondes and I couldn’t afford a Corvette. Besides I had put eighteen years of my life into my woman and I wasn’t fool enough to think starting over now would be a good thing. No something else would have to change up my life and wake me up. My wife called one day and, unbeknownst to me at the time, said a word that would change my life – taekwondo.

“Tyquon-what?” I had asked. She explained that she had been told by a friend with children about a place in town that taught taekwondo, a Korean martial art. My wife wanted to take advantage of the “free first week” offer and let our kids try it. I wasn’t enthusiastic. My impression of the martial arts came mainly from the Cobrakahn dojo in Karate Kid. It was a macho attitude kind of thing that I didn’t think fit my kids very well. Who would have known that just a few weeks later I would be joining my kids on the mat on a journey that has never really ended.

I know that as silly as the middle-aged man in the Corvette with the young blonde at his side looks to me, I looked just as silly in karate pajamas doing karate moves (let’s all do the one-legged crane holding up our arms like wings). Let’s face it, over-weight, middle-aged men starting karate are often unwittingly a comical sight and someone you don’t want to be seen with by your friends. I knew this, and yet there I was, making a fool out of myself because for some reason practicing taekwondo made me extraordinarily happy. The question is why?

Exercise: I gained about 10 pounds for every baby my wife had. She had eight babies. Go ahead, do the math. I started marriage at around 160 pounds. When I started Taekwondo I was 240 pounds. That’s NFL linebacker size without linebacker strength. I’m a big guy and carry the weight well, but I was not healthy. The taekwondo workouts were marvelous. They included push-ups, running, kicking, forms, speed drills, hitting, endurance drills, kicking, crunches, kicking, sparring, and did I mention kicking? Now it isn’t the exercises themselves that made me feel so good; it’s that I was doing these exercises with people who became such close friends and doing them with more of a holistic goal in mind than a physical goal. At the end of stretching after workouts I would be sitting in a pool of sweat and feeling so happy. Oh, yes, I got to the point where I could do cartwheels with my kids again.

I had lost some weight by this time.

Family: I followed my children into the world of taekwondo. I would never (never, ever) have started without them. The dojang became a second home for my family. We stood at attention in different places in the lines, but still feeling the family bond. We each progressed at different speeds with our own unique challenges, but each was a coach for the other either on forms, on a kicking technique, or for impromptu sparring matches. We did kick each other a lot. My butt, being the largest, seemed to attract the most feet. Our family grew even larger with the others in the dojang. A group of us spent ten years in the program and shared in personal, family, and taekwondo crises. It was a celebration each time one of us passed the test (after years) to gain the black belt.

Third son and his mother after black belt test

Second daughter focusing

Fourth son joining the rest of us in the class

First daughter and me at her black belt test

Instructor: I am certain that I would never had stayed in the martial arts had I not had the instructor I had. If you are picturing Mr. Myogi, don’t. One of the masters from the show “Kung Fu”? Nope. The school owner and instructor more or less fell into ownership by accident. He had a wife and two kids and worked maintenance for an explosives company. He really wasn’t full of ancient wisdom and sage advice. He was, however, full of fighting, taekwondo spirit guided by a genuine concern for his fellow human being. He was big and strong, yet he never once kicked me out of control. I saw him spar convincingly with my young children and yet never caused them any fear. He had a gift for bringing confidence and self-respect out of the most timid.

Our instructor with my daghter at a homecoming party (he just came back from Iraq)

My instructor (back left) and his wife hugging my daughter at her black belt test

Fear: There are many forms of exercise a middle-aged man can engage in to try to keep fit. I worked with a fellow who would bike sixty miles to work one or two days a week. My brother took up rock climbing. Others just hit the gym. None of these did the one thing I needed—strike at my fear. I am a big guy, but I have always been more fearful than fearsome. I lived in fear of confrontations, verbal or physical. When I saw my kids in taekwondo and learned they had full-contact sparring and competitions where knockouts were allowed it scared me. And so I joined up. Luke Skywalker went into the cave to face himself. I went into that dojang to face myself. I went in at least three nights a week for ten years with butterflies in my stomach. I always came out feeling great. In my first competition I faced two opponents who were yellow belts (I was just white). My coach came by and whispered to me these encouraging words, “I know your opponents and they kick hard.” I was terrified. When the first match ended and they raised my arm as the winner my heart sank. That meant I had to fight the second guy. I won that match also.  I saw the tape of the match. My hands were visibly shaking (from fear, not some martial arts mystery force). My opponents and I had nothing like Bruce Lee about us. We looked like two bulls trying to find their way out of china shop first.  From there I went on and my fears became controllable. Today I am no more “dangerous” than I was before I started taekwondo, just a lot happier.

That's me blocking the back kick with my stomach in a competition

I broke a brick at my black belt test

Me receiving my black belt. Oldest son is next to me and daughter standing in foreground

As you can see I chose the “boot to the head” over the “corvette and blond” approach to my midlife crisis (many boots to the head, actually). Considering the fact that I still have the love and respect of my wife and children (although I looked funny in my karate pajamas) I think I made a good choice. Martial arts isn’t for everyone. I had such a fantastic experience that I can’t imagine it happening twice. Everything just came together to give me and my family an unforgettable experience that continues on in different forms today.

Countdown to Prayer

You would think that in a small house such as ours it wouldn't be difficult to round up eight children and get them to the table for dinner. It should be something akin to a couple of cowboys herding cattle in a small pen toward an open gate. In reality it is more like squeezing a balloon—the air leaves where you compress, but it just pops up in two more places. Barb and I do have one thing on our side—hunger. With the help of our squeezing, or in spite of it, all of the air eventually goes to where the smell of the food is.

Interestingly enough now that all the children are at the table the next step is even more difficult. We can't get everyone to shut up for the blessing on the food. Oh, we can get one or two to stop talking, but never everyone at the same time. Autumn will be telling someone about the book she was reading just before coming to the table. Jory will be tormenting Glory about imaginary floaties in her drinking cup. Clory is telling Barbara about her choice of beads for a necklace masterpiece she is making. Little Story will have a hand on either side of my face making me look into his eyes while he painfully explains something that I can't understand.

“Rory, would you say the prayer?” I say loudly enough for everyone to hear. Rory, playing finger drums on the table, glances my way and acknowledges my request with his eyes. His finger drumming continues, however, not in defiance of my request, but because the chatter around the table continues—four or five conversations at once that create such a cacophony that my sanity seems challenged.

“Autumn! We are saying the prayer.” Autumn glares at me for stopping her mid-sentence.

“Jory! Glory! It's prayer time!” They ignore me. “JORY!” I raise my voice. He stops talking but looks at me with impatience. But by now Autumn has decided that she can finish telling Cory her story about her book before I can get the rest of the kids quiet. I have taken two steps forward and slid back one.

I am really hungry. The potatoes are getting cold. The chatter of a bunch of happy, or relatively happy kids, just won't stop. It seems I have only two choices:

1. I can start to eat without a prayer. But I really want to thank the Lord for his blessings before I do.

2. I am a big guy with a powerful voice. I could scream “SHUT UP!” and get everyone to stop talking at once. I think I have tried this before and found that the ugly feeling such a voice brings makes the following prayer hypocritical. Another problem with this method is that I would have to keep doing it at each meal because it is a very ineffective training method.

Then I was struck with pure inspiration.

“Ten, nine, eight . . .” I said loudly. Autumn stops talking and looks quizzically at me.

“Seven, six, five . . .” Clorinda closes her mouth and looks at me wonderingly.

“Four, three, two . . .” Jory and Glory happily join in with the countdown. Story grins broadly.

“ONE.” Rory, who has caught on quickly, is ready and begins the blessing on the food before control is lost again. Immediately after the prayer the chatter erupts like water from a freshly unkinked hose, but it is okay now because the food serving process can begin.

The “prayer countdown” has continued at each meal to this day. Some of the children will assist in the countdown. Others will continue their lively conversations until “one” is said, then there is a sweet moment of silence as the blessing begins.

Momentary Connections

A movie is playing on the DVD. In our cramped living room our children have plopped wherever they can find room: on the couch, in the worn-out banana chair, on the floor, in the old wooden rocker, and one on top of the unfolded laundry. I take my gaze away from the TV to look at each of my children. I was there at each of their births, but at this moment I suddenly feel how independent of me they are or will be. I study the face of each child wondering at what I have had a part in creating. How can this be? How can someone ignorant of life's secrets be allowed the privilege to help create a human soul—a soul with the potential of becoming like God? None of my children notice my wondering scrutiny and instead stare at the scenes on the TV. That is until I come to twelve-year-old Cory. As I am studying his face he must sense my gaze. Without warning his head turns and his eyes meet mine. He doesn't know why I am looking at him, but it doesn't seem to bother him. I don't know what he is seeing from his view point as he looks into my eyes, but he has the grace to smile at me before he turns his head back to the TV. His smile is simple, sincere, and beautiful. His smile says to me, “I am comfortable with you, Dad, and I love you.” That instant of eye contact, that selfless smile, they were a gift of God from a soul we had created together, but they looked to me to be from the part that God created.

Suddenly Glory

The workings of a household with many children can be mysterious. As a father I am aware that there is a world of which I am not a full member—a world where I am an outlawed creature, but tolerated on the edges. As a caring father, one who really enjoys spending time with children doing the things they like to do, this baffles me a little. My children love me. They seek out my company often each day. And yet there is a place “Dad” cannot come. The world is for children and I am an adult. My children did not make up the rules for this world; they and I are just living under a law of reality.

I had been working in my office all day, neglecting even to come in for lunch. Around three o’clock, when I realized I was a little hungry, I left my project on my desk and came into the house for some food and a break. In my home, when everyone is home, there are ten people—Mom and Dad and eight children. My home is small and the presence of others is easily detected. On this day as I entered the back door I detected nothing but silence, something that is very unusual. One son is on a mission in Canada. Two other sons, although living at home, were at work. That accounted for three children. As I walked through the kitchen into the sitting room I found my three-year-old, Story, sprawled out in nothing but his diaper asleep on the couch. So there was the fourth. I recalled my wife telling me she was going to step out on an errand. She sometimes takes Clory, my twelve-year-old, with her. That accounted for my wife and a fifth child. So where were the other three?

Then I heard little voices. I followed their soft melody to the back bedroom. There I found the other three all sitting on the top bunk. Lory, ten, was lying at one end looking up at the ceiling as she talked. Jory, seven, was at the other end sitting up and pressing the bottom of his bare feet against Lory’s feet and giggling about something. Glory was sitting in the middle, to the side of the other’s legs, against the railing.

I strode into the room and rested my head on my hands on the edge of the top bunk. The children were aware of me, but they were in that world I could not enter and said nothing to me. After a minute of listening to their comments and laughter that mean nothing now I ventured some words to see if they would recognize and communicate with me.

“Did you guys have lunch yet?”

Lory glanced at me and nodded. “Peanut butter jelly sandwiches,” she said. She immediately looked back at the ceiling, kicked Jory’s feet and laughed at some continuing joke I was not privy to.

I felt a little lonely standing there in the presence of three of my children. But then I noticed Glory, 5. She was looking at me from across the bed with those big, brown eyes. I felt like I, an outsider, was in a jungle and some creature of the jungle had taken notice of me. Glory presently is the most mysterious of all my children--at least to me. She needs me as her father, but only at her convenience. Her world is quite independent. I see her and hear her during the day, but she calls on me only when it is in her interest to do so. For instance, I will be watching a movie in the evening. I will make myself comfortable on the love seat with various family members in various seats and positions throughout the room. I will suddenly become aware that my once empty lap is now occupied by Glory. She will have made herself quite comfortable as if I am a lounger. I didn’t notice when she arrived in my lap. Suddenly Glory was just there because it suited her. After giving the movie my attention for awhile I will look down to find my lap empty again and Glory nowhere to be seen. I didn’t notice her leave. Suddenly Glory is just gone.

On this day Glory’s eyes lock on me. She says nothing and I raise my eyebrows in wonder. Then Glory, who is sitting Indian style, leans slowly across the bed and presses her lips against my cheek. Next she presses her cheek against my lips. Then she withdraws back across the bed and back into her world. I try to follow her, but run up against the barrier no adult can cross. I realize Glory has given me a gift from her world. Knowing I have been favored, but can expect no more, I withdraw in search of a peanut butter jelly sandwich.

Suddenly Glory

The workings of a household with many children can be mysterious. As a father I am aware that there is a world of which I am not a full member—a world where I am an outlawed creature, but tolerated on the edges. As a caring father, one who really enjoys spending time with children doing the things they like to do, this baffles me a little. My children love me. They seek out my company often each day. And yet there is a place “Dad” cannot come. The world is for children and I am an adult. My children did not make up the rules for this world; they and I are just living under a law of reality.

I had been working in my office all day, neglecting even to come in for lunch. Around three o’clock, when I realized I was a little hungry, I left my project on my desk and came into the house for some food and a break. In my home, when everyone is home, there are ten people—Mom and Dad and eight children. My home is small and the presence of others is easily detected. On this day as I entered the back door I detected nothing but silence, something that is very unusual. One son is on a mission in Canada. Two other sons, although living at home, were at work. That accounted for three children. As I walked through the kitchen into the sitting room I found my three-year-old, Story, sprawled out in nothing but his diaper asleep on the couch. So there was the fourth. I recalled my wife telling me she was going to step out on an errand. She sometimes takes Clory, my twelve-year-old, with her. That accounted for my wife and a fifth child. So where were the other three?

Then I heard little voices. I followed their soft melody to the back bedroom. There I found the other three all sitting on the top bunk. Lory, ten, was lying at one end looking up at the ceiling as she talked. Jory, seven, was at the other end sitting up and pressing the bottom of his bare feet against Lory’s feet and giggling about something. Glory was sitting in the middle, to the side of the other’s legs, against the railing.

I strode into the room and rested my head on my hands on the edge of the top bunk. The children were aware of me, but they were in that world I could not enter and said nothing to me. After a minute of listening to their comments and laughter that mean nothing now I ventured some words to see if they would recognize and communicate with me.

“Did you guys have lunch yet?”

Lory glanced at me and nodded. “Peanut butter jelly sandwiches,” she said. She immediately looked back at the ceiling, kicked Jory’s feet and laughed at some continuing joke I was not privy to.

I felt a little lonely standing there in the presence of three of my children. But then I noticed Glory, 5. She was looking at me from across the bed with those big, brown eyes. I felt like I, an outsider, was in a jungle and some creature of the jungle had taken notice of me. Glory presently is the most mysterious of all my children--at least to me. She needs me as her father, but only at her convenience. Her world is quite independent. I see her and hear her during the day, but she calls on me only when it is in her interest to do so. For instance, I will be watching a movie in the evening. I will make myself comfortable on the love seat with various family members in various seats and positions throughout the room. I will suddenly become aware that my once empty lap is now occupied by Glory. She will have made herself quite comfortable as if I am a lounger. I didn’t notice when she arrived in my lap. Suddenly Glory was just there because it suited her. After giving the movie my attention for awhile I will look down to find my lap empty again and Glory nowhere to be seen. I didn’t notice her leave. Suddenly Glory is just gone.

On this day Glory’s eyes lock on me. She says nothing and I raise my eyebrows in wonder. Then Glory, who is sitting Indian style, leans slowly across the bed and presses her lips against my cheek. Next she presses her cheek against my lips. Then she withdraws back across the bed and back into her world. I try to follow her, but run up against the barrier no adult can cross. I realize Glory has given me a gift from her world. Knowing I have been favored, but can expect no more, I withdraw in search of a peanut butter jelly sandwich.