You got to ac-centuate the postive, e-lim-inate the negative, hold on to the affirmative and don't mess with Mr. In Between.

YIt was a pretty good day out at LeRoy's. I gave us a bit of a pep talk along the lines of choosing one's attitude, to uncertain effect. Robyn had to work at the grocery store this afternoon and so we had a firm exit strategy. We all drove in Walker's new car, Walker proudly at the wheel.

I remember the first weeks I had my '69 Mustang I drove very carefully. After Richard Rivera said I drove like an old lady I began to experiment. Walker is in the careful stage and I hope it lasts a long time. The Forester is kind of "truckish" in a way that discourages sharp cornering. Walker says it goes through mud really well. (I wince.)

After we ate our Amana Breakfast, we went outside to walk around digest and avoid a comatose state. Walker and his cousins Caleb and Noah were playing wiffle ball. More cousins and other kids followed and soon there were two full teams dressed in their out to breakfast best playing wiffle ball in the late June morning sun. We stood and watched and cheered and the big boys were nice to the little boys, let them pitch and bunt and steal and feel like somebody. "Boy World" at its best can be a generous fair and honorable place.

I found that LeRoy's highway patrolman neighbor is an enlightened student of American Popular Music. He saw Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper in Iowa City!

After a while everybody called it a game and we headed over to LeRoy's and sat on his great big deck. We swept the water off the boards and sat in the dappled sun and shade. A doe and fawn ran across the clearing at the bottom of the hill.

The knuckleheads who can make this gathering tedious were not any less knuckle headed than they usually are. I just don't give them any more attention than I have to. My better self tries to find someone interesting to talk to or engage a cousin in a game. My darker self stews and fantasizes elaborate social revenge strategies. We usually try to keep my darker self in the car.

A year ago I was lying in a hospital bed, impossibly bruised and substantially broken, as helpless as the day I was born. Today I'm going to make some coffee and drive to see my mother and pay the bills. This year I've seen my daughter graduate and my son turn sixteen. My wife holds my hand sometimes, when no one's looking. I can wiggle my toes.

We're not going on vacation this Summer. We're going to hang around home and enjoy ourselves doing nothing. Come watch if you want.
Posted here are a couple more portraits from my weekend in Mt Horeb. Kris Rugland took my camera and took the shot of me.

And for my next trick. . .

A year ago this morning, we were on a 4 day bike trip in Wisconsin. We woke up and biked over to a restaurant in Mineral Point for breakfast.

The night before, we'd run into a bartender who was new on the job and poured "straight" drinks with outlandish generosity. Geof and I ordered Absolut on the rocks. I went the rest of the evening on that huge drink. We talked about divorce. I was chafing and resentful, Geof, a more recent veteran than I, was cautionary.

After breakfast we headed out on a spectacular ride, the sun shining and the wind at our backs. Toward 3 in the afternoon, I missed a curve at the bottom of a hill on the way to New Glarus and flew out in a helicopter, bound for Madison and the world of trauma. My family was thrown into a Summer of stress, drama and interdependence, Robyn and I were thrown, no hurled together at a time when we were emotionally the farthest apart from each other.

This morning, as I wait for the coffee to boil, I'm mindful of all the changes in my life. I'm an inch shorter, a little bent, sometimes I'm stiff. Robyn and the kids and I are close and much, much happier. In a year, I'm recovered to the point that folks are surprised when I mention the accident. We were commenting that it seems more than a year since it happened.

I was talking to Robyn the other day and wondered out loud if we'd have made it through this year as a couple if I hadn't been rendered totally helpless, if she hadn't been forced to care for me, if we hadn't had to spend all that time together with my healing. We don't know.

If God had said, "Hey Tuna, your life will get a lot better if you can fly through the air, break your back in three places and smash your face to bits." I don't think I'd have taken him up on the opportunity.

That's what happened though. Happy Father's day.

An afternoon

Sometimes technical accidents can masquerade as technique. If I send this picture to Porter's, they'll call me.

"This isn't a standard size photo. How do you want me to crop it?"

"I don't want you to crop it. Fit it into the next largest format."
"That's gonna look funny. I'm just saying."

So, what's "wrong" with the picture here? It's the reason I particularly like it. I am learning that people get used to a camera after a short while. I absolutely didn't give a damn and got a few nice shots, which I think is good, considering the material I had to work with. People stop posing after the camera has been out for a while. They go back to what they were doing. I'm hearing my buddy talk about his mother's terminal, progressive disease. I know from whence he comes, of course and tried to listen well. When the skids finally come out from under a loved one's competence, it's a depressing ride. There are some strategies. . . hanging out with your friends is one of them.