I Have These, and I Am Lucky

There’s an intentionally idiotic contest I have with a colleague of mine who works in my office. It began when I started to amass decorative items on my desktop. Some of them are from my kids, such as a retractable keyboard brush that says “#1 Dad,” or a cell phone holder which I use to hold my business cards with “Dad” printed on it also, and a vinyl, stuffed “Yankees” baseball, among other things.

One day, as I was digging through reams of data, I took note of the stuff I am hoarding on my workspace. I picked up and scented candle given to me as a Christmas present years ago and I said:

“Richard, I have this, and you do not.”

He took note of my offering, searched his messy surroundings and picked up one of his items, I think it was a can of Pepsi, and replied: “Michael, I have this, and you do not.”

And so, our juvenile game was born.

Yet, that is not why I have these trinkets and souvenirs in the first place.  In the past week, I added two wooden shot glasses with “Haiti” carved on one of them which I bought while on a cruise with my family this summer. Our ship stopped in Labadee, Haiti, and I bargained for them with the shop owner.  He started the bidding at twenty-five dollars each. After I told him that only in Fantasy Land he can get someone to pay that kind of money for his junk, I whittled him down to three dollars apiece. When I look at them positioned beneath my monitor, I think about wading through the waters under the Haitian sky with my son riding on my back. My wife and daughter are on the beach trying to get tan, and for a day, we are in paradise.

Have Phone, Will Shoot -- Pictures

The cell phone is so ubiquitous, that no one questions the fact that these devices have become more like Swiss Army knives than merely telephones. I remember when I made my first cell phone call. It was in my friend Jeff's car and we were coming back from the Hamptons. It was around 1992. I remember this because my wife and I were married the year before and we were no longer newlyweds by then.

Jeff bought this gray, wedge of plastic with large punch buttons, and a narrow LCD screen for around three hundred dollars. Though cell phones had been around for a few years by then, they were for people with money who also liked to flaunt the fact that they were able to make phone calls from train platforms and restaurants. I joked with my friend telling that if he waited a year, phone companies would be giving them away. Wow, was I right on that one. 

A Ghost in the Dunes

On the second tier at the Nikon Theater at Jones Beach, I settled into my seat for the big concert. My wife and I took our kids to see My Chemical Romance and Blink 182 for the Tenth Anniversary Honda Civic Tour. Though it was quite a while since I attended a show at this arena, I have a long history at Jones Beach State Park.

My father was a World War II veteran who worked for the Brooklyn Navy Yard for twenty years. Upon his retirement, he got a job with the now-defunct Long Island State Park Commission. He spent his time traveling back and forth between Robert Moses State Park, Captree, and Jones Beach. During the summer, he’d take my brothers and sisters and me to any of the fields at Robert Moses and leave us while he went about his duties. I was the fifth child out of six, and my older sister was well-equipped to keep a careful eye on us younger ones while we splashed around in the waves.

It was comforting to see Dad stop by in one of the park vehicles to check on us. He’d have a worried expression on his face, wondering if we were having a good time and if there was any danger of leaving us alone. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when we visited our summer paradise, a tradition was born.

I remember riding with Dad in a green, state-owned truck as he went about his routine. He seemed important wherever he went, and he loved what he did immensely. It was the environment, the ocean and the dunes, which made him inhale deeply and smile as he scanned the horizon. I always sensed that he felt lucky to be so close to nature and to visit such a beautiful place each day. As he was not a wealthy man, his appreciation for the parks is his legacy for his family.

My wife and I make it a point to take our kids to the beach in the warm months. During winter, we eat bagels and drink coffee and juice while watching wild deer from inside our parked car at Robert Moses. When friends are in town, I bring them on a tour of the area, and I convey what I know about each location as I recall what my dad taught me. The iconic water towers, the lengthy bridges, the bathhouses, all fell under his purview. My father helped maintain these landmarks. His fingers touched steel beams and stone, which tens of thousands see each day during summer.

All that was part of my childhood is present still after my father’s passing. The striped umbrellas, boardwalks, concession stands, saltwater taffy, and the amphitheater are as enduring as my precious, early memories. As I sat in the fold-down seat at the Nikon Theater last Saturday with my family, I was host to a stadium full of strangers. My life took root in this very place. In the waters to my left, boaters awaited a musical performance. Overhead, clouds winked with a suggestion of rain, and to my right, beachgoers bid farewell to the sand and the ocean for the evening. I sat back and imagined that among the wavy crests of sand dunes, in the inky shadows stretching wide, my father was smiling, and at home in the park he loved so dearly.

By Michael J. Kannengieser

Photo by M.J. Kannengieser

When Faith Died

The week before Easter, I was talking with acquaintances at my son’s lacrosse game. When asked if I was going to church on the holiday, I fumbled as did not know what to say. The answer was no, and the moment of awkwardness did not pass quickly. They could not know that my struggle with faith was more germane at present than ever before.

When my father was alive, I could refer to him and say that he had enough devotion for his entire family. We attended mass when we visited him, or when he came to our home for the weekend I took him to our parish. When he died, those opportunities vanished, and so did my connection to the church.

Seasons Of Living

This is the first Christmas season without my mother and father and it has hit me hard. Granted, I am a middle aged man with a family, and there are those who have suffered greater losses while much younger. Still, my children miss them very much, and their passing left a big hole in our lives. Also, not having parents leaves me at the top of the family tree along with my brothers and sisters. I’m too young for that, I think.

My nieces and nephews are either in college or getting ready to go. My daughter is in high school and we are already picking out universities from websites and catalogs. My son will be entering middle school next September, and I feel like life is sailing past me rapidly. I’m in my forties, sliding down the back end of the hill. There’s nothing but gray hair and an A.A.R.P. membership in my future. I’m not unhappy, but I have a vague sense that I lack accomplishment.

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Public Relations & You

I’ve been asked by a professor at the college where I am employed to deliver a lecture on public relations. My speech is tailored to the young, inexperienced, undergraduates in her class. The main theme will focus on how the demeanor and appearance of job seekers influences potential employers.

In my other professional life, I am managing editor for fiction for an international literary magazine. In that role I get to read some well written stories. In many cases, however, I must turn writers down in short order. My duty is to accept only the best a writer has to offer which complements the style accepted by the periodical I work for. I am intolerant towards authors who submit poorly written query letters which do not provide a plot summary or begin with a salutation. Many of the e-mails I receive are composed like text messages and expose the authors as incompetent writers. This brings me to my earlier ideas on public relations.

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A Learning Moment

“Do you want to know what the President did today?” I asked my ten year old son. He wasn’t paying attention as he was playing Nintendo. With my laptop on, I scrolled through news websites with the TV on in the background.

He came over to see what I was talking about. There was a picture on the Drudge Report of President Obama, Vice President Biden, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Sgt. James Crowley. This was the scene which the President hoped for, a “teaching moment.”

My son asked me what I was talking about and I showed him the photo. I then explained about the arrest of Professor Gates and the misunderstanding about race, and why it became important for President Obama to preside over this meeting. My son sensed that this was a significant story. He nodded his head and listened as I spoke. “He’s doing a good thing, he’s a nice president” he said. He paused over the laptop a moment longer and I patted him on the back.

As a former New York City police officer, I can closely relate to Sgt. Crowley and his handling of the burglary investigation. I’ve never been accused of racial profiling in my career; yet, I can detail incidents where bystanders expressed antipathy towards the white officers present at the scene. Upon reading the report of the incident at Professors Gates’ home, my reaction was to side with Sgt. Crowley.

Phone Envy

My wireless carrier offered me a brand new phone if I added another line. So far, there are three names on our account: my wife, my fourteen year old daughter, and of course, me. Our daughter was the first to chime in on the topic.

She reasoned that my son, who is going into the fifth grade “needs” a phone so he can text his friends (who each have one) and call us when he want to be picked up from a play date. Our carrier would send our son the latest and greatest which technology has to offer; and, I can’t see why he would require such a gadget. I get by with my standard-issue flip phone. Why does he have to own a cell phone with a keyboard and movie camera?

The Business of Men

Mr. Hoyt’s truck overflowed with the stock of his trade; car parts of all types, tires, and occasionally, kitchen appliances. He’d park his large, creaky, vehicle across the street from our home by Mr. Lowman’s house. It was one of many stops he’d make in the course of a day to sell his goods.

Mr. Lowman was a mechanic who relied upon Mr. Hoyt to supply him with the components he needed to run a part-time auto repair business from his garage. We lived in a blue collar neighborhood and it was necessary for people to work more than one job in order to make ends meet. My dad was no exception.

As a boy of maybe five or six years old, I’d watch Mr. Hoyt amble across the street to our home to meet with my dad, leaving his sons to tend to the business of off-loading tires and other items. Dad would greet him at our front door and invite him inside to discuss their particular deals over a cup of coffee in the kitchen. During the holidays, they’d sip whiskey in the dining room like gentlemen, as they would not drink in front of my mother.

My dad was an oil burner mechanic. Mr. Hoyt, being the type of business man he was, knew folks who needed work done and found people to do the work for them. He could rely on my father to answer his phone in the middle of the night and then run out to fix an ailing boiler during the cold, winter months. I am still not sure what the arrangement between the two of them was; but, my father was happy to greet him, and Mr. Hoyt always walked away with a smile and an envelope.

There was nothing peculiar about a grown man providing products and services to the mechanics and utility men of my neighborhood. However, the era of my childhood was the 1960’s and Mr. Hoyt was an African American. One needs to remember these were the years when the late Dr. Martin Luther King was leading peaceful marches across the south, and ultimately in Washington D.C. for civil rights. In the mean time, Mr. Hoyt drove his panel truck across town and through neighborhoods where he was not able to buy a home, in order to provide for his family.

He was a fixture in our lives until I entered high school, and when my Dad found another line of work which was more lucrative and did not require him breaking his back. Mr. Hoyt still visited his other client across the street from us. In his later years, his beard turned white and his body became slightly stooped, as he was a lot older than the men he provided both parts and work for. By then, his sons did most of the driving and heavy lifting, and my dad still invited him inside for coffee when he came around.

In my early childhood, he was the only black man I was familiar with. Yet, as welcome as he was in our home and Mr. Lowman’s, others were not as tolerant.

A man named Slater who once lived in the house next to Mr. Lowman, originally hailed from Kentucky; and, he was fond of displaying a large Confederate flag on his front porch. Mr. Hoyt often parked his truck in front of Slater’s residence, and he had to endure the malevolent Civil War banner staring him in the face. Mr. Slater would then scurry next door upon seeing him arrive in order to purchase wares from him too. That type of ignorance is too baffling to comprehend.

Mr. Slater liked me and would often wave as I rode my bike up and down the street with my friends. One particular Fourth of July, when I was about twelve or thirteen years old he draped his detestable Confederate flag on the wall of his porch again. I reminded him that Kentucky was a border state during the Civil War and officially remained neutral during that conflict, making his allegiance to the Confederacy both odd and gratuitous.

He didn’t wave so much to me anymore after that little history lesson. How he reconciled his bitter, racist beliefs with his genial, yet inhibited relationship with Mr. Hoyt was beyond me.

I can’t remember when I stopped seeing Mr. Hoyt come around. To this day, Mr. Lowman still occasionally fixes cars for pay in his garage but the kind gentleman and his sons aren’t the suppliers he relies on to keep his side business going.

When I was a boy, I understood the awkwardness of whites and blacks doing business in a world of hate, mistrust, and segregation. There were the cold stares of those who drove past his truck piled high with vehicle parts, and with his two teenaged sons in the front seat waiting patiently for their father. The young men would look away or talk quietly while ignoring those who could not identify with my dad and our neighbor who invited a black man to our quaint row of homes.

In the decades since those days when Mr. Hoyt took his commerce wherever he saw fit, our society has changed. One could not appreciate how dramatically different it is now if they did not witness a business man having to tread carefully down a suburban street just to make a living, compared to just a few days ago our nation elected a man to become the next president who also happens to be African American.

I do not know where Mr. Hoyt is today or even if he is still alive. However, I believe that his sons appreciate now, more than ever, the fortitude and courage displayed by their father as he drove down boulevards and across racial divides to conduct the business of men.

-Michael J. Kannengieser