They're Dropping Like Flies...

Where the term "...dropping like flies...", this Posting's Title, originated from is almost as confusing as it's literally meaning. I, for one, have never observed a single fly just keel over in mid-flight, let alone a whole group suddenly meet their maker without the benefit of a can of Raid.

Most of us, however, know the general meaning of the axiom and I use it because a number of friends, ex-teammates, work associates are among the many individuals that have met with an early exit from this mortal life this summer. Other friends have had some close calls with open heart surgery, chemo, and other life-altering ailments.

All of this bad news has put me into a funk.

Part of the psychology of aging is the coming to grips with your own mortality contrasted with your most basic of desires to keep breathing, remain upright and above ground. So now, anytime I experience a hint of heartburn, the slightest numbness anywhere, minor ache, or pain it is sufficient reason to panic fearing that the BIG ONE has come!

Therefore, I have decided that when I do kick it (aka: buy the pinewood condo, kick the oxygen habit, or PC version "become metaphysically challenged"), it will be with humor.

I haven't completely decided yet, but here are a few ideas for what I want my epitaph to read:

I TOLD YOU I WAS SICK...

HEY, AT LEAST I'M FINALLY LOSING SOME WEIGHT!

(In real small letters at the bottom of the head stone) IF YOU CAN READ THIS YOU ARE KNEELING ON MY HEAD...

DON'T LOOK NOW BUT I AM STANDING RIGHT BEHIND YOU!

IT REALLY STINKS IN HERE...

IF YOU HEAR SNORING, DIG ME UP!

DON'T BE SMUG, YOU ARE ONE BIG MAC AWAY FROM BEING HERE TOO!

Ahhhh....Summer!

I have always loved the summer.

Vacations, swimming pools, baseball, the beach, camping, and all the activities. Most of the great memories I have occurred during the summer.

Until now.

Saturday, after spending the better part of the morning and early afternoon in the backyard cleaning and power washing the barbecue grill I was hot and sweaty. The pool looked extremely inviting, and Olivia (age 3), my granddaughter, was encouraging me to join her and Nana in the pool.

I already had my swimsuit on so I thought I would enjoy a refreshing plunge. As Olivia, stood by the edge waiting for me, I removed my shirt.

Olivia stared wide-eyed at my chest and then declared,

"Papa! You have BREASTS!"

She yelled this loud enough, I am quite sure, for the entire neighborhood to hear.

I am hitting the gym today.

Cry Wolf!

My son, Derek, is currently serving as a missionary in Lima, Peru. He left the comforts of home, family and friends to serve for two years among the people of Peru. Elder Olson has a little more than a year left on his mission and has grown a lot spiritually, but...

The phone rang at our house around 11:15 pm and my heart jumped. Typically, a phone call this late at night is not a welcomed event because it usually involves something that is either bad news, inconvenient news, or the guard house saying that my garage door is open (our community has an unnerving fetish about open garage doors, which is ironically interesting since, if I am living in a gated community with a security patrol, should not my garage be safe?)

I answer the phone with a timid, "Hello?"

"Is this Brother Olson?" came the voice of a young man on the other end of the line.

The "brother" part of his question is the obvious giveaway that it is a church member calling, but I am curious, because most Mormons are asleep by 10 pm on a weeknight. (BYU students would be the exception here)


"Yes..." I responded. The line is clear of any static so I am thinking it is one of our local missionaries calling me about something. I am thinking, he is up way too late...


"This is Elder Brandenburg from the Peru Lima North Mission..." he says. My heart starts to pound and it feels like I can't breathe.


"Brother Olson, are you sitting down?"


Now I am in the throes of a full on panic attack as I tell the Elder on the phone to "hold on" while I turn off the din of ESPN spewing out, what is now, totally insignificant scores. I yell to my wife, Margo, to come downstairs.


I take a deep breath and pick up the receiver again, still standing, but leaning on the counter in the full anticipation of the horrible news that awaits my ears.


"Okay, I am here, what..."

Elder Brandenburg interrupts me in mid sentence, "I have bad news..."

Time begins to slow as I interpolate the rest of his sentence and my heart begins to explode in the anticipated and overwhelming grief that comes to any parent who has ever lost a child...


"Elder Olson has..."


Tears are welling in my eyes and I am now mentally resigned to the "what happened" and wondering the "how's"...

"broken..."


Huh?


"his..."


He is alive...this is good...


"camera...and the bad news is that it will cost about $300 for the new one that he really wants!"

There is giggling in the background. I hear a faint, "I love you papa!"


Elder Brandenburg, along with Elder Derek Jay Olson, work in the mission office and were waiting for a group of missionaries to arrive very late (or very early in the morning) from the U.S. and, with the 2 hour time difference, made it around 1:30 am in Peru when they decided to pass some time with a prank call.


Giddy from an apparent lack of sleep, and (I am being extremely lenient here) their judgement impaired by fatigue, and (the old fall back) Elders will be Elders...they decided that it is not against the rules for an elder to call (and play a joke upon) another elder's father...just twisted, and worthy of Extreme Repentance...(yes, I am talking to you too, Brandenburg!)


Sitting on our shelf, at the top of the steps of our home, is a portrait of Elder Derek Jay Olson and beside it is a "Missionary Countdown Clock", indicating that he has 410 days left on his mission.

410 days.

Then, I am gonna kill him myself...

Out at the plate!

Time, someone once said, is God's way of preventing everything from happening at once.

It was a nice base hit to left field, just between the outstretched glove of the shortstop.

Me, being the runner on second base, make a mad dash to third with the full intention of scoring on this play. As I have taught all my high school players to do, I hit the inside part of the base with my right foot and head for home with legs wheeling and arms pumping in the up-down and straight back motion that our speed coaches preach. As home plate draws nearer, my heart is pounding from the 180 foot sprint and from the anticipation of adding an insurance run to our somewhat tenuous 3 run lead.

As I look up one last time to see if a slide is necessary or if I should just "go in standing" I notice the opposing team's catcher firmly camped (I use the word "camped" for obvious reasons that will become apparent shortly) at home plate. With the ball securely in his catcher's glove via a relay throw from that very shortstop who, only moments ago, agonized over his almost miraculous defensive play, he applies the tag as I deftly attempt a hook slide to the right side of home plate.

YOU'RE OUT! Comes the call from the home plate umpire...whose parting comment to me is, "Hey, 32, nice effort..." I walk slowly back to the dugout nursing my newly-skinned knees.

(EDITORS NOTE: Let me inject a "sports information tidbit" here so that the punchline is more relevant: Pro players can usually run to first in 4 seconds or less.)

The play described above took roughly 30 seconds....

The mad dash home was perhaps the slowest in recorded (or even unrecorded) baseball history. The only reason it was even close was that the shortstop was so surprised to see me rounding third that he finished tying his shoe, put his glove back on, and then threw home.

My speed can now be "timed" with a calendar.

We all get old, but for me this is the first time.

When I was young, I never heeded the warnings of my future "allies in age", my elders. The stories of their feats of athleticism during their youth were apocryphal at best and most likely an outright lie. I would look at their aging physical forms and to visualize anything remotely athletic was an impossible task. Their only rejoinder was a simple, "Yeah, one day you'll be my age too!"...

The thought then creeps across your mind like the crawling headlines on the bottom of the screen on CNN...

"Yeah right, you old fart..."

Now, I am relegated by the Master of Time, to only remembering being fast, thin, and athletic. Running a 4.7 second 40 yard dash during my football tryouts at Contra Costa College is the truth-turned-to-lie that I must endure till my tenure here on earth is complete. Diving for balls hit deep in the hole or making a game saving catch in center field are only in the memory banks and no film exists to support the claim. The only evidence that it ever happened at all are the faint scars on my arms and knees.

Yeah, getting old sucks. But to you young guns out there who doubt my stories of glory I have one thing to say...

"Someday you will be my age too!"

And that, my friends in this time continuum, is every old person's revenge (that and Depends)!

Doggone it...

Well, I knew it...the puppy training, discipline, and clean up has fallen upon me as expected...

Pooper scooper technology has improved since Zoey, our families first dog (who was inherited by my business associate, Paul, after Alex was born). So the stinkin' task is not as distasteful as the old days of sliding the "post-production kibble" into a dustpan on a stick.

The latest version of Poopscooping technology is the "Jaws of Death" where you squeeze the handle and the two opposing "jaws" open wide allowing you to surround, and upon releasing the handle, deftly snatch those offending lawn nuggets.

Which brings me to a fundamental social dilemma...Doggy-doo etiquette.

I am a neophyte dog walker. However, I have observed over the years a variety of dog owners and the manner in which they handle their dog's business. There are several types:

Type 1: The Conscientious dogwalker. He/she carries a variety of socially responsible, biodegradable, and earth friendly poop collectors and is quick to pick up his charge's dump at any time and any place. All their dogs are anal retentive.

Type 2: The Clueless dogwalker. He/she rarely leashes their dog. They just take their pet on a "walk" as an excuse to get out of the house and smoke a cigarette. They don't even know their beloved pooch just poached on your newly sodded lawn. If they do, they just shrug their shoulders and give you a look that says, "You should be glad my Bull Mastiff didn't tear your leg off...oh, and have a nice day!"

Type 3: The Charlatan dogwalker. He/she walks with the basic of dog doo disposal tools, the white plastic grocery bag clearly in sight of anyone who should observe said dogwalker. Secure in the knowledge that should their mutt "manure-mine" the property of a neighbor, if it is unobserved by anyone, stays put, smoldering on the grass, subscribing to the philosophy of, "If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it really make a sound?". If, however, they are within visual proximity of anyone, they become a concerned and responsible dog owner and grab up the goodies using their remedial retrieval system with a Pharisaic smugness that shouts out..."Look at the righteous dog owner!".

What category do I fall into? Let's just say that the lack of light that the early morning provides is an added benefit when I walk the puppy with my plastic Safeway bag...

Lost your puppy? Call the Doggone department.

Reply All...

There are a number of things in life that provide immediate humiliation.

A noisy, uncontrolled fart in a quiet, yet crowded, elevator.

Shutting your locked car door, only to notice at the very last moment, that your keys are still snuggly in the ignition.

Accidently using the "Reply All" in a very personal, private e-mail.

My wife, Margo, is the principal of an elementary school. During the spring break she received an e-mail from a School District colleague requesting that she contact a student's mother regarding some special education issues.

Now, Margo is probably the kindest, sweetest person on the face of the earth. She is always polite and professional in all her dealings with both parents and staff. However, on this particular e-mail she decided to take a candid and harsh approach in detailing her experiences with this particular mother. She recounted numerous meetings with the mother that led her to believe that not only the child but the mother herself was "special ed". It was a scathing indictment of an overly aggressive and difficult mother.

When Margo was about to e-mail her reply to the District colleague and a District Administrator she decided to use, Reply All. Unfortunately, the originator of the email from the district had Carbon Copied or "CC"'d the mother who was the subject of the email.

So, she too, got Margo's e-mail reply.

Technology's version of Instant Karma...

The offended mother fired off her own e-mail to Margo describing how upset she was about the e-mail. Margo offered a sincere and humble apology.

Suggestion to all ISP's who have e-mail: Please have an "are you sure you want to send this e-mail to All?" (similar to when you are deleting a file). Or perhaps more importantly the disclaimer: "Are you sure this e-mail isn't going to someone you don't want it to go to, isn't going to start a world war, or isn't going to PerezHilton.com?"

Unlike a crowded elevator, it is tough to blame someone else...

Insults, insults...

You would think that having reached a certain age you would command enough respect from those significantly younger.

Most recent insults are in reverse chronological order but not by severity.

During a recent trip to my doctor, I was referred to a cardiologist to have a stress test and EKG done. After completing the stress test the cardiologist came in and went over the results with me. He asked me some questions aimed at identifying any obvious symptoms like, do you have pain here, here, or HERE. After responding negatively to all the standard doctor questions, he kind of rolled his eyes and dismissed me with, "Well, Mr. Olson, there is really nothing we can see that is wrong with your heart..." (Except for the fact that my dad died of a heart attack at the same age, you moron...) and "come back if you have any symptoms I described..." (wouldn't I be dead?) Then as a final aside he said, "Pick up that chair..." (ahhh, another test to check out my strength, dexterity...) I complied and lifted the chair easily and anxiously awaited the results of this new, yet simple, test. "You are carrying around that chair all day, every day. Lose the chair..." with that, he spun and left the exam room. Ouch. Just tell me I'm fat. I don't need an object lesson.

Numero Dos. Just before the new year I decided it was time for my semi-annual haircut. I just forget to go to the barber until my hair is way out of control. I walked into Super Cuts, which is like the Kmart of hair salons. Usually I get a non-english speaking woman to cut my hair but on this occasion I got some old guy whose first comment to me was..."you look horrible with long hair..." (hence the reason I am here Einstein...) He goes on, "you need to have a shorter hair cut like Harrison Ford..." (hey, I see your point, we are like twins...) Now, I have always been used to scissor cuts, he starts with scissors then moves on to an object I only have seen done to others, an electric razor that has a "number" associated with the blade...I have no idea what he is talking about when he says "number 4" but I soon, unfortunately find out. This is no haircut, this is a massacre. By the time I can object, my head is virtually shaved. I cannot pinch my hair. Proudly, he states "This is how you should wear your hair and promise me you will never let it grow out long again...long hair just doesn't work on you." Okay, so now I am fat and BALD! Thank you very much. Adding insult to injury I actually tipped him.

Last but not least. I stopped on my way home at a place that had my favorite teriyaki bowls to go. The young girl behind the counter took my order, and I decided to order a second bowl for my mom whom I had just talked to on the cell phone and I told her I would bring her by some dinner. So as I ordered I casually added (thinking that it would sound thoughtful) "Let me get a second bowl for my mom too..." To which she responded with a look of disdain and disbelief, "You still live with your mother???"

Okay, so I am a middle aged fat, bald guy who lives with his mother...can it get any worse?