Train in Vain

Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of the Clash introduced me to my wife back in 1992.

Let me rephrase that.

Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of the Clash wrote the song that introduced me to my wife.

The tune was Train in Vain, a hidden track off of their 1979 album London Calling.


I was blaring it from my dorm room my sophomore year at the University of Delaware when someone knocked at my door.  I opened it to find a young and attractive lady on the other side.

She said she had heard the music and always wanted to know the name of that particular song.
Likely story, I thought.
I allowed her to borrow the cassette and we were soon spending a lot of time together in my room, listening to music and talking.

Things got serious between us quickly because not long after that we were exchanging mix tapes (gasp).  At that time, exchanging these cassette tapes filled with mash songs you recorded was on par with "going steady" or "pinning" your sweetheart.  Pretty heavy stuff.

Fast forward to now and the two of us are married with an eight year old boy.
I wish I still had those tapes, but they were lost long ago.  I imagine Jill has the ones I gave her somewhere and when she reads this she will be able to retrieve them from their hiding spot.  If she does find them, our new dilemma will be locating a cassette player.

Here is the song that started the romance that led to mix tapes and marriage.  Thank you, Mr. Strummer. Thank you, Mr. Jones.

Baseball

As my grandmother Martha used to say, "Spring done sprung."  The coming of the season brings songbirds, sunshine, and America's gift to the world, baseball.  There is no other sport like it.  I loved to play the game during my youth and was only kept out of the major leagues by two factors: size and talent.  I can, however, state with confidence,  that I was probably the best left-handed catcher that batted right-handed ever to play in the First State.  Of course, I was probably the only left-handed catcher that batted right-handed in the history of Delaware, but that is besides the point.
Since I no longer play, I have joined the ranks of millions of others and follow my team throughout the spring, summer, and hopefully, fall.  My beloved club that keeps me up at night with fear and dread is the cursed Pirates from Pittsburgh.  I proudly carry this burden with religious fervor and hope that at my funeral it will be said of me that I was a loving and caring husband, that I was a compassionate and concerned parent, and that I was a Pirates fan to the bitter end.
I became a Pittsburgh enthusiast through no fault of my own, but born into its legacy thanks to Pennsylvanians that emigrated to central Delaware after their wool mill burned down.  They brought with them Pirate Fever and it stuck.  My great grandfather Benton gave it to his children, Martha and William.  They in turn passed it to their three offspring Susan, John, and Benton, and they....... you get the idea.  No need making this sound like the Book of Exodus.  Suffice it to say, I have Pirate DNA in my veins.  I was brought up both Methodist and Pirate and their were times throughout life that you could not tell the one from the other.
So it begins anew.  A fresh slate and the beginning (big inning?) of a new baseball season.  I already have tickets for the May 17th game in Philadelphia between the Phils and  the Pee-Rats (ONE DOLLAR HOT DOG NIGHT!).  I simply wanted to forewarn all that this blog will be sprinkled heavily with baseball anecdotes during the next several months and that my blood will be changing from Blue and Gold to Black and Gold.  Play ball.

David Cox

I like to visit a website called The Art of Manliness.  They have some good articles from time to time.  They asked readers of the site to write about men in their lives who taught them "lessons in manliness."  I couldn't resist writing about my father, David Cox. 


David Alexander Cox
Born July, 1946
A stand-out high school athlete in football, basketball, and track and field
Graduated from Caesar Rodney High School 1964
Attended Frederick College in Virginia for a year and a half, but obtained an accounting degree later at Del-Tech College in his home state of Delaware.
Army Reservist
Career as a Delaware State Trooper for twenty-five years.
Father of two sons, husband for forty-one years (and counting).
Avid Golfer (carries a five handicap at age 63 and still hammers the drive)


Lessons in Manliness from David Cox


Every person deserves respect

My father was a career Delaware State Trooper and interacted with all types of people, including criminals and those down on their luck.  It would have been easy to treat these individuals as lesser or sub-par, but Dad treated everyone the same - with respect.
I recall a story he told me of his early days on the road, when he responded to an accident scene with a  car on fire.  The local firemen were already there, but they could not get near the blaze because the very belligerent and extremely drunk driver was keeping them at bay with threats of violence.  My father called out to the man, who froze in his tracks and replied, "Trooper Cox - Is that you?"
When Dad assured the man it was him and that he had some cigarettes to share, the man simply walked over to my father to have handcuffs placed on him.  Dad had always treated this man fairly and with respect in past dealings, and it helped in diffusing the situation at hand.
My mother told me she and Dad recently were leaving a restaurant when my father was approached by a very disheveled looking guy.  The man was happy to see my father and they struck up a conversation and talked as if they were old friends.  When my mother later asked dad how he knew the person, my father said, "I locked that guy up so many times that I lost count."  She was somewhat surprised to hear that because my father treated him like a long lost pal.


Doing the good thing is the right thing to do.....

My brother and I were fortunate to have the best little league coach growing up - our father.  He always made time for us to have a catch or to throw some batting practice, even after long hours at work.  Thanks to little league rules, we automatically ended up on his team, but we were always confused by some of Dad's choices in players.  A lot of the boys we played with had little or no baseball skills whatsoever. 
It was not until later in life that my mom explained it to me:  Dad always picked the kids for his teams that no other coaches wanted to deal with.  Looking back now, I recall having to leave for practice an hour early so my father could pick up two or three teammates.  He did this because if he had not, their parents would not have gotten them there.


My father has always been part of local crews that deliver turkeys and toys for kids during the holidays.  He is an active member of the Lions Club and I have often been over at his house when he has fielded calls from people requesting eyeglasses and eye exams.


I asked Dad once what was his favorite case during his career as a Trooper.  I figured I would get a juicy story about one of his homicide investigations or the time he shot a man wanted for murder.  Instead, he told me that the best event was when he took a box of presents and food to a large, poor family during Christmas.  He said that the reaction he received from the kids that day was the best moment of his job.


......And doing the right thing can be tough

Mom has often told me that the most emotional time she ever witnessed my dad go through was the night he came home from work with a picture of a four year old boy in his hand.  He handed the picture of this badly battered child to her and was visibly shaken.  Dad was interviewing the child when the boy's father - the man who had abused him - entered the room.  The boy jumped up in Dad's lap and hugged him, seeking protection from his own flesh and blood.  This had a dramatic impact on my father's life, but that is Dad's way - even when it is tough to do so, the good action is the only action taken.


When anyone needs help, Dad never hesitates to do what he can.  He  does his best to set aside his own emotions and needs in order to make someone else's load a little lighter.


Actions Speak Louder than Words

Stories about David Cox's deeds rarely come from him.  If you can get more than ten words out of his mouth then you are achieving something special.  I was fortunate enough to grow up around him and I learned that talk is cheap.  It is your actions that tell others what you are about.
There have been more times than I can count when I have been approached by people and told about the time Dad visited them in the hospital, dropped something off to their house, or just called them to say hello and wish them well.  If they had not said anything, I would never had known.


My brother Chester and I are very proud to be the sons of David Cox.  We were fortunate to have him as our personal guide into manhood.  The lessons we learned from him, that everyone should be respected, doing good is tough but rewarding, and actions speak louder than words have been remembered and instilled in our lives.  Hopefully these teachings will be passed down to our two sons and be incorporated into their lives as well, courtesy of their Poppy, Dave Cox.

Week 4: Operation Pie for Lunch

Thanks to subliminal advertising sales here at Liberty and In Dependence, I was able to purchase an iPad (Now you know why you have been craving Hostess Fruit Pies and Campbell's bow tie pasta soup).  Very cool to watch a movie with this thing, not very cool to shower with it.

Speaking of pies, yesterday was the completion of the fourth week of pie for lunch and I confess, I sort of cheated.  I cut up a bunch of fruit, tossed it in a pot, and baked it all with some oatmeal at 400 degrees.  Not technically a pie, but it did taste like pie and was a little healthier than pie.  Served with strong coffee and sunshine, it made for a wonderful lunch.

This concludes the pie for lunch experiments and admittedly, I am going to cut back on the pies for a while.  I have found that a steady diet of the stuff raises endorphins and serotonin levels dangerously high and makes me far too fun-loving.  I am, however, going to see what happens when pie for lunch is substituted with pudding for brunch.

Pudding to the People!

Easter

My son was born in August of 2001.  My wife and I were blindsided by how tough of a job it was to be parents.  There was no shift end, no coffee breaks, and no sleep.  Jill was battling serious Postpartum Depression and I was just coming out of a vicious funk myself.  She and I were not connecting at that time and could not console one another no matter how hard we tried.  I remember some nights walking around the kitchen with a screaming child and wondering if all of this was worth it.  It was a dark time.

I walked into the house one day in September to my wife and my month-old boy in front of the television.  I had caught bits and pieces on the car radio, but surely it could not be as bad as it sounded.  I remember my wife handing my son over to me.  She was wide-eyed.  I turned to the T.V. and saw the images of the second plane smashing into the Trade Center.  I looked down at my son and I blurted out an apology for bringing him into this mess of a world.
The load had officially become too much for me to carry.

So I did something that I had not done in several years, something I had nonchalantly left behind when I was a boy.

I prayed.

I prayed to God to get my family through this, to let us experience a light at the end of this tunnel.

It did not happen instantly, there was no finger snap and suddenly all was well.  It took time.  It took courage and hard work but little by little, my wife and I became a team again.  We rediscovered joy in each other's company and happiness in our new family.  Each day was better and brighter.

My prayers were answered.

I am by no stretch of the imagination a perfect person.  I fail each day.  I make mistakes.  I am a sinner.
And still, I can feel Him near me.  I feel His presence in my life.  I see Him in my son's smile and in my wife's eyes.  I pray He forgives my transgressions and I can only thank Him for being there even when I turn my back on Him.  I feel He knows that I am doing the best I can.

Digger Dave

My father's name is David, but at times he is known as "Digger Dave".  He received this monicker honestly thanks to the dozens of holes he and his shovel have created over the years to bury the fallen family pets.  I am not talking about goldfish or turtles: That would be too easy and below the toils dad had to suffer with his spade.  I speak of creatures like german shepherds, rhodesian ridgebacks, nubian goats, poodles, every and all terriers, beagles, cats, and chickens.  He is the Biblical Noah in reverse who, by no choice of his own, must collect dead animals two by two and plant them in the earth.

The only deaths that occurred on the family spread that he was given reprieve from were horses.  Their funeral preparations were thanks to the local sewer construction business and a backhoe.    

Digger Dave's job was never an easy one.  It has been painfully learned over the years that goats and large dogs do not die on fair weather days in late May and early June when the ground is soft and the outside temperature is pleasant.  No, such deaths occur on the bitter days in January and February, when the air is in the single digits and the rain comes down sideways.

It was on one such day that my compassionate and tearful mother informed us that a large goat had met its natural demise, a vicious February afternoon when the ground was rock hard and required a severe beating with an axe before any work with a shovel was even considered.  Digger Dave, my brother, and I all huddled around a newly created hole, taking turns whacking at it as the dead goat stared us all down.  The deeper the hole got, the harder the ground became, and each blow with the axe or shovel shot pain through our frozen hands and arms.

Once it looked as if the makeshift grave was big enough, the goat's body was not-so-lovingly tossed in  along with the loose soil.  It was all patted down.  When the job was complete all three of us shivered in the cold and surveyed our work. 

A very visible and obvious goat leg stuck straight out of the ground as if we had just planted a sapling.  I did not know much at my age, but I knew that this would not bode well with Mom.  I also knew that this meant more work for us in this godforsaken weather.

Thankfully, Digger Dave is a man of experience when it came to such dilemmas and took charge.

"Give me the axe."

My brother dutifully handed it over to Digger and we watched as he took a mighty Paul Bunyan swing and cut the disobedient leg clean off at ground level.  He then picked the leg up and slung it into a far-away brush pile and turned to begin the walk back to our house and its warmth.  

"Don't tell your mother" was how he left it.  We obeyed and silently thanked him for his command decision.

God Bless you, goat.  May you rest in peace pieces.

Compliments

I stop by my house from work for a quick lunch hoping to find my wife.  She isn't there.  I check the mail and the new Victoria's Secret catalog is in.  I open it up to this page and get an idea.  I grab a Sharpie and scribble "Jill - You are hotter!" on the models.  I snap a photo of it and send it to her via a phone text.

She soon texts back:

"Yeah, I'm only hotter bc you actually get to f--- me, not j--- off to my picture. :)"

Of course, my delicate sensibilities are appalled.  I text back, "Potty Mouth."

She replies, "Oh, how you love my potty mouth."

Sigh.  She's right.  I do.