I like hugs. I am not very good at the bro dap half hug, half handshake thing. I always mess up the hand part. But I nail the hug. I have long since shed any stigmatized reluctance to hug other dudes. If I like you and I trust you, you will know it, because I will hug you. Big smile, verbal greeting at a volume too loud, arms open, comin’ in hot.
I’m not quite the lunatic I used to be. And nothing used to bring out the crazy like the aptly named March Madness basketball tournament.
In four years at Indiana University, I never missed a home game, and knew exactly where to stand above the tunnel to touch Bobby Knight’s shoulder as the team came back out after halftime. Creepy much? Knight received technical fouls for throwing things on the court twice. I don’t know where the chair is, but the program he threw against Boston University on December 13, 1991 is framed in my basement. So when I attended a bachelor party weekend in Las Vegas half-a-dozen years later, confident that I knew more about college basketball than the odds makers, my lunacy kept me placing double-or-nothing bets, just trying to get back to even, until the only thing left on which to wager was a West Coast NBA game. I took the under and felt vindicated until I realized that the sufficiently low score was tied, and the game was going into overtime. Meanwhile, my fiance, Sheri, was perplexed as her debit card was declined when she tried to rent a movie at Blockbuster. I proceeded to get so drunk that I was kicked out of a dance club that night. Twice (I’m not sure how I got back in for round two of drunken belligerence). I woke up the next morning in the hotel room I shared with eight guys, lying in a puddle of my own puke. (Should that be lay or lie? Given the vulgarity of the rest of the sentence, I am not sure it matters.) Later that day, I told Sheri about the $1,200 I lost amidst a crowd at the O’Hare Airport. I thought it less likely that she’d kill me in front of all those people.
There is an incomparable purity in the relief I feel from her authentic touch.
I used to think the most relief available to me came from the euphoric feeling delivered by the second IPA. Alcohol provided relief, yes, but the emotional and cognitive sensations delivered by a toxin are anything but pure or authentic.
I am a really, really great person.
I didn’t say I am a great writer or a great meeting facilitator or a great money maker or a great technology user or a great soccer coach. I also don’t claim to be a great husband or father, roles that are objectively more important over my lifespan.
But I am a great person. Superb, really.
It’s true. I have changed, and I do remember how much fun it was.
I remember college, flooding the doorway of Bullfeathers with friends, my fake ID and phony confidence persuading the bouncer that my blue eyes really are brown, just for tonight.
We’d dance, laugh, maybe kiss a boy and then head home – well, those of us not going back with a boy. There’d be late-night pizza and late-morning snoozing before loading up the backpack to hit the stacks and study ourselves silly.
I remember the nights with you in Paul’s Club, the tree in that bar, the antique velvet couches and moody lighting. We’d share a pitcher seated criminally close, constantly in conversation with locked eyes and wandering hands that eventually led us back to my apartment. The drinks only added an element of magic, a surreal film over the evening. I loved those nights and those mornings.
While watching a movie about college basketball in the 1960s, I noticed most of the men in the crowd were wearing suits and ties. In 2025 can you even imagine dressing up to attend a sporting event? I hate the confined feeling of a suit jacket, and I’ve never understood the purpose of a piece of colorful silk dangling from my neck. If it was there for me to clean the spaghetti sauce from my mouth, at least there would be a plausible purpose. I’m certainly not proposing a return to wearing church clothes to basketball games. I like to say, “Once you find hoodie-town, you’ll never wear a button down.” (I’ve actually never said that, but maybe I’ll start now.) The point is that when the camera scanned the crowd at that cinematic basketball game, I was certain that every man in those stands held the door for someone else entering the arena. I’m equally certain that hands were shaken firmly, people stood graciously to let the people seated in the middle of the rows pass, and pleases and thank yous were abundant.
It is hard to argue but that we’ve devolved.
* Underlying Issues Series
I forgot my earbuds, which was ironic since I spent 2 ½ hours on video calls on the day of departure about the dangers of the constant distractions of technology. We were taking the red-eye to Miami, so I needed to sleep rather than watch Insta reels anyway. My wife offered me lavender spray to put on my wrists to help me relax. We’ve been married 27 years, and she still loves me enough to waste her breath with that offer.
Our seats backed up to the bulkhead which cost us that glorious two inches of recline that might have facilitated sleep. I eventually emerged from my groggy, uncomfortable head bobbing and got pretty excited about watching a sunrise from 35k feet. After a cold-water sink splash and a Peet’s in the airport, the terror about losing a night of sleep gave way to something different with the plane from Miami over the shallow waters of the Caribbean in January. The transition was like whiplash without the neck brace.
I don’t know if what I felt was peacefulness, since I’m unfamiliar, so let’s use what feels like a watered-down descriptor like contentment. My feet were in the cool, off-white sand as I watched the Atlantic waves gently lap the shore. It was a few ambient degrees over 70 with a noticeable breeze, and the sun warmed my skin through a wispy cloud layer. I was keenly aware that any combination of a one-degree drop in temperature, a slightly stiffer wind, or a minor thickening of the clouds, and the glorious warmth would have turned uncomfortably chilly. I was on the razor’s edge of bliss, and the tenuousness of it all was not lost on me.
My freshman year in college I was assigned to a dorm floor that also housed two Indiana University offensive lineman. On Sundays, the dorm cafeteria was closed, and the three of us often went to the all-you-can-eat buffet at Ryan’s Steakhouse. My two football friends would eat for hours. I could not keep up. I would eat a hearty, gluttonous lunch, study for a couple of hours at our table, then reload and force down an early dinner. Two big meals for the price of one. It was not close to the most unhealthy habit I developed during my first year in college, and it was friendly to my quite limited budget.
This past Sunday was the first time since 1992 that I sat in a restaurant long enough to eat a meal and get hungry again.
*Underlying Issues Series
He was coming at me covered in sweat. It wasn’t just his sweat. It was his sweat and his opponent’s sweat and the sweat of dozens of others who came before him. His arms were open wide and his smile was as big as my sudden panic. He was no longer walking. He trotted toward me, bouncing in victory, droplets spraying from his face, arms and shoulders. I was so proud. I love him so much. But he was…well…soggy.
In the center of the living room sits a large wooden coffee table. On top of the table are thirteen finished puzzles and two puzzle boxes. Twelve of the puzzles are small – scenes of Christmas featuring Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang. One is large and intricate – a cityscape of brownstone buildings decorated for Christmas. Under the coffee table is a stack of magazines that usually sit on the table, a board game, a collection of our family Christmas letters from years past shoved into plastic sleeves contained in a three-ring binder, two candy canes, and a picture album. There is another picture album on the side table next to the sofa.