Thoughts of a Common Man

The song I listened to on my wedding day...a bunch of times...take a guess who sings it. We brought love, faith and hope into the real world. ' Five more Years! The Real World Mr. Trouble come walkin' this way Year gone by feels like one long day but I'm alive And I'm feelin' all right Well I run that hard road outta heartbreak city Built a roadside carnival out of hurt and self-pity, it was all wrong Well now I'm moving on Ain't no church bells ringing Ain't no flags unfurled It's just me and you and the love we're bringing Into the real world Into the real world I built a shrine in my heart, isn't pretty to see Made out of fool's gold memory and tears cried Now I'm headin' over the rise I'm searchin' for one clear moment of love and truth I still got a little faith but what I need is some proof tonight I'm lookin' for it in your eyes Ain't no church bells ringing Ain't no flag...

Isn’t There Anything for a 21-Year Old to Do? I sat alone in the soft, warm comfort of my basement office. Just beside the hot water tank, in a comfortable chair, I stared at the green screen of the word processor. The hard concrete walls were echoing the statement that I held in my heart. I was the only twenty-one year old man doing anything even slightly important on a Friday night. The bars were filled with girl-chasing, beer-drinking men, but I was more important than them because I was poised to become the world’s next great writer. I fashioned myself as a combination of Steinbeck and Twain. I had precious little to show for a comparison of this sort, but my work would flow smoothly if I allowed myself such a fantasy. This night was different, however because in the middle of my daydreaming I was finding it difficult to ignore the nagging discomfort of my heart. I wanted a beer. I wanted to taste the smoothness and to quiet the voice in my head. Most of all, I wanted to let g...

Read something the other day that wasn't all that startling. They say that the average adult male speaks about two thousand words per day while the average adult woman speaks roughly nine thousand. Of course there's a lot you can do with stats and it'd be a tough thing to prove, but take my word for it...that's just about right around here. "How was your day?" to Jake. "Great!" "How was your day?" to Matt. "Terrific." "How was your day?" to me. "Sucked." Sam, the great male talker in our house is even getting with the program. We know very little about his troubles. We have one female here. She's over nine thousand words. "How was your day?" I'll say. An hour later. "What're you gonna' do," I'll answer. And I'm not sure what it's all about. The wonderful differences between the sexes. It makes the world go around. Perhaps the whole ga...

The Memorial Day celebrations of my youth were epic. I'm sure I'm not alone in the feeling of excitement as the summer months stretch out before me. When we were kids the party was always going strong. We'd barbecue of course. Dad's epic chicken that was burnt on the outside and pink on the inside, but that only happened every so often. The ribs were more than enough to make up for it. We'd plant the garden, the sun blistering us, but turning all of us dark brown. The brush cuts, the baseball games, endless rounds of golf. It always seemed like the Rocky movies opened on those weekends too. And the parade through town. It's hard to forget the parade through town. All the familiar faces of my father's friends as they marched in uniform. "I know you're a Fuzzy, I just don't know which one," always behind the smile that greeted us. On Saturday night I went to Sam's first game of the baseball season under the lights. He got in the c...

On our wedding day, my beautiful wife agreed with me that we should run this marriage thing on five-year deals. We've actually made it swimmingly through the first three contracts, in some trying times, with little or no room for negotiation. We both signed on without complication. The last deal expires some time next week. We are both a little unsure about the day because unless we look at the plaque commemorating our nuptials neither of us knows if we were married on the 30th or 31st. Whatever. "This is a walk year," I said the other night as we settled down to watch a movie with that wimpy-looking Wahlberg guy. (Why do we only see movies with Wahlberg or Gosling or Damon or Affleck?) "Are you re-signing for five more years?" I asked. "Yeah, I'm in," she said as she watched Wahlberg lift weights. (She didn't even glance in my direction). "Are you sure?" I asked. "There might be someone better suited for you ou...

Matt is 19 years old today. And the sun is shining bright. The Sabres are gonna' win the cup next June. The Bills will win the Super Bowl in February. All of that will have to wait, of course, until the Oakland A's shock the world with their World Series title in October. He's been consistent. And it's funny because coincidentally I leafed through a bunch of stuff yesterday and found a lot of things I wrote back when I was twenty years old. You aren't going to see much of it. Because it's short-sighted, and it's filled with pie-in-the-sky dreams, and earth-shattering drama. And that's okay because the world was stretched out before me, as it is for Matt right now, and it's not really fair to peak ahead. Life needs to be lived. And Matt has lived a remarkable one thus far. A good kid with crazy, wild dreams that most likely won't come true. Because the A's suck. The Sabres won't ever win. And neither will the Bi...

The Gow School invited us to participate in the awarding of the Jeff Fazzolari Memorial Scholarship . Even better, they fed us first. I really need to eat spinach salad more often. We headed to the gym on a sweltering hot day after meeting some of the people who loved Jeff in a work setting. Brad, Paul, Gayle, Kathleen and many others stopped by to hug us. Corinne was her usual fantastic self, and Mom smiled through eyes that threatened tears. But there's no tougher Fuzzy than Mom. Not even close. I presented the award to a student who met with me at the first book signing I did for Oh Brother! The Life and Times of Jeff Fazzolari. Ibrahim Kalla is not from our country, but he told me a story about being welcomed to Gow by Jeff. He cried at the book signing. I remember signing a book for him and giving him a hug. "I loved your brother," he told me back then. I didn't remember him until I saw him on Friday. I was happy they chose him as the student rec...