Family matters

Twenty-nine

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The first time I saw Rockford, I knew. It flashed through my head with just as much certainty as you might think, “Today, I’ll have a cheese sandwich for lunch.” And as much fanfare, too. It didn’t shock me or shake me. It was just there. I saw him striding across the commons, and there it was: “That’s the person I’m going to marry.”

It was, I believe, 1990. We were in the seventh grade. I didn’t speak to him for a full year after that.

With all the casualness I could muster (and I would’ve been roughly 12 years old, so I’m sure it was a convincing display), I asked my friend Amanda if she knew who he was, this feathered-haired vision in the Bo Jackson T-shirt.

“That’s Rockford,” she said. “He’s really into baseball cards.”

He doesn’t feather his hair anymore (a shame, really), and much to his dismay, he no longer has a Bo Jackson T-shirt. And he’s not really into baseball cards anymore. (Baseball itself is another story.)

But I’m just as certain now as I was that day. He’s my guy.

Happy birthday, Rockford. I love you.

Flotsam / Jetsam

Choose your own adventure

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You’ve just finished dinner with your family and some friends, and you’re planning to go to the movies. Your mother has agreed to drive home with your daughter and put her to bed. As you’re getting ready to head for the theater, your 6-months-pregnant wife tells you that she isn’t feeling well. You say:

(a) Oh dear! Let’s get you home to rest. We can go to the movies tomorrow! (Turn to Page 15 in the “Good Answer” handbook.)

(b) OK. You go home with Mom. Let’s go, Dad! (Turn to the living room and enjoy your night on the sofa, Buster.)

Note: You do not get “Good Answer” credit if your dad answers (a) and you say (b).

Reading

"Found Letter"

American Life in Poetry: Column 122

By Ted Kooser
U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
There is a type of poem, the Found Poem, that records an author’s discovery of the beauty that occasionally occurs in the everyday discourse of others. Such a poem might be words scrawled on a wadded scrap of paper, or buried in the classified ads, or on a billboard by the road. The poet makes it his or her poem by holding it up for us to look at. Here the Washington, D.C., poet Joshua Weiner directs us to the poetry in a letter written not by him but to him.

Found Letter
What makes for a happier life, Josh, comes to this:
Gifts freely given, that you never earned;
Open affection with your wife and kids;
Clear pipes in winter, in summer screens that fit;
Few days in court, with little consequence;
A quiet mind, a strong body, short hours
In the office; close friends who speak the truth;
Good food, cooked simply; a memory that’s rich
Enough to build the future with; a bed
In which to love, read, dream, and re-imagine love;
A warm, dry field for laying down in sleep,
And sleep to trim the long night coming;
Knowledge of who you are, the wish to be
None other; freedom to forget the time;
To know the soul exceeds where it’s confined
Yet does not seek the terms of its release,
Like a child’s kite catching at the wind
That flies because the hand holds tight the line.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Joshua Weiner. Reprinted from “From the Book of Giants,” University of Chicago Press, 2006, by permission of the author. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.