My brother’s expression shifted from calm confidence to befuddled annoyance as he cut into the birthday cake. Shaking his head slightly, Jeff hesitated when the knife’s smooth forward motion was halted by an object apparently even denser than the Thanksgiving turkey he’d carved about an hour earlier.

Since Jeff and I were both born in late November, the Urish clan always combined our birthdays with the annual turkey feast. Hence the cake.

He withdrew the knife, briefly pursed his lips and took a slow, measured breath before sticking the utensil back into the cake. A moment later, he said, “What the heck’s going on?”

Curiosity piqued, about a dozen family members gathered in the kitchen, glancing at my brother in confusion.

Our parents, however, didn’t look the least bit confused. “You’re doing great,” Dad said, grinning and shooting a quick glance at Mom. “Keep at it.”

Shrugging and sighing in frustration, Jeff suddenly turned into Captain Bizarro, withdrawing the knife and beginning to probe the cake with his fingers.

“Hold on,” he said, like a nervous OB-GYN intern. “It’s coming out. Just a sec.”

My brother soon extracted – get this – a book from the birthday cake. Acknowledging the sugar-coated tome’s author, outrageous “shock jock” Howard Stern, he briefly smiled and dropped his head in mock resignation before glancing over at Mom and Dad.

Then he began laughing.

And when he showed me exactly what he’d extracted, I began to laugh as well.

At the book. At my parents. At a prank very well played.

The Rise of an Articulate Buffoon

I can tell you the exact moment I became a follower of Howard Stern.

It was August of 1988, and Stern was hosting an obscure cable TV talk show that aired in the wee hours of the morning. His guest on this particular episode was Richard Simmons, the flamboyant, short-shorts-rockin’ diet-and-exercise guru.

Simmons was there to plug Deal-a-Meal, his popular weight loss program that used a card system to help dieters manage their food intake. Joining Stern and Simmons in the studio were (I’ll try to be delicate here) three rather “big-boned” Deal-a-Meal devotees who’d recently shed a few pounds but, God bless ’em, were nowhere near their goal weight.

What Stern did next made me bolt upright in bed, jaw dropped and eyes bugged out in amazement.

As Simmons began to discuss Deal-a-Meal, Stern reached behind his desk and procured a fishing pole. Tied to the end of the pole’s line was a huge bag of Lay’s potato chips, which Stern proceeded to playfully dangle and bounce in front of the faces of the befuddled guests while Simmons continued to talk about his diet program.

This cannot be happening, I thought. This Stern knucklehead is either gonna become a household name … or get tossed in the Hudson River.

Pulling audacious stunts like this nearly every time he was on the air, Stern bragged and bellowed his way to fame via both radio and TV syndication, eventually becoming the self-proclaimed “King of All Media.”

While I may have been a casual follower of Howard Stern, my brother, Jeff, not always known to have a slap-happy sense of humor, had become a full-blown fan.

“I’d listen to him during my morning commute,” Jeff recalled during a recent conversation. “I liked many of the serious points he’d make, but some of the stunts he pulled were really nuts. You never knew what’d happen.”

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Rejected by Pops & Mumzie

Thanks to his bombastic lunacy and heavy handed, boastful ranting, millions of Americans loved Howard Stern.

And millions of other Americans wanted to, well, toss him in the Hudson River.

My parents? They fell, without a doubt, into the latter camp.

Straight-laced and conventional right wingers with roots reaching back to the Eisenhower-era ’50s, Mom and Dad were disgusted with Howard Stern’s long, flowing locks, eccentric manner of dress, and grandiose, self-promoting histrionics. It didn’t help that, along with politicians and A-listers either bold enough or stupid enough to stroll into his studio, many of Stern’s guests happened to be strippers and porn “actors.” No bar was ever too low for Stern and his production team of irreverent misfits.

“Mom and Dad never realized that Howard was in many ways quite conservative,” my brother said years later. “They refused to see past the hair, the dark sunglasses, the crazy stunts and all the bragging.”

Over a period of months, Jeff patiently tried to get Mom and Dad to see Stern in a different light, even purchasing a copy of his best-setter, “Private Parts,” to spark their curiosity.

My folks wanted no part of it.

“Gotcha!”

Stepping closer to the birthday cake, my father nodded his chin in the direction of my brother and, pointing at me, said, “Gotcha, boys! You both had it coming. And just for the record, it was your mother’s idea.”

My parents, beaming like little kids, had tasked the local baker with embedding a copy of Stern’s follow-up best-seller, “Miss America,” into our birthday cake. Their unwritten message: “Here ya go, kids. We’ll read something published by this ass-clown the day hell freezes over.”

Art Therapy

A few months later, I answered a phone call from my brother.

“I got an idea,” Jeff said. I could hear the excitement in his voice. “It’s about Mom and Dad. You’re gonna love this.”

“I’m listening.”

“They’re going on a cruise next week, down to Baja. While they’re gone, what do you think about pulling a fast one on ‘em?”

“By ‘fast one,’ I imagine you mean a prank, yes?” I said. “I’m 90 percent there. Put me over the top.”

So he did.

My first visceral reaction: Mom and Dad would write us out of their will, something not terribly appealing, since at the time I was, as Mozart would probably say, flat baroque.

But when I pondered Jeff’s wicked tomfoolery for another moment, I had to smile.

“Okay, I’m all in,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

The following week, while the old folks were whiling away their days stuffing themselves silly, enjoying shipboard comedy and magic acts, and soaking up the Mexican Riviera sun, my brother and I planned to slip into their house and paint a massive mural in their garage. The mural in question would depict – yeah, you know where this is headed – none other than their blathering nemesis, Howard Stern.

Given our artistic limitations (my giant string designs notwithstanding) we needed to base our mural on a very simple image, one requiring only a few colors. Using an overhead projector, we traced the design in pencil and for a few hours played “Crayola Time” with high-gloss paint. Easy-peasy.

Oh, but my brother didn’t stop there. He took the copy of the “Miss America” bestseller that Mom and Dad had buried in the cake a few months earlier … and embedded that same book in the garage wall next to the mural, covering it with plexiglass.

Jeff and I weren’t sure how our folks – especially Dad, who didn’t always see things quite as giggle-worthy as the rest of us – would react. As the paint dried and we cleaned up the garage, I pictured Pops saying something like, “Very funny. Now paint this thing over – or there’s gonna be hell to pay.”

But they loved it.

“What you boys did, that happens to be one of the highlights of my life,” Mom said more than once.

Dad concurred: “You guys got us good,” he’d say, shaking his head and smiling. “That Stern fella’s still a jerk, but you got us good.”

Decades later, I realize that both pranks – my parents’ Turkey Day Cake Caper and the High-Gloss Howie Counterpunch – had nothing to do with Stern. It was how one family learned to deal with divergent opinions, affection and identity through humor. Ultimately, it was about love.

We never said “I love you” with words. Rather, we expressed it by knowing exactly what would annoy one another … and doing it anyway, just gently enough that everyone ended up laughing.

Long after the paint had dried, visitors who found themselves in the garage might’ve assumed that our family had some kind of dysfunctional, deeply unresolved issue with Howard Stern.

The truth was simpler: We just had a deeply resolved way of showing how we cared for each other.

Still, to this day, I have only one regret about all these shenanigans: Given another chance, we would’ve gladly painted the mural in my folks’ living room.

Kudos to friends in my online community, Write Hearted, for their feedback and support: Rick Lewis, Dana Allen, Matt Cyr, Neha Patel, Rachel Parker and Kathy Ayers. Y’all rock!

Maybe this post will get some reaction, I thought. Maybe it’ll create some buzz … finally.

I stared at my laptop, feeling my face grow red with frustration … or was it shame?

No cute “heart” or “thumbs-up” emojis had popped up. Not a single comment, share or private message.

As I glanced around my room – tired eyes darting from overwatered spider plant to laser printer to lime-green lava lamp – I half expected to hear that cliched ripping sound of a needle being yanked across a vinyl record. That’s because every single one of my Facebook posts had been ignored.

This time, however, my frustration was mixed with confusion, since this last post was unlike any I’d ever shared … by a long shot.

I first opened a Facebook account in the spring of 2010, right around the time the Zuckerberg Coding Legion had back-handed digital upstarts Friendster and MySpace off the social media radar. Like millions of other new FB users, I wanted to reconnect with old friends and family, send out high-octane congrats for key milestones (Happy anniversary! Happy birthday! Glad your restraining order was dropped!) and share ideas, pics and fun updates with a built-in audience.

But I got something I didn’t expect: the reopening of a painful 30-year-old wound.

Since most folks know me as a deep-thinking existential philosopher slap-happy joker, my posts naturally leaned toward the quirky and snarky, odd observations about the news or life in general, such as:

• For sale: skydiving parachute. Used only once … never opened.
• Quack alert? My ophthalmologist recommended cayenne pepper eyedrops.
• This just in! Depressed Moron Jumps From First-Floor Window

The result? Zero feedback.

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So, in lieu of another goofy one-liner, my latest post was a whole new animal:

• Something to ponder: “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” Can any of you relate to this?

By then, I’d received one “Like,” a little heart icon from someone named Brittany. Hmm, I thought. Do I know anyone named Brittany?

As if on cue, Brittany followed up with an actual comment:

• Hi Larry. You sound nice. I’d like to get to know you better.

• Thank you. I appreciate your feedback. Have you ever felt trapped by your own comfort zone?

• I have! she replied. By the way, are you single?

That’s when I realized that “Brittany” was probably a bathing-averse shut-in named Biff living in Mommy’s and Daddy’s De Moine, Iowa, basement. And “Brittany” was trying to rip me off.

• As a matter of fact, I am single, I typed. I imagine you’re single, too, right?

• Yes I am!! the person calling himself Brittany replied. Let’s get to know each other!

• I’d love to, Brittany!! But first, let me ask you this: What is your bank’s routing number, bank account number, Social Security number and mother’s maiden name?

And, like magic, “Brittany” was gone forever.

I then recalled an item in my Facebook feed from the previous day, an update from someone we’ll call Cynthia:

• I just switched from strawberry jelly to orange marmalade. WOW!! What a difference!!

Here’s what really wound my watch: Cynthia’s post received an array of fun emojis, as well as several dozen comments, such as:

• I love orange marmalade!
• YOU ROCK, CYNTHIA.
• Ohmigosh. I gotta try that.
• Small world! I just switched from English muffins to toast!

Cynthia was a high school classmate, a cheerleader who – cheesy cliché alert! – actually did date Burbank High School’s starting quarterback. (Why cheerleaders never dated third-string left tackles remains a mystery.)

In other words, Cynthia had always been popular. And I‘d always been invisible.

Just like high school.

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High school students have always naturally formed into cliques: the Jocks, Brains, Drama Kids, Class Clowns, Band Members, Stoners, Geeks, Student Government Control Freaks, and so forth.

I never fell into any category … unless Loner is a category.

It didn’t help that my brother, one year ahead of me and a starter on the Burbank High basketball team, was fairly popular. So much so that, during my time at BHS, my de facto name was “Jeff’s brother.” He got all the attention.

Posting on Facebook years later reminded me that, during my high school years, I’d been invisible.

Thanks to Facebook, by 2010 I apparently remained invisible.

“Larry who?” I imagined old Burbank High acquaintances on FB were thinking. “Didn’t he play basketball? Oh … that was his brother. I wonder what Jeff’s up to? Let’s look him up.”

Soon after my virtual speed date with “Brittany,” I quit Facebook … but not before coming this close to giving my online profile a desperate facelift.

I’d become Johnny Blowdry, a stunningly successful (but humble) dental-floss mogul who’d retired to Honolulu to work as a Ferrari-driving private investigator. Using Cynthia’s popularity as a strategic template, my aim would’ve been to parlay my growing fame into a sweet deal as a Smucker’s ambassador.

The Authentic Facade™ would be capped off with the original photo, below.

What could go wrong?

Kudos to Matt Cyr, Alden Cox, Rick Lewis, Brigitte Kratz, Neha Patel, Dana Allen and Linda Kaun, all friends and compatriots in our Write Hearted community, for their helpful feedback.

However, a dead tree did just that.

It happened on an overcast Christmas Day, a holiday that, given my religious background, I’d never celebrated.

A chilly breeze sighed through the gently swaying Ponderosa pines, cottonwoods and alligator junipers as I skirted Miller Creek on the Thumb Butte Trail, a three-mile loop nestled in the hills near my home in Prescott, Arizona. I’d just stopped to take a sip from my water bottle when I felt an odd urge to turn and look back toward the creek I’d just crossed.

And there it was.

An initial glance at the tree – or, more accurately, the dead, dried-out husk of what had been a tree – told the story of a devastating accident and the years-long pitched battle that followed, a battle between life and death.

I know a thing or two about battles. Only mine aren’t physical. Rather, they seem to originate in my head, trickle down into my heart, and ultimately hijack my soul.

I like to call major clinical depression The Beast, a label that often brings to mind the Tasmanian Devil, of Warner Bros. fame, that spinning and slobbering, whimsically rageful, charmingly confused varmint I grew to love as a child. But major depression is no colorful cartoon. No, it’s a black void, a 200-ton cloak that cannot be removed, one that lifts and dissipates only when it’s good and ready.

On some days, I don’t need an alarm to wake up and face the day. I stare upward in bed, two sleep-crusted eyes trying to focus on a ceiling that remains hidden in the pre-dawn darkness. I turn onto my left side and look at the bedside clock. 4:31. If I can at least make it to 6:30, maybe I can deal with The Beast.

But, to my chagrin, it has already emerged. Let the battle begin.

Muttering a barely audible curse, I flip onto my other side, close my eyes and try to will myself back to sleep. Rather than slipping back into unconsciousness, however, I find myself engaged in an all-too-familiar dialogue, a briefly terse exchange between Larry and Larry that goes something like this:

“Get up, Loser.”
”And do what, exactly?”
”Doesn’t matter. Get your miserable carcass out of bed.”

My only retort: curl into a fetal position and begin moaning. After several minutes, I find myself rocking back and forth, an always-futile attempt to lull away the pain.

After what seems like an hour, I notice that I’m now sweating through my pajamas. But at least I’m that much closer to dawn, a new beginning that might infuse me with something wholly unfamiliar: hope.

I again look at the clock: 4:42.

After all that hell … just eleven minutes has gone by.

I now have two options, neither of which is pretty:

1. Swing my legs out of bed and stagger, muttering to myself, into the shower; force myself under the ice-cold stream; and try to conjure some will to live, some tiny pilot light of optimism, knowing full well that this tiny orange flicker will snuff itself out long before I’m toweling off.

2. Lurch in the pre-dawn black to the medicine chest and swallow a handful of pure bliss. The Trazodone, Gabapentin and Seroquel – each one a powerful, wonderfully addictive creation of Big Pharma – are supposed to knock me out at bedtime.

The pills “work” quite well, thank you ... especially whenever I take a 4:42 a.m. quadruple dose of all three meds before passing out. When I eventually come to about 10 hours later, wobbling and fogged out of my cortex, I grab an early Subway or Pizza Hut dinner and fall back into that familiar hellhole I call bed.

This is just a single morning.

Now imagine going through this, on and off, for 30 years.

Look, I told you it wasn’t pretty.

I approached the broken tree, curious about what might’ve happened to this creature. It might’ve been a lightning strike, a focused millisecond of vicious energy from above that pulverized it, cracking it 90 degrees sideways.

But what actually happened doesn’t matter. What matters is that this rooted soul, stunned and badly damaged, didn’t give up.

It fought. And it survived.

As I slowly rubbed my right palm on the section of the tree that, incredibly, had grown parallel to the ground, fighting sideways for many years against the pull of gravity, I thought: Looks like you had quite a struggle, my friend. But I’m glad the Cosmos let you live.

But maybe the Cosmos had nothing to do with it. Maybe this tree chose to live.

No, you weren’t just a survivor, I add. You were a warrior.

As my hand gently caressed the dead bark, I found myself glad that – at least on this gloomy, overcast Christmas morning – I’d had a three-egg omelet and two cups of caffeinated “liquid hope,” and not a goddamned fistful of Big Pharma.

And then it dawned on me: I didn’t “find myself” getting out of bed, showering and dressing for the hike. I didn’t “have” the eggs and coffee. My Toyota didn’t magically “wind up” at the trailhead.

No … I’d fought hard to get out of bed. I’d chosen breakfast. I’d demanded life.

As I leaned my forehead lightly against the tree, my eyes began to glow with tears as I said, aloud to myself, “Maybe you’re a warrior.”

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Not every morning is this difficult. Some days my eyes open to a room filled with sunlight, muted by venetian blinds, that silently streams through the east-facing window. I look up at the ceiling – decorated in a massive string-art design, a colorful symbol of fun productivity – and pop out of bed. The ice-cold shower is torturously divine, the breakfast delectable, the notion of the day ahead enticing.

I check my to-do list, pick a single task (a good mantra: “What does now require?”) and get on with my life. And on this day, that life is bearable. It might even be okay.

Will any given day be a good one or an awful one? Each dawn represents its own mental-health roulette wheel. Once the spinning slows, will the ball land on Red or Black? Content or Miserable? Focused or Hopeless? Will the roulette ball come to rest on “Life-Changing Winner,” or will the wheel itself gyrate out of control, self-destructing into fragments of a life forever shattered into an endless void?

I have no idea.

But this I do know: When my soul emerges from its slumber – into a bleak purgatory or a bright, glorious gift known as “today” – I must spin that roulette wheel as if my life depends on it.

Because it does.

I slowly swept my index finger across the tree’s horizontal trunk, tracing a soft line, left to right, toward a point where, slowly, over the course of perhaps decades, it had managed to pivot back to its vertical growth. Tilting my head back, I looked upward and took in the tips of the now-dead branches, frozen in time as they reached toward the nourishing sun, just like it had been created to do.

Wiping away my tears, I stepped back several feet, framed the now-fallen warrior in my iPhone, and pixelated our shared moment into permanence. Then I turned and, sighing and taking in the green expanse ahead, moved on up the Thumb Butte Trail. The morning chill caressed my face as a hopeful energy – one that had been absent just a few minutes earlier – softly expanded within my soul.

The trail immediately turned uphill. As I felt my heart rate jacking up with greater exertion, I realized that progress needn’t always be vertical. While we like to be grateful for “happier,” “stronger” or “more productive,” real growth – not just surviving, but thriving – can be ponderously slow or invisible.

Real growth can even be sideways.

Once again, something compelled me to turn around. When I did, I discovered that I had a message for the tree.

“Thank you. And I love you.”

Postscript: Today, those meds are gone. The darkest mornings are less black, and far, far less frequent. And I keep spinning that roulette wheel. Sometimes – how, I honestly don’t know – spinning it is even kind of fun.

If you connect with this story in a way that says “Pay attention,” please know that people care about you, that you’re not alone. And keep spinning that wheel.

Many thanks to the fine folks in our writing community, Write Hearted (where we always “root” for each other!) for their encouraging feedback: Rick Lewis, Neha Patel, Dana Allen, Linda Kaun, Genie Joseph, Kathy Ayers and Alden Cox. Y’all rock!

And I absolutely hate digital technology. I always have.

Why?

Let’s put it this way: If you want to see someone take on the cognitive ability of an acid-tripping wart hog, present me with even the most elementary technical glitch. Then sit back, fasten your seat belt and watch me go from “zero to batshit loonball” once the very first attempt to fix the digital conundrum fails …

… and, oh yes, it always fails.

Case in point: the day my Hewlett-Packard printer decided to go belly up, mere hours before my editor wanted the hard-copy pages of a job I’d been working on, a profile of a New Age rabbi known to channel his spirit guides in Yiddish.

I tried everything I knew, which in my case was limited to:

1. Restart the printer.
2. Unplug the printer.
3. Restart the computer.
4. Unplug the computer.
5. Fight the urge to knee Hewlett-Packard’s CEO square in the pills.

The computer kept hitting me with the same error message:

SYSTEM ALERT — MULTI-STAGE FAULT CASCADE INITIATED
References: 49.3F.07A-X / FW-SYNC-12 / I/O-NEG-04 / MEDIA-PATH-UNDEF
>> Anomaly detected during job intake; operations suspended pending review. <<
>> Host parameters and firmware mismatch cannot resolve automatically. <<

Given my seething frustration, however, this is what my brain perceived:

>> Printer encountered a #@!% problem while doing the very basic task you asked it to do. Repeating the same @#%! steps ad nauseum will not magically fix it. <<
>> Yes, the printer is online. No, it is not printing. Like duh, Heisenberg. These two facts can coexist, despite how %!@# confusing that seems to be for such a @#%! clueless meat puppet. <<

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For my health – and for the safety of everyone in my Zip code – I got up, walked around the block and did the first intelligent thing that day: call my buddy Ron.

A dear friend I’d met in our local bike club, Ron was a brilliant mechanical engineer, one who’d once worked for … wait for it … a printer manufacturer.

He answered on the second ring.

“What’s up, Lar?”

“I need help.”

“I’m listening,” he said.

“It’s my damn printer. I can’t figure out – ”

“Hold on. I’ll be right over.”

That was Ron, dropping everything at a moment’s notice to help out.

About 30 minutes after fiddling with the hardware – I can’t even begin to describe what high-tech shenanigans he tried – Ron stepped back, pursed his lips and said, “Lemme get my printer.”

“You brought your own?”

A few minutes later, Ron connected his own machine and fired it up. Just like that, page after page of my chakra-balancing-rabbi story began to churn out of his printer … a printer that just happened to be the very same HP make and model as my own.

“Why the hell does yours work and not mine?” I asked in frustration.

“Beats me,” he said. “But at least now we know it’s your printer, not your MacBook.”

“You think maybe I overwatered it?” I deadpanned.

Ron glanced at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted a third ear out of my forehead, recovering enough to say, “Uh .... Renee and I are having lunch at noon,” referring to his girlfriend. “It’s her birthday. I gotta bounce. But we’ll figure this out.”

I walked Ron out to his car and thanked him for his efforts before he drove off.

I was now all alone, hamstrung with this digital mystery, just like the dozens of others that had mocked me over the previous decade. Sure, Ron said he’d return later, but at the moment I felt completely impotent, my ego once again eviscerated by some digital glitch. Unable to tamp down my growing frustration, I took another walk around the block, trying to cool down.

The 10-minute “time-out” (a term normally associated with petulant toddlers) didn’t help. Rather, the little stroll was about as effective as extinguishing a campfire with a bucket of jet fuel. With every step, I could feel my frustration growing like a mushroom cloud. By the time I returned home, that frustration had boiled over into seething anger.

A more self-aware person would’ve chilled out, awaiting Ron’s return. Not me.

Jaw clenched and blood pressure now in the red zone, I opened my document, checked my printer’s cable connection and tried cranking out a sample page. The screen immediately hit me with that same error message.

My field of vision narrowed until the entire universe became nothing more than those awful lines of code, idiotic gibberish that seemed to scoff at my inability to fix this problem … and to fix every single tech snafu over the years.

I guess you can never plan on those infrequent times when your mood goes from “slightly irked” to “Chernobyl.” The very rare meltdowns seem to manifest on their own … which is exactly what happened as my gaze shifted between my HP and that error message.

“That’s it,” I muttered. “We’re done here.”

To an outside observer, I looked like any other happy-go-lucky schmo hunting for a book online or catching up on the day’s news. But by then, perhaps in order to avoid a Blue Cross–funded vacation to the local nut farm, I became the outside observer, mentally checking out.

I found myself in the far corner of my room, observing a tall, dark-haired 40-something as he sat, head slightly bowed, clenching and unclenching his fists, before he stood and unplugged his printer. I took in his surprisingly slow, measured gait as he headed toward the back porch, cradling his printer like he was carrying a frightened puppy. Reaching his destination, he halted, glanced down at the printer, slowly exhaling once, then twice. And I noticed, with some oddly detached interest, as the tall fellow raised his printer over his head … and then brought it down like an outdoorsman splitting firewood with his axe, smashing it onto the concrete floor.

It was supposed to feel good.

It didn’t.

I closed my eyes at the moment of impact, hearing the explosive crack as the plastic hardware shattered into a warped husk. A cloud of black toner plumed upward, filling my nostrils with the pungent, antiseptic stink of Silicon Valley. As the dark powder settled over and around me, I sensed that the printer had somehow gotten in a final error message (>> @#&%! you! <<) at the moment of its demise.

I headed to the bathroom to wash off the toner, which had coated my left hand and a good portion of my forearm. There, the mirror revealed that the black powder had also coated most of my face. As I pondered the enraged buffoon (a dead ringer for an Appalachian coal miner) staring back at me, I was surprised to find myself, after all this, actually suppressing a giggle.

Maybe it was the comical coal miner in the mirror. Maybe it was the adrenaline dump. Or perhaps my “toddler overload” had just naturally run its course. For whatever reason, I did a complete 180 and began to relax … chill out … unclench my fists … pause. My friend Ron would return sooner than later, so what was the problem?

I snatched a Heineken from the fridge, grabbed a dog-eared copy of “The Da Vinci Code” and headed out back. Ignoring the twisted corpse of my printer – and still coated in Hewlett-Packard Blackface™ – I calmly took in the recently watered lawn, the marigolds and azaleas sprouting in all their pastel glory, and the inviting hammock that swung ever so slightly back and forth in the balmy mid-morning breeze.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Repeat.

Yes, by golly, it was becoming a good day, after all.

I hopped into that hammock and, black toner still raining down from my hair and eyebrows, took a swig of the beer and cracked open the best-seller.

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I awakened from a glorious nap about an hour later to the gravelly voice of Mr. Bimbaum, the pushy, ever-curious retiree as he peered at me from his side of the cinder-block wall.

“You okay?” he barked.

“Oh, just hunky-dory,” I said, smiling through blackened lips and blinking printer toner out of my eyes.

“You sure?”

“Yup.”

“Can I get you anything? Uh … like a wash rag?”

Here’s what Mr. Bimbaum must’ve seen from his side of the backyard wall: a relaxed, toner-faced whack-job responding to his concern by raising his Heineken in a toast of good cheer. “No siree. I’m better than ever.”

Shaking his head in befuddlement, my neighbor backed away ... slowly.

Rather than slip back into Snooze Central, I rolled out of the hammock, now sprinkled here and there with printer fairy dust, and headed to the bedroom to grab a change of clothes and hit the shower. There, I spotted Ron’s printer sitting on my desk, waiting for its tech-friendly owner.

Huh, what are the odds? I thought to myself as I approached his printer. Ron, since when are you a basketball fan?

My friend enjoyed many things: cycling, live jazz fusion, the occasional prank, a nice meal at Applebee’s … but he hated basketball, choosing a full, active lifestyle over hours watching multimillionaire pituitary cases run around in their shorts.

Come to think of it, Ron hated all spectator sports.

Why, then, did his printer display an L.A. Lakers logo, the exact same L.A. Lakers logo as the one on mine?

Then it dawned on me …

Years after the dust (or, in my case, the toner) settled, I still ponder why I fly off the handle at the first sign of a digital dead-end.

For starters, I’ve always believed that computer technology was supposed to be intuitive and seamless. When it isn’t, I feel betrayed by the corporate eggheads continually selling us all a bill of goods. And I take that personally.

Couple that with the cognitive overload caused by tiny silicon chips spewing out cryptic error messages, and I wind up feeling incompetent, stupid, powerless and utterly dependent on others. Blend all of these factors into the same cauldron, and it creates a bitter goulash that brings out my inner toddler.

Ron, being Ron, laughed when I told him that I’d destroyed his printer. “At least I hope it was cathartic,” he said.

“Dude, I’m really sorry,” I said. “I just – ”

“Forget about it,” he added. “I’ll upgrade my printer and give you the receipt. You want me to buy two?”

“Much appreciated.”

“And, Lar.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m just grateful we don’t drive the same car.”

SOFTWARE UPDATE! READ AT ONCE!
References: 49.3F.07A-X / FW-SYNC-12 / I/O-NEG-04 / MEDIA-PATH-UNDEF
>> System detects a HUGE thank you for text-based assistance by Rick Lewis, Kathy Ayers, Rachel Parker and Neha Patel, all bilaterally symmetrical, carbon-based entities populating our wonderful writing community, Write Hearted. <<

It all began when my friend Lee Reeves, a wonderful writer and co-founder of AZ Wordsmith – a group that meets in Prescott to read slice-of-life essays and fiction before a friendly crowd – suggested that I convert one of my own essays into a live performance. I’d just stepped away from the microphone after reading my latest offering, the true story of the time I purchased a beer while in the fast lane of a SoCal freeway.

“You should get on stage the next time we have Stories That Matter,” Lee said. “Your essays would be perfect for this. Please think about it.”

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Stories That Matter, another gem co-founded by Lee, is a series in which members of the community share true tales – bawdy, heartbreaking, funny or even borderline horrific – in front of a live audience. The only restriction: Reading from a script was strictly verboten; the sharing had to be done straight from the heart.

As I pondered Lee’s kind offer, my brain processed only a few words, words that stood out like a glowing neon sign:

My elaborate, well-considered reply to Lee’s idea is as follows: “Uh …”

… as two bugged-out eyes briefly rolled back into my skull.

“No pressure,” Lee added, always upbeat and supportive. “These are fun gatherings, like your essays. You’ll do great. You really will.”

Pondering what this endeavor involved, performing a story, sans script, I hemmed and hawed for a roughly estimated 12.67 nanoseconds before replying with another “Uh,” followed by, “Lemme think about it.”

However, what I really meant was something, shall we say, a bit less open-minded: “HELL!! NO!!”

Look ... I can READ anything in front anyone, anywhere. But performing extemporaneously, without a script? The mere thought of doing that was terrifying.

I’ve based my entire life on varying degrees of comfort. My time on this Earthly Plane has always revolved around pain management, about ultimately kowtowing to fear. And, for whatever reason, I’ve always equated the very idea of stepping outside of my comfort zone, even testing the waters with one itty-bitty (and surprisingly hairy) toe, with a sense of dread.

That shifted, more than I realized, one day several weeks ago.

That’s when Neha Patel, a gifted writer, professional coach and member of our Write Hearted community, told an engaging story of the day she decided to go “off-script” during a stressful time. It involved stepping outside of her own comfort zone – and, for that matter, doing something downright silly – “glitching the Matrix,” as she put it.

And it worked beautifully.

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After reading about her spontaneously goofy act, I again pondered the offer by Lee, about performing in Stories That Matter before a live audience. And three words immediately came to mind … three words I did not expect:

“Ready! Fire! Aim!”

… which scared the hell out of me.

But it didn’t stop me.

The result is a terrifyingly fun performance in the most recent Stories That Matter show, about a prank I pulled nearly a half-century earlier: I kidnapped a world-renowned celebrity and held him for ransom.

(For context: This performance occurred just one day after Thanksgiving.)

As I walked off stage, satisfied with the outcome and pleasantly surprised that I’d actually survived this giddy ordeal, another thought occurred to me, one that flashed into my awareness like another neon sign:

Indeed it does.

Kudos to Neha Patel, who reminded me that acting without a perfect plan is often the wisest option; to Lee Reeves and Steven Kartstein, for believing in me when the mere thought of going on stage had me fighting to stay out of a fetal position; and to the wonderfully supportive Write Hearted community, for always being there through thick and thin.

Just then, Joe, who had moved into my apartment a year earlier, in 1983, entered my room. He looked at the door, which had been removed and placed onto two saw horses.

“What’s up?” my roommate inquired.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I replied, irritated. “I’m fixing this door.”

“YOU? Fixing something?”

Joe then peered at my handsaw, and at the growing pile of sawdust that had accumulated onto the newly carpeted floor, the result of my repeated attempts to “fix” the door over the previous hour.

And he began laughing.

“What the hell’s so funny?”

“Oh … nothing. I’ll leave you to your little project,” my amused roommate said, shaking his head and backing out of the room.

Somewhat puzzled, and briefly fantasizing about applying that hand saw to Joe’s neck, I resumed trimming the bottom of the door.

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A few weeks earlier, my landlord – Frederico, an unassuming, congenial fellow from Barcelona with a quick smile and a spectacular amount of dandruff – decided to add carpeting to his apartment building’s hardwood flooring. Fellow tenants used to joke that said flooring had been sourced from the remains of the Nina, the Pinta, and/or the Santa Maria, of Chris Columbus fame. With every creaky step, I ran the risk of suddenly falling through the rotted wood and into the lap of my downstairs neighbor. (To my knowledge this neighbor was San Fernando Valley’s only drag-queen mailman – but that’s another story).

I loved the new plush upgrade, which resulted in a safer, dare I say more comfortable, walking and stomp-dancing experience. The only problem was that the low-hanging door to my bedroom, which had swung freely when situated over the brittle 1492-era planks, now dragged over the thick carpeting. After a week of strong-arming that door open and closed, I decided to take action.

The game plan:
1. Remove the door.
2. Trim the bottom of said door just a tad.
3. Replace the door.
4. Humbly rejoice in my DIY genius

Easy-peasy, right?

Uh … Well …

My initial mistake was in trying to remove the door using the first thing I spotted: a plastic protractor, a simple device used to measure angles in degrees. My idea: wedge the gizmo under the pins that connect the door to the hinges, then lift up, popping out said pins before slipping the door out of its hinges.

Anyone else would’ve ambled downstairs for a hammer and nail, and use them to tap, tap, tap the door-hinge pins upward, freeing them from the hinge, like this:

Not me.

And I had 17 plastic protractors. Broke ’em all. (At least I was persistent.)

Nah, not really. My one and only protractor snapped like a tortilla chip just as the first door-hinge pin budged upward a roughly estimated 7.72 microns.

Fifteen minutes later, using the correct tools, I finally freed the door from its hinges and, feeling a bit unhinged myself, set the now-liberated object onto two saw horses borrowed from the landlord, Flaky Freddie.

Grabbing a rusty hand saw, I proceeded to cut half an inch from the bottom of the door, before carefully replacing the door onto its hinges. Strangely, it was as difficult to open and close as it had been before I’d snapped the tortilla-like protractor.

Fine, I thought. Half an inch isn’t enough. So I did it again, removing the door and lopping another thin section off the bottom.

By then, I’d trimmed nearly a full inch from the bottom of the door, when Joe, my roommate, walked in, looked around and started laughing.

That’s when it dawned on me: I’d been slowly, meticulously, painstakingly trimming the TOP of my door.

Why I didn’t have an aneurysm right then and there remains a mystery.

Letting loose with a scream of creatively strung-together expletives, I yanked the saw from the door and spiked it in disgust onto the plush carpeting. As the saw karmically bounced up and cracked me in the right shin, a soft inner voice whispered through my 100-decibel fury: One day, Einstein, you’re gonna laugh about this.

As I drove to the local home-improvement center to procure a new door for Flaky Freddie, it occurred to me that, while we humans are by nature detail-oriented creatures, it always pays to slow down, breathe and take in the big picture before diving in to any project … or any endeavor, for that matter.

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In the 1973 feature film “Magnum Force,” Detective Harry Callahan, portrayed by Clint Eastwood, famously said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

Today, knowing my own limitations, I realize that my chances of handling even the simplest DIY project are on par with Dr. Hook securing gainful employment as a hand model.

I’m finally beginning to learn that the Cosmos shall smile upon us if we play to our strengths. Mine happen to be writing for (1) pleasure and self discovery and (2) gawd forbid, making a couple of bucks.

Still, it always helps to apply a can-do attitude with “weaker” endeavors, right? So who knows? Maybe one day I’ll prepare meals like a 5-star chef, sing like a lounge crooner or handle tools like a master carpenter.

Just not in this lifetime.

And rest assured: If I need anything more involved than a flathead screw tightened, I’ll calmly assess the situation, take on a shiny, happy can-do attitude, breathe in to get centered, visualize a positive outcome … and call a handyman.

High-fives to the fine folks in my online writing community, Write Hearted, who provided valuable and encouragement as this piece was being developed: Brigitte Kratz, Dan Xin Huang, Dana Allen, Linda Kaun and Rick Lewis. This essay – and all of my writing – is greatly improved, thanks to you.

As the familiar voice of Alex Trebek issued from my 18-inch Mitsubishi, I muted the TV and pondered the Jeopardy! brain teaser.

Adjusting my gaze, slowly taking in the darkness of my Burbank studio apartment as a bluish glow from the television danced against the walls, I began to chew on a piece of gravy-slathered turkey cut from a Swanson’s frozen dinner. The ensemble’s red cranberry sauce, which included one actual, solitary cranberry, sat in one corner of the aluminum tray, silently awaiting consumption.

Hmm… I pondered, gazing up at the ceiling trying to mine the mental stalagmites that might lead to the correct Jeopardy! answer. Fails to catch a football. Hand warmers. Where’s the connection?

No synaptic connections were forthcoming.
Human connections were lacking as well.

I was alone on this chilly Thanksgiving Day in 1985, an angry 27-year-old estranged from family. In a way, it felt as though I’d been alone my entire life. Still, it had been my decision to step away.

One month earlier, I’d written a scathing letter to my parents, explaining how for years I’d been treated like a second-class citizen, and outlining several of the many times I’d been … well, “abused” was an apt word. The scars, however, weren’t physical.

As Trebek issued forth another Jeopardy! challenge from my muted TV and I used a fork to flick that cranberry around its tiny home, I thought of a poem, one with a noted twist, that my therapist had mentioned about a year earlier:

Sticks and stones
May break my bones
But words can kill you.

“Larry, it sounds like you’re the family’s ‘identified patient,’” my therapist, Rick, had said one overcast morning two months earlier in his office.

Rick had been there when I’d come to the decision to walk away from the family unit. Throughout the previous year, he’d patiently listened as I shared my anger over the way I’d been treated.

“The family’s what?”

“Identified patient,” Rick said. “You’re that one family member, almost always in a dysfunctional unit, who’s used to express the family’s deeper hidden conflicts.”

“What hidden conflicts?” I asked.

“That’s why we’re here,” Rick said. “To unearth them and see where that leads us. Your role – a role you of course didn’t choose, and a role nobody consciously chose for you – is to draw attention away from these more significant conflicts. And I hate to say it … but it works beautifully.”

“So you’re telling me I’m a scapegoat.”

Rick smiled. “That’s another way of putting it.”

We’d gone over how my role in the five-member clan had been manifested years earlier by nicknames thrust at me, relating a typical scenario that had occurred all too often.

“Pass the salad, Zombie.”

We were having a family dinner one spring evening a few years earlier, and my brother was reminding everyone of my tendency to get deeply lost in thought, perhaps dissociating from a tense environment that was, all too often, little more than a war zone.

“Yo. Earth calling Zombie. The salad?”

A zombie is an undead creature, a reanimated corpse lacking free will.

Nobody objected to the dig. Nobody reacted. Vignettes such as these had become all too common and accepted by everyone … myself included.

I’d related to Rick many other incidents, scenes involving longstanding nicknames such as Loser, Louse and Goofy. Taken separately, they barely made a dent in my armor. Collectively, however, it had become a case of “death by a thousand tiny cuts.”

Never one to exaggerate, my soft-spoken therapist nevertheless referred to the way I’d been treated as a form of “soul murder.”

Rick and I had discussed how I’d internalized these toxic labels. The very idea of releasing these names always left me freefalling in a void of my own creation; having Louse or Goofy no longer available to define me as a human being felt, oddly enough, like a form of annihilation. Why? I had no idea.

One day during an October session, I exploded. “I gotta get the hell out!”

“Of what?” Rick inquired.

“Everything! Everybody!”

Pursing his lips slightly, my therapist shifted in his chair and adjusted his glasses … waiting.

“I can’t take it anymore,” I muttered, bending forward and stifling a sob. “I gotta get out of the family.”

“You gotta get out of the family,” Rick reflected back.

Slightly perturbed, I lifted my head and gazed around the office. “Do I hear an echo?”

“What would removing yourself from the family look like?”

The words came to me in an instant: “Freedom. Breathing room. Lightness.”

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I polished off the microwaved turkey, pondered sampling the off-white gelatinous mass that Swanson’s that somehow called “mashed potatoes” … and eyeballed that one cranberry, sitting alone in its little corner of the tray.

Alex Trebek broke the silence: “One term for talking trash about someone is ‘throwing this,’ like a big elm tree might do.”

“What is shade?” I said, followed by …

“ … I’ll take Self-Imposed Loneliness for $400, Alex.”

I’d walked away from the family one week after my latest session with Rick. When my sister first heard of my decision, she reached out to me, wondering what she’d ever done that justified cutting her out. My only answer: absolutely nothing.

During our conversation, she made it clear that she understood exactly where I was coming from, and that she’d always be there for me. So we stayed in touch. I remain forever grateful for that.

My hope was that, in creating some therapeutic distance, my parents and brother would start treating me not as a scapegoat, but with the love and acceptance deserving of any child or sibling. Beneath my anger, I was concerned – no, terrified – that, when the time came to reconnect, weeks or even years into the future, my parents and brother would reject me, that my forced emancipation would backfire like raw gas on a pilot light.

The wall-mounted rotary phone rang, breaking up the rapid-fire jousting between Trebek and the three trivia-saturated contestants.

Could be a friend, I thought. Maybe someone was calling to reach out to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving and remind me that, despite all that had transpired, I still had many things to be grateful for.

But nothing came to mind.

I set aside what was left of my 5-star gourmet feast, by then composed of nothing more than Barry, my cranberry soulmate for the evening. I scrambled out of the faded leather recliner to answer the call.

Then it dawned on me: Maybe it’s Mom or Dad. Or my brother.

I sat back down and counted the number of shrill telephone rings … until the ringing ceased.

I never knew who called.

“What would you ultimately like to see if you walk away from the family?” Rick had asked about a week before I mailed The Letter to my parents.

The answer came instantly: “I just want Mom and Dad to treat me like they do my brother,” I said. “But I don’t know if doing this’ll make any goddamn difference.”

“There’s really no way of knowing,” Rick said, “unless you go for it. It’s your call; trust your gut. But just know that, whether you walk away or not, I’m not going anywhere.”

Alex tossed out another clue into the dark apartment: “Known as The Disco Kings in the ’70s, this British trio kept ‘Stayin Alive’ from 1958 to 2012.”

I immediately thought of the one and only Bee Gees song that resonated with me: “I Started A Joke,” a 1968 tune that had always left me feeling vaguely melancholy. But as the Jeopardy! broadcast cut away to a detergent commercial, snippets of the song’s lyrics coalesced into something far, far more powerful.

I started a joke
Which started the whole world crying …
I started to cry
Which started the whole world laughing …
I finally died
Which started the whole world living …

And I started to cry.

THANKSGIVING 2025
Nearly forty years later to the day, I’m sitting at my desk, recalling that first Jeopardy! question, the one posed by Trebek before I muted my TV to take in my dark studio apartment and ponder my then-recent choice to step away from the family.

“A kick returner who touches, but fails to catch, the football has committed one of these hand warmers.”

“Muff,” this 67-year-old sighs aloud, as tears again form in his eyes for the umpteenth time in the past hour.

Muff, as in screw up.
Muff, as in a source of regret.

Maybe divorcing my father, mother and brother for two years had been a mistake. To this day, I’m not sure.

As I sit here at my keyboard, pausing to take in my warm, colorful, well-lit apartment, it occurs to me that no significant change has occurred in my life during my time away from the family … nor in the years since we reunited.

But perhaps that’s not entirely true.

For only today do I realize that a notable shift occurred during Thanksgiving 1985, when I began to adopt a new persona, one that helped me deal with all the toxic labels that I’d somehow fused into a deep-seated birthright I never deserved.

Clown. Joker.

Forty years ago, I began to look at life as an infinite source of humor, much of it self-deprecating. Today, I continue to clutch onto those old, toxic labels, as if my very existence depends on it. Why? That remains a mystery … or a massive blind spot. Still, at least laughing at myself and the world around me has helped me cope with – or perhaps continue to bury – four-plus decades of hopelessness.

I’m beginning to realize that fleshing all this out via an outlet I’ve managed to keep entombed for decades – writing – can help me start to unearth all that I’ve buried. Who knows?

What I do know for certain is this: The only way to find out is to keep writing.

Yet as that old Bee Gee’s song again comes to mind, I have my doubts, my old thought patterns, my all-to-familiar demons …

Oh, if I’d only seen …
that the joke was on me

Recalling these lyrics, I become, for a brief moment, that lonely cranberry, sitting in his little, dark corner of the world.

Still, I feel a slight glimmer of hope. I’ve learned that I can let go of the Old by reaching out, clawing toward, fighting for and, ultimately, embracing any form of the New.

And maybe I can embrace that New by freeing my soul – one day, one idea, one story prompt, one sentence at a time – through my keyboard.

Writer. Storyteller.

I love those nicknames.

It’s what I do. It’s who I am.

Kudos to Alden Cox, Kathy Ayers, Brigitte Kratz, Neha Patel, Dana Allen and Rick Lewis for their encouragement and feedback while this essay was being developed.

And in case you’re curious:

For about the fifth time in only a few minutes, the same word kept popping up in my mind, and I had absolutely no clue what the hell it meant:

Canvas.

Although it was just after 11:00 in the morning on a balmy Burbank day in June 1980, I was still in bed, pondering my immediate future. I rolled onto my left side and, clutching onto a large corduroy body pillow, gazed at a brand-new, glossy poster of Magic Johnson, the NBA rookie who, just one month earlier, had led the Los Angeles Lakers to their first championship since 1972. In the image, Magic was following through on one of his trademark no-look passes, the ball headed toward an unseen teammate. The aptly-named Magic Man transcended the game itself, by performing jaw-dropping, never-before-seen moves on a nightly basis.

Millions called the 6’9” point guard a true artist on the court.

I rolled onto my back and took in my 12-by-12 bedroom: at the three walls painted sky blue, the fourth wallpapered in a brilliant tropical sunset; at the silver cassette tape deck wired to two massive Kenwood speakers; at Brutus, my tough, perpetually under-watered spider plant. I stretched and, while gazing up at the ceiling, pondered climbing out of bed.

And there it was, that random word again, like an annoying pebble in one of my size-14 Converse All-Stars:

Canvas.

I’d just returned from a year at San Diego State, where I’d majored in psychology and minored in frat parties (with the requisite liver abuse), aimless channel surfing, and solo evenings twiddling my thumbs at the local McDonald’s: anything to avoid, God forbid, cracking open a textbook. Given how things had transpired – a 0.0 GPA the previous fall, thanks to my brilliant idea to stop attending classes without actually dropping them, followed by a bland, half-hearted 4.0 spring semester, when I actually bothered to show up – I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be returning to the university following September.

Feeling rudderless at the ripe old age of 21, I had no idea what to do with my life. My future, five minutes or five decades hence, seemed to be as blank as the ceiling that was staring me in the face.

Canvas.

That’s when it hit me. The ceiling.

A canvas. A blank canvas …

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As a kid in the early ’70s, I’d spent hours at a time creating string-art designs, dizzying geometric patterns formed by weaving colored thread back and forth between nails fastened onto wooden or foam boards. Although I wasn’t aware of any artistic talent – my one year of piano lessons had been about as blissful as a colonoscopy, and I couldn’t draw a stick figure for the life of me – I loved witnessing the whimsically symmetrical magic that unfolded, and the easy, rhythmic meditative state that always followed, whenever I played with string.

Then I had an insane idea: Why not do a giant string design … on my ceiling?

Right away, my overactive mind, the source of that one-word inspiration, canvas, soon followed with something less encouraging.

What are you, a whack job? String art? On a ceiling?

I decided to engage my inner critic with an eloquent, dare I say long-winded, argument.

“Bite me,” I said aloud.

And with that, the defense rested.

Still on my back, I began to envision a series of colorful concentric circles, essentially a massive Spirograph design (remember those?) poised eight feet above the carpeting.

My brain went into overdrive. What would I use for the string? How much was needed? And what colors? And how the hell would I fasten it to the ceiling?

Then there was the layout itself: How to pinpoint the exact center of the room, the planned center of the concentric circles? How to calculate the exact placement of the pins, those critical pivot points, to create a perfectly symmetrical series of circles?

To my pleasant surprise, the answers manifested without effort. Still gazing up at the ceiling, now completely enraptured by the blank canvas, the design swiftly came together in my mind’s eye, vibrant lines flashing back and forth at light speed between the pivot points, like the computer-generated animations that came into the world a few years later.

And my malaise lifted completely.

Next stop: Beautifully Yours, Burbank’s arts and crafts store. It was surely the first time the store’s friendly staffer helped a testosterone-jacked 21-year-old male find … crochet yarn, of all things, my chosen medium. As for the pivot points, which held everything together, upside down no less: “Why not just try thumb tacks?” she suggested. Problem solved.

An hour later, I stood in my bedroom, neck craned upward. Sixteen bundles of the yarn, each one coiled together like kite string; 300 thumb tacks; and a tape measure sat at my feet. A smile was plastered on my face when my father stopped at the doorway after a day at work.

“What’s going on?” he asked, removing his tie.

“I got an idea,” I replied.

“What’s with all that?” he inquired in his Bronx accent, nodding toward the recently purchased items.

“I want to do a string design.”

“A what?”

“A string design, Dad. You know, I did those as a kid.”

“Where?” he said, glancing around the room.

“There,” I said, jabbing a thumb at the ceiling as my smile morphed into a giddy, full-blown grin.

My father, a logical, linear sales engineer who took to anything even remotely associated with art the same way a feral tomcat takes to a hot tub, looked at me, pursed his lips slightly and shook his head in dismay ...

… or maybe it was pity.

“I don’t understand, Larry.”

“Dad, neither do I.”

I didn’t need to explain myself, for by then my obsession to create this kaleidoscopic pattern, though not fully formed in my mind, had fully embraced my soul.

Shaking his head and sighing, my dad ended the conversation with words I’d heard many times before: “Kid, I think you’re nuts.”

But he also threw me a bone, adding, “But what do I know? Knock yourself out,” before shrugging and heading into the family room.

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I could go into all the scintillating, mind-blowing, history-making boring details outlining how the string design, a full 10 feet in diameter, took shape. Let’s just say that any high-schooler who’d made it through Geometry 101 without slipping into a coma could’ve done the same thing.

But, to the best of my knowledge, nobody ever had.

The following afternoon, a Saturday, I was cleaning up the remaining string fragments and putting away all the scattered thumb tacks when my dad tapped on the door, and, cracking it open a bit, asked me if I’d like to join him down at the local park for an hour or so of pickup basketball.

“Come on in,” I said.

“Larry, you wanna – ”

Then he looked up at the ceiling.

“Jesus, Lar.”

“What do you think?”

Never one to sing high praise, the ol’ fella surprised me with, “Wow. That’s amazing.”

Then Dad hit me with a question, the exact same question every person has asked me in the 45 years since, whenever they see one of my ceiling designs in person:

“How long did that take you?!”

“The math, not long at all,” I said. “To set the tacks just right, maybe three hours. And to weave the design, about another five.”

In 1980, those eight hours seemed like just ten minutes … of pure bliss. And, in the decades since, that’s never changed.

That old string design stayed ceiling-bound until August of 2019, six years after my father left this mortal coil and one week before my mother left her home for the final time, to move to an independent-living senior community. As I removed the thumb tacks and all that string began to sag toward the floor, like a tired weeping willow, I recalled the many times my father enjoyed showing friends, family and coworkers my work.

“Come here,” he’d say in rarely displayed enthusiasm, gesturing toward my old room. “You won’t believe this. Look up. That’s something, right?”

When my father first questioned the wisdom of trying something this unusual, I knew at a core, elemental level that trying to explain myself would’ve been an exercise in frustration. Even at such a young age, I must’ve understood that the finished product would transcend mere words.

And it did.

As I pulled the final thumb tack from the ceiling and the rest of the colorful crochet yarn collapsed to the floor, I sighed and glanced across the room at that old, now-frayed poster of Magic Johnson, plying his craft.

Yes sir, I thought to myself, the Magic Man was a true artist.

But maybe, just maybe, so am I …

High-fives to friends in our Write Hearted community – Linda Kaun, Kathy Ayers, Alden Cox and Rick Lewis – for their valuable input and encouragement while this essay was being strung together.

I kept my parents’ cast-iron Bell & Howell movie projector long after video cassette recorders were first produced.

My Panasonic VCR, given to me by a friend, remained in my apartment a full decade after the DVD players came on the scene.

See a pattern here?

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The Luddites were members of a 19th-century faction of British textile workers who protested the use of automated machinery, due to concerns relating to worker pay and output quality. Rather violent lads, they often smashed the machines in organized raids. Today, the term refers to those who oppose the introduction of new technologies.

I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Luddite, a full-blown technophobe struggling in a world gone completely, maddeningly digital.

Which brings us to artificial intelligence.

You won’t be shocked to learn that I’m not on the AI Bandwagon, gleefully waving pom-poms over the prospect of machines replacing our brains. And my opinion about AI didn’t do a 180 after a recent job interview … one conducted by an AI bot. For some 20 minutes, this carbon-based meat puppet (uh, me) jousted with a silicon-based program. And it wasn’t a day at Disneyland.

It began one fine August afternoon, when I sat at my desk, having completed an online job application. Minutes later, I found myself staring at my image, as viewed through my own laptop’s camera. Staring back at me was a 60-something job seeker, at the moment drifting somewhere between befuddled curiosity and trepidation. My eyes briefly wandered from the screen and focused on a happier time, in the form of a framed photo I’d taken of Mount Everest during a trek high into the Nepal Himalayas.

A written prompt jolted me back to the present moment.

<< Your video and audio functions are enabled. Press START whenever you’re ready. >>

Shrugging to myself, I followed the prompt.

The AI-generated voice, an uncanny vocal representation of a young woman, said: << Welcome. We hope to learn more about you and determine if you’re a good fit for our Creative Writer position. >>

“Uh … thank you?” I said, haltingly, to my laptop.

The bot cut right to the chase. << Tell me about the writing-style differences between straight news stories and features, and give me an example of each. >>

I sat there for a moment, slack-jawed, briefly mesmerized by my on-screen image. The AI interviewer repeated the question.

<< Tell me about the writing-style differences between straight news stories and features, and give me an example of each. >>

“Well, a news lead should tell 90 percent of the story in the first two or three sentences, while a feature must first engage the reader through any number of writing strategies.”

While I managed to furnish a few examples of what I’d just stressed, a sheen of perspiration began to emerge on my forehead.

<< Give me an example of when, during your two years at the Orange County Register, a writing assignment that you’d completed didn’t meet the needs of your lead editor. How did you work with the editor to complete the task? >>

That’s when I realized that the AI bot was reading my online resume, my LinkedIn profile … and God knows what else. And I wasn’t thrilled.

“Well, I usually threaten the editor. I keep a ball-peen hammer in my top drawer for that very purpose.”

This is what my brain came up with in the heat of the moment.

To my credit, I didn’t say it aloud, opting with “Well, I like to find out exactly how my work fell short. Then I rework the assignment based on my editor’s feedback. Ultimately, the finished product is her call.”

While I coughed up the response, I pictured that ball-peen hammer ... and using it on the box of silicone running the program that was conducting the interview … or perhaps on one of the evil eggheads captains of industry behind the AI revolution.

By then, my forehead sheen had turned to full-on flop-sweat, beads of which began trickling into my eyebrows.

For the remainder of the interview, my brain – a 3-pound slab of neuron-packed fat rooted in snark and dark humor – conjured up one set of answers to the bot’s questions, as my mouth managed to blather other responses that were more appropriate. While doing so, I wondered if the AI bot could somehow see my clenched jaw, furrowed brow, reddening face and all that sweat … and whether or not that would factor into my immediate career future.

<< How do you approach a new story or writing assignment? >>

My brain: I start with three things: cocaine, coffee and Coors. … Just kidding. I don’t drink coffee.
My mouth: “If I cannot tell the entire story in one or two sentences, I don’t know the story. All of my research and every interview question are based entirely on those few words.”

<< How do you verify facts and ensure reliability in your reporting? >>

Brain: Rule number one: Never, never, never let annoying facts get in the way of artistic license!
Mouth: “I print out my first draft and highlight Every. Single. Fact. Then I look at my notes and verify all the research and interview quotes.”

As the minutes ticked by, we went back and forth, the bot and I, lunging and parrying like two Olympic fencers probing each other for weaknesses. And, like a see-saw, my energy level dropped as my frustration rose.

That’s when it happened.

<< Tell us about a time when you had to deal with a difficult story source. >>

Brain: I use disposable gloves, chloroform, duct tape, a shovel and lye. To the best of my knowledge, he’s never been found.
Mouth: “I use disposable gloves, chloroform, duct tape, a shovel and lye. To the best of my knowledge, he’s never been found.”

Oopsie ...

My pie-hole audibly parroted the sick-and-twisted nonsense that had just flashed through my brain.

<< Please repeat that. >>>

“Uh … you mean about the chloroform and all that?”

<< Yes. >>

What the hell, I thought. By then, my chances of landing this job were on par with encountering a hammerhead shark in the aforementioned Himalayas.

“Let me amend that answer. I usually use a chain saw. It’s a lot messier, but it’s also more cathartic.”

<< … … >>

“Knock, knock,” I barked at my laptop. “Anybody home?”

<<< Who are some writers or journalists who inspire you, and why? >>>

Although I admire a slew of fine wordsmiths – some Pulitzer winners, other fellow snarkmeisters – my brain came up with … nothing. Zip. Nada. Complete Skull Vacuum™. It was as if my overstimulated cortex said to the rest of my brain. Okay, we’re done here. You, limbic system, come with me. Take it away, brain stem!

Eventually, the bot thanked me for my time before the laptop’s screen went black.

Sure, I was impressed by the digital sophistication required to review my background info and come up with so many poignant, challenging questions. However, that notion didn’t explain the gnawing ache in the pit of my stomach, my flushed face or my shaking hands, my body’s unconscious reaction to having been eviscerated, ripped open by computer code that had mined my data and used it against me.

And, as I gazed into the infinite blackness of my laptop’s screen, I wondered how much more powerful artificial intelligence could become, what it could mean for the future of every writer … hell, for all of us.

Five or 10 years from now, would I find myself trying to cajole a bot into granting me a raise? Into keeping my job? Into hanging on to my mortgage or preventing my electricity and gas from being turned off? Would I be pleading before a sterile digital program, posing as both judge and jury, to stay out of jail for a serious crime I didn’t commit, an infraction based entirely on some random data blip at a supercomputer site buried under the Colorado Rockies?

Perhaps it’s not a stretch to picture AI bots one day interviewing other AI bots for jobs once held by human beings. Where does this AI influence – I’m tempted to call it a takeover – end?

Sighing in frustration, I closed the laptop, collapsed into my recliner and stared upward at the ceiling. As all that flop-sweat began to evaporate, I decided to put on some nice baroque music; the genre’s slow, nurturing pace always seemed to take the edge off any stress, anger or worry.

And I finally began to relax, even before the soothing sounds of Mozart began to emanate from an old friend: my Montgomery Ward 8-track tape player.

Many thanks to the fine folks at our Write Hearted community who provided valuable feedback about this essay: Rick Lewis, Kathy Ayers, Neha Patel, Alden Cox, Genie Joseph, Linda Kaun and Dana Allen.

The 9/11 terrorists were absolutely certain that they’d be whisked away to their version of Nirvana. Hardcore evangelists (and their aptly named “flock”) are absolutely certain that their way to wholesome, righteous living is the only way. And, pulling my own covers, I am absolutely certain that fans of the Boston Celtics are the Spawn of Satan, crazed, fire-spitting mutants cloaked in green jerseys.

Still, there have been times when I’ve stumbled across what seems to be Truth, with a capital T. And when that’s happened, the pathway to Truth has usually involved a few loopy side trips through an imaginative, oddly enticing place in my head I’ll call LarryLand.

Case in point: the time I discovered some Very Important Truths about my father.

It happened 12 years ago, just one day after he died. I was on the phone with the man who would officiate my dad’s funeral the following day, Rabbi Thomsky. Knowing little about Dad and his life, the rabbi sought a number of details to round out the service, a few words of English to counterbalance all the Hebrew.

I paced slowly back and forth in my parents’ living room, my mother collapsed in a tan cloth recliner, fighting back tears as the rabbi and I spoke.

“How many children did your father have?” he inquired.

“Three,” I said.

“How long were your folks married?”

“Fifty-eight years.”

Hearing that, Mom bowed her head and began to silently weep. I felt numbed by the raw intensity of the moment.

“Can you share with me a few highlights from your dad’s life?” Rabbi Thomsky asked. “Something of interest I can say at the service?”

That’s when it happened.

The Weirdness Lobe of my brain hijacked the rest of my cortex (and a pretty good chunk of my limbic system), and I quickly morphed into little more than a brain stem gripping a phone.

I pictured my father flying his F-86 in the Korean War, gunning for Russian MiG-15s. I visualized him years later, a veterinarian who spent much of his time working pro bono. I caught a glimpse of Dad creating one of his kinetic sculptures, some of which were showcased in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Getty Center.

Quite a life, yes?

Here’s the problem: Every single detail that I’d just imagined about Dad was false. Absolute nonsense. Pure fiction.

And I began giggling.

Flashing forward in time, I pictured the reaction of my father’s loved ones at the funeral service: their expressions of shock and bewilderment, perhaps even betrayal, as the rabbi droned on and on about a life that had absolutely nothing to do with Dad.

What would happen if I actually shared with the rabbi all the nonsense that LarryLand had just coughed up? This was a golden opportunity for a prankster – even a prankster in mourning, right?

Wrong.

I hemmed and hawed for one or two nanoseconds, before what few remaining “normal” neurons in my head backhanded me with: DO!! NOT!! DO!! IT!! (Stop and picture, for a moment, a few lively, sassy neurons bitch-slapping me across the face.)

Anyway, here’s what sealed the deal: the sight of my mother, eyes moist, lower lip quivering, as she tried to comprehend the new life-sized hole in her soul.

“You still there, Larry?” the rabbi said into the phone, snapping me back to reality.

“Sorry, yes,” I said. “You wanted details about Dad.”

“Please.”

So I told him.

I told him about the young boy raised in a family that, despite residing in the U.S., had been shattered by the Holocaust. How that boy became a young man who finished college and, after a stint in the army, headed west to California, where he soon met the love of his life, and how the young couple eventually had three kids, putting down roots in 1960s Orange County. I mentioned how Dad thrived as a sales engineer, making a comfortable living for his family, and about how he once gave up 25 percent of his sales territory, a significant chunk, in order to save a co-worker’s job.

I recalled Dad’s early love of flying gliders, the silent freedom he enjoyed while soaring and pirouetting in the blue expanse above. I added how, when my mother one day came to him in tears and begged him to give up this risky hobby – she’d had visions of raising three young children alone – he did so immediately, no questions asked. I talked about how Dad never drank, gambled or had the slightest hint of legal trouble, about his involvement as a volunteer in the Boy Scouts, his decades-long love of sailing, how he always stressed working hard and getting good grades, the time he first introduced my brother and me to a shared passion, basketball …

I could’ve gone on with the rabbi for another hour, sharing more about who Dad was and the good life he led.

But by then my mother wasn’t the only one in tears.

Because everything I’d said was true.

The following day, I was too numb to recall much about the funeral. I imagine Rabbi Thomsky included a few poignant details about Dad’s life, and I guess those in attendance must’ve nodded and smiled through their tears when they were reminded of the kind of man he was: sensitive beneath a facade of armor, generous, occasionally bombastic, loyal, so very, very stubborn, clever …

… a lot like his son.

Today, I have no regret – absolutely none – over my decision to not pull that silly prank.

Nevertheless, I know for a fact that when it’s my time to be laid to rest, a certain lifelong friend (and fellow irreverent rascal) will step forward during the funeral and spin several ridiculous yarns, including: the time I became a chess grandmaster at age 3, how I scaled Mt. Everest bare-chested, wearing only flip-flops and cargo shorts, how my own kinetic sculptures wound up displayed in The Getty …

And if you happen to be at my funeral when these comical details emerge …

… stop. And listen carefully. You might hear an odd sound coming from my coffin.

That would be me.

Giggling.

Kudos to the following, all members of Write Hearted, for their valuable input: Rick Lewis, Dominik Gmeiner, Neha Patel and Kathy Ayers.

I considered killing time by selecting one of the periodicals placed on a nearby cart, but ancient copies of “Stamp Magazine” and “Highlights for Children” didn’t tickle my fancy. Hearing a muffled conversation from an adjacent room, I glanced around, taking in the blood pressure monitor, height and weight scales, defibrillator and an assortment of disposables and antiseptic supplies, all bathed in the room’s harsh fluorescent lights.

A few minutes later, I heard a brief knock on the door and, without hesitation, my doctor entered. Holding my chart was someone I’ll call “Dr. Carlson,” a diminutive fellow with a quick smile and a head of thinning salt-and-pepper hair. He shook my hand and sat down next to me in a rolling chair.

“Let’s see,” he said, opening my chart. “So … you’re feeling fatigued.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not sure what’s going – ”

“Hold on, hold on,” Dr. Carlson said, cutting me off. “Just let me go over this.”

“Okay. I was just – ”

“Let’s first see what you have going on here,” he said abruptly, removing his bifocals and looking up at me. “After all, we’re not psychic, right?”

I stayed silent.

Dr. Carlson slapped my chart closed, grabbed a pen and notepad from his lab coat and said, “First off, are you on any supplements?”

“I’m on vitamin C and D, zinc, a multivitamin, quercetin,” I said. “Oh, and there’s B-complex,” I added before rattling off a few more.

While scribbling down my list of supplements, my doctor shook his head slightly, chuckled and muttered to himself, “Wow. They sure saw you coming …”

They sure saw you coming … The man was saying, to my face, that I was a sucker for purchasing supplements. This wasn’t the first time he’d been rude. But it was the last.

Seconds later, I burst out of the exam room, knowing that I’d never again see that arrogant troll. Red in the face and quivering with adrenaline overload, I sensed beneath my barely controlled rage something that, in retrospect, likely saved my life: self-respect.

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One spring morning three months earlier, I’d noticed blood in my urine. Shocked to the core, I grew weak in the knees and had to steady myself by leaning against the bathroom sink. At some deep, elemental level, I knew exactly what this symptom meant.

When I saw blood again a few weeks later, I called Dr. Carlson. A quick in-office lab test revealed more blood.

What my esteemed doctor, a man who’d taken the Hippocratic Oath and vowed to “First, do no harm,” said next left me feeling … elated.

“I think it’s dehydration,” Carlson said. “Drink more water and see me in six months.”

No cancer! I kept thinking as I skipped out of his office, before heading to the nearest 7-Eleven for a junk-food celebration.

Then came the fatigue, for no apparent reason. Followed by that medical appointment, when I mentioned my supplements, and the doctor’s rude behavior. They sure saw you coming …

That was the last straw.

Although I’d never been a shining beacon of self-esteem, I knew I was worthy of a more caring medical professional, someone who wouldn’t gloat while berating me every time I saw him. So I asked around for a good doctor.

One week later, when I informed the aptly named Dr. Young (who, I swear, looked like a college freshman) about my bloody symptom, he wasn’t rude. No, he was emphatic.

“Larry, you must see a urologist.”

“How soon?” I asked.

“Now,” he said. “No … yesterday.”

And so I did. After a routine cystoscopy (believe me: getting a camera snaked up your willy isn’t as fun as it sounds …), followed by a more-invasive exploratory procedure, the verdict was in.

Bladder cancer. Stage 3.

A month later, a highly recommended surgeon at Keck Medicine of USC found a second bladder tumor. When he later informed me that, based on the tumor’s location and grade, I had a 50/50 chance of surviving only five years, the decision to have my bladder completely removed was a no-brainer.

Lovely, right?

One option: Yank the cancerous bladder and wind up wearing a pee bag (clinically known as a “pee bag”) connected to a stoma for the rest of my life. (If you studied Latin, you surely know that “stoma” means “disgusting, easily infected hole in your abdomen.”)

Uh … no thanks.

So instead I underwent a “radical cystectomy,” a six-hour procedure in which my bladder was removed and a new one was constructed, right there in OR, from resected portions of my small intestine. The result: a “neobladder.” (Although “neo” comes from the Greek “neos” or “new,” less-formal folks in the bladder cancer community call it – I’m not making this up – a “Frankenbladder.” Gotta love that!)

Anyway, I can bladder blather on about the phenomenal surgeon and his wonderful team of professionals. And I can wax poetic about how I was so incredibly lucky to connect with a young, rising star in the cancer community, a doctor who has since become world-renowned for his diagnostic and surgical expertise. But that’s a story for another time.

Today, I occasionally wonder what might’ve happened if I’d lacked the self-respect to walk out on an incompetent doctor. Had I continued to put up with his rude behavior, thereby delaying critical treatment, I may be relating this little tale of woe from a permanent home, located on “the wrong side of the lawn.”

Perhaps I should thank Dr. Carlson. For if he’d been incompetent and empathetic, I likely would’ve stayed with him.

And it might’ve killed me.

Thankfully, I’ll never know.

Kudos to all the fine folks in my Write Hearted community who provided helpful feedback while this piece was being created: Dominik Gmeiner, Rick Lewis, Neha Patel, Kathy Ayers, Alden Cox and Genie Joseph.

Upstairs, situated next to a space filled with mainframe computers boasting the total memory of one Radio Shack floppy disc, was the staff break room. It was used by librarians and other fine civil servants who relaxed by scarfing down delectables from the Sputnik-era vending machine (the snacks were free, provided you knew how to body-slam it with just enough finesse), catching the latest episode of “Happy Days” or “Charlie’s Angels” on a 13-inch black-and-white Zenith, and incinerating all manner of Swanson’s frozen dinners in the break room’s newest gizmo: a silver 50-pound microwave oven that leaked like a Chernobyl reactor. (I’m pretty sure that thing permanently lowered my sperm count … but that’s another story.)

In addition, some of the staffers enjoyed assembling jigsaw puzzles.

One day, after shelving a cartful of books, I headed upstairs to the break room, smacked the vending machine to procure a free Hostess Twinkie, and headed toward one of the lime-green beanbag chairs that, along with conventional furniture, were situated against the far wall. But before I plopped my 18-year-old keester down and tore into the treat, I glanced at the latest jigsaw puzzle, a nearly completed 2,000-piece item depicting a cute “Peanuts” cartoon, of Charles Schulz fame. It’s something like this, only with many, many more jigsaw pieces:

That’s when I spotted Snoopy.
And I had an idea.

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Despite being alone in the break room, I instinctively looked left and right, like a black-clad burglar who’d just slinked through a jimmied window, before reaching down and lifting Snoopy from the puzzle. Deftly placing him in the front-left pocket of my Levis, I smiled to myself and bolted stage left.

I’d just dog-napped Snoopy.
And I felt drunk with power.

That night, at home after my shift, I grabbed the latest issue of my sister’s “Teen Beat” magazine and removed a pair of scissors from the kitchen’s junk drawer. With the patience of Job and the down time of a tax cheat cooling his heels in Sing-Sing, I cut out hundreds of individual printed letters. Then, using a bottle of Elmer’s glue, I meticulously pasted each letter onto a sheet of what was then called “typing paper” to form a note.

A ransom note.
It began like this (click on the graphic to bring up a larger version):

Before we continue, we must pause to discuss a real kidnapping, one that had occurred not long before I abducted Snoopy.

Fasten your seat belts, folks. This takes a dark turn.

In 1973, John Paul Getty III, grandson of J. Paul Getty (the World’s Richest Man, with more money than the Catholic Church), was kidnapped by the Italian mob and held for $17 million. When the elder Getty, who apparently was also the World’s Richest Cheapskate, initially balked, a local newspaper soon received – I am not making this up – John Paul Getty III’s severed ear in the mail, courtesy of the aforementioned Roman goombahs. The old man soon coughed up a negotiated $2.2 million, and John Paul III was eventually returned.

With that in mind, here’s my entire ransom note, re-created to the best of my memory from 1977, which I left in the break room atop that radioactive microwave:

We have Snoopy. He’s in good hands, at least for now. But you don’t want to mess with us. We’d hate to fit your mutt with four cement boots and invite him to dog paddle in the East River.

To get him back, leave two bottles of Coca-Cola on the top shelf just west of the building support pillar at the end of the cooking section. Your DEADline is Saturday, July 17, no later than noon.

No funny stuff, or your dog does the backstroke.

To show you we’re serious, we’re leaving you a little gift. Do NOT push us.

Placed in the same plain white envelope that contained my goofy ransom note was one small piece of the jigsaw puzzle, a piece that depicted – are you paying attention? – Snoopy’s ear. Since the world-famous Getty abduction had occurred just three years prior, library staff must’ve understood exactly how deadly serious sick and twisted amusing this was.

Nobody at the library ever said a word to me about this.

I never noticed any lantern-jawed thugs, coppers or G-men trailing me.

No, life at the Burbank Public Library went on as usual. Except some very important people in town must’ve realized that someone had kidnapped a world-renowned celebrity.

How do I know this? On July 17, 1977, while shelving books in the library’s cooking section, I headed over to the prearranged location, and there they were: two bottles of Coca-Cola.

And I smiled.

Later that evening, a librarian on break discovered that Snoopy had been miraculously returned to his jigsaw domain, reunited with his severed ear.

I learned two things, at the ripe old age of 18: (1) Pulling victimless pranks was a load of fun, and (2) I really didn’t have what it took to lead a genuine life of crime.

Nearly a half century later, I remain quite certain that no library staffer ever determined who’d kidnapped Snoopy, lopped off his floppy ear, and left the ransom note.

And I have absolutely no idea who paid the ransom … which I enjoyed later that day with a few freebie Twinkies pilfered from the break room.

It remains a mystery to this very day.

Special thanks to Alden Cox, Dana Allen, Kathy Ayers and Linda Kaun, who provided encouragement and helpful feedback while this essay was being written.

To me, taking in a baseball game is about as exciting as watching an IKEA table collect dust.

Granted, there are nuances to the game that I fail to – or admittedly refuse to – appreciate. For example, how a team’s manager positions his players on the field, depending on the pitcher, the batter, the score, the base runners – hell, let’s get creative here – the relative humidity, the lunar cycle, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, whatever.

To baseball purists (and I deeply respect each and every one of you), the game is an engaging, high-stakes chess match, a chess match pitting athletic multimillionaires against one another.

To me, the game is like, well, a freakin’ chess match. The only difference: Chess matches move more quickly, and the grandmasters don’t spit on the ground between moves.

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However, I’m happy to relate one notable exception. What I saw during a televised baseball game one June day in the early ’80s nearly knocked me out of my well-worn La-Z-Boy recliner.

I’d just fired up my recently purchased Mitsubishi 18-inch color TV (which weighed the equivalent of three cinder blocks and sold for $550). The Los Angeles Dodgers were playing the San Francisco Giants up in the Bay Area.

Just as I tuned in, Dodgers 3^rd baseman Ron Cey slapped a slow ground ball to the Giants’ shortstop and was thrown out at first. I reached for the TV clicker, hoping I’d stumble across something more exciting, like a televised examination of inductive versus deductive reasoning.

However, something deep within me – an intuitive, odd “spidey sense” that to this very day I can’t fully comprehend – told me to stick around and watch the game.

I’m glad I did.

The next Dodger, all-star first baseman Steve Garvey, approached the plate, bat in hand. As he did so, music throughout the stadium began to play a very specific “batter-walk-up song.”

In case you don’t know this, “walk-up songs” – snippets of traditional baseball tunes such as “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”; “Eye of the Tiger,” by Survivor; or “We Will Rock You,” by Queen – are played as an athlete takes his final warm-up swings and heads toward the batter’s box. Today, I imagine most walk-up songs are pre-recorded, but 40 years ago, an actual in-stadium organist tickled the keys.

And this particular organist had a real mean streak.

Just as Garvey headed toward home plate, the organist knocked out a few bars from composer Scott Joplin’s 1902 ragtime classic “The Entertainer,” definitely not your typical baseball ditty.

That’s when my jaw hit the floor. This cannot be a coincidence. I thought to myself.

Why, you ask?

Let’s just say it had to do with one man’s, shall we say, “libidinous misstep” and another man’s Academy Award–winning soundtrack.

Stick with me, folks, there’s a connection here. And, given Garvey’s wide-ranging fame at the time, it didn’t take a baseball fan to put 2 and 2 together.

As for Garvey’s first at-bat, which followed “The Entertainer” snippet, I don’t recall whether or not he got a hit, struck out, popped out, did the Hokey-Pokey and turned himself around, or whatever. It didn’t matter. For I was riveted, waiting for one event: Garvey’s next appearance at the plate.

During the interim, as other players from both teams took their at-bats – and as I fought heroically to stay out of a baseball-induced coma – the Giants’ organist played a variety of ordinary, traditional walk-up songs.

Not Garvey. When he headed toward the batter’s box for the second time, there it was again: a 10-second refrain from Joplin’s “The Entertainer.”

Later that game, it happened a third time.

Okay, here’s the connection that blew me away.

Steve Garvey’s wife, Cyndy, had recently caught the Dodgers first baseman having an affair with his secretary, apparently swinging his rather famous bat in a different direction, as it were. It eventually ended their marriage.

Cyndy Garvey very soon took up with a certain fellow named Marvin Hamlish.

And who, pray tell, was Marvin Hamlish? He was a noted composer who had adopted ragtime music for the 1973 Oscar Best Picture winner, “The Sting.”

And the most noted song in the movie’s soundtrack? “The Entertainer,” the very same song used every single time Garvey entered the batter’s box that day in San Fran. You’d think that a musician who’d made it to the Major Leagues would be forgiving of a fellow professional who’d mishandled his organ. Sadly for Garvey, this wasn’t the case.

And there you have it, folks: a snarky – one could argue downright vicious – slice of sports history.

Not to burst your bubble, but the sadistic stadium organist never converted me into a baseball fan.

Still, I learned an important lesson that day so many years ago: Trust your intuition. Listen to your gut.

And I can’t help but wonder if Garvey would’ve been better served had he moved the source of his own intuition above his waist.

Kudos and hugs to members of my Write Hearted community who went over early draft: Rachel Parker, Kathy Ayers, Simon Emslie and Dana Allen. And a special shout-out to Rick Lewis, who provided valuable feedback and furnished a few clever zingers that I incorporated into this essay.

On a blistering August afternoon in 1983, I was heading south from L.A. toward San Diego on the I-5. The plan was to go windsurfing with friends in Mission Bay. Traveling in the fast lane, the windsurfer strapped to the roof of my car, my mind wandered as I pictured the next two blissful days: my San Diego State buddies and me harnessing the bay’s reliably stiff breeze as our boards skipped like well-thrown stones over the choppy water’s surface, followed by delectable barbecue fare and animated conversations over a bonfire after sunset.

Just then, about 10 miles north of Oceanside, the freeway traffic suddenly backed up as hundreds of brake lights slammed me back into the present moment.

No biggie, I thought. It happens.

A SoCal native, by the time I was in my mid-20s I’d negotiated “constipated” freeways many times. But in my eight years of driving, I’d never seen traffic stop altogether.

Within a minute of halting, all five southbound lanes became little more than a huge, taxpayer-funded parking lot, a miles-long ribbon of sheet metal, glass, rubber, carbon monoxide fumes and seriously pissed-off drivers. We’d occasionally roll forward every minute or so, a few feet at a time.

An hour later, we’d moved about 200 yards.

My car, a purple ’73 AMC Hornet, didn’t have A/C. So as I grew hot under the collar, the rest of my body followed suit, schvitzing through my yellow Hang Ten tank top and cutoff Levis.

That’s when I saw them.

Three lanes over, two scruffy, free-spirited 20-somethings sat in the bed of an ancient yellow-on-rust Ford F-150 pickup. Both of the shirtless, sun-baked yokels occupied two lawn chairs, literally kicking back while guzzling can after can of beer, right out there in the early-afternoon meltdown.

My first thought: Huh. Maybe these guys are the “designated drinkers.”

During that first hour, as the freeway crawled along, I saw the giggling, belching hayseeds heroically power through six or seven beers each.

Impressed – and dehydrated – I came to three conclusions: (1) Those fine lads are not rocket scientists. (2) Man, I’d sure love a nice, cold beer. (3) Right now.

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I’m not a big drinker. Never was, never will be.

However, at the time, sitting in my overheated Hornet in the fast lane of the clogged I-5, I realized that a can of whatever golden, carbonated nectar these happy-go-lucky MIT professors were guzzling would go down quite well, thank you very much. More importantly, the idea of acting out, giving a frustrated middle finger to whatever Gridlock Gods were behind this slice of motorist hell, seemed completely appropriate.

In other words: Screw it …

Leaning to my right, I bellowed out the open passenger-side window toward the party boys: “Hey!”

Both of their heads, mounted on alcohol-lubricated necks, swiveled in my direction.

“Whassap, dude?” the fellow closer to me bellowed back enthusiastically.

“I’ll give you a buck for one of those beers!” I hollered.

Without a word, Mr. Whassup reached down, grabbed a cold one from what must’ve been a well-stocked ice chest, hopped out of the pickup, jogged over three freeway lanes to my Hornet, and held out a glorious can of Budweiser.

I gave him a dollar bill and latched on to the beer.

“Enjoy, dude!” he said before scampering, barefoot, back to his biergarten on wheels.

I placed the delectable Budweiser into a cupholder, gave the Brewski Bros a thumbs up and resumed hypnotically gazing at the stalled line of cars in front of me.

Today, I have mixed emotions about this rather unusual transaction. When I was handed the beer, I was giggling along with my newfound buds in the pickup.

However, when I again placed that can of Budweiser into my car’s cupholder two minutes later, it was empty.

For the first and last time, I drank behind the wheel, something I’m not proud to admit.

I don’t recall how long the traffic remained snarled in the I-5 that day four decades ago, but eventually my AMC Hornet, empty Budweiser can and sweaty self were back at full speed, heading toward Mission Bay and two days of glorious windsurfing.

You never know where, or how, a person can find human connection and relief from the slings and arrows of Life. It can even happen over a beer, on a packed freeway.

Today, while I don’t recall much about the fun my friends and I had out on the water, I recall the briefly odd adventure with my freeway buds like it was yesterday.

Kudos to Matt Cyr, Kathy Ayers and Christopher Harding for their feedback on the first draft of this post.

“Hi. I’d like to make a withdrawal,” I said, checking my watch and glancing at the potted spider plants that flanked each teller window, each one struggling to flourish under the bank’s harsh fluorescent lights.

“Sure. How much would you like?” she asked.

“What’s the maximum amount?”

A few seconds later, she glanced up from her monitor. “Two-thousand dollars.”

“Really? Uh … might it be possible to get more? In cash?”

Again I checked my watch.

“I’m afraid everything else is tied up long term,” she said, frowning. “We could free up more in three business days.”

I didn’t have three business minutes. I needed it now.

“Okay,” I said, sighing in resignation. “I’ll take it.”

“And how would you like that?”

“In nickels, please.”

“Huh?”

“Nah, just kidding,” I smiled. “Anything. Twenties, hundreds. Doesn’t matter.”

She soon handed me a small wad of greenbacks. I thanked her profusely and darted out the door.

I raced back to the office, where I was late for a weekly Friday meeting. An editor for the Auto Club’s Publications Division (we produced the freebie magazines sent to all AAA members throughout California), I was tasked with reporting on the status of the various stories slated to appear in the next issue.

Despite the important nature of the meeting, I was up to something far more critical: a quick score, surely the easiest money I’d ever make.

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One day earlier, I’d learned about the official point spread in that Sunday’s Super Bowl XXXIX (“39” for those not versed in the silly Roman numeral system used by the NFL), a contest pitting the New England Patriots against the Philadelphia Eagles.

In any other situation, I’d be screaming myself hoarse in favor of the Eagles, though not because I was a fan of Philly’s team.

No, I’d root for any team competing against the Patriots. Judge me if you must, but if the freakin Taliban fielded an NFL squad against the Pats, I’d consider pulling for them.

Why? Let me count the ways.

1. Three years earlier, the then-upstart Patriots had upset the heavily favored St. Louis Rams – my St. Louis Rams – in Super Bowl XXXVI (“36” for those who count in “common sense”).

2. The Patriots competed in Foxborough, Mass., located within spittin’ distance (assuming you could expectorate 29 miles) from Boston. And, then and now, you couldn’t utter the word “Boston” in my presence without risking getting your ears boxed. Repeatedly. After all, Boston is home of the hated Celtics, a group of extremely tall sub-human basketball goons that former L.A. Lakers coach Pat Riley once astutely called “the Klingons of the NBA.”

3. The New England Patriots were coached by a stone-faced cyborg named Bill Belichick. Nobody, other than the delusional thugs who composed Patriot Nation, liked that guy.

4. Their quarterback, the comically overrated Tom Brady, selected as the 199^th pick of the 2000 NFL draft, managed to rise to the starting position on good looks alone. On top of all that, he’d been instrumental in beating my Rams in that earlier Super Bowl.

Why, then, was I pulling for the Patriots?

Because the point spread for Super Bowl 39 (“XXXIX” if you must, dammit) was only 7, favoring New England. In other words, the Pats had to beat the Eagles by just 7 points in order to pay out to those who’d bet on Boston’s Evil Empire.

And any football fan with the IQ of spinach knew that, on their worst day, the Pats could slap down the Eagles by far more than 7.

Easy money. A no-brainer. A sure thing.

Now let’s digress for a moment.

Question: If you could travel back in time to March 13, 1986, the day of Microsoft’s initial public offering, and invest $2,000 in the digital bully giant, would you? Hint: Today that $2,000 would be worth more than $10 million.

Answer: Like, duh… (Translated: Indeed, you would).

And you’d surely do anything – even run late for one measly work meeting – to nab that $2,000 in order to make it happen, right?

Like I said: no-brainer.

Which is why I’d ducked out of work: to shovel as much green in my pockets as possible, since pulling for the hated New England Patriots in Super Bowl 39 (I am done with this Roman numeral nonsense) was easy money.

A sure thing.

So I slithered my way out of the office to snag $2,000 from the bank

And I was frustrated beyond words that I couldn’t grab my elderly parents’ retirement a whole lot more.

The next day, I took my cash, drove 230 miles from Orange County to the buzzing megalopolis of Primm, Nevada (just across the California border) and bet on the Patriots.

The next day, a gaggle of friends and I enjoyed the Super Bowl while scarfing down bag after bag of Doritos, washed down with way too many Bud Lights. What a giddy way to witness a wise investment pay out, right?

As expected, the New England Patriots – the NFL team I loathed far more than any other – won the game ...

… by only 3 points. They didn’t cover the 7-point spread.

And I lost $2,000.

Even before I knocked down my final beer, I realized that I could’ve saved two tanks of gas and five-plus hours of driving (to lovely Primm, Nevada, no less) had I just taken a flamethrower to my 2-grand right there in the bank a few days earlier.

Better yet, I could’ve actually done my job, made the editorial meeting on time, and saved the money altogether.

Since then, I’ve understood that wagering on a “sure thing” – and cutting corners with any sort of quick fix – should be reserved for only two types of people: seasoned professional gamblers and mental pygmies.

And if anyone ever mentions a “no-brainer” sports wager, a “guaranteed” payout, you’ll see me heading – sprinting – in the other direction.

Bet on it.

Kudos to Kathy Ayers, Simon Emslie, Dana Allen and Genie Joseph, all of whom provided valuable feedback while I was conjuring this neurotic tale of woe.

My father, brother and I, along with about a dozen other members of Boy Scout Troop 75, had backpacked to a fairly remote campsite in Upper Bear Creek, located in Southern California’s San Gabriel Wilderness. Although, at age 10, I wasn’t yet old enough to be a Boy Scout, my brother had joined the troop one year earlier, and I was invited along for the weekend adventure.

Within a half mile of leaving the trailhead, however, my “adventure” had become somewhat of a death march.

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The trail we’d taken crossed swollen, fast-running Bear Creek at least a dozen times as we ascended our way past the sage scrub, chaparral, ponderosa pines and coast live oaks that populated the region. Between my far-too-heavy backpack, the blown-out sneakers that offered little support when negotiating the slick rocks found at every creek crossing, the unremitting July heat, and the fast pace set by the older, stronger boys, our three-mile jaunt felt more like 50 when I finally dumped my pack and collapsed onto the tarp my dad had spread out at our campsite.

“Let’s go get some water,” Dad said a few minutes later. “Drink a little, and you’ll feel better.”

Offering a strong arm, he helped me to my feet and we ambled our way toward a stand of ferns flourishing in the shade offered by two white alders that arched out over the creek. Dad was right. Within minutes of filling our canteens and drinking the cool, clean water, I felt rejuvenated.

We sat next to each other, blissfully cooling our bare feet in the creek and gazing up at the alders’ leaves, which danced and shimmered in the late-afternoon light as creek water sighed and gurgled over nearby rocks.

Then my father did something he’d never done before, something he’d never again do for the rest of his life: He put his arm around me.

I briefly twitched in shock at this new experience. What the hell is happening?

Then, as his fingers began to caress my shoulder, I felt an odd blend of confusion and tranquility.

I instinctively knew that my father felt the same. I sensed his apprehension, his hesitation. And beneath my confused state, I admired him for the risk he’d taken by expressing himself in this manner, something men of his era often avoided.

Dad and I spent a few awkwardly wonderful minutes together, two imperfect souls wordlessly connecting in a beautiful slice of paradise.

We soon stood and headed back to set up our campsite.

Forty-three years later, I sat in a chair next to my father, who lay in bed dying of an aggressive form of melanoma that had ravaged his body. He spent most of his time sleeping, waking up to let me give him a sip of water, occasionally mumbling something I couldn’t quite understand.

“What did you say, Dad?” I asked, confused.

I then felt compelled to do something I’d never done before: I gently took his hand in mine, feeling what he must’ve felt when he’d risked placing his arm around his young son so many decades earlier.

Once Dad fell back asleep, snoring lightly, I went outside to unwind, take in some fresh air and try to process what had just happened. My mom met me just outside the front door about five minutes later.

Looking up at me and smiling through the pain of impending loss, she said, “Your father just told me something you should know.”

“What?”

“He said, ‘Tell Larry I love him very, very much.’”

His mumbled words, those words I couldn’t quite comprehend ...

Part of me had always known that my father loved me, ever since he’d taken a chance and put his arm around his young son at Bear Creek so many years earlier.

Dad, wherever you are, I hope you understand this: The feeling is mutual.

Kudos and hugs to Dana Allen, Matt Cyr, Kathy Ayers and Genie Joseph, who provided valuable feedback while this essay was being written.

I hope this message finds you well.

I just wanted to thank you for a gift you gave me a long time ago, thousands of miles from home. It’s a gift that took me nearly 20 years to finally unwrap.

Like a seed that germinates only when it’s ready, your gift finally sprouted one March evening at Los Angeles International Airport. I made my way through a teeming throng of travelers in the Tom Bradley International Terminal, eventually lugging my two stuffed duffel bags to the Thai Airways ticket counter.

I’d spent the previous six months preparing for a trip to Nepal’s Mt. Everest region: hundreds of hours on bikes, treadmills and trails, sweating my way into the kind of shape required to climb high in the Himalayas. By the time I’d arrived at LAX, I’d checked all the boxes required by a trip of this nature: a current passport, visa, shots, updated equipment list … Matt, you’ve traveled the world, you know the drill.

I just needed one more item: a boarding pass.

And I wasn’t getting one.

A minute earlier, I’d handed the ticket agent, a diminutive young woman with almond eyes and a kind smile, my paperwork.

Her smile then faded, her brow creasing slightly with concern.

“Are you Larry or Lawrence?” she asked.

“I’m Larry.”

“Hmmm.” The crease in her brow became more pronounced. “Your passport says ‘Larry.’” She glanced down at her monitor. “But your reservation says ‘Lawrence.’”

I’d assumed, apparently without checking, that my passport said “Lawrence.”

She sighed, gave her head an almost imperceptible shake and added, “This could be a problem. May I see another form of ID?”

Feeling a growing sense of dread, I handed over my driver’s license.

“This says ‘Larry.’”

“Yes,” I replied.

“But, again, your reservation says…” Another sigh, this one with a measure of exasperation. “Lawrence,” she muttered to herself. “This isn’t good.”

I grew weak in the knees, deducing where this conversation – and my Himalayan adventure – might be headed.

“I’m really sorry, but there may be a problem letting you board,” she said. “It’s a security issue.”

Matt, you spent two months with me, years earlier, cycling throughout Europe, and we got to know each other pretty well. So, you can probably guess what I wanted to say to the LAX ticket agent: Something like …

“Listen. I need to get on that goddamn plane, and if you don’t stop this cross-examination and give me my boarding pass – a boarding pass I’ve already paid for – there’s gonna be hell to pay. I wanna speak with your supervisor. NOW.”

But I didn’t act in this manner. Rather, I thought of you … and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Because, right then, I needed some Jedi magic.

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The Eurail Pass we’d each purchased for our 1994 European cycling trip was our ticket to freedom: unlimited train rides throughout the Continent. We could make our way to, say, Copenhagen, cycle around the region for a week or so, then hop on another train to Stockholm. Easy, right?

Wrong.

Nobody warned us how difficult it was traveling with bicycles, since most trains weren’t equipped to carry them. At nearly every station, there’d be the inevitable delay, sometimes for hours.

Matt, you must remember how, for whatever reason, I was the point person who’d inquire about the next bike-friendly train. And surely you must recall how, on more than one occasion, I’d get abrupt with the ticket agent upon hearing of yet another delay.

Acting in this manner never swayed any of the ticket agents.

“We’re sorry, sir,” they’d say. “The next train headed to Oslo, one that takes bikes, won’t be here for three … no, four hours.”

That all changed one balmy July evening in Brussels, when you first shared with me your gift.

We were headed toward Zermatt, Switzerland, home of the Matterhorn, and the next bike-friendly train wasn’t scheduled until the following morning. Right when we received the bad news, a regular Zermatt-bound train was taking on passengers about 100 feet beyond the ticket counter.

Matt, you must’ve seen my expression darken. This time, however, you put a hand on my shoulder, gently guided me back a step and addressed the ticket agent yourself.

“Sir,” you said in a slow, measured tone, “we really, really need to get on that train. It would help us a great deal.”

The ticket agent expression softened. “Okay, take your bikes and follow me.”

Stunned beyond words, my mouth hung open as my gaze comically moved back and forth between you and the ticket agent. Wha … Wha… What the hell just happened? I thought.

Your brief exchange reminded me of a scene in “Star Wars: A New Hope,” when Jedi master Obi Wan Kenobi used his powers to get past a checkpoint manned by Imperial Storm Troopers.

The magic you worked with the ticket agent wasn’t just a one-off, Matt. It occurred on several occasions during our trip. And though I soon learned to keep my pie-hole shut within a mile of any train station, I never fully acknowledged the simple but powerful magic you’d conjured.

The LAX Thai Airways ticket agent headed to the back office to consult with her boss.

And, right then, Matt, your gift – given to me 18 years earlier – finally emerged.

While waiting for the supervisor, I thought of you. Taking a slow, deep breath, then another, I actually tried to channel you.

Then something gently fell into place. Something just clicked.

A minute later, the supervisor, a portly fellow with wire-framed glasses and a comical combover, followed his subordinate to the counter where I stood. His eyes darted between my passport and the computer monitor. Larry, Lawrence ... Larry, Lawrence …

I went for broke.

“I’m really sorry about this problem,” I said slowly, calmly, tapping into my own inner Obi Wan. “They’re really the same name.”

The supervisor looked at me with a slightly befuddled expression.

I smiled at him.

“It’s like Rick … and Richard,” I said, slightly tilting my head left, then right, creating an unspoken rhythm that seemed to merge the two names into one, a rhythm that calmed my still-jangled nerves.

Then the names just flowed out of me, as I continued to rhythmically, almost imperceptibly, move back and forth.

Phil … and Phillip.
Maggie … and Margaret.
Ted … and Theodore.
Suzie … and Susan.
Bill … and William.
Mike … and Michael.

After sharing a few more examples in this manner, I took another deep breath, finishing with ...

Larry … and Lawrence. Followed by a shrug and a smile.

Without hesitating, the man turned to his subordinate and said, “Give Larry his boarding pass.”

Matt, by modeling calm, confident equanimity during so many stressful scenarios, you saved my trip to Nepal. And by showing me the positive effects of slowing down and simply being nice to people while asking for what you need, you gave me a gift for life.

And for that, I thank you.

A big, hearty THANK YOU to Dana Allen, Kathy Ayers and Linda Kaun, who went over an early version of this essay and provided valuable feedback.

“Batshit loonball.”

“Crazed mutant.”

“Nutcase.” “Loony bird.” “Primitive screwhead.” “Whackadoodle.” “Fruitcake.”

These are but a few of the terms a shocked coworker could’ve – and probably should’ve – attributed to me when he saw the way I was acting one autumn day some 10 years ago.

I was silently conversing with a wall.

However, in fairness, that’s not entirely accurate.

I was silently arguing with a wall.

And that’s exactly what my coworker saw: yours truly, mere inches from a blank wall, gesticulating like a demented conductor leading an invisible orchestra through its final movement.

Detecting motion just within range of my peripheral vision, I turned and saw Patrick, the amiable, ruddy-faced editor of “Southland Golf” magazine, as he slooooooly backed his way into his office and slooooooly closed his door. Given what he’d just witnessed, I wasn’t surprised that his bugged-out expression depicted pure terror … mixed with a tiny dose of befuddled amusement, the kind of look you’d expect from someone who’d spotted, let’s say, an interstellar alien, in top hat and blackface, trying to imitate Al Jolson.

The wall in question, my passive adversary, was painted sky blue, a color designed to calm the mind, which came in handy on days like this one, a monthly high-octane marathon when we shipped the final magazine layouts to the printer. Behind me was a 40-by-40 maze of office cubicles, each populated by an editor or a designer frantically trying to wrap things up before Zero Hour, our inflexible deadline.

However, at the moment, I wasn’t worried about any deadline. I was worried about
Patrick.

He, in turn, surely must’ve been worried about me, given that I appeared to be redefining the term “psychobabble.”

Yes, there’s a back story.

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Have you ever been insulted by someone and managed to come up with a terrific verbal counterpunch, but only long after the interaction has taken place? Think of a time when your clever zinger emerged days – hell, sometimes even years – after the insult. You surely wish you’d had that world-class comeback chambered in your revolver the instant you really needed it, right?

On literally hundreds of occasions, I’ve come up with an assortment of snarky retorts – but never in the heat of the moment.

The source of my embarrassing one-way conversation with the wall is rooted in one such incident, which occurred some 30 years earlier. Here’s what happened.

At an office Christmas party back in 1985, Julie, a coworker in the transportation service where I worked, happily skipped around taking photos of the various groups gathered in the Italian restaurant where we’d met to celebrate the Virgin Birth. When Julie got to my group of fellow transportation dispatchers, my boss, Chip, a tubby Bible-thumper with a severely receding chin and the most pronounced Napoleon Complex I’d ever encountered, sidled up to her, faced my little gaggle of coworkers, and said to me, completely out of the blue: “Smile for the camera, Larry. You’re too big.”

Huh? I’m too big?

At the time, I was 6’4” and a stripper pole–shaped 180 pounds. I wasn’t big, I was tall.

And I instantly knew where the 5’6” Chip was coming from.

Thanks to his tendency to put others down in his own soft-spoken manner, I’d long suspected that my boss had been mercilessly bullied as a child. Now, at the holiday party, he’d been given a chance to exact just a teensy-weensy bit of revenge on a subordinate who had the audacity of choosing tall parents.

He said it again. “You’re too big.”

In a perfect world, one in which my brain’s “smart-ass lobe” could kick into high gear when I needed it most, I had several options, each in the form of a wicked comeback:

• Option 1: “Chip, you’d sell off one of your ugly kids to spend a day at 5’11”.
• Option 2: “Maybe if you’d hit the gym and stop worshipping at the Church of the Almighty Twinkie, you wouldn’t be too big.”
• Option 3: (my personal favorite): “I’m too big? Gee, that’s not what your wife kept screaming …”

But since it wasn’t a perfect world, I just sat there, numbed out and smiling like a compliant buffoon, when I really wanted to stride over to him, rip his head off and pour some scrumptious holiday eggnog down his neck hole.

Oh, believe me when I say this: The snarky comebacks to his odd insult eventually did emerge, but only weeks, months and – in the case of my diatribe directed at a wall while at work – decades later.

Regardless of the insults that came my way, and there were dozens through the years, I’d sometimes get into such a frenzied lather while acting out my too-late counterpunches, I’d actually say them out loud. Or I’d silently pantomime them.

Case in point: Long before the advent of cell phones, motorists would occasionally spot me on the L.A. freeways, while driving solo, bickering with my dashboard and gesturing at the speedometer at 65 miles per hour. I’d always see these befuddled drivers out of the corner of my eye, just before they swerved into another lane, likely to get away from someone whose cheese had obviously slid off his cracker.

When things got really heated in the Wonderful World of Larryland, I’d actually stand up, completely adrift from the present moment, engaging in a one-way debate while frantically waving my hands to punctuate whatever point I was directing at my opponent from the past.

Which is exactly what I was doing when Patrick, my editor, saw me.

Embarrassed beyond comprehension, my mental record player’s needle made a ripping sound across a vinyl album. My mind, which only moments before had been as energetic as a coked-up wolverine during mating season, immediately went into “brain-stem-only” mode, in the form of a near-flat EEG.

“Um … uh…,” I expounded aloud in the direction of Patrick’s closed door, followed by “Duuuuh,” the gold-standard clarion call of all low-grade morons.

By the time my neurons had recovered enough so I could upgrade to two whole syllables, waxing poetic with a nice “Oopsie,” I knew it was time to shuffle back to my cubicle and hope that nobody else had seen my heated debate with a painted slab of drywall.

I continued copyediting the article I’d been working on for “Southland Golf” magazine: a scintillating, Pulitzer-worthy piece about how pro golfers laterally rotate their torsos when chipping onto a green.

And, right then, my semi-fried brain made the connection.

Chipping onto a green. Chip shot. Cheap shot.

“Oh, Jesus Christ on a donkey,” I muttered to myself. “Now I get it …”

Chip. The name of my boss back in 1985, he of the receding chin and Napoleon Complex.

To the best of my knowledge – and to his credit – I’m pretty sure Patrick never told any of our coworkers about my embarrassing behavior that day. And if he passed his tale of woe on to anyone in the local mental-health community, nobody ever tried to tackle me and tie me into a straightjacket.

Hell – maybe they should’ve …

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Special thanks to Genie Joseph, Brigitte Kratz and Alex Michael for their valuable input while I was creating this certain ticket to the local nut farm essay.

Except for one green lovebird, a quiet redhead perched on a branch in the far corner of the cage, frozen amid the blur of high-octane activity.

It was Lucy. I hadn’t seen her in two weeks.

Moving closer, I peered at the creature, smiled, briefly whistled through my teeth and said, “Hello, birdy … ”

She instantly came to life, jumping from her solitary position and gripping the side of the cage in front of me. Her head bobbed up and down in excitement as she began to chirp a familiar greeting.

I burst into tears.

Shuffling to an empty corner of The Perfect Parrot, head bowed, I convulsively wept harder than I’d ever wept before.

In early 2016, my 87-year-old mother could no longer live alone in the large house in Burbank, California, that she and my father had purchased some 40 years earlier. Since I was “between jobs,” I opted to move in with her, so she could avoid transitioning into an independent-living senior community, something she wanted to put off as long as possible.

Our only roommate, a yellow lovebird named Rocky, had, in his own way, helped support Mom during the challenging period after my father died three years earlier.

One day, Mom and I visited Dad at his gravesite, to pay our respects. On a whim, we took Rocky along.

Rocky died just three days later.

Sure, he was an old critter who we knew was going to fly from this mortal coil sooner than later. Still, Mom and I couldn’t help but wonder if he gave up the ghost after visiting the resting place of someone who’d been a good caretaker and friend for so many years.

When Mom eventually decided to get another lovebird, we headed over to The Perfect Parrot, in nearby North Hollywood.

Selecting a green bird sporting a spot of bright orange feathers on her head, we named her Lucy, after Lucille Ball, the famously feisty redhead.

I’d never felt any deep connection with pet birds, and this critter was no different. But my mother really wanted someone to replace her beloved Rocky, and I thought: For 50 bucks and a two-quart container of bird seed, how can we go wrong?

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After we took Lucy home, she remained frozen, seemingly shell shocked, in one corner of her cage. But about two weeks later she came to life, singing, bouncing around her new digs and fluttering her way throughout the large house whenever we let her out for playtime. And we soon discovered that this spirited little bird was carnivorous, biting down on any unsuspecting finger within lunging range.

Lovebirds get their name due to their tendency to form strong, monogamous bonds with one mate. As the months went by, we noticed that whenever she was liberated from her cage, she’d bypass others and fly over to me, landing on one of my shoulders or, more often than not, atop my head.

Apparently, she chose me as her One True Love.

I was the only one who could pet Lucy’s red head without risking blood loss. She’d crawl down my shoulder onto my right collarbone, perch herself under my chin, and rest there for up to 30 minutes at a time. I soon realized that in adopting this oddly charming posture, we were nurturing each other.

Other times, we’d read together.

It only took two magic words to get Lucy to dart out from her little cloth bird tent, suspended from the top of the cage. “Hello, birdy.”

Three years later, my mother decided to sell the house and move into The Village, a senior independent-living community. (I later referred to Mom and her new neighbors as The Village People.) At the same time, seeking a radical change in the face of what felt like a lengthy period of stagnation, I made plans to pull up stakes and relocate to Prescott, Arizona.

But what to do with Lucy? Mom didn’t want the responsibility of caring for her, and I had no idea where I’d be living in Prescott, let alone how I’d make a living.

So one day, distracted and overwhelmed by the multitude of tasks required to make our respective moves happen, I returned Lucy to The Perfect Parrot. I had a lot on my plate, and I unceremoniously checked “dump the bird” off my to-do list without a second thought.

Done. Problem solved.

Spurred by a powerful urge, a day before my move to Arizona, I stopped by The Perfect Parrot to see Lucy one last time.

And there she was, frozen on her perch, mute and unmoving amid the gaggle of her energetic friends.

I moved my face close to the cage.

“Hello, birdy,” I said for the thousandth time.

Recognizing a familiar voice, she came alive and flew over to me, chirping and fluttering her wings.

I wept over an overwhelming sense of guilt. Yes, we’d bonded, and yet when it was time to care for this devoted little friend, I’d numbed out and abandoned her. How could I forgive myself?

To this day, I’m not sure I have.

But lurking just beneath the awful guilt was a far deeper emotion: profound love.

Standing in the corner of The Perfect Parrot, head bowed, blinking through my tears, I finally realized how deeply I’d become attached to this little creature. And it took this painful goodbye to finally connect with the depth of love I’d denied for so long.

I hope and pray that Lucy found a loving home for the long term. I think about her every day.

Question: What would you do if you were in a position to help someone you were supposed to hate, a person you’d gladly bitch-slap into the next zip code?

I was faced with this dilemma six years ago. Driving to Southern California, I spotted a well-worn blue Ford F-150 parked somewhat haphazardly off Highway 60 just west of the vibrant megalopolis of Aguila, Arizona (population 565). The Ford’s driver, a grizzled 70-something sporting denim bib overalls, a weathered Stetson and a gloriously white 18-inch ZZ Top–style beard, stood next to his vehicle with his head bowed in resignation, hands on hips.

Without thinking, I did something that only a certifiable lunatic would ever do in the SoCal urban jungle: I pulled over to help.

As I slowed to a stop on the road’s gravel shoulder, the man looked in my direction, squinted into the mid-afternoon sun and gave me a shrug, a gesture I took as the universal sign of “What the hell now?”

I hopped out of my Toyota and headed toward him. The first thing I noticed, other than the guy’s flat right-rear tire, was the red MAGA bumper sticker affixed to the back of his pickup.

Oh, wonderful.

MAGA. Make America Great Again.

The clarion call of the ignorant, uneducated, brainwashed simpletons who, for reasons beyond comprehension, supported a certain orange pit viper who’d managed to slither his way into the Oval Office some two years earlier. Make America Great Again. These four simple words had never failed to pump my already borderline blood pressure into the stratosphere, four words that had always conjured up every mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging bully I’d encountered since childhood.

Clearly this brittle codger was a proud, red-blooded ’Merican. To me, however, he was nothing more than a crash-test dummy, an easily-suckered hayseed who’d somehow managed to earn the right to vote.

The man’s gravelly voice shook me from my brief reverie. “You wouldn’t happen to have a jack, would ya?” he inquired.

Sorry, buddy, but I don’t help people with a room-temperature IQ, I said, flashing him two middle fingers before pivoting back toward my Toyota. Find another neofascist to help you.

Actually, I wanted to say that. I wanted to unload on the stranger.

But I swallowed my words.

Because when the man sighed, tilted back his Stetson, removed his sunglasses and backhanded the sweat from his forehead, I saw something in his eyes that I hadn’t expected: a blend of desperation and resigned sadness.

“The missus and I gotta get to the doctor,” he said, gesturing into the pickup’s interior. “Pronto.”

I then spotted a thin, pallid woman, roughly the man’s age, collapsed in the F-150’s front passenger seat. A thin tube ran from her nostrils into what I assumed was an oxygen tank at her feet. On her head rested, you guessed it, a red MAGA baseball cap. Turning her head in my direction, she managed a feeble smile.

A few minutes later, I was hunkered down next to the flat tire, breaking free the rusty lug nuts that held the wheel to the Ford.

“Name’s Will,” the man said, bending over slightly and offering his hand.

“Larry,” I said, gripping a surprisingly large paw calloused from decades of hard work.

“Looks like you know what you’re doing,” he observed. “I really appreciate your help.”

“Not a problem,” I said. “This isn’t the best place to get a flat.”

“No it ain’t. Where you headed, anyway?”

“Los Angeles,” I said. “That’s where I’m from. Burbank, actually.”

Will stood, stretched his lower back and said, “Go figure. Jenny – that’s my better half up front – she has a sister in Burbank. Been there for years.”

“Small world,” I said as I worked the jack, slowly raising the pickup from the gravel.

“Jenny and I, we were thinking of visiting her while we still can,” Will said. “The wife, she don’t have a lot of time.”

I stopped raising the truck and looked up at Will. “Sir, I’m really sorry,” I said.

“Thanks,” Will replied. “Emphysema. You suck down them cancer sticks for the fifty years I’ve known her, and this is what happens. Honestly, I don’t know what I’m gonna do after she’s gone, and … and … ”

Will’s voice cracked.

So did a piece of my heart.

Once the spare tire was affixed to his pickup, I turned toward my car, carrying my jack and tire iron. Will stepped forward and again offered his hand.

“Thank you so much.”

No handshake this time. No sir. Hesitating only briefly, I moved in closer, dropped my hardware, and gave Will a hug. I was as surprised as he was.

I felt his upper body briefly stiffen, then relax, as he sighed into my left shoulder.

“You take care of your wife,” I said, patting him on the back. “And take care of yourself.”

“Maybe we’ll see you in Burbank,” Will said.

“Maybe you will,” I said, smiling, before heading back toward my car. “Be well.”

Kudos and high-fives to my friends in the Write Hearted community, with a special nod to Simon Emslie, aka The Pipe Writer, for his wise feedback.