My Clan

I wonder if you feel loyalty to a clan. If so, how do you define that clan? I can easily define mine and I am fiercely loyal to it and trust its members. In fact, it is only those in my clan that I can count on and who can count on me without reservation. This is one of the many lessons that my father taught me. Its truth has been demonstrated in a great many ways.

My father was born as a minority member in a truly feudal society. His family, for generations beyond knowing, had lived in a small Greek village in a vast Turkish world, planted there sometime during the four hundred year reign of the Ottoman Empire. The local Pasha ruled his domain and was, in turn, ruled by Pashas of greater rank and dominion. The Greeks, including my father, were, I suppose, serfs, working the land that they really didn't own, paying tribute to the Pasha and cut off from the rest of the world.

So, what has this to do with me, a child born in Cleveland as a member of the white, educated, dominant culture? Let me tell you a few stories about who I am.

My Wife in Sports

My wife and I feel sorry for our friends who lack the sports gene and we wonder if their condition might best be cured surgically or simply through extensive therapy. We, like normal people, will spectate any athletic competition that moves and we can become ardent in support of our team, whoever the hell they are. Let me illustrate my remarks with an anecdote or two.

On our first date, Susan and I shared basic information about each other over coffee.  What music did we like?  What was the name of our elementary school? (In case we wanted to break into each other’s Facebook account.) What sports did we follow? Susan said: football and baseball.  I said: women’s basketball and auto racing.  Susan laughed, sure that I was joking.  I wasn’t.  So we compromised.  I became passionate about Susan, football and baseball.  She became passionate about women’s basketball, auto racing and, I dared to hope, me.

The Divine Miracle

Today we speak of miracles: loaves and fishes; the total remission of cancer; rising into heaven on a great white winged horse of fire; the face of the Virgin on a sticky bun.  I don’t know about any of these miracles, but then miracles are not the kind of thing one knows about.  They are the kind of thing one believes.

I seem to need miracles.  I find comfort in contemplation of the divine, in something that exists outside those things that we can know.  But I think of fishes and winged horses and I get a sense that most folks are looking for God in all the wrong places.

I seem to need miracles but I’m afraid that I am too rational and lack the strength to believe in the traditional miracles.

How I Got My Name

My name is a bit unusual. I'm probably the only 'Tedwilliam Theodore' in the world. I know of a couple of Ted Theodores and there are probably William Theodores running around somewhere, but the first name 'Tedwilliam' refers, most likely, only to me. (If you know of another holder of the name, please don't tell me. I bask in the sensory pleasure of this uniqueness.)

It's vexing, from time to time. Actually, its vexing frequently; more precisely, most days; or, to tell the truth, damn near every day. Folks are always 'correcting' it for me on lists or applications or what not. Giving my name to a clerk in person or on the telephone almost always engenders one of six responses meant to be humorous, but that had become stale by the time I was twelve years old. I bet you can think of every one of them.

So, you ask, how did this appellation become attached to the sweet little baby that I most assuredly was? Well, I'll tell you the story as it was handed down from my imagination to me over the years. Some of it is true, the rest I'd like to think is true.

Drama on the El

Ideals are great in the abstract. For instance, you and I probably agree that we should and would, by God, help when we find someone in need. When you’re just sailing along, minding your own business, you can feel pretty confident that you will be true to this ideal. Like when you’re on your commute, riding Chicago’s El, the elevated train running into and out of the city.

The riders of the El are a varied lot. Business folk, from mailroom staff to middle management, college kids, domestic workers, shoppers and people with unusual personalities all jostle each other as they sit or stand in the crowded, swaying train cars.

Cake at the Bar

It was a dark and stormy night. I drove through the blinding rain along a country road lit only by my headlights. Although I had driven this road many times during the day, at night I felt isolated. I was the only person foolish enough to be out on the road and could only briefly sense the dark farmhouses that I passed. No help would come if I could not reach my destination.

I had left work late that Friday evening and had a two hour drive, expanded by the rain into three hours or more, to reach Siebkens, the resort hotel, restaurant, bar and hub of life for the auto racing community that comes together most weekends in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The formula car I was to race the next day was already at Road America, the track just outside town.

 When I arrived, the restaurant and office had closed early, probably for lack of patrons. Only the bar was open. I parked behind an eighteen wheel truck and hurried into the warmth of the tavern. The place was deserted, save for the driver of the truck and the bartender. I took a moment to scan the room, seeking comfort in the racing posters and pictures that crowded each other on the walls and ceiling.

 I took a seat at the bar, leaving one bar stool between me and the burly driver. I didn’t want to sit next to him, which would indicate my intention to begin a conversation or an intimate relationship. Nor did I want to sit far from him, possibly signaling disdain or fear.

Infiltrating Breakfast

Looking back on that blue sky Sunday morning in 1971, I ask myself, “What was I thinking!” At the time, it didn’t seem scary or even out of the ordinary, but from today’s perspective it seems totally unthinkable. But, hey, I was a child in my late twenties and also a child of the sixties.

I was working with a group of social-action community organizers in an underserved neighborhood of Chicago. Our approach was direct confrontation and our targets were the power structures of the city. We’d planned a meeting on a Sunday afternoon with Chicago’s Chief of Police, sent him a formal invitation and were pretty sure he wouldn’t show up. Our intent, then, was to castigate him for his failure to attend and for his great indifference to the needs of the community, thus enabling the growth of a coalition to address that indifference.

Fish Hooks and Fear

Everybody is afraid of something. At least I hope that's true. I'm afraid of drowning and of fish hooks.

Other people may like fish hooks just fine and not give a thought to their potential death by drowning. They may, however, be afraid of spiders, or air travel, or child birth, or potato salad that has been left out of the fridge for more than fifteen minutes, or being in a car that is spinning wildly out of control, or of the number 30, or of what other people are thinking of them, or of pizza sauce, or of public speaking, or of ObamaCare, or of slingshots, or of finding new facial wrinkles, or of not having adequate health insurance, or of losing a spouse, or of all left shoes, or of buttons too large for button holes, or of nuclear war, or of yellow crayons that have broken in half, or of 100 watt bulbs, or of being alone in later years.

None of these things cause me more than a smidge of concern, much less actual, outright fear. Drowning and fish hooks: what's the connection? Water? Boats? Fish in water? An event in my distant past that I have repressed so completely that I have absolutely no idea what it might be?

The Miracle Belt

Here's a story I find hard to believe. A few years ago, I was driving from my home in Monterey to Santa Barbara on a Sunday evening.  It's about a four hour drive. Just a little past Santa Maria, which is about three hours from Monterey, a strange sound began emanating from under the hood, the water temperature rose sharply, the power steering failed, and I knew I was in trouble. When I looked under the hood, I saw that the fan belt had broken. (Now, I know this dates me because what we used to call a 'fan belt' is now called an 'alternator and power steering pump belt'. I still call it a fan belt.)

I called for a tow truck and while I waited a highway patrol car stopped and the officer asked if he could help and then waited with me for the truck to arrive.  

He asked where I was going and I told him that I was a consultant to non-profit organizations and that I had a meeting early the next morning at the Girl Scouts regional office in Santa Barbara. The officer told me rather shyly that he wished that he had a job that allowed him to help people. This seemed strange coming from a person who had stopped to help me along the way. But this isn't the unbelievable part.

Assault on Laguna

Written in August 2003

I'm writing this at 31,000 feet, on a flight from Road America to Laguna Seca. I'm on a covert scouting mission, preparing the ground for the main assault, headed by my wife, Susan, of a sofa-and-coffee-table-laden moving van and various motorized vehicles. We've committed ourselves to planting the family flag permanently on the Monterey Peninsula, in California on the outskirts of Laguna, by Labor Day. We have no exit strategy.

This past weekend, Susan and I had spent a final weekend at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, scootering around Road America, watching the SPEED GT cars from the cozy confines of Thunder Valley and the ChampCar race from the hill overlooking turn five. Nostalgia abounded.

Wonder at the Possible

This is a Greek Easter story from my Greek-American childhood.  It’s a story of awe, of wonder at the possible.

We had Easter eggs like Americans did: brightly dyed in cups of water colored by little pellets and lifted out with a wire contraption that came with the pellets.

We also had Easter eggs given us by the priest on Easter Sunday.   Sharing hardboiled eggs came to our Christian church from the Jewish tradition of sharing eggs when sitting shiva, the eggs a symbol of the circle of life, of eternal life. We would line up and receive an egg dyed a deep, Christ-blood red.  The priest would say to each of us, ‘Christos anesti’ and we would respond, ‘Alethos anesti’  Christ is risen!  Surely, he is risen!

The Little Boy

This is a story about a little boy.  Like all children, he was magic.  The stars spoke to him through his window.  His feelings were color.  His father was a bright, intensive yellow, like the sun.  His home was a cool blue.  Every time he left his room the world was new.

There was a giant weeping willow tree in the large yard of the rich people who lived at the corner of his street.  Every day as the little boy passed the tree on his way to school or to the schoolyard to play, he stopped for a moment beneath its drooping branches which almost touched the ground.  Going under, he was the son of his parents.  He emerged with new attributes and eyes, as a fearless warrior or a dreamer within a dream.

Blue Suit in Boston

This is a story about being invisible, or about being so completely visible that no one can see you, like a lamp post at noon. Or, perhaps it’s a story about a blue suit or about rock and roll. But I doubt it.

Many years ago, I was in Boston on a business trip. I took a cab to my hotel after an afternoon meeting and was interested to see a great many young adults and elderly teens walking quickly in the same direction. They all seemed to be part of a counter-culture, non-conformist crowd since they wore indistinguishable jeans, shirts and hair styles.

The doorman at the hotel told me that they all were heading to a free rock concert that was about to start in an outdoor amphitheater just a few blocks away. So I followed the crowd, even though I was wearing attire that was completely conformist, which meant that it was strikingly unlike what everyone else wore.

Bi-Cultural in Cleveland

Like all of you, my ancestors arrived on the Mayflower.  We ate sweet potato pie and jellied cranberry sauce straight from the can with smiling and subservient red folk. We brought civilization from the East Coast westward to ever more barbarous lands until we reached San Francisco, which was, strangely, already here and already quite civilized.

Like almost all of you, I also came from somewhere else entirely.  In my case, my father immigrated from a small shtetl-like Greek village in the heart of Asia-minor; my mother’s family from Sparta, the only town in Greece to resist 400 years of Ottoman domination, primarily because it was so hard to get to and nothing grew there anyway.

Flat Track Bobsledding

When I was in high school, a friend of mine and I invented a wonderful new sport. As I look back on it, I’m shocked that it has not yet become an Olympic favorite. Although we never managed to name the sport, it could have been called ‘autobob’ or ‘flat track bobsledding’. It was a winter sport so I can imagine young American autobob athletes traveling to exotic ski resorts every four years to compete against the best flat track bobsledders in the world. Perhaps it’s not too late. Let me describe the sport to you.

During the winter in Cleveland, Ohio, home of the original flat track bobsled courses, the snow frequently lay heavy on the ground. When the roads became impassable, city trucks would plow the main roads and, if we were lucky, the residential streets. We’d wait for the trucks to come down side streets near our homes and push the snow to both sides of the roads, forming four foot high continuous embankments that sealed driveways, covered fireplugs and made the sidewalks disappear beneath the mounds of snow. Perfect autobob courses!

My First Two Crashes

I’m pretty sure that I had only two car crashes when I was in high school. I may be wrong about that. I remember these two because they involved girls. That was the memorable part.

The first crash occurred as I drove my mom’s little Anglia (an English Ford about the size of a VW Beetle) to a school picnic. A friend was riding shotgun and two girls were in the back seat. This wasn’t a double date or anything; we were just all going to the picnic. At least I don’t think it was a date, but one of the girls may have been putting a different spin on the situation.

First Day of School

It was the most important day of my young life and I was bursting with anticipatory energy. I was no longer a baby, no longer a toddler, no longer just a small, purposeless person. I was finally old enough to go to school! My mother was taking me enroll in kindergarten. I was very proud.

My mom helped me put on my new long pants (real long pants!) and shirt and my new shoes and socks. She combed my hair and made extra sure that I finished all my breakfast. It was very difficult for me to allow this lengthy preamble to the great activity of the day. I wanted to get my coat and hat on and begin the long journey around the corner to the school.