Albums of the Year 2012-2019

In case anyone is interested, here are my top five albums of each year since I took my nine year blogging hiatus. I keep my list in a notebook, which I revist from time to time. If I ever find music after I've made the list, I'll go back and make a note with a Post-it. I enjoy the reflecting aspect of going back and seeing what I was listening to at the time. My wife and I often recall a song or an album that soundtracked our lives. For instance, I discovered Pittsburgh musician Paul Luc on a snow day after reader that he was opening for Lucero at Mr. Smalls Theatre.

Also, it is not lost on me that most people don't buy entire albums anymore, and, even if they did dedicate tthe time to listen to an album, it's most likely going to be through a streaming service such as Spotify. I'd argue the merits of this, i.e. artist royalties vs. exposure, but that'll have to wait for another day.

2012
1. Langhorne Slim and Law "The Way We Move"
2. Heartless Bastards "Arrow"
3. River City Extension "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Your Anger"
4. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros "Here"
5. Sharon Van Etten "Tramps"


2013
1. Frightened Rabbit "Pedestrian Verse"
2. Josh Ritter "The Best in Its Tracks"
3. The Avett Brothers "Magie and the Dandelion"
4. Queens of the Stone Age "...Like Clockwork"
5. Cage the Elephant "Melophobia"


2014
1. Manchester Orchestra "Cope"
2. Jenny Lewis "The Voyager"
3. Spoon "They Want My Soul"
4. Ryan Adams "Ryan Adams"
5. The Apache Relay "The Apache Relay"


2015
1. Lord Huron "Strange Trails"
2. Modest Mouse "Strangers to Ourselves"
3. Mumford and Sons "Wilder Mind"
4. Shakey Graves "And the War Came"
5. The Decemberists "What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World"


2016
1. Frightened Rabbit "Painting of a Panic Attack"
2. Wilco "Schmilko"
3. The Lumineers "Cleopatra"
4. Steady Hands "Rude Boys of Bar Rock"
5. A Tribe Called Quest "We Got It from Here...Thank You 4 Your Service"


2017
1. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit "The Nashville Sound"
2. Brand New "Science Fiction"
3. Queens of the Stone Age "Villains"
4. Flogging Molly "Life Is Good"
5. Margo Price "All American Made"


2018
1. Paul Luc "Bad Seed"
2. Brian Fallon "Sleepwalker"
3. Lord Huron "Vide Noir"
4. Gregory Alan Isakov "Evening Machine"
5. Jeff Tweedy "Warmer"


2019
1. Josh Ritter "Fever Breaks"
2. The Tallest Man on Earth "I Love You. It's a Fever Dream."
3. Shovels and Rope "By Blood"
4. Wilco "Ode to Joy"
5. Caamp "By and By"


2020's list is forthcoming...

"And the days blur into one/And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done"

To quote the Grateful Dead, what a long, strange trip it's been.

Fuckin. A.


Welcome back, faithful readers! It's been a minute, hasn't it? I last posted on 7 January 2012-just shy of nine years ago. And, I'm sure like many of you, a lot has changed. To give you a brief rundown as to my whereabouts since our last correspondence:

- In 2014, I married the sweetest, most kind-hearted woman ever in existence.
- We moved from the South Side to Wash. Co. in 2017.
- Our son was born shortly after we made our move.
- Our daughter was born in May 2020 during the pandemic.
- My brother got married to a wonderful woman, I gained a sister, and they're expecting their first child in a few weeks.
- I lost the last of my grandparents, which is sad because I miss them, but it's unfortunate because they would have been over the moon due to all of our babies. In fact, my grandmother may have lived forever if she knew she would have had two great-granddaughters.
- I've upped my Pearl Jam concert total to twenty shows, including my last two at Wrigely Field. I was scheduled to see show twenty-one in Nashville in April; however, COVID...
- My wife and I have done some traveling, most noteably to small western European cities like Sligachan and Glencolumbkille that are hard to pronounce but easy to fall in love with.
- I'm still teaching full-time and playing roadie part-time, one of which has become infinitely harder during this pandemic while the other has been nonexistent for the past ten months. And it's not looking good going forward, either.
- Obama, and then Trump, and then who the hell knows. Regardless, the next three weeks are going to be great fodder for Saturday Nigh Live and twitter.
- I've been using the subordinating conjunction as a lot when I write. Like, a lot. I know. Super douchey.

So, overall, I'm a little older-growing into my dadbod quite nicely, and I'm getting grayer by the day, but I'm grounded...in a good way. And, at least according to my wife, I've mellowed in my middle age. I've learned to sit back, relax, enjoy my family and be more in the moment. I'm like a duck calmly wading in his pond, waiting for whatever is to come. (On a side note: ducks are calm on the surface but are paddling like Hell underneath. Serenity now-insanity later...)

I don't know what my intentions are going forward. Do I set a goal to post once a week? Monthly? Just music reviews or include personal items and editorials?

It seems like the older I get, the more I get left behind in the world of social media. Case in point: while I rarely post on Facebook, if I do, I know that my parents and our relatives and family friends are going to give me a "Like" or make a comment-I'm very popular with the Baby Boomers! On the other hand, my Millennial and Gen-X counterparts aren't as active. Are you on other social media sites, or am I not that interesting? (On a side note: if you comment on one of my FB posts, my mum will "Like" your comment. It's adorable. All of yinz should have a Pittsburgh Mom like mine.)

I could try to figure out a way to incorporate TikTok into my schpiel, but I fear that once I do, something newer and shinier will be created, and I'll again be left in the lurch.

Besides, my dance moves are akin to a baby deer taking its first steps shortly after birth and would most certainly drive away readers.

Also, how much time will I have to write going forward? Nothing screams "Dad of the Year" more than taking time away from family to write something only a handful of people are going to read. I mean, really-who do I think I am? Mickey Spillane?


Regardless, I'm going to try to write more in 2021. Even if it's not to publish, writing for me is therapeutic. It allows me to get what's in here out there. I think it's because I agonize over the written word and see my prose as a challenge. As an English teacher, I'm adamant about the writing process: I stress to my students that their first draft is to put pen to paper, to put ideas on paper as quickly as possible because they can (and will in my class) go back and edit and revise. "Perfection in the end!" is what I always say or at least intend to. On the other hand, I started this post at about 8:45 p.m. and will finish sometime after midnight. No rough drafts for this guy. Academic anxiety will kick in. Sleep will be lost.

I'm just like a duck...

Top Five Albums of 2011

A little late. My apologies.

My musical year was a little lackluster in terms of album releases. Although a lot of my favorite bands released critically acclaimed music that I highly anticipated, I think the hype took the best of me, and I was left with a lot of work to do.

Let me explain.

In the spring of 2007, Modest Mouse released the superb (and one of my all-time favorites) We were Dead before the Ship even Sank. Not only did I long for that album since its announced inception, but most of the songs on the album instantly caught me. I didn't need to give it multiple spins; one listen and I was hooked. This was not the case in 2011. I had to both listen to each album more than once and also had to listen a little more closely and intently than in years pass.

Although this list, like all others, was difficult to compile, I feel satisfied that I've, yet again, represented my musical year to the fullest.

And without further adieu...

5. Eddie Vedder
Ukulele Songs
Released 31 May 2011 (Monkeywrench Records)



My musical hero and Pearl Jam frontman had a busy 2011 to say the least. Along with touring Australia, Canada, Central and South America, and putting on the Pearl Jam 20 weekend concert in East Troy, Wisconsin; releasing and promoting a Cameron Crowe directed documentary about the first twenty years of Pearl Jam; and working on material for an upcoming full band album, Vedder released and toured behind Ukulele Songs: an album composed entirely of songs featuring that beautiful yet neglected four-stringed instrument. Comprised of ten original songs, three covers, and two instrumentals, Ukulele Songs takes Vedder out of the comfort of drum and guitar solos that help bare the burden of the spotlight and shows the troubadore at his most vulnerable and intimate. In press interviews to promote the album, whose central themes are love and love lost, Vedder claimed that preforming the songs live is hard because each night he must dwell on all the times he had his heart broken. Of all the songs on the album, the two most compelling are the two that he didn't even write nor perform by himself: covers of the Isley Brothers' "Sleepless Nights" dueted with The Swell Season's Glenn Hansard and the traditional ukulele song "Tonight you Belong to Me" with longtime friend Cat Power spotlight how universal Vedder's vocals can be whether serenading his audience solo or harmonizing with a peer.

Key Tracks: "Sleeping by Myself," "Broken Heart," "Longing to Belong"

4. Wilco
The Whole Love
Released 27 September 2011 (dBpm/ANTI)



2009's Wilco (The Album) was regarded by critics as too obvious and complacent for a band as talented and groundbreaking as Wilco. As Pitchfork journalist Paul Thompson notes, Wilco is at their best when they find a balance between traditional folk rock and experimental while lead singer Jeff Tweedy's world-weary inscrutability guides each song and pushes musical boundries without being too challenging and demanding for the listener. The Whole Love, which was released on the band's own dBpm imprint, is a healthy return to alternative tones that brought them to indie fame with such releases as 2002's Yankee Foxtrot Hotel.

The album is unconventional as the songs are all over place and miss that cohesive nature that I appreciate in the idea of an album. Some feature beautiful orchestrations with strings ("Open Mind"), some have fuzzy guitars and monster feedback ("Art of Almost"), some could become pop standards ("Born Alone"), some are just beautiful ("Open Mind"), some could be confused for something Creedence Clearwater Revival would have written ("I Might"), and some could soundtrack a Wes Anderson film ("One Sunday Morning"). No matter how dissconected all of the tracks are, they all work as unit, and that's what makes Wilco work: they're unpredictably predictable controlled chaos.

Key Tracks: "I Might," "Born Alone," "Open Mind," "One Sunday Morning"

3. Yuck
Yuck
Released 15 February 2011
(Fat Possem)



It seems that music goes through trends, and, crossing my fingers and God-willing, the grunge and early to mid-nineties alternative rock that I grew up with is making its return with Yuck spearheading the charge.

Fans of early Smashing Pumpkins and any-era Dinosaur Jr. and Sonic Youth rejoice!

Yuck, a band that, remarkably, is comprised of five kids in their very early twenties, compose an art that is way beyond their years. I'm astonished at how cohesivley sound the album is from start to finish. From in-your-face punk with songs like "The Wall" and "Holing Out," to softer, more melodic tracks such a "Sunday" and "Georgia," the band released a complete and complex yet fun album. And I dare any Smashing Pumpkins fan to tell me that "Stutter" wouldn't be fit on Gish.

Key Tracks: "Suck," "Stutter," "Sunday"

2. The Decemberists
The King is Dead
Released 18 January 2011
(Capitol)



Deciding to forgoe another wildly experimental concept album like 2009's The Hazards of Love, the Decemberists enlisted R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and Americana chanteuse Gillian Welch to assist with the folky, stripped-down country-themed The King is Dead.

Sometimes less is more.

This is by far the bands most solid musical effort to date. It's heartwarming and real and shows that the band can hold their own with the likes of The Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show and Fleet Foxes when it comes to traditional American folk music.

The band wrote and recorded the album on an 80-acre farm outside of their hometown of Portland, Oregon with lead singer Colin Meloy stating that the band wanted the album's ethos to reflect their experiences in that particular rural setting. Tracks like "Rise to Me," "June Hymn," and "January Hymn" have such an organic and familiar feeling to them that it's hard not paint landscapes of lush wheat fields or forests of maple trees with gold and red leaves even after one listen.

Key Tracks: "Don't Carry it All," "Rise to Me," "Down by the Water," "All Arise!"

1. The Head and the Heart
The Head and the Heart
Released 19 April 2011
(Sub Pop)



I keep a journal of ideas I have for songs, poems, essays, whatever, and one idea I keep tossing around and coming back to is me trying to explain how somebody falls in love with a band or musician. I know it sounds childish and nonsensical but hear me out: there are times in our lives when our emotions are grabbed and pulled in one extreme direction and we have no choice but to follow. Whether we're at our highest highes (love, friendship, joyous celebration) or lowest lows (heartbreak, hate, death), people are vulnerable when our emotions are given free reign. We look for someone or something that we can see our emotions in; we look for a song or an album or a band to magnify those emotions and give us something to associate them with. And I can't help but associate Seattle's The Head and the Heart's debut album with everything I've experienced over the last few years.

I'm not going to try and interpret their songs and what they mean to me because I honestly can't put my finger on one aspect of my life that they would remind me of. I feel that each song captures such a range of emotion in me, and that's something I've never really experienced with a band before, not even in my beloved Pearl Jam. "Rivers and Roads" for example, which wasn't released on the original 2010 album, throws me in so many different directions each time I listen to it; I honestly can't help but think of Slippery Rock in the fall, my grandparents and Uncle Judd, Ireland, all the different ways I've fallen in love with Emily over the past year and a half, the Mahoning Creek, my college roommates, lost loves, and the possibility of moving out west. And this band brings all of this out in me all at once. It's kind of overwhelming at times but also comforting and reassuring-I like the fact that I can look to this band, to this group of strangers, and feel moved in so many different directions by their art.

Their music is honest and endearing and simple, yet singers Josiah Johnson, Jonathan Russell, and Charity Rose harmonize with such complexity that it's hard not to feel moved at least in the slightest upon your first listen.

Key Tracks: "Down in the Valley," "Rivers and Roads," "Lost in my Mind"





Honorable Mentions:

The Black Keys El Camino
Released 6 December 2011 (Nonesuch)
Key Track: "Money Maker"

Death Cab for Cutie Codes and Keys
Released 31 May 2011 (Atlantic)
Key Track: "Some Boys"

Frank Turner
England Keep My Bones
Released 7 June 2011 (Epitaph)
Key Track: "If Ever I Stray"

Manchester Orchestra Simple Math
Released 10 May 2011 (Columbia)
Key Track: "Pale Black Eye"

Of Monsters and Men
Into the Woods EP
Released 20 December 2011 (Republic Records)
Key Track: "Love Love Love"

Go Ask Jim Tressel

The Pennsylvania State University has always been the class of higher education. Their academic standards; list of accomplished alumni; vast contributions to the fields of science, engineering, and agriculture; selfless acts of philanthropy such as the dedicated Thon campaign; and, not to mention, their contributions to all of college athletics have set their university apart from all others.

They're the litmus test.

The benchmark.

They're what all other universities strive to be like.

That is until a few days ago.

With the recent sexual abuse allegations made against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, the university has suffered a monumental blemish on their almost untarnishable reputation. Coach Sandusky was arrested Saturday on 40 counts of sexually abusing eight underage boys over a fifteen year span.

Both athletic director Tim Curely as well as senior vice president of business and finance Gary Schultz have been charged with perjury, both being released on Monday on bond around the sum of $75,000. Curely and Schultz lied to a grand jury about their knowledge of the incident. Both of their attornies had asked for bail to be waved, citing that both men have lived dedicated, pure lives in Centre County and were lifelong model citizens of Happy Valley. Caroline Roberto, attorney for Mr. Curley, is pushing the argument that withholding information on child endangerment is summary offense much like a speeding ticket.

These men should be fired, tried, tarred and feathered, and the dominos should keep falling throughout Happy Valley. Head Coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier need to be the next two to go. And if you're a Penn State student past or present and you don't agree with this, you need to pull your heads out of your asses.

When Ohio State University Head Football Coach Jim Tressel was forced to resign because he withheld information about his players, including Western Pennsylvania superstar and current Oakland Raider quarterback Terrel Pyror, accepting free tattoos and inappropriate financial compensation for selling autographs and memorabilia, Penn State fans applauded his departure and labeled him as both a liar and cheater.

You crucified this man because some kids made the wrong decisions and he tried to protect them.

The current Penn State alligations are very similar to the ones Ohio State faced...only way fucking worse.

Sandusky was caught red-handed by a graduate assistant doing perverse and unspeakable acts to an underage boy in a shower located in an on-campus athletic facility. The graduate assistant then told head coach Joe Paterno, who allegedly reported the incident to the athletic director.

And then the reports stopped.

Curley and Schultz must be fired because of lying to a grand jury. That's a certain. They lied and they should be let go or thrown in jail, if not both.

Paterno needs to go as well.

JoPa did the right thing by going to the athletic director and telling him what he was told, but that wasn't enough. He should have informed authorities when he realized that Curley was as far as the allegations were going to go. Yes, Paterno did the legal minimum as to what he needed to do; however, he did not live up to simple moral responsibilites. He should have done more. A lot more. If the athletic director wasn't listening to his whispers, he should have rasied in voice. Maybe in the form of Child Youth Services or the police. A decorated member of his staff molested young men on his time, and there must be reprocussions for allowing an unsafe and threatening environment on his time.

And Spanier needs to go as well. Again, because all of this happening on his time.

If you're simply looking at this as a football matter, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

Do you think College Gameday will want to set up shop in Paternoville now? Do you think the Rose Bowl is really going to want to invite the Nittany Lions to Pasadena on New Year's Day after all of this? Do you think parents who want to better their kids as student-athletes will want to send their sons and daughters to Happy Valley? Do you really think Penn State will be the same when all this is over?

Penn State will fall because of this. Young men who even caught an awkward glance from that coach will start coming out of the woodwork. Former players who maybe didn't get a fair shot and have an ax to grind will have a story to tell. As the weeks go on there will be more and more fingerpointing and someon's story won't match with another until the whole damn thing has unravled.

Don't believe me? Go ask Jim Tressel when you see him next Saturday hulling lumber at the Home Depot down the block while his former Ohio State Buckeyes are in the hunt for a Big-10 championship.

Although Tressel's name got drug through the mud, Ohio State retained its by distancing themselves from their coach. This is what Penn State needs to do.

At the heart of this matter are Penn State students both past and present. They are class all the way, but they must see the big picture. They must look past Beaver Stadium, past Paternoville, past the mythical JoPa, and see the big picture: football does not define your university, you do. Each and every one of you worked harder than anyone in the country has just so you can hold your head high and say that you are a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University. Joe Paterno and the football team does not define your university: you do. Before you fight tooth and nail to keep Paterno and his legacy intact, you should be worrying about your own. Stop defending the actions of men that don't deserve them. And be honest, they don't. Paterno and co. should be cast aside in order to preserve the only legacy that matters: yours.

"Why We Crave Horror Movies"

I recently watched a documentary on the Halloween franchise and why it was and continues to be so revolutionary, successful, and effective to the horror genre. Of note, director John Carpenter chose not to use a single drop of blood in the original Halloween because he wanted the audience to psychologically see the blood for themselves. Also, Carpenter chose not to show any close-ups of pscyho antagonist Michael Meyers until the end of the film much like Steven Spielberg did with the shark in Jaws. Instead, Carpenter decided to properly develope the victems in hopes that audiences would identify with the dumb jock, slutty chearleader, smartass know-it-all, or shy braniac; again, a move primarily used to psychologically evoke fear in the sense of Hey, that girl being slaughtered on the screen is a lot like me.

Below is an essay Stephen King wrote about why people flat-out need horror films. No, it goes beyond likes and dislikes; here, King claims that people need the thrillers, the slashers, the ghouls and goblins in order to subdue our terrible and vile rage and desires-a Michael Meyers each of us has within.

Happy Halloween.



"Why We Crave Horror Movies"
By Stephen King

I think that we’re all mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums only hide it a little better – and maybe not all that much better, after all. We’ve all known people who talk to themselves, people who sometimes squinch their faces into horrible grimaces when they believe no one is watching, people who have some hysterical fear – of snakes,
the dark, the tight place, the long drop . . . and, of course, those final worms and grubs that are waiting so patiently underground.

When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row center in a theater showing a horror movie, we are daring the nightmare.

Why?

Some of the reasons are simple and obvious. To show that we can, that we
are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster. Which is not to say that a really good horror movie may not surprise a scream out of us at some point, the way we may scream when the roller coaster twists through a complete 360 or plows through a lake at the bottom of the drop. And horror movies, like roller coasters, have always been the special province of the young; by the time one turns 40 or 50, one’s appetite for double twists or
360-degree loops may be considerably depleted.

We also go to re-establish our feelings of essential normality; the horror movie isinnately conservative, even reactionary. Freda Jackson as the horrible melting woman in Die, Monster, Die! confirms for us that no matter how far we may be removed from the beauty of a Robert Redford or a Diana Ross, we are still light-years from true ugliness.

And we go to have fun.

Ah, but this is where the ground starts to slope away, isn’t it? Because this is a very peculiar sort of fun, indeed. The fun comes from seeing others menaced – sometimes killed. One critic has suggested that if pro football has become the voyeur’s version of combat, then the horror film has become the modern version of the public lynching.

It is true that the mythic “fairy-tale” horror film intends to take away the shades of grey . . . . It urges us to put away our more civilized and adult penchant for analysis and to become children again, seeing things in pure blacks and whites. It may be that horror movies provide psychic relief on this level because this invitation to lapse into simplicity, irrationality and even outright madness is extended so rarely.

We are told we may allow our emotions a free rein . . . or no rein at all.
If we are all insane, then sanity becomes a matter of degree. If your insanity leads you to carve up women like Jack the Ripper or the Cleveland Torso Murderer, we clap you away in the funny farm (but neither of those two amateur-night surgeons was ever caught, heh-heh-heh); if, on the other hand, your insanity leads you only to talk to yourself when you’re under stress or to pick your nose on your morning bus, then you are left alone to go about your business . . . though it is doubtful that you will ever be
invited to the best parties.

The potential lyncher is in almost all of us (excluding saints, past and present; but then, most saints have been crazy in their own ways), and every now and then, he has to be let loose to scream and roll around in the grass. Our emotions and our fears form their own body, and we recognize that it demands its own exercise to maintain
proper muscle tone. Certain of these emotional muscles are accepted – even exalted – in civilized society; they are, of course, the emotions that tend to maintain the status quo of civilization itself. Love, friendship, loyalty, kindness -- these are all the emotions that we applaud, emotions that have been immortalized in the couplets of Hallmark cards and in the verses (I don’t dare call it poetry) of Leonard Nimoy.

When we exhibit these emotions, society showers us with positive reinforcement; we learn this even before we get out of diapers. When, as children, we hug our rotten little puke of a sister and give her a kiss, all the aunts and uncles smile and twit and cry, “Isn’t he the sweetest little thing?” Such coveted treats as chocolate-covered graham crackers often follow. But if we deliberately slam the rotten little puke of a sister’s fingers in the door, sanctions follow – angry remonstrance from parents, aunts and uncles; instead of a chocolate-covered graham cracker, a spanking.

But anticivilization emotions don’t go away, and they demand periodic exercise. We have such “sick” jokes as, “What’s the difference between a truckload of bowling balls and a truckload of dead babies?” (You can’t unload a truckload of bowling balls with a pitchfork . . . a joke, by the way, that I heard originally from a ten-year-old.) Such a joke may surprise a laugh or a grin out of us even as we recoil, a possibility that
confirms the thesis: If we share a brotherhood of man, then we also share an insanity of man. None of which is intended as a defense of either the sick joke or insanity but merely as an explanation of why the best horror films, like the best fairy tales, manage to be reactionary, anarchistic, and revolutionary all at the same time.

The mythic horror movie, like the sick joke, has a dirty job to do. It deliberately appeals to all that is worst in us. It is morbidity unchained, our most base instincts let free, our nastiest fantasies realized . . . and it all happens, fittingly enough, in the dark. For those reasons, good liberals often shy away from horror films. For myself, I like to see the most aggressive of them – Dawn of the Dead, for instance – as lifting a trap door in the civilized forebrain and throwing a basket of raw meat to the hungry alligators swimming around in that subterranean river beneath.

Why bother? Because it keeps them from getting out, man. It keeps them down
there and me up here.

It was Lennon and McCartney who said that all you need is love, and I would agree with that.

As long as you keep the gators fed.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

When I taught over in Ireland, the people of that country had a saying: When America has a cold, the rest of the world sneezes. Today that sentiment could not hold any more truth than it does already.

I was a fifteen-year-old sophomore sitting in my second period study hall when our principal made the announcement. At the time I didn't understand the magnitude of what had happened, mainly because our study hall was in the cafeteria and I couldn't see the fire and smoke plaguing the streets of New York City; I couldn't see first-hand how the world was changing.

As the day continued to etch itself in our classrooms' history books, I became ridden with grief and anxiety over the thoughts of those fireman and police officers, office workers simply trying to get through another Tuesday, and run-of-the-mill Joes trying to catch a ride home not being able to have dinner witht heir families that night; not being able to see their sons hit their first little league homeruns or walk their daughters down the aisle on their weddings days; not being able to, for one last time, tell their husbands and wives that they love them and want them to live happy lives without them.

The secretary made constant announcements throughout the day for students to report to the office. Their parents were there, in tears, to take them home. My mother came around seventh period, in tears, and held me tighter than I have ever cared to remember. Typically I would refute such a request citing my fifteen-year-old self-righteous and naive abilities to take care of myself, but I obliged. Besides, on that day I needed her to hold my hand as much as she needed me to hold hers.

And that night, all across our country, families held each other close and spoke a little less as we counted our blessings and mourned.

Look, to those of you that know me well enough know that I don't exactly see eye-to-eye with our country and am not the foremost patriot. There are a thousand and one changes I'd make to anything and everything wrong with our country from public transportation and tax cuts to healthcare and welfare.

None of that matters today.

What our country needs today is for everyone to hold each other a little closer, speak a little less, and count our blessings.

Incoming Freshmen

The other night on my way home from Emily's, I stopped at Dairy Queen to get my mother a little ice cream treat/thank-you for making me one heck of a top-shelf dinner. After placing Donna's standard order of a Peanut Buster Parfait, extra fudge, one of the girls behind the counter noticed my black hoodie with the green ROCK scribed across the chest and asked if I knew...and began naming people who I can only assume currently go to Slippery Rock University. Not wanting to waste her time I cut her short and told her that I had graduated three years ago and that those people came in well after my four year stint at the Rock. She then told me she was going to be a freshman elementary education major at SRU, was going to live in Building B, and that classes were starting in two weeks. There were other people waiting in line behind me so I quickly paid my tab, flashed a smile, and said have fun and good luck.

But I wish I could have said more.

I wish I could have said that everything she knew about the world was going to change, and maybe not for the good in some instances.

I wish I could have said that she was going to drift apart if not completely lose almost all contact with all of her friends from high school; that she was going to abandon all of her sistas and BFFs and, in turn, was going to be abandoned as well.

I wish I could have said to her that no matter how special she was in high school, no matter how stellar of an athlete she was or how high her G.P.A. was, she is a freshman bottom feeder that does not matter in the scheme of how the university functions. To them she is simply a number...a very, very high number. In all honesty, she had more pull as a high school junior on an educational visit than she does as a freshmen.

I wish I could have said that she was going to be given a nickname. Everyone does. We had Sexual Mike, the Captain, D-Money, Big Jess, Little Jess, Big Megan/Megan Hagan, Little Megan, the Nightmare, Fat Boy/Corky, Dark Mark, Bitches, Bacon, Big B/Brains/Charlie Brown, S.T./Pigpen, Jumping Curt, Branca Snake, the Riedler, Verbasaur, and a handful of other characters that I'm not just not remembering at the moment all living on the same floor. And if you're not given a nickname, you're known by your last name, or by a catchphrase such as "Huh" (and that's not a question, it's a statement) and "Youngboo." My nicknames were Tall Sean and Stumpy.

I wish I could have said that she should forget the idea of having a roommate. No, she's going to have about forty-or-so people living with her; borrowing her clothes and DVDs and not getting any of them back until the end of the year; eating the brownies that her Grandma Marion sent up to her in a care package along with her favorite candy, a roll of quarters and a twenty; talking behind her back one minute, then gladly splitting a handle of the good stuff, Vladimir Vodka, with her and about six other eighteen year olds who are looking to grow up one shot at a time; being hung over together on a Saturday afternoon and watching The Hangover and Step Brothers on an endless loop until it's time to start it all over again; and having the same sleep, showering, eating, and bowel movement schedule as the rest of her floor.

I wish I could have said that she is going to get fat. And I mean f-a-t fat. Don't worry-it happens to everybody. With all of the beer, all-you-can-eat breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets, and midnight Sheetz runs, it's near impossible not to gain a few l.b's...or twenty. Oh, and she'll eat ice cream. Loads of it. Every night. And she won't be vanilla about it, either. No, she will get three scoops of Birthday Cake Ice Cream with hot fudge, butterscotch, whipped cream on top, and maybe some type of new sprinkle that bursts in her mouth like Pop Rocks (I don't know-I've been out of the ice cream game for quite a while). Maybe take a handful of cookies back to her dorm room, you know...just in case. And the trips home are far more worse. Every food she's ever loved, the egg casserole with sausage and peppers for breakfast, the red sauce with meatballs over linguine for lunch, maybe a trip to the Cheesecake Factory, will all be ready upon her arrival with enough leftover, and probably a few batches of white oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, to take back with you for a late night snack. Yeah, she'll go to the gym to keep it off...at first. But that master plan will be thrown out the door quicker than the promise her and her boyfriend made to each other to remain faithful (don't worry-he broke that promise weeks ago).

I wish I could have said that she was going to drink, but that's an understatement, too. She will drink a lot and push her tolerance the way marathon runners make a mad dash to the finish; only she will lose this race. Miserably. She will have a near death experience with alcohol one night and wake up the next morning feeling more ill and more vile than any flu, disease or plague has ever made her feel before. She will look in the mirror and feel shame at the sight of both the running mascara down her cheeks and and the bad decisions written in invisible ink that only she can see all over her face. She will try to wash away the regret with a hot shower. She will brush her teeth over and over again only to discover that Colgate merely washes away the taste of alcohol but overly intensifies the sweet sting of vomit on her teeth. She will cry and wish she were dead somewhere on the side of the road. This will be her first scars in a long war that she will knowingly not win but simply hope to make it out alive. Oddly enough, this all will occur on a Tuesday night during midterm week.

I wish I could have said that the friends she'll meet on the floor of her dorm building were going to be her soul mates-somewhat of a catch twenty-two because even though she is going to need those soul mates everyday for the rest of her life, she's only going to get four years with them. That's bitter and hard to stomach but it happens. Everyone will grow up and head in their separate directions. The kid from Greensburg who drank 151 and Keystone Ice everyday for a solid year and pissed in the hall on a regular basis because he honestly couldn't make it ten more feet to the bathroom will start a rather successful Internet company. The girl from Erie who made out with a kid on Halloween who had butter knives taped to his hands to look like Wolverine from X-Men will become a teacher and look beautiful in her wedding dress. The guy from Meadville who bought everyone beer with his fake I.D. and got your asses kicked behind McDonalds one night for no sensible reason other than because will be a great father to a little boy. And the guy who skinny dipped in the Atlantic Ocean in Lahinch, Ireland drunk at 2:30 a.m. in the middle of November will admit all of these feelings in a tear-soaked letter that will be handed out at a Quaker Steak and Lube five days before graduation, blog about it before it becomes too far of a distant memory, and miss each of them every Valentine's Day, during Hanukkah, and any time he has a movement to reminisce.

Truth be told, I envy that girl at Dairy Queen who made my mother's Peanut Buster Parfait, extra fudge, the other night. Think about it: how many times in your life will you be able to move away from your family and friends, from your childhood, from your comfort; meet complete strangers from different cultures, religions, ways of life, social and economical groups, people that are all on the level as you despite your many differences; and start something new, fresh and exciting-something none of you have ever experienced in any of your eighteen years?

Once-in-a-lifetime.

I wish I could have shared any one of these bits of information with her to help steer her ship in the right direction; to help calm her feelings of fear, excitement, curiousity, and general not knowing of what she's getting her self into.

On second thought...nah, she'll have to figure this one out on her own. That's half the fun.