Fat Kid


I was a fat kid. Second-fattest kid in the class - maybe first, Charlie and I were neck and neck - until a really, really fat kid showed up. He was what we called a load.


I fell into the wiseass fat kid subcategory. Compensating through sarcasm and occasionally bullying and an interior life that was strange for a kid. My father was proud that I listened to Beethoven. And I was not a slug - a so-so catcher in baseball, a swimmer - a diver, incredibly enough - and in football, I made it to fullback, and for little while they called me The Truck.

But as those of us who were fat kids in the 1950's know, it was painful. The hardest part is that you didn't know why you were fat. My own theory, which I didn't develop until years later, was that my tonsils were so bad that I had them removed at age four, and before that I couldn't taste anything. Then, suddenly, taste, and I went for it. Year after year, until I (and Charlie) were almost perfectly round.

A second-hardest part was the transition from I-hate-girls to wow-I-really don't-hate-girls. Girls were kind of amused by wiseass fat boys but that was certainly it. In that strange race that commences when we hit puberty - with some boys transformed, because they hit it sooner - we fatties ran way behind.

For me, it lasted until I was about 15, and I am still not sure what pulled me out. I remember becoming obsessive about food, and lifting weights a lot. I was in the midst of real turmoil, parents breaking up, my school ready to fire me, and maybe that helped. Somehow I became more svelte and girls were more interested.

I have struggled with weight the rest of my life. At one point I dropped many pounds, and attributed their loss as follows: 1/3 diet, 1/3 exercise, and 1/3 anxiety. Later, all gained back. Today down from my peak but I do need to eat better, exercise more, and probably be more anxious.

As are many cliches, this one is true: part of you stays the kid you were for the rest of your life. Part of me will always be a fat kid. And a little proud of it.

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98 Degrees in St. Louis

Lying still, waiting for a breath
of air or an intergalactic ice cube,
whichever first.
Each would be a miracle,
nothing less will break
the heat.

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Timing

Call me cynical, but if I were a Republican opposition researcher I would hold back the good stuff on Mr. Obama until after the Democratic convention. The last thing you'd want to do is damage the guy so badly that the superdelegates switch back to Mrs. Clinton. Which the Party could allow them to do.

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Frost Fix

Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.

Robert Frost, "Now Close the Windows".

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Practice and Play

I admire musicians who practice by themselves for hours. I have not been one since my early teens, when I sat in practice rooms and willed myself past classical and show tunes and into boogie-woogie.

Not today, not even when I'm playing a great instrument and playing it well. The only way I can stick with it for hours is in a group - and then I do so happily. The size of the group doesn't really matter - some of the best times were me and a drummer in dark room, just jamming. But it has to be more than one. When we're playing together (what a perfectly suitable multiple meaning, "play") it's great.

Then, when it cooks, it is as good as it gets.

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Golden Choice

Even for those of us who are consitutionally adverse to positions on the American left, Obama is an impressive guy. His opponents seem to be lining up around the idea that he is not as smart as he seems. I think this is a mistake. I think he is smarter than Bill Clinton, for example, who is way smart. And obviously, as to principle and discipline, he's in a different and far better league. A league in which John McCain also plays.

So there is some kind of hope here on my street in St. Louis. I heard the other day a comment from a German commentator, translating an expression: we have a golden choice.

Absolutely there are huge policy differences. If only the sellers of media will allow those policy choices to matter, I think these candidates can elevate the discourse. The media - mainstream and other - will either be the lift under their wings or a weight on their backs.

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There is a huge difference between:

we've lost, let's pull the troops out, and

we've won, let's pull the troops out.

Isn't there?

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