Open Doors Closed Doors

Did you smell it this past weekend? Were you up early enough? If you woke early this past Saturday morning, in the northeast US anyway, you probably had a certain aroma fill your olfaction caves. This smell was mixed with a cooler than usual air. This smell reminds you of two things: Fall and Football. Yes my friends, both are on their way.

They say early man had a far more sensitive smell than us current homo sapiens. Tis still a powerful sense though isn’t it? How that scent can transport me back to early Saturday mornings at Highland Field in my game day uniform, teams all around: The Johnson Dragons in their yellow and gold, the Decker Vikings in their purple and white, the Oakdale Red Raiders in Red, and your hometown favorite Portage Bears in blue and white (with the only mesh jerseys in the league I might add!). The concession stands are being set up, warm ups commencing, parents pacing, butterflies fluttering not in the air but in stomachs. So many boys and families learning life lessons all under the guide of chasing an oblong ball covered in pigskin. You don’t have to be Archie Bunker to say those were the days. 

Those certainly were the days and this nostalgia hits me every fall. Nostalgia is bittersweet for me because it co-occurs with guilt. Yes, I feel guilty when I yearn for the past because I realize that in some way shape or form I am not appreciating my present. 

As a busy family man though, I don’t have too much time for nostalgia…or guilt, there is too much to do, including the zoo on Sunday. But this Sunday zoo trip we were mixing it up a little. We were meeting a family with two kids ages 9 and 5. My oldest will be 3 in late November. Our two new friends really took a liking to our toddler and had a ball showing him around. I found myself enjoying the freedom of not constantly engaging him and adoring watching him interacting with his new friends. But then it hit me, he is going to have friends and they are going to engage him, they are going to entertain him, make him laugh, play kick the can with him, and play sports with him (should he choose, including possibly Pee-Wee football). And in a flash, the moment became bittersweet, kinda like nostalgia, because while new doors are opening, as they must, some are closing behind us, as they must. 

How good was my Pee Wee football team you ask?

Zoo Volunteer

There is a volunteer at the local zoo who takes her Elephant Bath Q&A just a little too seriously. Sure, we all appreciate the fun fact now and again; who doesn’t want to know how much an elephant eats in a day? But sometimes you just want to watch without being berated with pachyderm trivia; even worse, when you see the bathing more than once, you are subject to all the same banalities from Lucy the elephant lover all over again. 

One can get past the pedantic details like “the elephant’s feces can weigh up to” blah blah blah, or “the elephant uses its trunk to sexually pleasure his/her mate” yadi yada, or “the trainers use the bath to bond with the elephants in much the same way we humans might use African drum music to bond”, and so on. One can get past this if one politely tunes her out with, with gun range strength headphones. 

This is not the worst part however; the worst part is her voice and accent. It is a cross between Adam Sandler’s Toll Booth Willie and Gilbert Godfried. Imagine trying to enjoy your zoo trip and the elephant bath with fun facts coming from the Aflac Duck in Boston-ese! I wanted desperately to enjoy the gig but I kept finding myself wanting to channel Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting and run up to her and say “what winds yah watch!?” 

Note to Zoo Management: audition your speakers. If she sounds like a villainous cartoon character from Southie, you might want to put her on shoveling elephant shit duty.