Movie-Telling: A Review of Salvatore Pane’s short story collection, The Neorealist in Winter

The short story form serves us well when we sense that we are beside each character, witnessing their lives as they stumble or soar. In its best context, a narrative will surprise us toward cultivating our own imaginations. Yet, one or two gifted writers welcome us into their world as if we are read-watching their favorite movie with them.

        Enter Salvatore Pane.

Pane’s collection of short stories, The Neorealist in Winter (Available through Autumn House Press and winner of the Autumn House Fiction Prize), swings through time the way a good flashback might enhance the current moment of a screenplay, and his characters behave so enduringly cinematic that a director could bring them to life. Pane has shared 11 stories that move in a quirky pace while introducing his characters’ thoughts and values beyond mere familiarity. Instead, we are rewarded with intimate inclusion among his people.

Perhaps the beauty of both fiction and film is an author’s ability to choose just the right line at the right time. Queue the accolades for Salvatore Pane!

When Christopher gets shunned by a barroom beauty in New Jersey (“Zeitgeist Comics, 1946”) he (the character) cleverly pauses to consider his retort - a moment which Pane navigates masterfully through direct and witty dialogue. But Christopher won’t be stumped as he tries to save the comic book publication he loves so dearly. The tragic-comedy surrealism of this tale alone reminds us that, like life, good storytelling often does not end as we might imagine.

Pane’s nods to Italian culture do not weigh the book down while the struggle of failing-city / emerging-suburb life of a post-World War 2 America inform several narratives, and an end-of-the-tunnel, post-millennial reflection / nostalgia / optimism bookends the influences that seem to have developed Pane as a writer while inspiring his stories.

Most powerfully, the escapism is not romantic and forgiving in the way that a two-hour stay at the cinema house sometimes forces us to accept a story’s buy-in. Rather, Pane’s sentences remove you from the context of your moment and place you under the same tension as his characters, but do so as if your own zeitgeist could affect the outcome. Aside from one misplaced intrusion of a broken fourth wall that seems to be arbitrary, the stories of The Neorealist in Winter deftly echo with the struggles of finding happiness in career or vocations, and within family both borne or chosen, or perhaps somewhere out there among an America where loneliness feels like consequences more than happenstance.

Overall, our Winter Neorealist handles humor and life as literature and film shall - sometimes hilariously and sometimes heartbreakingly. From one of many great similes (“produced a cigar and puffed it like a plantation owner”) to countless examples of the profound (“staring into the heart of the city that had raised them”), this collection pays homage to film and tells damn good stories without clobbering the reader like a Goodfellas mobster. (wink, wink)

If a story can begin anywhere, then we have to trust a narrator to take us everywhere. Pane crafts his fiction like a poised film director but does not lean into melodrama, and we will all be a bit better from his efforts.

Roll credits: Salvatore Pane is a writer on the rise whose stories need to be shared.

When Even Rice is Done Well

 A review of  Lori Jakiela’s They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice / by Dan J. Kirk

Every once in a while, we come across a writer who has said something in a way that no one has ever said it before, the way we wish we could write it ourselves. Lori Jakiela is one of those writers.

Page 53: “He didn’t want the hospital bed she’d ordered and all the ghosts that came with it.”

Page 98: "When faced with mortality, the questions are always why and how and when, as if figuring out the answers makes any difference."

Page 147: “ ‘Help me,’ the little girl says, and her voice pops like bubble wrap.”

These are just a few treasures, small grains of rice in the larger literary world, to be found in Jakiela’s new book, They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice, to be released on Halloween by Atticus Books. But like the many allusions to our greatest writers that Lori shares (think Fitzgerald and Dickinson and Vonnegut), her ability to say just the right thing at just the right moment is as good as anyone writing creative nonfiction today.

The book is a sporadic walk through thought process in the manner of living a busy, cluttered life but being able to notice both the simple and the profound while taking notes along the way. Short passages soften the blow of harsh moments while longer sections set up great jokes with punchlines that might offend but probably shouldn't. It is, after all, an observation of “Life” while life itself is being threatened and fought for.

The format is not new to Jakiela, who perfected a precisely planned pattern of non-patterns in her 2015 ode to being adopted, Belief is its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe, and that she dances through in her new 2023 reflection / observation / biography. If observational remembrance were a genre, Lori Jakiela would be its godmother. It’s a damn fine piece of writing.

 

Whether a genius organizer or a stalwart notetaker who converts outlines into prose, she tells a tale bravely - as if each thought has its own space. It’s like a large notebook filled with surprises to be revealed or setbacks that life forces upon us all too often.

A poignant commentary of community support for cancer victims on page 154.

A powerful admission of father-daughter legacy on page 127.

And then there is timing - just wait until you hit page 75…

All those notes that seem like post-its from a career and a life spent paying attention, are charted into a warm, truthful confession that rests between a heartbreaking memoir and a “What-the-F-does life even mean?” contemplation. 

Spoiler alerts being the current rage of avoidance, it cannot be shared exactly what all comes together in one taut moment on page 123, but it highlights the raveling genius of Lori Jakiela's storytelling - when several pieces intertwine to make sense, the way you pick up toys while tidying up a child's playroom only to reflect on the precious collection and simultaneously await similar chaos the next day. 

Is there perhaps a flaw in this book? Sure, but like each private life, a reader will have to decide for themselves whether those are just mishaps or life lessons.

In the final summation, there is honesty in the writing of Lori Jakiela - brutal, live-affirming honesty. She writes honestly about her husband and their love; about her parents and their tough love; about her birth mother who abandoned her because she could not love; and about her children whom she adores beyond love into the realm of worship-love that every parent ought to recognize.

At its core, upon the very simple strand of each germ of rice, is the realization that They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice is a book about confronting cancer, about thinking about life, and about accepting what comes next. And it is also a book that reminds us why existing through hardships is worth the joy found in living.

But don’t forget that Miss Jakiela can be damn funny, too. Just wait for page 167!

An Homage to Neil Peart

It Built Our Lives Because
The Music Matters

In Memoriam, Neil Peart

(of Rush, 1974-2015;
of our time, 1952-2020)

“If we burn our wings,
flying too close to the sun;

If the moment of glory is
over before it’s begun;

If the dream is won,
though everything is lost;

We will pay the price,
but we will not count the cost.

When the dust has cleared
and victory denied;

A summit too lofty,
a river a little too wide;

If we keep our pride,
though paradise is lost;

We will pay the price,
but we will not count the cost.

And if the music stops,
there’s only the sound of the rain;

All the hope and glory,
all the sacrifice in vain;

And if love remains,
though everything is lost;

We will pay the price,
but we will not count the cost.” (“Bravado”)

One day, you’re seventeen years old and waiting...really, really waiting for WDVE in Pittsburgh to play the newest song by a band you really dig. Two decades later, you are teaching college theatre and telling a crew of your students to shut the hell up because you’ve been waiting… really, really waiting for WDVE in Pittsburgh to play the latest song by what has become your favorite band of all time. So, 1987 has become 2007. Then, suddenly, you’re approaching 50, busy raising kids and you’re not waiting, really not waiting, because you don’t want to believe the messages on Facebook. You cannot hear the words on WDVE in Pittsburgh that will verify the news. The most influential rock-lyric writer of your life may have passed away. And 2007 has become 2020, and...Neil...Peart...is...dead.

During the years in between you memorized each verse, discovered depth in countless metaphors, and posted just about anything you could in order to influence friends, students, family members, and fellow fans -- to just listen! Even if half the people humored you when they “liked” what you had typed, you often shared lyrics anyway.

One such post decried, “If you don’t get Rush by now, maybe you never will” when you shared “The Camera Eye.” That subtle social commentary nicely ties off a phase of Rush’s mini-saga period, the beginning of which was “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” and which ran through “2112,” both “Cygnus” variations, and a spate of others. You honestly believed that your lense into the music could transport others through a powerful and perfect portal to understand the band’s greatest aptitude. You knew very few would get it, that they’d just never take the time to comprehend the sheer brilliance that is Neil Peart, Geddy Lee, and Alex Lifeson. You developed a mantra, somewhat serious / somewhat flippant, to recruit fans: “When you recognize the truth, we will welcome you to the light.” Laughter has yet to convert. But onward you rocked.

For over 40 years, heavy-drum rhythms filled the rock-n-roll airwaves to define the Rush sound, and certain songs (“Tom Sawyer,” “Freewill,” “Spirit of Radio”) became radio favorites while arguably not even being among the band’s best work. All along, Rush relied time and perfectly-syncopated-time again on the mastery of Neil Peart’s lyrics to build upon every style from art-rock to anthem, from eulogy to elegy, from morals to morasses and yes, even a ballad and a rap! The trio are masterful musicians with Neil Peart the maestro behind the words.

~ ~ ~

The passing of Neil Peart signifies a moment in my life as others might think of the death of a civic leader or a profound actor. His work has inspired me as an artist and a thinker in ways that are difficult to explain. One might scoff at the very notion -- as if pausing to pay tribute to a rock-and-roll celebrity is the work a sophomore. But one would then dismiss the wave of change that rock-and-roll has brought to our society between 1950 and 2020. Influenced by 60s fusion, no-doubt pushed internally by 70s rock gods, motivated to surpass the experimental 80s, and recharged by a 90s guitar-rock resurgence, Peart sculpted an understanding for generations, and has left a lasting profundity yet to be fully realized. In the new millennium, he gifted us perhaps his greatest lyrical accomplishments in the band’s lesser-known final three albums. (Listen first, and if you agree, send thanks later.)

Peart was a musician whose talents I will never reach. I possess absolutely no musical skill, and would be called tone-deaf by many, but his lyrics reached me through a communal need for words. Vocabulary expresses the best and the beautiful, the weakest and the worst, the heroic and the hopeful, and the rough-hewn Canadian measured his choices with precision matched only (somehow) by the finesse of his own percussion.

One day, someone will write a book that explores the wordsmith’s many layers and secrets, but a few tracks demand attention upon his passing. Within his meaning lies the power of interpretation -- one thing I can do. Some fans in 1987 heard “I know you’re different, you know I’m the same; we’re both too busy to be taking the blame” as an ominous environmental concern from “Second Nature,” yet something suggested to me a commentary on kinship.

On some level there is a drug-addiction recovery theme to be found under “The Enemy Within”: “I’m not giving in to security under pressure, I’m not missing out on the promise of adventure. I’m not giving up on implausible dreams - experience to extremes.” Yet my take heralded a refusal to surrender to society, as if every obstacle was placed before us to build character and to discover our truest selves.

Buried within so many songs, the tiny nuggets are vast:

“They seem oblivious to this quality, equality.”

“It’s a far cry from the world we thought we’d inherit.”

“Can any part of life be larger than life?”

“Some half-forgotten stranger doesn’t mean that much to me.”

“I’m so full of what is right, I can’t see what is good.”

And the utterly effusive, “Why are we here? Because we’re here.”

Still, my personal motto hollers, “Don’t ask me, I’m just improvising my illusion of careless flight,” during the esoteric and layered “Presto.” It might be read as a musical romp through improvisation, yet I sensed a visionary reality to which I applied my art as a stage director. It inspired me to trust style over the limitations of structure. And it goes a step further: “If I could wave my magic wand...I’d make everything all right” considers the best of being better people together.

Throughout Peart’s exploration of the world’s words, we have learned wisdom, patience, insight, introspection, and a deeper connection to our humanity. But we also find a devotion to integrity and to science, and to the mystery and wonder of both. “Science like nature must also be tamed...Art as expression, not as market campaign, will still capture our imagination.” (“Natural Science”) “But I still cling to hope, and I believe in love; and that’s faith enough for me.” (Faithless”) I can’t discuss them all -- do your homework!

Rock and roll has been the throbbing beat of my artistic heart. It has allowed me to balance Literature with my own minimal contribution to the Arts as they represent us and will come to define our own time on this earth. While we are saddened to place 2020 on a man’s tombstone who only became alive in 1952, we cherish the grace by which he penned complex lyrics that challenge us as much as they must have confounded his musician-best-friends Geddy and Alex when they wrote accompanying music to construct and perfect their songs.

And now we reach the very moment of legacy. When a life ends and memory begins; where we hold true to the reality that every song, every fill, every word, every thought, every counter-rhythm, and every pun, reinvented cliche, and clever phrase now stand as a testament to a life well-played. Most sadly, The Professor wrote words he possibly did not realize would come to be so profound when he chronicled Rush’s entire career in “Headlong Flight”: “I’d never trade tomorrow for today...Some days were dark...some nights were bright...I wish that I could live it all again.”

As long as there is electricity to harness and speakers to connect, the music of Rush, driven by the impulse and wisdom of Neil Peart, will forever rock our souls and roll our emotions down a tireless road, much like the one Mr. Peart himself wrote of in “Ghost Rider” as a method for his own mourning and coping: “Show me beauty, but there is no peace for the ghost rider.” Please, somewhere, may Neil Peart truly rest in peace now.

“Suddenly, you were gone, from all the lives you left your mark
upon...I hear the voices...I remember.
I tried to believe, but you
know it’s no good. This is something that just can’t
be understood.” (“Afterimage”)

(All lyrics are property of Rush, Neil Peart, and their musical catalog.)

New Orleans - Modern Atlantis

(This is a piece I wrote many years ago during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I have never been to New Orleans, but still the images affected me.)

I am reminded of visions from childhood – of a mythical place, of a lost city, a mysterious adventure. I was not old enough to separate myth from reality, and could not comprehend that I would never actually take a deep-sea voyage to swim amongst submerged buildings and encounter freakish citizens who had adapted to their aquatic environs. Nor did I speculate that at one point in time such a city must have first been inundated to become the underwater playground it was in my juvenile mind. No, I would never see Atlantis. Now that I have seen New Orleans under perilous deluge, I am not sure that I would have wanted to.

     Those are not freakish people with gill-like breathing systems struggling to get along in a strange world. (Hell, not even the flimsy film Waterworld could have prepared us for this.) They are human beings suffering insurmountable terror and dehydrating fear. If the words by Coleridge -- “Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink” -- ever precluded humankind’s mercy at the hand of nature, a flood is perhaps more poignant than a poet stranded at sea.

     Real people cling to rooftops. Real people lie dead in the rivers of streets. Real people have lost everything. And for what? For nothing explainable or stoppable, and perhaps never before truly imaginable.

     If this were a Disney picture, some hero would rise from the waves, roll back the waters with his mighty trident, and levy the destruction backwards against the sea.

     But there is no Triton to damn the ocean. There is no lover to soothe Katrina’s angry passion. And as sure as she has blown away her steam into memory and mist, she will remain a part of our shared cultural history, just as New Orleans now awkwardly shares itself with Atlantis.

     Who knows what the future holds for the Big Easy? Maybe the really big and difficult task of recovery. Maybe the enormous price of rebuilding city and society while burying family and dignity. Perhaps the realization and acceptance that there will not be a city there any longer. Or, do we hope for the humble resolve to move forward and somehow, after some time – months, years, decades – survive? As Hiroshima did, as Nagasaki did. But let us be slow to compare those tragedies. One the hand of nature, two at the hand of ignorance. Still the devastation must be similar.

     Somewhere off in the distant corners of our minds there is the site of magical Atlantis, gleaming at the bottom of the sea as if preserved for archeology and for poets. But here on earth, in the awesome reality of our weakness against a fickle mother, drowns New Orleans – a submerged and battered remnant of its former self. Intent to withstand, its people push forward as a nation mourns and asks why and pauses long enough to roll back our weathered sleeves and help in anyway we can.

     There are survivors to be found, supplies to be delivered, monies to be raised. There is the future to consider, but moments that must be confronted which are the literal divide between life and death, glory and tragedy.

     We watch television accounts and go to sleep more grateful than we were after September 11, 2001, for what we have, for what we have not lost, and for what we suddenly realize is more fragile than the last bottle of fresh water in storage. We recount what is more precious than convenient food. We contemplate that our lives, our homes, our loved ones can be taken from us at any time and from any wrath. And as we lay down to sleep we dream torrid visions of other’s suffering, of other’s loss, and we wonder how they will go on. And the whys remain. 

     For the remainder of my life when I think of the fabled Atlantis, I will not be enchanted as I was during my youth. I will be haunted.

Retirement: A Short-short Tragicomedy

The stage is split between two homes; Dan's on stage right, Ryan's on stage left.

They both enter and speak to their wives at a shared table that covers both stage areas.


RYAN: Good morning, wife! This is a great day - last day ever at work.

     (He exits)

DAN: Good morning, wife. Well, I'm off to work. About time to...

     (He dies.)

End scene

Letters to Tony: A Eulogy for Anthonly Sylvester Lupori (10/5/1990 - 2/19/2014)

     Letters. Letters arranged to make words. Words designed to make sense of things. We try to find the right words to make sense of the things that we can understand and even the things that are unthinkable; the things we might never understand. I wish I had the words to make sense of...this. But I don’t. None of us do. There is simply no sense to why people are attending the funeral of a twenty-three year old man.
      But that’s where we are, that’s what life has done to us, to Tony. There is nothing more ironic than a man who loved science dying young because science still isn’t good enough. And that makes me mad. We are not alone in this grief, this anger. Many people have died from cancer – young, old and in between. I often say that in 300 years they will laugh at how we fight cancer today. I wish I could invent a time machine, move into 2314 and return with whatever secrets mankind dreams up between now and then. I can’t. None of us can. As much as Tony studied and understood science and loved its base principles, he could not have done it either. And that is the senselessness that has many of us so bitter and so angry.
     Tony deserved better because he embodied hope. I don’t know if many people realized that about him. While he called himself a Darwinist, he knew that people could make the world better.
     Look at all these people here today. It shouldn’t surprise us. Maybe the sadness of someone dying young isn’t really all that sad. Maybe they are young enough to still have important people around them and in their lives. We hold a grandparent’s funeral, and family attend  but most of their friends have passed on or are too weak to travel, or have just faded away over the years. The memory of this moment might just be that Tony touched so many lives – and in such a short amount of time. You aren’t here because Tony died young; you’re here because Tony meant something to you, and you meant something to him. While that does not numb the heartache, it makes something seem to be meaningful.
     There are some good memories I will choose to keep and some bad ones I will make myself forget.
     I will remember the night a few weeks before the surgery when he simply asked to go a movie. I said, “What’s up?” He said he didn’t feel like being alone. It was his way of saying please.
     I will not remember the pain of seeing someone we love die so young, because he lived a lot in his two decades. He was a part of our lives, and that fact made all of our lives a little bit better.
     I will remember going to the auto show in February of 2013. He was like a kid at Christmas inside a candy store and at Disneyworld all at once. It was his groove. He bounced from car to car, telling me about specs I didn’t understand, appreciating the fine engineering of other people’s work, pointing out what features were “boss” and which were “lame.” I learned a little,  but more I will remember watching Tony revel in his element. He was having fun and smiling and dreaming of driving those cars – before he even knew he’d have cancer. I will remember him smiling.
     I won’t remember the vitriol he expressed for what he lost. But who could blame him? There is so much we take for granted – what we eat, how we kiss, when we talk, why we breathe, and all of it was taken from him in the prime of his life.
     I will remember that Tony was a child of his generation. He loved skateboards and bikes as a kid, grew to dig computers and apps and his cell phone as a teen, and absolutely became passionate about tools and engineering as a young man. They made sense to him.
     I choose to forget all of the things he vented about during a ride back and forth to Deep Creek. He needed a sounding board for his pain, frustration, anger and confusion. He said some pretty nasty things. It does no good to recount those things, and I will not remember them.
     I hope I can always remember his laughter. His laugh was like a quick-strike rifle. He would burst out, laugh hard and then stop. He would just stop because the funny part was over. He appreciated humor but he balanced it with such a seriousness. He was a fan of satire but there were so many other things that made him laugh: silly internet memes, people falling, girls doing things in an illogical way, and how we Pittsburgh sports fans take our teams too seriously. Tony even managed to laugh at his own misfortunes.
     When he had the PET scan on December 12^th, it happened to be the night the newest Hobbit movie was to be released. He asked if I would go with him to the midnight showing no matter the results of his PET scan. If it was good news, he wanted to celebrate; if it is was bad, he wanted to commiserate. I said I don’t know,  I had six hours of class to teach the next day. That might be tough. His response? “Come on! I just got the shit kicked out of me by cancer for six months. You can handle being tired at school for a few hours.” I will remember that bravery. And I will remember going to that movie, to celebrate just for that one day.
     I will not remember the cancer. What good does that do? If we remember it, it wins. Cancer can’t win. The memory of Tony must be better and bigger and braver than the disease that ended his life. We must continue to fight cancer and fight with those who suffer.
     I will remember his words. The funny things he said, the many things he taught me (some about cars that I never really understood); the way he loved to talk about ideas both profound and silly. I will remember how he went out in public and lived after the surgery that removed his tongue. He never asked that I speak to store employees for him at a movie theatre or at Best Buy or at Lowe’s. He did his best to communicate. And he was patient with people even when he knew they had trouble understanding him.
     And his generosity. I will remember the times when he let me off the hook. He would say something I just could not figure out as his speech became worse, and I would give an “Uh-huh,” as if to let him finish. He would say, “You really didn’t understand what I said, did you?” I had to admit I hadn’t. He would simply repeat it because that was his way.
     I will remember how he accepted his fate. I will remember he had plans. I will remember how we came to be friends before it was too late.
     Tony and I became very close in the last 5 years. And I can tell you that he was outspoken because he cared. He was assertive not because he was arrogant or conceited, but because he had ambition. He had hopes of doing something important. He may have come off as being a bit abrasive, but it wasn’t because he was rude or self-centered. He was insecure. We all were at 21, at 22, at 23, at... And that is the tragedy, isn’t it? He’ll never get to grow into his developing twenties, his calming thirties, his patient forties, his focused fifties, his graceful sixties, his grateful seventies, his reflective eighties. Please, if anything, enjoy your twenties because you can. Live your thirties for all their joy because you can. Embrace your forties because you can! Reinvent yourself in your fifties, celebrate your sixties, accept the struggles of your seventies, and hold onto life during your eighties...only because you can.
     I will not remember cancer. I will remember that he had cancer. But I will not, cannot remember what it did to him. I will remember him young and sharp and handsome and full of life.
     I will always remember that I could not comprehend the last thing he tried to say to me – but I will enjoy a life spent imagining all the great things it might have been that he was trying to teach me.
     I will remember that he gave me the chance to be a decent uncle. I’ll remember how he stuck to his point of view and was always willing to argue a point because he believed in the power of his intelligent dialogue; in a way, he believed in words. I will remember his words. The ones he wrote, the ones he said, even the ones he had to repeat after he lost the ease of speaking.
     I will remember his dignity.
     I will remember his words.
     Words made of letters designed to make sense of the unthinkable...

Thoughts on Father's Day, 2013

When does a pond become a lake? A big pond...a small lake...a short river...a long life – this is how we classify things. There is probably a geological definition that defines when a certain acreage or a certain gallon capacity is surpassed to change a body of water from a pond (or a really big pond) to a lake, at least by definition. Does that one gallon extra or that hectare (whatever the hell that means) really create a delineation for which we should be concerned?

It is said that water makes up most of the human body and most of the Earth upon which we stand. It has also been said that the world is 85% hydrogen and 16% stupidity. At what point is a human being smart enough to notice that their own personal problems are becoming unmanageable, in that they are, per se, drowning? If that one drop of water converges upon the pond and it suddenly becomes a lake, then surely one mistake might pull a person under.

But is a pond proud? Does it stand on the farm and boast across the landscape, “Hey, I’m a Lake now!” – to which a grizzled old body of water that has always been massive and has always been a Lake, retorts: “Relax, kid – by the end of summer you’ll dry up and be a pond again.” It must be a humbling experience.

More importantly, when does a parent realize that the responsibility of building a strong peer and steering a steady ship far outweigh the risk/reward equation of a life filled with awesome cruises or thrilling adventures on water skis?

The society we have developed into allows for a myriad of problems to inundate us, but what are we to do? We have rivers of stress, lakes of addiction, seas of denial and an ocean’s worth of excuses. Somewhere along the line of human progress we added too much water and someone forgot that we need to release the valves once in a while. A drop of divorce, a hint of homelessness, a touch of tragedy, the requisite dash of drugs and alcohol, a sprinkle of selfishness, and a full measure of misguided thinking, bottom-line hoping, happiness-in-objects wishing, and driven-for-success-living has lead us to a flood of problems both physical and emotional. Might good, sensible parenting take the helm generation after generation and correct our course? The ancients navigated by the stars. All we need now is common sense responsibility. But we get distracted by modern trappings, and bad parents rear lost children.

These problems (“issues” as they are called by the We Can Accomplish Anything by Positive Thinking Campers) have inundated us to the point of saturation. We find it difficult to breathe under all the pressure, and our lakes overspill their borders and wipe out all that we have built of good cities, abundant crops, strong roadways, excellent communication channels and once-proud schools.

We stand back and survey the damage. “Tsk, tsk, this is sad. Nothing could have prevented this from happening!” The wreckage is abysmal, the destitution profound and the healing is only beginning. Had we just opened the tap a little to let the water drain enough to release some pressure, maybe we wouldn’t be counting damage but rather moving forward. Work less, go to the lake more. Fight less, gaze at the river more. Hold less grudges and stroll hand-in-hand along the shore, and marriage ain’t all that hard. You might cuss (and say ain’t) like a sailor, but working together as Captain and First Mate is easier than...Not so easy, is it? It takes work. The Titanic may have gone down in a day, but it wasn’t built in a day either. Do you want your marriage to be the Titanic? Then plan a wedding. If you want your life to resemble the U.S.S. Arizona, then work together to a plan a strategy for a marriage. If you don’t want kids, be honest with each other and prevent that. If you aren’t sure – please take precaution so you don’t become parents unwillingly! If you do want kids, accept the responsibilities that come with the job, and it is a job! The responsibilities are too numerous to list here, but observe a good local mom or dad and you’ll catch on quickly.

The dangers of a bad marriage are rather obvious, but do we ever consider what might occur in the wake as we glide back into our own lives? We get so distracted by cleaning up the bad marriage wreckage that we lose sight of the goals: true happiness, fulfillment, family pride, a mother and father working together to teach their kids to swim.

A good swimmer, after all, has the skills to navigate the challenges of choppy waters and can pace himself for the long haul. A weak swimmer, a child raised between fighting parents, a selfish (or worse, non-existent/weekend) father and a self-absorbed (or worse, distracted and obsessive) mother, panics in the waters of stress, loses oxygen and is either damaged or goes down with the sharks. There are no sharks in the pool, unless you count those other teenagers who find solution in tinctured spoons or hopps-infested waters as being sharks or piranhas or just plain punks. Not to mention all the other sea life bent on destruction – criminals, creeps and crappy future spouses. There are good swimmers in the pools, too, kids who would be smart enough to realize that this metaphor of swimmers is getting...tired.

In the short end of the pool, there is a day we all must come to realize that we need to either sink or swim. This is our life, and we only get one chance to live it well. Society allows for multiple chances to correct the course, but sometimes you get too lost and other times you right the ship. It is laughable that the phrase “YOLO” has consumed the minds of a young generation. You Only Live Once has become a rally cry for anything from good times to extreme partying to outright debauchery. Let’s not forget that we only die once too. Are we willing to have that conversation with our kids while still teaching them to enjoy life? It’s sort of like walking a plank – there is danger but not all fun is deadly. Smart parents...better kids...just a thought.

As we pool (get it?) our resources together to make society a place worth living, one has to hope that oceans of doubt and streams of confusion can flow in the confluence of good judgment, smart planning and teamwork to pacify the rocky waters of our times. Whether you can afford a built-in heated, indoor super pool or a plastic kiddy pool that will be cracked and curbed for a September pick-up-garbage day, or any variation in between from local pool passes to yearly trips to the beach, just be a good parent. Please, someone is drowning out there. It might be your kid, it might be your neighbor’s kid, it might be you. Life preservers are all around you in the form of friends and family. It doesn’t matter if it is a pond or a lake, but it is our jobs as parents to teach our kids to swim well. Don’t let that kid down, and don’t let that kid drown.