Author: David Iseman

Now I’m angry.
I’ve been listening to sports radio and numerous callers, as well as some DJs, have decided it is OK to make fun of old people. Here’s the kind of banter becoming commonplace:
“He’s no youngster. He played when the NBA players wore their shorts higher than the cheerleaders.”

Or “He’s so old that his coaches drew up plays with stone tablets and chisels.”

Or, “No one cared about the colors of their uniforms back then. TV was only black and white.”
Think “yo mama jokes” but start with “He’s so old.”
I’ve let it slide for some time, in part, because when you pick a battle with millennials you gotta realize that some of them have a lot of time on their hands. Those temp jobs don’t require a lot of hours.

We older folks are generally pretty stoic but these attacks have become pervasive. These mean millennials fire away with impunity, probably thinking we older folks are too tired or feeble to fight back. They forget we survived the ’60s, ’70s,  all those Die Hard movies … paraquat.

It’s past time to mount a counteroffensive.
We have them outnumbered. Can you say Baby Boomers? Here are some comebacks to “He’s so old” that I have  developed with my aged, cobweb-ridden cranium.

That goofball is so young that …

… He thinks Vladmir Putin is a character on Game of Thrones.

… She told her entire yoga class that John Wayne was Lil’ Wayne’s dad.

… He thinks the Great Depression is something you can catch after too many years living in your mom’s attic.
… You tell him to act his age and he immediately poops his pants.
… You can’t drive through a warm, dark tunnel without him reverting to the fetal position.
… That same dude’s salivates at the low-cut tops worn by NFL cheerleaders. For the wrong reason. He’s hungry.

… Ask this millennial if she has a land line and she says she doesn’t like to go fishing.
… She wrote a stinging Yelp review complaining that she couldn’t withdraw money from a pay phone

…. The Cold War? She vaguely remembers hearing about that on a NyQuil commercial.
… He heard his mom ask for Wite-Out and he called her a racist.

… He told his friends he was going to quit his job at Kmart, move to the country and make a fortune raising Dalai Lamas.

— He admitted to everyone on his Ultimate Frisbee team that he thought the Bay of Pigs was an X-rated, reality TV show.
… Then he confessed he thought “Tricky Dick” was a porn star. Same for Alfred Hitchcock and Dick Tracy.
… He tried to make a photo copy of his naked butt on a fax machine.
… She thought if you stood by a fax machine long enough you got smarter. (Get it? Facts? Yes, she had just done mushrooms with her entire shift at the call center.)

… Drunk, he spilled his $12 craft beer all over a Vietnam vet who sneered, “It’s time to tango.” This millennial started dancing.

… Asked if he had heard of the Pentagon Papers, this guy said, “Man, I didn’t think you were allowed to smoke pot in the Army, let alone roll your own! Sign me up!”
… She had a big fight with her boyfriend because he told her, no, Keith Richards was not one of the Flintstones.
… She thought Mother Teresa was Madonna’s mom.

— He bet his dad that Ho Chi Minh was an expensive Asian call girl, lost the bet and had to clean up his room in the basement.

Then, he had to move out.

Years ago, with the kids in bed, my wife and I were doing clean-up chores when she uttered a simple comment. Actually, it was a musing.
“There’s a hundred of them,” Lynn said, stopping her work for just a second to marvel at her realization.
“A hundred of what?” I asked.
“A hundred I have to deal with.”
“Huh?” I was totally lost.
“Nails.”
Still clueless, I stared, stupefied.
“The kids’ nails,” she explained. “There’s five kids, 20 nails to a kid, so that’s a hundred. Not even counting my own.”
Man, I hate cutting even my own nails. The realization she was cutting so many knocked me right off my pedestal as breadwinner. Sure I brought in the income but she was the kid groomer, food shopper, dinner maker, clothes washer, clothes mender, clothes buyer, homework checker, travel planner … and on and on.
I am still breathing today so I obviously pitched in.
But, the “nails” comment really stuck with me. It was one of the many times over our decades together that I stopped to truly appreciate the difficulty of her my wife’s jobs. Did I mention family barber?
—–
Lynn handled a lot but did not complain a lot. We wouldn’t have made it this far had she been weak. The kids, now grown and appreciative enough to give us credit when they reminisce, talk about their mom’s toughness and her stoicism.
They recall her at-times inappropriate laughter — she became a nurse but cannot hold back guffaws when someone falls down. On the flip side, the kids all recollect in detail how well their mom dealt with adversity, her ability to steady the ship in rough waters, her knack for handling unpleasant surprises with resolve, not tears.
Except that one time.

“You remember when momma cried?” one of our kids will ask, and they all recount the same story. They answer in unison and more quickly than when any other question about the past pops up.
To understand, a little background is necessary.
—–

Some of our busiest times with the children came in Warren, Ohio, where we lived from the beginning of 1988 to the end of 1994. We bought our first home there and eventually got it set up to accommodate five kids close in age, the oldest still not even a teenager.
Once I redid the attic, we had enough room. We had a garage. We had a yard. My wife started nursing school. We were comfortable.
But, a problem developed. I knew I was going nowhere in my Ohio job, and an opportunity developed in Pennsylvania. But we had to act quickly. My wife didn’t disagree. So, after some candid conversation, we realized the enormity of this challenge, took a deep breath and got moving. Just action, no tears.
This was not easy. We had to move ourselves and this was mid-school year. With me still working, it was up to Lynn to make the five-hour drive with our oldest Luke to visit our prospective new town, search for an apartment for seven people, a giant lizard and a dog, figure out where the kids would go to school, get through the background checks, sign a lease and ensure we could move in quickly, within two weeks. She took this on with a steely determination. She accomplished all this over one snowy December weekend.

I never saw the place before we arrived with our U-haul, trying to fit what we had accumulated in a decent-sized home with a big garage into half a house with no garage. It was what they in this old coal region in northeast Pa. called a “half-double.”
The transition was tough. Older kitchen. Tiny yard. Crowded bedrooms. The landlord hadn’t cleaned like he said he would. And, as expected in a rental, nothing worked as well as expected.
Still, just action. No tears.

We made do.
The kitchen, though, proved especially nettlesome. Of course, as fate would have it, that’s where Lynn had to spend a great deal of time. In addition to finicky appliances — it had a crappy stove and one of those portable dishwashers that hook up to the faucet but always leak — the big drafty room was just plain ugly.
Dreary walls. Beat-up linoleum on the floor. Cracked ceiling tiles. Fluorescent lights designed to shine through those clear plastic ceiling tiles that turn yellow in about a month.
I was working when I got the call.
At first, my wife sounded angry, but I could also hear panic in her voice.
She was uncharacteristically unclear and spoke frantically. Something about a toilet. Up above the kitchen. No, no one was hurt.
Here’s how our son Scott remembers it:
“Mia had a tendency of rolling up the toilet paper when using the potty. This clogged the second story bathroom which happened to be directly above the kitchen. Mommy was on the phone and it was literally running down the walls in the kitchen.”
“She said, ‘ “Dave, DAVE, there is SHIT on the walls,” while sobbing-crying into the phone. I remember Mia felt really badly because she had the flush that broke the camel’s back that started the poop waterfall.”
After Lynn’s outburst, I listened to my tough, strong, resilient, resourceful wife crying. I felt horrible, but I was also embarrassed.
My new job had me sitting very close to reporters to help coach them. I was trying to keep them from hearing that my wife was freaking out over an overflowing toilet.
But of course it wasn’t just an overflow. It was about being overwhelmed.

It was an overwhelming move, with overwhelming responsibilities and overwhelming chores — can you imagine ensuring five kids are ready for a new school, mid-year?
Think about a hose to a washing machine with a small section weakening. The pressure builds into a small bump on the hose, like a tiny Adam’s Apple, and it grows bigger and bigger, with more pressure … and the kids start fighting … the dishwasher leaks … is the oven working? — what’s that? — shadows on the sink, coming from above, in the fluorescent lights, weird, like clouds above me, with — oh my God! — that’s crap!!!
The kids froze. They tiptoed around this woman who looked like their mom but certainly wasn’t acting like her. I tried to talk Lynn through it, promising to help ensure it was all clean when I got home. I couldn’t leave work; I was the only editor on duty.
She recovered quickly. OK. Deep breath. Get that crying out of the way, breathe again. No more tears, just action.
—–
Before writing this, I emailed our kids asking if they recalled other times when their mom’s tear ducts opened. Other than the “poop waterfall,” the moments they recalled were typical, after deaths of loved ones or when someone was in danger.
No tears when all five kids got chicken pox at the same time, over Christmas. No tears when the cops showed up when after one of the twins scraped an arm and would not stop screaming. No tears transporting our oldest with a dislocated elbow from a rural wrestling match to a hospital where he could get help.
No tears moving all those kids and the dog five times in about eight years.
Heck, I don’t recall her crying while giving birth. And she bore twins.
—-
They say opposites attract. I am a big blubberpuss. The kids’ replies to my email poked some fun at me, saying they would have difficulty answering the crying question regarding me. They were too many to count. Mostly, that’s because I get nostalgic thinking back to our days as a tight, clever family juggling life and laughing at obstacles. I also have a tendency to mix beer with my musings.
My wife doesn’t get maudlin. She’s planning the next chapter, not looking back. Figuring out a night out with friends. Scheduling the summer vacation. Planning the next trip to see the kids. Where are we having Thanksgiving this year?
Knowing I was writing this, I asked her the other night if she would help me with some hangnails. “Will you give me a pedicure?” I asked.
“Hah!. You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.
“But you did it for the kids when they were little,” I pushed.
“Yeah, but they were babies.”
I thought about pretending to cry. But, with my history, I don’t know if she would notice.
She’d also probably rat me out to the kids.

So, before I grab the nail clippers, I leave you with this:

Life can deal you crap. You gotta take it. You gotta clean up after it, too.

That’s tougher when you can’t see because of the tears.

The girls on the opposing team — from the suburbs — were being especially mean.

They taunted before the whistle blew, and, as the soccer game went on, it was difficult to tell if they simply enjoyed making insults or had a strategy to try to distract our team.

Either way, they were winning.

Our team included smart, funny girls who happened to hail from a public school in a challenged part of our city. They were tough, but this had them visibly upset.

During a break, I got close enough to the sideline for my daughter Mia to give me a quick rundown of what was happening. Players on the other team were loudly making comments like:

“Watch out you don’t get head lice!”

“Why do they even bother trying to beat us?”

“Why don’t they go home to the projects?”

Mia and her teammates got angry and played hard. These were fighting words. Problem was, this was soccer, not a cage match.

The head game was working. Focus on the insults and you lose focus on the game.

A disclaimer: the game happened years ago so I don’t recall all the details — including the final score — so it’s possible I’m recounting some aspects through rose-colored glasses.

 I do recall specifically how it was close enough for our team to try hard to win, to outplay the mean girls – not worry about one-upping them with insults.

Still, I could understand our girls’ anger. I fumed from the sidelines; my wife couldn’t believe the opponents were so brazen to use the “projects” insult. It wasn’t even accurate.

Sure, our school was located in a declining part of Wilkes-Barre City and was much less affluent than the outlying private seminaries and rich, suburban schools in its soccer division. Sure, our school had problems with absent parents, troubled kids, violence, bullying, and drugs. But it also was rich in other ways, with many kids getting along across racial and economic barriers, with some great, empathetic and hard-working teachers and parent-volunteers helping at every turn.

But the mean girls didn’t seem to appreciate any of that. For not having gangs in their school, they sure had a gang mentality – at least on this day.

They decided to take their spoiled brat card and play it, hoping our girls would take the bait and get slapped with other kinds of cards —  red and yellow ones.

Half time came and this game was not shaping up to be much fun. We were on the wrong side of the score board, angry and getting angrier.

Meanwhile, arrogance dripped like very expensive maple syrup from those rural opposing players, who were now smirking as they prowled the sidelines.

About a minute or two into the second half, though, something changed.

It started with a collision involving one of our smallest forwards. It seemed like the whole team walked over to surround her on the ground. She got up hurt, holding her belly and wincing, near tears. But, oddly, as she and her teammates got closer to our bench they were all smiling, trying to hold back laughter.

Another collision a few minutes later brought a similar scene. Despite concern and fearful looks as our girls huddled over this same forward, the young ladies turned to their coaches and us nearly in giggles.

This forward, Katie, continued aggressive play despite the injuries, and other girls continued to feed her the ball.

The next time she hit the ground, near our sideline, she again needed help to get up. Again she held her belly. This time, once the other team got out of earshot, we could hear our players laughing so hard they were snorting.

But, as play resumed, everyone appeared stern again.

My wife and I didn’t know what the heck was going on. Neither did any of the other fans from our sidelines. I think the coaches were in the dark, too.

Only after the game did we learn the joke.

And it was a good one, that took some fine acting, collaboration and team smarts. I reveled in the irony that “the projects girls” were able to pull it off on their uppity peers.

Katie, the “hurt” forward, was darkly clever. Turns out the first time she hit the ground, she suffered some sort of blow to the stomach. As other girls huddled around, she asked loudly: “Do you think the baby will be OK?”

Our team picked up on it right away.

Of course, a “projects girl” would be unmarried and pregnant in high school, so the other team would fall for the ruse right away. For the rest of the game, every time Katie fell or slipped or even used a slide to try to take the ball, someone would mention the “baby” or ask whether the clinic would be open after the game or, glaring toward the other team, ask Katie:

“Who hurt the baby this time?”

I never did hear whether the ref fell for it. Maybe he just figured that “Baby” was Katie’s nickname.

As I said above, I don’t recall whether the joke led to a victory or not.

I asked my daughter and reached out to a couple other players for help with this recounting. While they remembered the joke, they didn’t recall the specific team they had played that day or the final score.

Which, I think, is great.

It’s so much cooler that the story of the “baby” survived all this time instead of who won or lost yet another game.

We remember who won the important battle.

Those mean girls left that field at best outwitted and at worst wondering what just happened — still scratching their heads.

And, no, it wasn’t from lice.

I got to see the movie billed as Batman versus Superman the other day.
I won’t spoil anything here but I do suggest you see the film with someone who knows something about the heroes and villains of DC comics. More fun than the movie itself will be debating whether the plot lines work, whether the story holds up to scrutiny, whether the  super powers displayed so fantastically on the big screen make any sort of sense.
“So, if Batman doesn’t have any super strength, and Superman punches him, why doesn’t his head just pop right off his body?”
“Is Kryptonite deadly to Superman or not?”
“What the heck is Wonder Woman’s lasso made of?”
Discussing these MIND-BOGGLERS takes COMMITMENT! COURAGE! CHUTZPAH! Those who choose to do so must brave the QUINTESSENTIAL QUAGMIRE of QUIZZICALITY!
ENTER THIS ENIGMA! at your own risk!
Remember those wonderful warnings and commands that jumped in all capital letters from the pages of comics when you were a kid? I remember being stumped by the word “enigma” from a Spiderman comic, while my oldest sister was standing nearby. She saw me looking for the dictionary and stopped me. She taught me the definition by challenging me to figure it out from the context. I was about 9 years old.

I was never “puzzled” by “enigma” again.

Lots of vocabulary sleuthing would follow over the years, and lots of debate over the characters, plot, even the way the heroes were drawn.
After the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice movie, we (my daughter, wife and our foreign student) wrangled over which scene confused the most or needed the most propping up. Later, I heard my wife (who prefers books over comics) on the phone asking our son in Seattle about the movie and getting a detailed rundown of various superpowers harbored by DC Comics characters.
She looked like she was sorry she asked.

For me, the discussion after the movie took me back to my time as a kid when my friends and I dissected comic books religiously. We looked for flaws in plots. We debated who would win in a fight. (Always bet on the Hulk. Crazy beats strong every time.) We actually tried to write to the comic book authors, trying to get a letter published.
Yes, all DC and Marvel comics at one time had letters sections. They were back by the ads, the ones selling hot pepper bubble gum, The Book of 1,001 insults and “How to stop muscle-heads at the beach from kicking sand in your face, you 98-pound weakling!”

The published letters would sometimes applaud the comic artists and writers. But, similar to newspaper letters, these missives would also complain, or ask pointed questions.

“OK, so if Spiderman shoots webbing by using his fingers against his palm, how come it doesn’t shoot out when he makes a fist?” Or, “Issue 558 had Jimmy Olsen with a blue briefcase. When did he get that red one he was carrying in Issue 567?”
My buddies and I had high hopes to get a letter published to show how smart we were. Plus, the comics writers and editors responded to questions with sass. They were smart alecks. It was really cool to catch them in a mistake.

Also, we really really really wanted to win a “No Prize.”

What’s that? you ask.  Unless you loved Marvel Comics in your youth, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about.

The “No Prize” was an ingenious idea.
If a comics reader offered a significant criticism, he or she got a certificate back saying an editor had chosen you as the recipient of a No Prize.” It was just that — nothing but a certificate. No free comics. Not even a discount coupon on that BODYBUILDING BONANZA BOOK! back on page 22.

Still, everyone wanted one.

They gave you notoriety. You got your name printed in the letters section, with an explanation of how you had corrected the writers or artists. Sometimes, Marvel also awarded a No Prize to readers who offered the writers or artists a way to explain away goofs.

For example, a hero with the power to turn invisible disappears, while carrying a giant diamond. The gem is nowhere to be seen in the comic panel. Well, how did the diamond also disappear? It didn’t have the power to turn invisible, a No Prize winner pointed out.

As a fix, the writer suggested the followup issue explain that the hero was not the one with invisibility in his arsenal. He was the one who could shrink himself to the size of an ant, while still possessing super strength. Of course, he just ran away with the gem. Duh!
My good buddy and I came close to a No Prize a couple times but we were too slow. Stuff we noticed — for example a character whose middle name mysteriously changed in only one panel — ended up discovered by someone else before we could write in.
Sadly, I never realized my childhood dream of getting my name published in the same comic as one of my favorite, powerful, benevolent superheroes.
Not as a kid anyway.
It took decades. I finally hit the bigtime.

I was 29.
A comic book artist captured my image in pen and ink and put me (yes, my real first and last names) on pages 1 and 3 of Action Comics 567, a DC Superman issue.

I got to speak to the Man of Steel and shake his hand. I traded some witticisms with Lois Lane, too, as she made fun of me for working as a reporter in a smaller town than her.
So how’d that all happen?
Not how you might be thinking. No, I was not one of those nerds who collected a gazillion comics, read them over and over, kept them sealed in my attic and wrote letter after letter to Stan Lee begging to have my name in a comic book. No, I also did not pay extra for an issue made just for me.

I actually made it into a real, publicly circulated Superman comic book. It was part luck and part skill. Being a dogged news reporter in real life also helped.
Here’s what happened.
It was the mid-’80s and I worked for the Bloomsburg Press-Enterprise, a tough, fun and well-edited small newspaper in central Pennsylvania that covered the Town of Bloomsburg and nearby. Part of that nearby was the beleagured Borough of Centralia, where an underground minefire burned for decades.

I got assigned to help report on a $42 million government buyout of residents who wanted to move, after the feds decided those residents deserved a break. It was a serious story and I wrote lots of copy about it, especially after a group of “stayers” decided the government was all wet and too late, arguing the minefire had moved away from Centralia.
There were lots of raucous town meetings, records to pore through and even some fraud.
When Superman entered the picture, I welcomed the chance the chance to do a lighter story with a Centralia dateline.
Action Comics 558 hit the stands in the summer of 1984. In it, writer Bob Rozakis decided a fictional Pennsylvania old coal mining town (of, well, gee, how about naming it Coaltown?) needed Superman to save it from an underground mine fire. Rozakis had seen a short news story about Centralia as inspiration.

Someone at our paper saw the comic and we saw the fun in writing a feature story about it. We also decided Centralia residents might want the chance to comment on their nettlesome and expensive problem being solved with Superman’s heat vision. The Man of Steel needed fewer than two pages of a 25-page comic to choke out a fire that government scientists could not douse for decades, no matter how hard they tried.

Comments from Centralians and ex-Centralians helped me write a cool little tale. It had a bit of friction, too, because some residents criticized the comic’s author and artist. The residents were penned to look like were stuck in the ’40s. They looked like rubes, they complained. At least one also lamented that DC Comics had become the latest to “cash in” on the minefire disaster.
I needed to find the writer, Rozakis, to get his side. But that proved more difficult than I had hoped. He wasn’t at his office. He wasn’t even in the country. But, I persisted, and found him, at a restaurant in Montreal.
This was before cell phones, mind you. To get to Rozakis, I had to: 1) find someone who knew where he was; 2) find someone else who happened to be with him and wore a pager; 3) hope that person gave Rozakis a message to call me back; and 4) hope for that crucial call-back.
Surprisingly, that all worked. I scrambled a lot like that when I was a reporter. Make a bunch of calls, throw out the net, drop a lot of lines in the water, hope for a bite.
Rozakis would later write to me to say: “By the way, editor Julius Scwhartz and I have voted you the Clark Kent Award for Determined Journalism for the way you tracked me down in Montreal.”

In fact, he was so impressed with the paper’s story and coverage, as well as the pride and grit of the people of Centralia, that he decided to actually go there and talk with residents. Superman would likely return to Coaltown for “Superman Day,” he said, though he didn’t share a lot of detail.
Fast-forward to Spring 1985, when a package from Rozakis arrived at my home. There I am in Action Comics 567, in Coaltown, covering a dedication of a Superman statue.
“Hey Bob, you didn’t ask if you could put me in the comic,” I later told him.
His retort: “You didn’t ask if you could quote me for your story.”
Fair ’nuff.
After my auspicious comics debut, I was feeling pretty special.
I had people asking me stuff about Superman like “Did he hurt your hand when he shook it?”

I wrote a column for the paper about meeting the Man of Steel. I included what I thought was a clever joke about worrying if my underwear were clean. (Ya know, Xray vision and all.) In the column, I pondered threatening to reveal Superman’s secret identity if he didn’t fix other stuff in the Bloomsburg area. The column ended with me blabbing so much that Rozakis erased my mouth.
For the first time after years of reading comic books, I used one of those plastic covers to protect this one. My claim to fame.
Rozakis later brought me down a peg or two. He told me my comic book appearance wasn’t that special. “I’ve put most of my friends, neighbors and relatives in stories at one time or another.”
Yeah, but how many get to actually talk to Superman, shake his hand? Meet Lois? I asked.
Quite a few, he said. Some actually got to hang on to his cape and fly. Some were used as villains. Some were given special powers.
Wow. Way to BURST MY BUBBLE OF BRAVADO, BOB!!!
Still, I’m not sure I believe him.

I think he was dishing out some payback for me tracking him down in Montreal, interrupting his lunch.
After all, it’s been 30 years and I haven’t yet run across anyone else who met a pen-and-ink superhero.
If you know differently, just keep it to yourself, eh? I’d really like to keep my notoriety a little while longer. Besides, if you do prove me wrong, what good will it do ya? What’s in it for you?

It’s not like you’re going to win a No Prize. Trust me, those suckers are almost impossible to get.

Hattley had finally gotten some sleep. But, she awoke to the tweets.

They came faster than she could read them.

Aliens apparently kill elderly couple #graythreat @freedomfellows

Elderly NRA official shoots to death 1 gray monster; 2nd kills him, wife #aliensmustgo @mygunsforever

How many more will die? Feds must say how they will deal with ‘Gray Threat’ @FBI @CIA @Whitehouse @libertyisnotfree

Remember Harley and Velma! We will avenge them! @minutemenbranson #graysmustdie

Donald Trump, the presidential candidate, was the first politician to weigh in on Twitter.

“Where is Obama? Where was the Air Force? How were killer aliens able to land in USA?” @makeAmericagreat #killersfromsky

He also fired off another one, then just as quickly pulled the tweet back. Hattley made a note of it:

“Black. Brown. Yellow. Red. No, the real threat to USA is GRAY.” #killersfromskies #graythreat

Headlines and stories offered some detail, but not much. The deaths had happened only hours earlier and reporters were being kept at bay at that scene, too.

One headline on a local website said: “Branson couple dead near scene aircraft crash; apparent alien body also found”

Another, brief from CNN was headlined: “Sheriff: Gunfire preceded deaths of Branson couple, alien”

A Branson newspaper had this headline: “Coroner on scene but no cause of death yet for Branson couple, alien”

Hattley knew the coroner who would be working this case; he had been a good source in the past and she knew he would help her if he could. She also had successful dealings with the Taney County sheriff, though her last story had pissed him off.

She texted her editor, Amos, that she would try to reach those two officials. His reply surprised her.

“CNN wants interview. Work the deaths but then get ready to Skype.”
Huh? Me? CNN? Why? Hattley shook her head to make sure she was totally awake.

As she thought it through, it made sense. She had probably gotten closest to the gray visitors than any reporters — before the feds swooped in.

Too close, she worried. Amid all the excitement, she hadn’t taken enough time to consider what had happened with the gray creature near the big balloon. How he had grabbed her leg, how she felt. Was that news? How could she explain it?

She needed to tell someone, probably Amos, but she worried she would sound crazy.

How would she describe what had happened? Could she explain it? Could she stay objective toward the creatures? Would she get pulled off the story?

The biggest story of her life, she thought. Maybe the biggest that would ever drop in her lap.

No answer on the coroner’s private cell. She left an urgent and pleading message. The phone for the sheriff’s office went straight to voice mail; it probably had hundreds of messages by now. Still, she tried reminding him that they had talked before and she stressed how she could give him the chance to comment for a big story to a local reporter, one who knew the Branson area and its people.

She also played on his ego, telling him that whatever he told her would probably, eventually, reach millions across the country.

She decided to confide in Amos and to ask for advice about CNN.

“Hey, I need some …”

He cut her off. “You OK with the Skype?” he asked, without trading any pleasantries. “Contact them asap. I texted you info. I got Julie waiting on the other line.”

“Yeah, I can do the interview from the car, but …”

“Good. Just stick to the facts with those TV folks. Make sure they get your name right. It’ll be good for your brand. Make sure they have our name right, too. Say who we work for and more than once, OK? Give yourself some credit, too.

“You’re doing great. Gotta go.”
“But …”
“I gotta go. Julie texted that she might have pix of the dead gray thing. Text me later.”

He was gone.

Hattley didn’t have time to allow herself to get more nervous. The coroner texted her to come meet with him.

“Nothing on record yet. But swing by the morgue. You can’t come inside. Wait by the ambulance bay. FBI everywhere. Tough to do my job.”

“Shit,” Hattley said aloud, worrying about a total federal clampdown on information. She grabbed her laptop and car keys.

She would stop and do the Skype from the lot of the coffee shop, she thought, sitting at her kitchen table long enough to scan other news sites covering the aircraft crash. No one had photos from the shooting scene. Good for Julie if she got them.

Wait. Take that back. There was one photo, partially blurred, sent to one of the local TV station, probably by a rescue worker or a neighbor who likes monitoring the scanner and made it to the scene early, before the authorities cracked down on rubberneckers. The shot was mostly tarp but the caption said three bodies were underneath.

Enlarging it, Hattley saw the stock of a rifle in the top corner. She could also make out what looked like a woman’s work boot in the bottom right. Scrolling further left, she thought at first she was looking at a hand print in mud.

She gasped and moved her open palm to her mouth when she realized what was actually pictured.

A hand stuck out from under the tarp. It was gray. It had those long fingers. On the index finger was a ring, a distinctive ring. It was silver. It had an orange hypocycloid.

Here’s something they don’t warn you about before you become a parent: Having a kid forces you to mingle with other parents.
If you want your kid to be sociable, you’ll have to be sociable yourself. Oftentimes, you’ll find yourself in close quarters with complete strangers. And, you don’t get to choose your company.
Take watching sports, for instance.
Your kid ends up on a team, usually randomly. Suddenly, you’re working a food stand with four other parents … stuck under a tiny tarp waiting out a rain delay … butt-to-butt in the bleachers … expected to bond simply because your kids are all Tigers or Lions or Bears.
Basketball bleachers were always among the tightest quarters I recall — especially when the kids were little and played in older gyms with limited seating.
During one of my daughter’s games I learned the hard way that I had to tone it down. Basically, my outside soccer voice did not fly in an indoor, crowded gym.

What can I say? I was excited. Carla, only about 12 then, was scoring — a lot. Seemed every time her team went down court, she got the ball, and drove to the basket successfully.

“Go Bubba!” I shouted loudly, with enough decibels to turn heads, mostly friendly but I got a couple glares, too. I was not only too exuberant but I used her old nickname. As a baby, she crawled with a distinctive butt wobble. Fast-forward to the basketball game; it was not cool to be shouting from the sidelines references to my almost-teen daughter’s backside.
The next time she scored I cheered more softly and I altered that nickname to “Zubba.” Then, “Zubbalitta.” She kept on driving and the game was close. She had 12 points, then 14 and she wasn’t done. She wasn’t hogging the ball, either. She had assists. I added a new syllable every time she did well.
The crowd was with me. I became less a boor and more a stand-up comic.
The other team couldn’t stop her; I could’t stop myself.
By the time the game ended, she had 21 points. Her nickname at that point, to the delight of most in the crowd, was something like “Zubbalittalubbalubbalitta.” And it has stuck. To this day.
——
I recently saw a scary movie.
It wasn’t billed as horror, or even suspense or drama. It was a documentary about parents watching their kids play sports. Correct that — a documentary about insane parents watching their kids play sports.
Called “Trophy Kids,” the Netflix film followed some parents who were very involved — to put it as nicely as could ever possibly be put — as they helped train and coach their kids. Two dads wanted their sons to be great basketball players; another believed he was grooming his young daughter to become a pro golfer; a fourth father wanted his son to excel at high school football. The latter, an angry but determined guy, continually warned his boy that success or failure at football would equate with success or failure at becoming a man.
Yeah, it was that sickening.
At one point, as the football dad lectured his son in their minivan, I wised I could reach through the TV glass and flick the guy’s naked eyeballs — anything to give the kid a chance to flee from the merciless harangue.
While watching this movie, I repeatedly wondered about the paperwork the filmakers must have gotten these parents to sign beforehand. I presume the release forms were so ironclad that these dads simply couldn’t pull out of the film once they saw for themselves the unhealthy nature of their obsession. Or, maybe they never realized how crazy they were behaving. Maybe they were blinded by arrogance.
——-
The movie made me think back to moments like Carla’s 21-point basketball game.

My wife and I watched our five kids play a lot — from the bleachers, the sidelines, peering through all that chain link fence. We spent a gazillion hours trying to see through those little diamonds of chain link to the big diamonds of baseball and softball beyond.

Our children played many different sports, so we sat through some boring games. But rewards were great, too. We witnessed many moments of great excitement, thrills, suspense. But Trophy Kids got me wondering whether my wife and I were actually blind to our own antics. Did we pressure the kids too much? Did we embarrass them? Were we fanatics?
I asked the kids, who are grown now and have no reason to sugarcoat history. They have also never been shy in offering us, well, constructive criticism.
—–
Fortunately, they gave us good report cards. They thanked us for coming to so many events, even if we didn’t always know all the rules for what we watched. My wife’s screaming during wrestling matches was more fun to watch than the matches, several kids said. Still, despite our obvious enthusiasm, we got good marks for not taking anything all too seriously, even though the kids did well enough to compete in some fairly high-stakes matches and games.

Most importantly, they said, was that we showed up. We cared, without caring too much.
Sorry if this seems self-serving. I didn’t set out to write with braggadoccio. I am actually trying to figure out how — or why — we avoided getting too sucked in, maybe pass on a few tips.
Based on the kids’ comments, the input from my wife, my observations of Trophy Kids and what I saw in real-life parental excesses, here are some ways to avoid getting booted off the bleachers. And, to keep your eyeballs from getting flicked.
— Get real. Your kid most likely isn’t a superstar. If he is, get out of the way and get him or her a real coach. The worst excesses I witnessed involved dads trying to coach their own sons. Either they were way too hard on them as examples or they coddled them, ruining any chances these kids had at making friends while making baskets.
— Goof around. It’s play! Remember! Be a clown if you’re good at it.
Some of my girls’ best memories were times I helped out as coach, wearing half a basketball on my head, teaching girls how to slide on plastic tarps in the rain with Dawn dishwashing detergent, making up goofy signs for running basepads, like a flamingo standing on one leg.
— Learn when to shut up. Who says you have to dissect every play? Kids know when they screw up. What good does it do to revisit what just happened, especially the bad stuff, unless your child really wants to engage, or something serious has gone wrong?

— Do talk about the outrageous behavior from the stands and bleachers and make it clear it’s not acceptable.
Interestingly, when asked to think back to their playing days, my kids recalled very specific bad conduct by parents and athletes from back then, or what they are seeing now as they transition to parents on the sidelines.
The coddled boy who tried to go after a fan in the stands, a teammate’s mother, with a bat. The little league coach who criticized and threatened parents, expecting the boys not to rat him out. The former minor league baseball player coaching 9-year-old boys like they were 29, openly criticizing individual kids until they were red-faced and ready to cry, cursing loudly as he did so.
The dad screaming “Plow him over!” to his 6-year-old son learning how to run around the bases. The parent shouting “Why do we pay for baseball camp if you’re just going to strike out every time?”
The immature girls’ basketball coach who got so angry he broke a white board over his leg, cutting his hand bad enough to need stitches, and on, and on.

My point is that the conduct didn’t go unnoticed. Kids are impressionable but not stupid. They recognize when someone’s acting outside the norm, like the dad making a scene over a stupid missed tackle. The kids need to talk about that kind of behavior so that, together, you can set the bar for what’s OK, and what’s not.
One thing that was apparent in Trophy Kids. The parents lectured and the kids stayed silent. You really want to teach your kids to let adults get in their faces and say whatever they want, no matter how ridiculous? I don’t.
My wife and I agreed early on that courage is one of the greatest attributes to try to instill in a child. I think all parents should teach kids to be brave enough to stand up to — or get away from — a parent acting like an ass.

Especially if that ass happens to be you.

Back then, we sometimes put playing cards in the spokes of our bicycles to make them sound like motorcycles.
We roared with our fake mufflers around tight corners, cruised up and down sidewalks, bounced over curbs. With old-time foot brakes, we could skid to a stop quickly, and send gravel flying with great accuracy.

We jumped small walls, could ride three on a bike if needed and could go for hours with little nourishment, even in the dead of summer.
The lady living across the street didn’t have a chance.
She was one of the evil neighbors, one of the enemy forces. She sealed her fate this particular day by opening up her front door, with me sitting there on my bike’s banana seat, staring in at her through the screen door. She put her hands on her hip and screwed up her features to make an ugly face at me.
With bulging eyes and jowls, she was already pretty sad looking, before she did her contorting. I immediately thought: “Frog Face.” Her surname started with an “F,” too, so the alliteration was a bonus.

I hatched a plan.
With my little brother a shoo-in to help, I only needed a couple more cohorts to launch this attack. I found volunteers easily. No respectable kid in this neighborhood liked this lady or her husband. They had called the cops on us for simply playing touch football in the street. (Well, OK. The statute of limitations has passed; we might have hit the husband’s fancy-schmancy car once or twice.)
In a half hour, five of us were ready to go. I would lead, and sound off first. The rest simply had to follow me, mimicking my taunts as they felt the urge and staying in tight formation. She needed to see our discipline and commitment to ruining her afternoon.
The route was easy enough. Up one driveway. On to the sidewalk. Past her front door. Down another driveway. Circle back around to fly past her door again. “F-rrr-o-o-o-o-g F-a-a-a-ce. Fro-o-o-g-g-g-g Fa-a-a–ace.” Each and every time my body lined up with her screen door, I would growl the insult loudly. Behind me, my gang would repeat what I said or throw in a “R-i-i-i-i-bbbb-b-bit” for variety.
The first time, I’m sure she didn’t actually hear what I was saying. Because she stood there smiling, even daring to contort her face at me again. By about the time we completed Circle 99 in front of her home, she had closed the main door and begin to try to peer out at us nervously from behind her kitchen curtains, phone in her ear.
We were really into it by then, ready to go another 99. We had drawn an audience, and more kids joined in.
I could be recalling this in a romantic way, now that so many years have passed, but I believe we stayed out there circling for hours, until dusk. She deserved it, and more.
Hey, we didn’t know then that she had thyroid disease. It would kill her much much later. No, I didn’t really feel bad when I heard.
——–
I had a pretty strange childhood. And, while you’re having a strange childhood you don’t actually realize you’re having a strange childhood.
You tend to think you’re just like everybody else.
Yup, you actually think every kid has the cops called on them. Every family has surrounding neighbors that hate them. Everyone’s mom has stood on the front porch yelling to her all-white neighbors a threat to sell the house to black people.
OK. I know. That last one did get me wondering back then. It was odd. Really odd. I don’t think it happened that often. Not even in the ’50s. Not even at the height of white flight.
Except it happened to me and my five siblings.
——
To understand, first you have to know a little about where we lived. A couple years before our notorious “Frog Face Ramada” my family lived in an apartment in a more urban part of the City of Pittsburgh, where everyone or most everyone was pretty poor and noone had a lot of land. We had fire escape in our all-brick backyard.

When we got a chance to move into a long-established neighborhood in a nicer part of town, we jumped at it. Our new house had a long backyard, so we felt like we had made it to the suburbs. We actually only made it to a small, aging borough in transition called Mount Oliver.
It was surrounded by the city and faced significant angst — a large part of which stemmed from a public housing project about a mile away that had almost exclusively black tenants. That housing project was built on a giant slag heap and anyone who wanted out and didn’t have a car would have to walk through Mount Oliver.

The borough wasn’t affluent, either, with pockets of poor and a main street that had seen better times. But to us — I cannot stress enough — this was a big step up. We took over a shoddy, former tiny schoolhouse with four downstairs rooms and two upstairs. My dad and mom and some friends and relatives did their best to fix it up and make it respectable. But, my dad was not the most handy guy and worked long hours as an accountant.

The neighbors saw a small house crowded with kids with a crumbling front wall and worn asphalt siding — it was supposed to look like red brick. They worried about property values and were not quiet about it. Some were both gossipy and judgmental and — unfortunately in the tinderbox that was developing — of German descent.
My mom was biased against Germans. One of her brothers was killed in WWII. Another suffered in the war. She blamed Germans and not just the ones overseas. She called our dictatorial neighbors “Krauts” who cared more about their lawns than their kids. Early on, she only used that “K-word” inside our house, mostly with my dad and us kids. She only began shouting that insult directly at the neighbors much later.
If you excise the bigotry from her statements, some of what she said held water.
Some neighbors had manicured yards and pretty, flowering bushes. But they routinely sent their kids away from home to play. Oftentimes, because I had good-looking, creative and funny siblings and our house had a streetlamp right out in front of it, these neighbor kids ended up at our house, the corner house with the six kids, the narrow, long backyard and the young parents willing to make Kool-aid and popcorn and join in playing badminton, wiffleball and kickball.
In the early years, this all played out fairly well, with some neighbors happy that their kids played close to home. Some neighbors for a time even hung out with us, socializing with mom and dad and relaxing while all we kids played and, for the most part, got along.
Not sure when it went really sour, or what triggered the fallout. But fall out it did. And before we knew it, the Isemans were blindsided with “THE PETITION.”

——–
It started something like: “We the undersigned believe that for the following reasons, the Isemans should remedy the following conditions at their home or be forced to move.”
Among other things, it accused my sisters of hanging out with boys late in the evening in our backyard, with those boys flicking cigarettes two stories in the air on to the roof of a neighboring home; they called the appearance of our home ghetto-like; we created danger by playing in the street; and I was the “sassiest” kid in the neighborhood.

Seriously. I’m not exaggerating.
Six surrounding neighbors signed this thing and presented it to the mayor. Not sure what he was going to do with it, but my dad found out because he did some occasional bookkeeping for the borough. I forget who leaked it to him. A quiet guy who grew up in the country, my dad planned to try to handle this thing logically, wisely and diplomatically.
As for mom, well …
The day we received the petition burns in my memory. Mom took it out to the front porch and, holding it in her hand while she shook with anger, shouted the threat about selling to a black family. It was something like:

“Move? They want us to move. Well sure, we’ll move.”
“I’ll sell this place to the biggest, blackest garbageman I can find.”
I was angry because this upset her so. I was proud of her, too, not understanding at the time how impolitic her statement was. At the opposite end of the racial spectrum, I also didn’t immediately realize how mom’s diatribe would be taken by the tough guys down the street — white guys all.
It hit me soon enough. So did they.
I got grabbed, smacked around a bit and threatened. I had to do some fast talking to avoid a major beat-down.
The threat certainly did nothing to advance my mother’s reputation for cool-headed, rational compromise. Nope. She might as well have declared war. It was on.

And who would lead us? Me.
As the oldest boy, it seemed like my duty. I would become the general in this campaign. I had little brother Bob I could shanghai at any time, and my sisters helped to a degree but quickly became distracted by fashion, the 60s and boys.

Still, I was able to recruit, as you can tell from the story about the “Frog Face Ramada,” kids from poorer homes like ours.

The petition came when I was only 10 years old. My brother was 8.
Not old enough yet to drive or date girls, we had an advantage the complaining neighbors did not have or realize until it was too late.

We had all the time in the world.

The encounter with the female Aquavian sent Agnon and Jadeion scurrying with the twins up the mountain. Climbing atop a huge rock in a clearing, Agnon could make out the movement on Moonshine Beach.
He and Jadeion considered returning with the twins to the other refugees near the lake but decided against it. The whirling sky machines. The dark-clad Aquavians running and shouting. The searchlights. All signaled fear, and with fear came danger.
They looked for a place to rest, to feed the twins, to dress their wounds, to think. Scouting ahead, Agnon saw the small square structure with the pitched rooftop reflected by a tall light on a post. Pushing his life-blood to his longest finger, he used it like an orange beacon to summon Jadeion to come to him.
The window on the second story of the structure proved too high for Agnon to reach but, once Jadeion folded her body into a square like a stool, Agnon was inside easily. He helped his family through the doors and placed a metal chair against them. He hoped for the warning sound of it falling if someone entered while they rested.
Jadeion had already found a spot in the hay loft to sit. She wasted no time opening her robes to allow the twins to nurse from her body. Agnon found water from a spigot on the lower level and they both were able to drink and get some sustenance from shoots of sweet hay. Agnon wrapped their wounds with the balmcloth he pulled from pockets in their robes.
He was nearly finished when they heard a vehicle outside slide on the gravel to a stop. They froze and Jadeion kept her hands ready to silence the twins if needed.

The radio blared as Velma got out of the truck and left her door ajar. But Harley killed the ignition and pulled her door closed, quickly. He had lost the argument about waiting to air out the barn until morning. He planned to wait in the truck, shut his eyes for only a few seconds  and relax while Velma opened the big barn doors. He settled in to his seat, happily drunk, still humming that George Strait song.
The falling metal chair did more than startle Velma. It hit her in the bad knee, and she fell, shouting for Harley before she hit the ground.
Harley jumped so quickly he twisted his bad shoulder, sending pain all the way to his neck. Grabbing his rifle he stepped out to the driveway and, still teetering from the booze, had to catch himself from slipping on the gravel. He stood beside his wife and shouted into the barn for whoever was inside to come out with their hands up.
Velma, meanwhile, used his right arm to pull herself to her feet. “I’ll get the phone in my purse,” she whispered. “I’ll call 911. Stay right here, Harley. It’s probably just kids.”
But Harley was ready to defend his property. He already had his weapon raised and a round in the chamber.
The mud trail up the ladder to the loft caught his eye, even in the low light streaming in from the outside pole lamp. Disobeying his wife, he moved further inside, shouting again for the trespassers to show themselves and raise their hands.
“I’ve got a rifle,” he said as steely as he could while simultaneously hitting the switch for the fluorescent lights.
Recognizing the weapon as a danger, Agnon tossed his loudest and lowest voice in a funnel pattern at the Aquavian, while puffing his body into its largest, widest, tallest form. Harley heard what sounded like a monster truck and looked up to see only an attacking cloud of gray and orange as he fired the .30-30 twice.
One round hit just above the twins, sending oak splinters on to them. The other tore through Agnon’s secondary neuron center and then his primary brain, killing him instantly.

His outstretched body, though, hung in the air above Harley.
Dropping the rifle, the old man pulled his Ruger .38 Special from his hip holster and fired it also, as quickly as he could, while retreating toward the door.
Once Agnon finally fell, Jadeion threw her highest pitched shrieks in a direct line at Harley’s upper body. He fell backward with full force, his head hitting the tines of the rotating cultivator he had left upended during a cleaning the weekend prior.

The gunfire came as Velma tried to tell the 911 dispatcher  what was happening. Seeing Harley fall, she dropped the phone and limped toward him as fast as she could. Staring up at Jadeion, who had now puffed her body to its fullest form, Velma fell and crawled to her husband, who was not moving.
Jadeion, flapping her outstretched form in a frenzy, pushed everything she touched toward the Aquavians. A sawhorse, chains, a wooden crate and the long rake all missed Velma. The pitchfork did not.
As cobwebs and hay floated to the barn’s dirt floor, they fell on to inert bodies. Jadeion, trying to get to Agnon, had to make two trips to bring the twins down the ladder.
By the time she reached her breedlove, separate streams of red and orange flowed on the earth toward her sandals.

Performing the ancient rite to send his lifeforce home, she removed his robes and wrapped her glowing arms around him a last time before swaddling the twins in his garments and moving quickly out the barn door.
Stepping past Velma’s cell phone, Jadeion heard the dispatcher’s insistent voice asking again and again for someone to return to the line.

It figured to be a big afternoon.
Our son Scott, a junior in high school, was competing as a high school diver, with a chance to win a medal in a district-wide competition. There was even a remote chance he could move on to states. He was skilled at this and my wife and I were lucky enough to be able to watch him, as well as our other sporty children, compete on many occasions.
This time, though, would be special. My parents, who rarely saw the kids do sports, would be able to come. They would get to see their grandson in the spotlight, to show his expertise in a sport that took practice, skill and a measure of grace.
I was especially proud sitting there in the deck above the pool, my mom chattering about how excited she was, my dad just taking it all in, asking a question or two about the specifics of the competition.
Swimmers raced in several rounds before the divers did their thing. Watching the kids kick and pull through the water took me back to when I swam, in high school as a junior and senior. As the 100-freestyle race started, I pointed out to my wife and parents that I used to compete in that event, and that — if I remembered correctly — I had a respectable time and a couple good showings back in my day.
My parents didn’t respond, making chit-chat or staring down at the pool, trying to see Scott. My wife had heard enough of my swimming tales to try to get a second opinion on whether I was actually any good.
She said something like:
“Was Dave impressive as a swimmer in high school? I saw the photos and he looked pretty skinny.”
Neither parent answered her. I chimed in to break the awkward silence. Back then, I explained, parents didn’t go to as many kids’ events and, remember, I was a middle child of six. Again, my mom and dad remained silent.
Suddenly, it hit me like a face-plant in the water after a failed double somersault: Had they gone to any of my swimming meets?
My high school, a big-city school, was miles from the actual neighborhood where I grew up. I wasn’t good enough to make the teams for the more popular sports, like baseball, basketball or football. Swimming was it for me, but I actually did well enough to help win some meets and was awarded a letter, a big yellow “C” for Carrick High School.
We had time before my son’s rounds of diving began, so I got my mom and dad’s attention to ask, seriously, if they had actually ever seen me compete as a swimmer.
“When, honey?” my mom asked, as my dad looked over, also curious to what I would answer.
“In high school.”
“We saw lots of baseball games when you and Bobby were little,” mom answered, deflecting by launching into a detailed recounting — I had heard this one many times before — of how they had to choose one summer day between seeing me play pony league ball and my little brother Bobby at little league. I won their attention, but lost in the end. I played poorly and he ended “nearly pitching a no-hitter” — with no parents there watching.
I interrupted. “You do remember that I was a high school swimmer, right?”
Neither of them spoke. My wife looked at me with eyebrows raised and mouth open. She waffled between consoling me and laughing out loud.
I couldn’t believe it. So, I decided to press.
“You have no memory of me swimming? Well, where the heck do you think I went after school on all those days? Sometimes I didn’t get home til after dark.”
My dad shrugged; he had an out. He could always claim he had to work long hours.
Mom tried for cover. “Oh, who knows? You were always going somewhere. There were six of you. I was lucky to keep you all fed and out of jail.”
“But, don’t you remember how my eyes were always bloodshot?” It seems bizarre now, but I swam quite a long time before I got goggles. “How my hair was wet — sometimes frozen — when I got home?”
Mom saw a real opportunity for deflection this time. “Bloodshot eyes? You really want to talk about bloodshot eyes? Yeah, I remember lots of bloodshot eyes …”
Her complaints of pot, beer kegs and drunken friends ensued, with a couple verbal whaps for my dad for not doing enough to keep kids sober when they hung out at our house. Forget that she was recalling college-day activities and later, not high school.
I gave up. My wife held off saying anything. The diving competition, luckily, pulled my head out of the past.
Scott was doing well.
The competition involved a series of dives, and his scores had him in a good spot to possibly win a medal — at least. State qualification was still a real longshot. Still, this was a big deal for him; this year was his first as a diver. The previous two years he had wrestled, like his older and younger brothers.
My wife and I watched proudly but quietly. Silence was the rule with this sport. It was very different than wrestling. During those matches, you could yell as loudly as you wanted, and many people did. My wife’s vocal chords were legendary.
When Scott went to the board again, something went wrong. As he hit the water, a murmur started in the crowd, and he came out of the water shaking his head. It was a failed dive. It was an attempt at a two-and-one-half forward somersault. I could tell he hit the water poorly.
The next time, a similar result. It was a reverse double flip. Again, that murmur and this time Scott got out of the water obviously upset. Surprisingly, though, he grabbed his towel and stormed out of the pool area.
This was not like him at all. Our kids hated showy and pouty athletes. They had seen enough spoiled kids making scenes that they had vowed never to act similarly.
My wife asked me what happened. I said it looked like another failed dive, but his other scores were still strong, and I was certain that, with more dives to yet perform, he still had a chance to end up among the top scorers.
He didn’t return from the locker room. I headed down to make sure he wasn’t hurt.
As I walked in, he leaned up against a wall with both hands near a hair dryer, mounted above him. Just as I called to him, he punched the dryer with a closed fist.
“Whoa. Whoa. What’s going on?” I shouted. “This isn’t like you Scotty.”
His eyes were red; his nose was runny. He buried his face in his towel.
He said he wasn’t hurt and I tried to console him, spitting out a soliloquy quickly, but softly, reassuringly.
“You don’t walk off like that. C’mon pal. You were doing great. You’ll do better, you have a few dives left, there’s a chance to catch up and maybe get a medal. Don’t get down on yourself. Those were hard dives. Your next ones aren’t as difficult. You’ll nail them.”
He finally spoke. “Can you please stop talking.”
I didn’t understand and started getting angry. Then, he broke the news.
Two failed dives means no more chances, he said. It was a dreaded rule in district competition that, had I been an attentive sports dad, I would have been aware of.
I felt like a true idiot. All I could do was give him a hug and tell him just that: I feel like a true idiot.
He regained composure and said he would be fine. I gave him another hug and said we’d see him later.
Upon return to the upper deck, I explained the problem, though I didn’t admit my lame attempt at cheerleading that had gone so embarrassingly sour.
I didn’t want to give my parents any ammunition to fire back at me.
I wasn’t done giving them grief over how they missed my entire, illustrious swimming career.
I wondered how hard it would be to find my high school yearbook.

Velma knew she would lose this argument, but she had to try.
“Harley William Higonbotten the Third, you old mule, you should not be in that seat. Get out. Have some sense.”
“Now now, my beautiful, dear Velma. You know your knee is acting up. It’s only a few miles. I’m OK. Look, I still have my coffee from this morning. I’m drinking some now.”
“My knee is better than your brain, you ol’ fool. If we left when I said … but no, you had to sit there at the bar with Everett for all those gosh-dang hours.”

“I shouldn’t have to nag at you like some old biddy.”
He stayed quiet and started the truck.

He could tell from the tone of her voice — and the sound of her seatbelt snapping into place — that she wasn’t going to push the issue. He figured he’d just stick to the back roads, guzzle that coffee and get back to the vacation house as soon as possible.
On the first turn out of the rod and gun club, though, he miscalculated and had to jerk the wheel so hard that he hit a hole on the berm of the road, bouncing his rifle in the air behind him, almost up and out of the worn old rack he had refused to replace. Velma just tsk-tsked loudly, clutched her purse on her lap and stared straight ahead.
Harley turned on the radio. KRSW Outlaw Country announced itself and, after a Kubota Tractor commercial, played the 10 p.m. news.
“Federal authorities had promised a news conference at 9 p.m. but that time came and went without new word on the crash of the strange aircraft into Table Rock Lake. Numerous news agencies are reporting that tall gray creatures were killed in the crash, and many more survived. Again, we have not confirmed any of this but at least two reporters from our area have sent images from the scene that appear to show living, moving non-human creatures along Moonshine Beach.
The FBI and federal transportation authorities have taken control of the scene and have not yet made an official statement. Miles around the area have been cordoned off. Meanwhile, at least three other aircraft have been reported down in other Missouri and nearby lakes, the closest being Bull Shoals in Arkansas …”
Static interfered as the pickup rounded the bend toward a high limestone escarpment.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Creatures!” Harley said loudly. “What in the name of all things holy do they mean by that?”
Velma ssh’d him, trying to hear more.
But the Outlaw had moved on to George Strait now and Velma knew the mountains wouldn’t let her pick up any other stations at least until they got to what she called the “cabin.” It was their summer home away from home, small enough to be easy to maintain but big enough for their daughter Jill and her husband Dan to visit with the grandkids.
The boys actually loved staying in the little barn just south of the cabin. They said they felt like they were cowboys in the Old West. Harley had fixed up the barn just enough to be secure, with new swinging cedar doors and a hay loft, but left it rustic enough to preserve its character.
Velma told herself she would open it up when they woke up tomorrow, air it out for a few minutes at least, in case Jill drove the kids up to visit this weekend.
“In all the world, you’ll never find …” Harley started singing along with the radio.

With an arm flourish, he bowed toward his wife and belted out: “…a love as true as m-i-i-i-i-i-ne!” She had to shout at him and smack his arm when he veered within inches of the rocks off the east berm of the narrow road.

…to be continued