Dinner with Skip

On Saturday night, Joe and I joined my parents and my dad's best buddy Skip for dinner.  We got stuck at a table under a speaker in the bar section of the restaurant and the entire evening went like this:

Waitress:  Would you like a side dish with your ribs?
My Dad:  What?
Me:  SHE WANTS TO KNOW IF YOU WANT A SIDE.
My Dad:  A what?
My Mom: (blocks my dad's menu as she reaches across him to rearrange their water glasses, maybe to avoid spillage, maybe to stake out more personal water territory.)
My Dad: (trying to see around my mom's arm) Scalloped potatoes.
Waitress:  What?

My dad has come a long way.  He was a very intense person for most of his life and rather terrifying to a frizzy-haired chubby girl with purple glasses and a full-time outside voice at the dinner table.  I worked for him and with him for many years and after so many years of being in tense situations with him, it's a joy to see him throw back his head and laugh, hard, with his good friend. 

Hey, let's hang out here
for six hours! 

As I may have already bragged to you, my dad designed the moving walkway, like the one at O'Hare.  My son Max chose to do his science fair project on the moving walkway as a tribute to his Papa.  I enthusiastically supported this choice until I realized an experiment involving a walkway would require an actual walkway.  Three round trips to the Milwaukee airport later, I was thinking maybe he could have watered plants with 7-Up and coffee for the science fair like his brilliant father, Big Joe.  Or my choice of testing the flame resistance of pajamas by lighting them on fire.  But I digress...

My dad has invented all sorts of stuff and he knows how everything works.  His friend Skip has known him for about 30 years, and as the owner of an auto service business, he's no slouch in the smarts dept either.

Skip is a great big man with a bigger laugh and personality to match.  I started working for my father when I was 14 and it seemed like Skip was around from the beginning.  He was close friends with my dad’s former boss, who owned the machine shop where my dad first started his business.

“Your dad came striding into the coffee room one day with a briefcase in one hand and a cigar in the other,” Skip once told me conspiratorially.  “Your dad told me he needed some help with that old Toyota Corolla he had.  He started telling me about the alignment being off and went into a long technical diatribe about his assessment of what was going on based on the angles of oversteering or understeering.”

My father is a technical person and when it comes to fixing things, he’s the king.  He kept my mother’s clothes dryer running for over 30 years, replacing every single part, which eventually required some serious appliance store detective work. “If you don’t want to know how a clock works,” I overheard someone once say, ”don’t ask him what time it is.”  I knew exactly what Skip was talking about.

“Your dad may have understood the physics behind it all, but he had no goddamn business telling me how to fix cars.” Skip barked with assurance.  “I told him, ‘Dan, just give me the keys to that shitbox and I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it.’  Now at the time, I didn’t know him that well.

“Your dad…  was…pissed.”

No.  Really?  My dad?

Skip laughed.  “Your dad stood real still and stared at me.  He hollered that his car may be a shitbox but he needed it fixed, and he slammed out of there.  I couldn’t believe he’d yelled at me like that and I just sat there for a minute, stunned.  I stewed about it for a bit and got more and more ticked off.  I took off running for his office and I slammed his door behind me just as hard as he’d slammed the other one. Your dad was on the phone and glared at me while he ended his call.

“I said to him, ‘Hey, look, asshole, I don’t care if you drive a Toyota or a Mercedes or a Rolls Royce, they’re all shitboxes to me!  They all have engines, they all have brakes, I don’t care if they have tits, I still have to figure out what’s wrong.  Just give me the goddamn keys to that shitbox and I’ll fix it!”

My dad looked at Skip in surprise, leaned back and roared with laughter.  “Yeah, I guess you’re right about that,” he told Skip, wiping his eyes and handing him the keys.  When my dad's brilliant mind hadn't realized the problem was a flat tire, a beautiful, twisted, Scotch-infused friendship was born.

We had a fleet of limping cars, thanks to putting two kids through college while my dad was struggling to keep his computer consulting business afloat in the choppy waters of nonstop changing technology.  My dad developed software to help run Skip's business and their friendship grew. During all the years I worked for my dad, Skip treated me like family.  He always called me “sweetie” and told me jokes that were consistently foul and occasionally hilarious.  I felt a special connection to him.

When Skip heard that I had been fired from my corporate job, he wanted to help because he’s a fixer, like my dad. He called me out of the blue, asking me exactly what had happened so that he could use some connections to fight for the job I was supposed to get.  I was touched.  By that time, I was committed to trying to build my pencil portrait art career and I’d probably dodged a bullet by not starting a demanding, technical career.  I was coming to terms with how severely my ADD compromises my ability to make it out of the house with keys and clothes on.

So Skip ordered a portrait instead.

He told me all about his long distance relationship with the love of his life.  He'd had a rough road, unlucky in love, with nonstop challenges around every turn.  When he and Teresa reconnected through email, after knowing each other for years, life felt complete.  With demanding careers, they traveled together and Skip visited Teresa in Arkansas whenever he could, eventually buying a beautiful house together.

During one trip, Skip was driving back to Teresa after visiting his son. On a dark, overcast night, he came upon a dump truck, parked in the middle of a little country road. "The guy’s story was that he’d stopped to talk to someone," Skip explained, "but I believe he’d gotten out to take a pee. The truck's tail lights were so dirty that you could only see a faint glow.  When I came over the rise, I couldn’t see a thing until I was right on top of it.  I swerved to the left to try and get around it and didn’t make it.”

Skip hit the back of the dump truck going about 50 mph driving Teresa’s little Honda Accord.  Being a big guy at 6’4, Skip’s knee was only about an inch from the dashboard and the impact forced his femur out the back of his pelvis, smashing his sciatic nerve.

“I had to stay in Arkansas,” Skip told me, “I was going to be bedridden for months.  I couldn’t walk at all.  Teresa saw me through it all, the hospitalization, the surgery, taking me to physical therapy three times a week for the better part of a year.  She cared for me constantly, bathing me, making sure I took medication.  One time I developed blood clots and she rushed me to the hospital.  She was my nurse and my salvation.”

Skip suffers from permanent nerve damage, causing numbness and cramping.  “I can’t feel my foot touch the gas pedal,” he says. “You know that tingling feeling you get when your foot falls asleep?  It feels like that all the time, like pins and needles.  It gets to the point where I can’t stand it.  I can’t walk more than half a mile.”

Still, Skip is stunned by his good fortune, that he’s alive, that he has this amazing woman by his side. Since he couldn't help me with my corporate job, he ordered a portrait celebrating their first ten years together, a collage of their favorite places they've visited.  He wanted a special gift to show Teresa how much she meant to him.

It was the largest, most detailed portrait I'd drawn back then, and I was so grateful for the work - especially for somebody I loved.  When I delivered the finished portrait to him, Skip gave me such a warm, wonderful, fatherly hug.  He told me that I was talented, that he was proud of me.  He'd wanted to help me, but I was so glad I made him happy too.  They hung it in their office, over their computers... a sweet reminder of how they fell in love through emails. 

It looks like I forgot to sign it, though.   

Solving the world's problems one beverage at a time.

Over dinner, my dad showed Skip his photo retirement book I'd put together with messages from colleagues, clients, family and a few friends.  Workaholics don't have a lot of time for friends.  Skip has a two page spread in the book with great photo of them in Arkansas and a long funny story about my dad fixing a problem.  He and Skip happily share war stories about their businesses, the state of the country and the times they've injured themselves.  At one point, my dad was joking about the time he ripped his entire rotator cuff off his shoulder while stubbornly trying to start a power washer.  He said it was tricky getting used to using his left hand for bathroom hygiene, if you know what I mean.  

Skip, not missing a  beat, said "I'm surprised you didn't invent a machine for that.  Like maybe a corncob and a drill?"  It took us all a solid minute or so to stop laughing, wiping our eyes and sighing with appreciation.  Joe had never met Skip before and he got a huge kick out of seeing them swap puns and stories and hugs and laughter.  Everyone deserves to really be known by a good friend and I'm so deeply grateful that my dad has Skip in his life.

 

Wendy Zumpano
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"Meep-moop" means I love you

Blogging about my client’s sister last entry got me thinking about family.  There are different kinds of family and sometimes friends can be the family you choose for yourself.





My first memory of Vicki is from junior high, before it was called middle school.  To me, “junior high” sounds cooler than middle school, which sounds like middle aged kids having middle aged kid crises.  Vicki and I toppled into puberty around the same time.  Some of the pushy, strangely confident girls in our gym class made us stand back to back in the locker room so they could compare our boobs.  I was horrified.  Vicki thought it was funny.  And so began the dearest friendship of my life with my sister friend, my confidante, my person.  Her boobs were bigger than mine then, and they still are.  She continues to take everything in stride, while I still seize up with worry. 
 


I don’t remember when our friendship eased away from being fellow uneasy in-betweeners on the periphery of more popular girls and into full fledged best friendship.  Looking back, I don’t think that either of us felt entirely accepted, although we both treaded social water with the feathered alpha dogs as best we could.  We threw each other a neon 1980’s life preserver and clung to each other during good times and bad for the next thirty plus years. 


The 80’s were an awesome and yet dangerous time to become teenagers.  Our parents weren’t all that concerned about what we were doing or where we were, as long as we didn’t get caught.  There were no cell phones to check in, no internet to point out the hazards.  I rode my bike seven hot summer miles down a busy highway to Vicki's house. I’d flop, exhausted and sweating, on her couch where her spazzy dog would jump up and pee on me.  I'd borrow a clean shirt, and we'd walk to Taco Bell, where we would pollute ourselves silly.


Remembering some of our teen shenanigans makes me shudder and consider installing LoJacks on both of my children.  We wandered and experimented and made stunningly risky choices, usually followed by long, tears-streaming, belly laughs.  I think we only saw Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight once, but we successfully used it as a late night excuse for all sorts of other secrets.

 
My only real date to a high school dance was thanks to one of many visits to Columbia, Missouri, where Vicki spent summers with her dad.  We’d cruise up and down “the loop”, gaping out car windows at cute boys, pretending not to be interested when they shouted suggestive come-ons at us.  We were 17 years old and lucky not to be dragged into an empty lot somewhere.  We met a slew of boys and it was all sort of innocent, but sort of not.  My Missouri souvenir boyfriend had a southern accent, a full beard and I dated him through prom until college, when I promptly dumped him.



Vicki visited me at U of I while she was taking her twisty, winding path through growing up.  Her father was in the Navy and she moved constantly as a child; a habit she's kept.  As we became young adults, Vicki was so utterly gorgeous that it was sometimes annoying to be her friend.  We’d be out at bars and guys would smile at me sheepishly after Vicki shot them down.  “Okay.  Well… how about you, then?” they’d ask me dejectedly, trying not to be too obvious about lowering the bar.  Vicki earned a degree in social work, modeled awhile, got a degree in nursing.  She had tumultuous crazy relationships with the guys who adored her and/or wanted to kill her.  She could wreak havoc when she wanted to, driving her mother and boyfriends nuts on cue.  There was just no stopping her when she made up her mind.

U of I and Mizzou. 
I'm sure the floral print and haircut weren't helping my odds. 

At my wedding reception, there is a fabulous scene captured on video when Vicki’s date of the moment was incorrectly doing the electric slide.  He was faced the wrong way and it looks like he’s having a dance off against the entire floor of people.  He was the last of Vic’s guys to be out of step, as she was about to find her husband, Steve and hang up her naughty hat.  I recently teased Steve, for the hundredth time, about how very quiet and shy he was when Joe and I first met him.  Steve patiently explained that I was so damn hyper and loud, nobody could get a word in edgewise.  Plus, I think we freaked him out. Touché.

 

Alec and Maxie

Vicki is my son Joey’s godmother.  I’m not religious, so for me, it was a chance to show Vicki again, in every way and in a new way, that she is my family.  Her son Alec and my son Max are less than a year apart.  They are hilarious and unusual and they remind me of Vicki and me.  They aren’t vanilla mainstream kids and in miserable middle school, that can be hard.  They’re full of imagination and laughter and they love each other, which is unexpected and delicious.  Vicki’s daughter is beautiful like her mother and means business; she wants her own way in very much the same way Vicki did when I first met her.  We agreed just today that justice will probably be served when Olivia is a teenager.



We’ve lived seven minutes door to door when our babies were little.  We’ve lived a plane ride away for years; we’ve had long, long drives between us for other stretches.  Some years we’ve only needed to drive 45 minutes or an hour, and visits seemed as hard to schedule as the plane rides when we were sprinting around with work and kids.  When Vicki’s dad was dying, she was a million miles away, in shocking pain she couldn’t share, even though we lived close.  As of three months ago, we’re back to being only 15 minutes apart after four years of rare visits between Arizona and Illinois. 


The distance was different this time, because we really needed each other and it was just so far.  When we had visits, they were more precious than ever because we knew the next one would be a long time coming.  We were needy and hurting, at times, and we’d put all our friendship eggs tenderly into each others’ baskets.  It’s hard to lean on someone new when your lifelong friend suddenly can’t hop in her car to hold your hand the way she used to hold your hair when you made all those forever ago bad choices.


So now my person is back, and it’s funny.  I don’t even need to be talking to her or see her; life feels different knowing that I can.  I am so insanely lucky to have my husband, my kids, my parents nearby.  But now I have my neon life preserver back within reach and I feel grounded and safer and more like one of the cool kids, even though it’s just in our own weird little world.


Olivia recently asked Vicki if she and Aunt Wendy ever had fights.  All these years and we really haven’t, probably partly because I am terrified of arguments.  Plus, we are both usually too awesome and entertaining to irritate each other.   When I was working full time and Vicki was a stay at home mom with baby Alec, I would try and listen to her on the phone while I was working on the computer.  I’d half listen to her while click-clacking away and then give her my full attention when I had something to say.  It was the closest thing we had to a real fight.  She was pissed that I was half-assing my part of our bargain.  She gave me the silent treatment for a little while, maybe to let me know how it felt not to feel heard.  Now, Vicki is the one who is crazy busy with work and her active family, trying to fit in chats with me between endless discussions about cancer with the frightened patients who need her help.  We’re still growing up together and learning how to balance it all. 


My husband Joe imitates Vicki’s soft, rather nasal voice,  by saying, “Meep, moop.”  Sometimes when he calls me on the phone from work, he says “Meep, moop,” in greeting, which I take to mean that someone I love is on the line.



I talked Vicki into hosting our high school Bunko group last week.  She’s only been back home for a few fast months, but in some ways, it feels like she never left.  I sat in her bathroom while she was getting ready for Bunko, just like we did in junior high, in high school, during college visits, on our wedding days, for grown up girls’ nights out, before our high school reunions.  Talking and laughing and looking forward to sharing time together.  And yet that ordinary moment that we’d had a thousand times before, was suddenly a kind of miracle.  And I’m just so grateful.  Love you, Vic.

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