A salute, Captain!

I owned a skateboard before most kids knew what they were.

I don’t say that with pride.  I really never got into the sport. I remember trying it out a few times on the neighbor’s long driveway up the road. I was maybe 8 years old.

I’d step aboard, squat low – my butt like a duck’s, my arms flapping, flailing, waiting for gravity to pull me downhill.

And I’d begin to roll, first inches, then feet, then yards, ever faster, now the wind in my ears … until my wheels would catch on a small dip in the asphalt. Or on a twig. Or a blade of grass. Even an ant.

It wouldn’t take much.

And I’d fly off, my arms really flapping now. Rarely would I land on my feet. I reached the driveway’s end maybe two times.

Santa-like to sailor-salty

How I got that skateboard, though, now that’s the story.

“Come on aboard, boys and girls!” 

He wore a captain’s hat and four gold bars on his sleeves. He had silver-gray hair and a handlebar mustache to match, both fake.

He was Captain 11, and we were on his riverboat.

Well, we were actually on the TV set of “Captain 11’s Showboat” … at KPLR-TV, Channel 11, in St. Louis. It was my first time on TV; I was a little nervous.  I was there with a birthday group, I believe.  Not my birthday, but a friend’s. 

The place was amazing. Giant klieg lights hung from the ceiling. Two cameras stood in front of us, as big as horses, their lenses like portholes.

At the back of the set was a floor-to-ceiling backdrop showing the Mississippi River. If I recall, it was on some kind of endless loop, so it looked like we were floating down the river’s mighty course.

In front of it was a long bench.  That’s where we would sit.

Off the set, on a wall, there was a large horizontal window. It was black behind it. A short set of stairs led to a door to its right. I assumed that was the station’s control room.

Captain 11 was our hero.  Like Corky the Clown and Texas Bruce – other TV hosts of other St. Louis kid shows – he introduced us to quality television programming. In this case, The Three Stooges.

“Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck!” 

Loved those guys.  Still do.

We filed in, and the captain gave us some quick instructions … to pay attention to the “On the Air” sign, to not speak unless spoken to, to stand quietly.  He was all business. He also was a bit grouchy.

Oh, on the air he was just fine. The sign would light up, and his voice would boom Santa-like “ho, ho, ho’s” as he welcomed the TV audience.  He’d interview a few of us, starting with the birthday boy, I think.

It’d go something like this. 

“What’s your name, young man?”

“Billy.”

“Billy, Billy … like a billy goat! Ho, ho, ho!”

Or:

“Jimmy.”

“Jimmy, Jimmy … well, Jiminy Cricket!  Ho, ho, ho!”

His schtick was a stitch, even to us kids. We loved it.

But off camera … well, Captain 11 became a sort of Captain Bligh. 

Not that us kids were even thinking of mutiny. But I wondered about the poor guys behind the big, black window.

You see, whenever we went to a commercial or a Stooges break, the captain would hurl invective at the window like a cannon blast off the port bow.  I don’t recall the specific words, but the captain’s language went from Santa-like to sailor-salty.

Why?  He seemed angry about something … at one point he even stormed up those steps, leaving us leaderless as the boat headed downriver.

We all sat frozen on the bench, our mouths agape. It was Jekyll-Hyde come to TV.

Which gets us to the skateboard.  The captain when nice would give away things to the kids. There’d be a drawing, resulting in one or two lucky winners on each show.  Today’s prize was the skateboard. 

Back on the air now, he held it in front of the cameras … it was bright red, with “Roller Derby” painted in white on top.  The wheels were silver steel, thin compared to the wheels on boards today. 

The skateboard itself was narrow … not more than 5 inches wide, I’m guessing. (I found a picture of one on-line, lower right.) Again, far narrower than today’s surf-sized skateboards.

Most of us had never seen a skateboard before.  It was gleaming, marvelous.

“Doug?  Where’s Doug?  Doug as a bug in a rug.  Ho, ho, ho!”

I won!! 

I jumped from the bench and walked to the captain as he held the skateboard high. I was elated, though I couldn’t help wondering if he might smack me on the head with it.  You know, given his mood. Like Moe might whack Larry. 

It's the one in the middle

Regardless, the cameras were trained on us … just the two of us. I was definitely on TV, in the spotlight! Only then did I notice his hat was a different color from his jacket.  But it didn’t matter; the show was in black and white.

“Here you go, Doug.  Ho, ho!  It’s a skateboard! Now you be careful!”

And I was.  I eventually realized my limits on that driveway.  The board sat unused for years.

Since, I’ve learned that Captain 11 was also a much-loved radio personality in St. Louis, Harry Fender.  Harry’s stints on KXOK and KMOX were glamorous ones … hosting live radio at the classy Chase Park Plaza Hotel, where he interviewed Hollywood stars and other glitterati.  He also did a live big-band show.

Maybe that was why he was grumpy.  Being Captain 11 was kind of a step down.  I mean, if it was me, which would I prefer?  The bogus mustache, wig, mismatched uniform and snotty kids? Or the tuxedo-and-bow-tie scene and the chance to rub elbows with Greta Garbo?

But I guess back then showbiz was hard to come by in St. Louis. A job was a job was a job.

Or maybe he was just having a bad day.

Today I salute the captain. He made us laugh, helped us love the Stooges and taught me an important lesson: You don’t mess with gravity. 

Not a bad legacy at all.

Oh, and because of him I can also say "nyuck, nyuck."

Not so blue Sky

This won’t take long. After all, it’s the eve of the Big Day.  Still much to do … packages to wrap, dogs to walk, firewood to bring in, Christmas tunes to hum.

It took Sky about 24 hours.

We're grateful for silent nights.

Of uncertainty. Of quiet.

But Sky’s always been a bird of confidence and resolution.  Since young, he’s loudly proclaimed, “I am here.”  His song is hard to describe.  Not simply a warble.  Unlike Sarah’s, whose quiet chirp rarely rose to full refrain, Sky’s full-throated onslaught is deafness a-comin’. 

Five years ago, we started the two birds in the TV room.  Then we moved them farther back in the house, to the sunroom, because they – mainly Sky – grew too vocal when the TV sound cranked up. 

It was especially bad during movies.

Mel Gibson’s William Wallace would ride into battle, and Sky would cheer. Harry Potter would zig and zag in chase of the quidditch snitch; Sky would zig, zag, too, but his tune would soar above even Harry and his broom – many octaves at least. 

Even during a movie’s tenderest moments – like, say, when the hero finds love – Sky would butt in with his own Hallelujah Chorus.

So when Sarah died, I think we all were on pins and needles.  It was Meghan who suggested Monday night that we bring Sky back to the TV room.  But, selfish, yes, we also knew such a move risked our movie-time sanity.

I’m happy to say Sky has remained in the sunroom and seems his old self.  Yes, he still flits his head back and forth, up and down, searching.  There’s still a void there.  And I imagine the dark nights are lonely for him.

But so far each morning, when I remove the cover from his cage, he’s joyfully greeted the light with high-pitched fervor, with his own Ride of the Valkyries.  And it goes on all day.

As I write this, I’m at the west end of the house.  Sky is nearer the east end.  There are  between us three rooms, a stair, a long hallway, a bend around the corner, and another room.

Sky is singing. And bless him … I can hear every note. 

Would that Sarah could, too.

A song after Sarah

We lost Sarah tonight.

She passed peaceably. But still, after five years of chirps and feathers rustling, of boisterous chitchat between her and mate Sky, it was far more than just a moment.

It was sad … doubly so, just ahead of Christmas.

From left, Sky and Sarah.

I feel most for Sky.

We found Sarah and Sky at a pet shop when I became enamored of finches after watching a half dozen live in a large cage at my mother’s assisted-living center.

I marveled at the birds.  They were quite social, yet their soft chirps fit well with the emotions I was feeling at the time: a need for calm, for quiet energy, a reaffirmation of life’s joy as I faced down the challenges ahead for my mother.

We named the finches Sky and Sister Sarah after a favorite Broadway show, “Guys and Dolls.”  We bought a cage and food.  The dogs were curious, but the cage was located high enough that they never quite knew what was going on “up there.”

From the beginning Sarah seemed the weaker of the two, though smarter.  Sky was clumsy and loud … always a beat behind … but full of life.  

Early on I adopted a whistle.  I’d make the noise, and the birds would respond.  They’d jump from their nest and sing their songs. I don’t know how much of it was them responding to me or responding simply to the shrill call.

Yet tonight, much older now, Sarah was in her nest breathing heavily.  And I whistled.  She replied with a soft cheap.  And then she painfully pulled herself from the nest, landed on the feeder and attempted to grab some seed.

That’s how I left her.  Two hours later when I returned, she was stiff at the bottom of the cage, her eyes open.

I removed her, her body still warm, and buried her in the back yard near our other past critters.  The dogs watched, fascinated by the little parcel of Sarah wrapped in paper towels.

It’s Sky we worry about now.  Sky and Sarah had been together almost 2,000 days.  They’d slept side by side in their reed nest, then they’d wake together, then go about the business of the day.  Always talking.

And now they are only one.  Tonight, as I bid goodnight, Sky’s eyes darted up and down, left and right, in search of his white-feathered mate. Sky’s song was now silent … and he seemed two-thirds his size.  This rambunctious, proud, loud bird was now mute. Unsure.

Tomorrow we consider bringing Sky’s cage into our TV room, where we like to congregate. Experts say there are two choices when one finch dies … introduce a new, younger finch, though sometimes the older finch rejects the new blood.  Or communicate more with the surviving finch, so that they see you as part of their flock.

We’re going to try the latter. My chance to be a bird.

Meantime, I’m taught again that we humans rarely consider the range of emotions animals can feel.  Sure, experts sometimes like to minimize the comparison, arguing, for example, that humans can reason while animals can not. 

Yet the loss that Sky feels seems just as legitimate, just as compelling as you or I would feel in identical circumstances.  Sarah’s chirps, her body’s warmth of 2,000 days, leave a void that Sky must somehow surmount.

Tomorrow we’ll see if Sky sings.  If he doesn’t, then his spirit clearly has been broken.

I think he will. ‘Tis Christmas, after all.

Star of wonder

Stars are incredible things. No, not celebrities.  I’m talking about stars – those marvelous spheres of burning gases that have shined above us for eons long before Tinseltown’s Earth-bound notables even considered themselves, well, stars.

And they’re all a bit unsettling.  Scientists tell us of their origins, although even these smart guys aren’t always sure. We know they’re truly alive, ever expanding, volatile.  And yet stars seem stoic.  They shine down, silently shout their existence, but remain locked in position from year to year, decade to decade, century to century.

Dependable, comforting, they are. Why else would we set our lives to our own star’s schedule every day?

My son Zach got me a star. Last year, at Christmas.  Like George Bailey offering to rope in the moon for Mary in “It’s A Wonderful Life,” Zach threw a lasso up and, just like that, pulled down Pisces RA Oh 43m 19s D 21˚17.31”. 

He nailed a name on it, “Windsong,” after the Michigan cottage.

It’s in the Pisces constellation … two fish, connected, floating between Aquarius to the west and Aries to the east. So fitting for the cottage.

I won’t belabor the passing of Windsong.  Done that.  But Zach’s gift was pretty special.

Sure, he and I both recognize the gift for what it was … sold through an Illinois company that has no official sanction from the scientific community.  My star is registered officially as “Windsong,” but only with this company; astronomers around the world could care less.  Actually, that’s not true. They tend to get their undies in a bunch about the very idea.

But that’s just noise to me.  I think the guy who started the business was brilliant. Reminds me of the family in Kansas that will ship you tumbleweeds as gifts. A way to bring the Wild West home.

“If they don’t tumble, we don’t sell them!” is their motto.

That’s because we need our stars … to inspire us, to pry us from our TVs and computers at night and make us look out – and up. And then soak in the miracle of what we see. You become so small at moments like that, and yet your heart swells – “three sizes that day” – as you realize you’re part of a very special order.

‘Tis the season for stars, of course. The Star of Bethlehem takes center stage at this time of year. “O Star of wonder, star of night ….”  And while astronomers debate whether it was truly a star or a comet or a meteor or nothing at all – my, they can be grumpy! – the Christian world, at least, accepts this star for what it always will be … a symbol of hope, peace and joy.

Bless them.  Because that’s exactly what stars should be.

Said Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh: “For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” 

So thank you, Zach.  Thank you for Pisces RA Oh 43m 19s D 21˚17.31”.

My Windsong.

And to those who read this, ‘tis the season … to venture out on a cold, clear night.  To find your star, throw your lasso up, haul it in. Nail a name on it. And fling it back.  It’s yours. 

And then each night, give it a kind wink of “hello!”

And dream.

Merry Christmas.