By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

By GORDON GLANTZ

GORDONVILLE – A lot of writer types spend Father’s Day looking at the past, with dear-old-dad yarns, and I have done my share of that as well.

That is particularly true in more recent years. My father died in 2008, father-in-law in 2010 and stepfather in 2011.

But I feel myself pulled by a force keeping me in the present, and focused on the future.

That force is the greatest of all: My daughter, Sofia, and my love for her.

Last Father’s Day, I suppose I was still in a state of semi-shock, having recently joined the ranks of the unemployed and trying to find my footing in a New World Order.

Priority No. 1 was simply to make up for lost time with Sofia.

As it was, I was seeing her for a grand total of 45 minutes a day – including 10 to 15 minutes of just watching her sleep, kissing her cheek and stroking her hair – when I would return home from the salt mines well after she ventured off to Dreamland.

In the time since, I have completely wrapped my arms around the role of stay-at-home dad. Ironically, I have been able to do this while doing twice as much writing – not to mention different types of putting pen to paper (actually fingers to keyboard, as old-fashioned writing actually give me hand cramps) – as I did when employed by a newspaper.

It is the best of both worlds, because no writer’s soul is complete without love.

I know it sounds corny – even in a John Lennon kind of a way – but Sofia turns me to a bowl of mush.

I have always loved her so much that it often hurts.

For those of you who thought I would grow weary of driving her to and from school and her myriad of diverse activities – not to mention play dates, negotiated pit stops for snacks, monitoring homework progress, brushing her hair and giving allergy pills – keep on thinking.

It has been the best time of my life.

When Sofia was born, I professed pleasure that she was a girl. It was not just a cover story, as I felt being a daddy to a little girl was easy.

Just let her be “daddy’s little girl” and let the chips fall where they may.

A boy? With me? The sports pressure might have reared its head.

No, I wouldn’t have made a theoretical mini-G2 do anything against his will, but I would have made him try – and keep trying – before waving the white flag.

I know that sports are how boys are defined, and how they define themselves.

Without sports, I know I would not have had some modicum of self-esteem. I would have wanted the same for him, but surely would have relented if it was there without it.

With a girl, in these times, the whole playing field is open. Dance, music, art … you name it, you got it.

And she got it.

Sofia started with dance lessons two years ago.

We say that is her passion, but we can modify that a bit to her “first passion.”

Sports dabbling started last spring with coach-pitch baseball. She was one of only two girls on her team. She wasn’t very good, but she always kept a good attitude and a smile on her face.

She tearfully confessed last summer that she wanted to learn how to do a cartwheel like some of the girls in her dance class, so we signed her up for gymnastics.

She will never be on the platform of the Olympics hearing the national anthem, but she has gotten 100 percent since she first walked into the Little Gym of Spring House last summer.

She enjoys it so much that we had her birthday party there, and any suggestion of crossing it off of her hectic agenda gets met with protest that would make Abbie Hoffman proud.

Although my wife sees it differently, Sofia had no qualms about moving on to play Rookie Softball this spring. It was all girls, which was a plus. I was told it was “exactly the same” as last year, but with girls and a softball, so I was comfortable with the format.

No more boys saying stuff like: “Why do we have to have girls on our team?” (“Why do we have to have boys on our team?” Sofia snorkeled back.).

But there were some discernible differences. These girls, mostly in second grade (Sofia and a few others were in first), could play much better than the kindergarten and first-grade boys in coach-pitch. And unlike coach-pitch were strike outs. Not after three pitches, but you still had to humbly take a seat after swinging and missing too much in an at-bat (the amount of times varied, depending on variables like the number of kids there and how much time was left in the game).

The first two games, after some spring training in the backyard, Sofia put the ball in play in seven at-bats.

I’d like to say they were tape-measure shots, but you would probably only need a ruler to measure how far they traveled.

But she was happy. And I was happy to see her happy.

And then, fateful game No. 3.

Cruella De Vil’s evil twin, coaching for the team from Plymouth Township, insisted on strikeouts after five swings.

Sofia had a rough day, striking out four out of five times. The next game, the struggles continued and the confidence began to wane.

That was on a Saturday of a weekend I had her alone (her mommy left town for a girls-only weekend and I was gleefully tasked with “daddying” her up). I don’t know if the slump bothered her as much as it bothered me, but she seemed more than willing to go the next day for some swings in the batting cage at Freddy Hill Farms.

We went to what we were told was the slowest machine, but the ball came out pretty fast. Before she was ready, she got beaned in the thigh. She started to cry and wanted to go home. I explained to her that she had to stay in the batter’s box and she wouldn’t get hit.

After some coaxing, she got back in. I told her she didn’t have to hit the ball, since it was going so fast, but to just give me good level swings.

Lo and behold, she hit the ball a few times. And then, it struck her in the hand.

She was legitimately injured, with a formidable bruise on her thumb.

I got some first-aid stuff from the staff and we sat on the bench near the cage while she cried it out (giving me a chance to hold her tight, which was my lemonade out of the lemons).

Meanwhile, a young lady in North Penn High softball attire stepped into the same cage and began working on her swing. I told Sofia to watch how she batted, but Sofia was quick to point out that she was older and could handle the faster pitching.

And it struck me — as if I had been beaned — that I was bordering on being guilty of treating Sofia how I would a boy.

I needed to reel myself in.

She thought softball was fun, and didn’t seemed too bothered with her slump (she is more into being a fashionista on the field, making sure her headband and sunglasses matched the lime-green uniform).

We played two rounds of miniature gold, got some ice cream and didn’t talk softball.

Three days later, we were back at the field. My job — as a low-level assistant — was to keep the scorebook and make sure the girls stayed in their predetermined batting order, had their helmets on and didn’t swing their bats until they were in the on-deck cage. As fate would have it, Sofia was batting first that game and was at the plate before I could even say anything.

They gave her well more than five swings, but she struck out anyway.

Things were more settled before the second at-bat, so I called her over and channeled my inner Mike Brady (dad on “The Brady Bunch”).

“If you do your best, honey, it’s the best you can do, so just do your best,” I said.

The look on her face was worth the 6,000 cutie-pie pictures I take — and post to Facebook at an obnoxious rate – on a per-week basis.

It was like a cloud had been lifted.

And she hit the ball.

And she kept on hitting it – sometimes so far that you could measure the distance with a yardstick – for the rest of the season.

She started showing more confidence in the field, being a sure bet on soft grounders in her zip code while knowing which base to go with the ball (even with an arm almost as bad as Ben Revere’s).

She played all the positions. I thought she was best at second base, but she seemed to get a kick out of catcher after I told her that I played there (I actually played more first, but I want no part of her playing there for now).

The softball season, which was pretty much our activity together, was probably as much of a learning experience for me as it was for her.

All I want her to do – no matter the endeavor — is her best.

And I promise I will do the same.

In the present, and in the future.

By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

GORDONVILLE — Blowing out someone else’s candle doesn’t make yours shine any brighter.

When I first saw that scroll through Facebook one day, I was moved to tears (and I’m man enough to say it).

I woke up one day – maybe around 2010 – and found myself in a work environment where this anonymous saying should have been recited like the pledge of allegiance, and plastered on the wall as a reminder to those refusing to salute.

Sometimes I think that if I had come up with that idea, the storyline may have gone differently.

But the reality was that, if only because it would have been my idea, it would have been dismissed offhand.

That’s how it was going by the end of the roller-coaster ride.

My star had fallen.

It was what it was.

Playing it back in my mind, I had been on the endangered species list for a while, making me not unlike many of the middle-aged jobless souls cast adrift across the country.

I had overstayed my welcome, plain and simple.

The script said I was to ride off into the sunset on my own terms, with dignity, but I kept hanging on.

For reasons I can’t explain, I needed a little push out the door.

That came when my candle was blown out by a Kangaroo court.

Whether or not it ever made anyone else’s shine any brighter is something I ponder less as the days, weeks and months pass.

I think I know the answer, which speaks more about that place than it does about me.

It is what it is.

And it is what it became.

A blessing.

They gave me a gift.

A gift I have been unwrapping ever since.

 All Good

Instead of taking my blood pressure three times a day to make sure I wasn’t going to follow family tradition and drift into stroke terrain, it has been normal since the morning after.

Although my medication had been changed and tweaked, the real life-saver was my little girl.
When we first told Sofia that Daddy wouldn’t be going back to work anymore, the reaction of our young old soul was to cry.

All she had known for what was then six years on earth was visiting with me, although I brought her there less and less the more hostile it got. People didn’t even want me around, let alone my daughter.
Still, there were fond memories. It was the place where she took her first steps and where certain people who don’t run with the pack still made a fuss over her.

Plus, I think she understood that the job, for all its increasing stress and negatives, provided me with a place in the world.

It wasn’t uncommon for strangers to approach in public and ask if I was me – and she was Sofia – based on the regular mentions of her in my Sunday column that, for a while, made her the best known toddler in Central Montgomery County.

So, in her own little way, her initial reaction was to mourn the loss.

But it didn’t last.

How could it?

When we added that it meant she would see me all the time, especially at night, she did one of those smiling-through-the-crying things that kids do.

And it was all good.

And it has been all good ever since.

Lucky Seven

Before the axe fell, I drove Sofia to school in the morning, picked her up, set her up with a snack while anxiously waiting 15-20 minutes for a babysitter and then zooming into work like Steve McQueen  – where I would still get the evil eye from the CBB (Candle Blowing Brigade) for being tardy in their judgmental eyes.

By the time I got home, post-midnight, the best I could do was a kiss on the cheek while she slept.

All told, that was about an hour per day with the child we waited a long time to have. Yeah, we had the weekends, but I was often so exasperated that I needed to sleep off the week, exhausted from defending my candles from those conspiring to blow them out (not easy when it is most often happening when I’m not in the building).

This last year?

All Sofia, all the time.

And I couldn’t be any more content.

Sofia just turned seven. We have a tradition of staying up until her birth time,10:31, to officially ring in her new year – although she had a party for her school friends, a snack-time party at school last week and a house party for friends and family this past weekend.

And, in typical Sofia fashion, she got choked up.

We reminded her of all the good things that happened when she was six, like the addition of a pain-in-the-ass dog and the several trips we were able to make this past summer.

It was also the year she and Daddy got to make up for lost time.

I see and hear those parents who can’t wait to get a break from their kids, hoping against hope that snow doesn’t postpone school, and I just don’t get it.

Maybe they need to walk a mile in the shoes of a parent longing to be with their child during her wonder years – those before it becomes all about the friends, and the boys – instead of breathing in the air of a toxic environment alongside miserable people perfecting the art of throwing rocks from glass McMansions.  

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood

I was accused of wanting everyone to like me, and being too focused on that, but that dime-store analysis was off-point.

It was more about what I really loathe.

It was about being misunderstood.

They were the hunters, and I was the witch.

I admit that it was new for me in an environment where I was once beloved, but surely nothing new for many of you reading this.

It happens.

Things just snowball.

It soon became easier for those above me in the food chain to go with that flow, to ignore their self-created litany of double standards and join the lynch mob and point to the blown-out candle I had become, and give it credence.

They have to live with themselves, and look at their own sorrowful images in the mirror.

I am living with myself, and thriving in the process.

All the Write Stuff

A writer by trade, I am actually writing more – way more – now than before. People are paying me to do it, and I can do it from my own home, meaning I eat dinner with my family and can watch my daughter grow while willingly chauffeuring her to her myriad of activities.

The only aspect of my past life I miss is the connection with the readers. Some of you found me on Facebook and caught the midnight train to Gordonville here in the Blogosphere.

I also know that a lot of my readers don’t have computers, so connection is lost.

Just be assured that the writing is alive and well. You will hear from me again. I’m working on one book, with a few others on the backburner.

My first step into writing was song lyrics, which began in high school, where teachers probably conned themselves into thinking I was taking fast and furious notes about whatever yawn-inducing subject they were yammering about.

It continued in college and pretty much ended once I started working for the man.

I am writing songs now at a similar clip. And with 30 years of life experience – and an enhanced vocabulary — in my hip pocket, I am putting my adolescent self to shame (although some of the college-era songs were pretty darn good, if I must say so myself).

In any event, my songwriting partner and I will be putting out a CD of 13 original songs – some old, some new — this year. It may go somewhere, and it may not. Either way, a sense of satisfaction I was not feeling will be there.

I want to live forever, but we share the same fate.

At the very least I’ll have this music bug scratched off the bucket list, although the hope is that this is only the beginning.

And the fact that Sofia has been with me to the studio has added to the joy. I play the songs in the car, and she sings along, as she knows all the words.

My words.

When it’s a new song, she’ll offer an opinion, which I not only value but look forward to hearing more from as her palate grows.

 A Sense of Smell

The inevitable happened recently when Sofia asked if I had written any songs about her yet. For all the odes, via columns, I have yet to cross that bridge.

When I do, I know it can’t be generic. It has to be “Born To Run” or “Thunder Road,” not “Born To Be Alive” or “Thunder Island.”

She would expect no less, as a burgeoning music buff.

Sofia’s favorite song these days is “Let It Go” from “Frozen.” She sings it a lot. Some parents would get annoyed, but I’m not some parents.

While off-key, it is with a passion that sends chills up my spine.

I’m not kidding myself. She sings it because she likes it, but I can’t help but feel like she is singing it for my benefit, telling me to let it go.

All I can say in response is that I have, and she is the main reason why.

I always felt the adage about smelling the roses was a waste of time. My theory about life was that you only go around once, so why bother with the detour?

But that’s the point.

You only go around once, so you should bother.

And what you shouldn’t bother with is blowing out someone else’s candle so that yours will shine brighter.

If you believe in karma, you will get burned.

 

 

By GORDON GLANTZ

Gordonglantz50@gmail.com

@Managing2Edit

 

GORDONVILLE – Rex.

Not the first name I would have picked for a dog.

Not the second, third or 35^th.

I usually go for an Eagles quarterback and it seemed that Nick (or Nikki for a girl) would have had the best odds in Vegas.

But then again, Rex – a black lab mix at that awkward half-pup, half-adult stage of about 18 months old (according to his teeth) – kind of picked me.

And in the intervening week, the name he came with is kind of growing on all of us.

The dog on “The Waltons” (RIP, Ralph Waite) was named Reckless, so our official story is that this is a variation.

The actual story?

It all started on one of the Antarctic days when Laurie and I went to SuperFresh at the Centre Square shopping center to stock up on supplies for the snowstorm du jour.

A weekend day, it meant that the kind folks from Home At Last Dog Rescue in North Wales, were outside – braving the harsh cold – to have the dogs available for adoption interact with passersby.

We had been there before, often reaching over and under other people to pet a pooch while a volunteer pretty much ignored us.

No time for such frivolity that day.

Because we had an alternate agenda, I made it clear that we were not looking at any dogs, as tempting as it may be.

It was too cold, and we had to reach over and under people to get bread and milk and eggs.

I did add one caveat: Unless, of course, I’m struck by the same kind of thunderbolt that found Michael Corleone when he first locked eyes with Apollonia while on the lam in Sicily.

It happened that way back in 1990 at the Philadelphia SPCA on Erie Avenue. That’s when and where another black lab mix, Randall, looked into my soul from behind the bars of his cage.

He was one day overdue to be put down, and it was 10 minutes to closing.

He lived with us in three different places – from Northeast Philly to center city to the current suburban homestead – until 16 ½ and is still spoken of in rightfully revered terms.

We later added Kelly, who was more sweet and pretty than special and intelligent like Randall, but they – along with cat named Tyler – were like the three musketeers.

Kelly died first, battling through a litany of health issues to last until 10 ½, and Randall went while Laurie was pregnant with Sofia.

Tyler passed on to Rainbow Bridge, but new cats were added.

Somehow, despite being “dog people,” we became a three-cat household – with the current lineup consisting of Hank (5), Licorice (nearly 2) and Hershey (nearly 1).

We often spoke about adding a dog, as it seemed the last piece of a puzzle – along with a new kitchen and bathrooms – to make our house truly a home.

And with memories of Randall, we set the bar pretty high.

We felt Sofia was a year or two away, but there was no target date. Maybe her eighth or ninth birthday, or one of the Christmases in between, but nothing concrete.

It was going to come down to being struck by the thunderbolt, and that came that frigid Saturday in early February when a woman was walking Rex away from the crowd of volunteers and frigid shoppers and the dogs when we crossed paths in front of the Jade Garden Chinese Restaurant (our personal favorite).

His resemblance to Randall caught my eye, so I stopped to interface with him. Laurie was already half into the store when I called her back. The woman walking him began telling us Rex’s heart-wrenching story.

He was a recent arrival from South Carolina – Darlington County, the setting and title of a Springsteen song – and was apparently beaten in front of shelter workers there when his previous owner surrendered him.

From what I gather, he stole the hearts of the Darlington County people enough that they didn’t want to put him for a long period of time in one of their multiple-dog outdoor kennels where fighting is common and where any dog who fights – even in self-defense – is summarily put down with the aggressor.

An angel of mercy named Roz, who networks with the Darlington shelter, had seen and heard enough. She agreed to foster Rex and he was shipped to the frozen north (not that the south was much better) in a massive vehicle of small cages.

Roz, who had only had Rex in her care a short time, joined our conversation. By that time, a very timid Rex was warming up to us.

I looked up at Laurie for guidance. She looked at me with that “it’s up to you” look.

It’s a look that comes with consequences, because I was going to have to live with my decision.

But I had already been struck by the thunderbolt.

When we pried ourselves away to walk into SuperFresh, Rex started to follow us.

When we left, and loaded up the car with the typical haul to last 12 winters, Laurie wheeled the shopping cart back toward the store (we do that, unlike some others who would be named if I knew their names) and Rex spotted her and started pulling away from the next group of people fawning over him and waged his tail while looking in her direction.

I started the engine, turned on the heat to about 90 degrees and looked up again to see people engaged with Rex.

“Get away from my dog,” I muttered.

My dog.

Yep, my dog.

He found me.

Went home, filled out the online application and he was with us a week later.

The prime directive is a lot of TLC, which is always on the menu as a blue-plate special at the Glantz Diner.

The vet, who gave Rex a clean bill of health, warned against spoiling.

But that’s how we roll.

All things considered, he is doing well.

Not sure if he realizes just how lucky he is to have it made in the shade with us, but we can take the satisfaction of providing him with a place to land.

Rex is generally mellow – when I’m weaving my written tapestries at the laptop on the dining room table, he usually lies down underneath it — but he seems to be coming out of his shell.

The housebreaking is … well … coming along slower than expected, but I blame that on the weather and the lack of places to walk that aren’t snow-covered.

He had an adventure after just a few days, staying overnight in a pet-friendly hotel (Comfort Inn in Montgomeryville) and was an instant attraction with staff and other powerless refugees.

My mother, who lives with us, has a phobia about dogs. She tried to be afraid of Rex, but it’s impossible.

She declared, upon getting him, that she won’t be joining me in the car to pick Sofia up from the school if he is there, too.

After three days, her butt was in the car while Rex snoozed in the back, only to perk up when his favorite playmate, Sofia, appeared.

Rex has also signed peace accords with Hank and Licorice. For some reason, he senses weakness and fear in Hershey and gives him a hard time, but we have seen recent signs of thaw.

Just like this bitter winter that was made better by one moment when time froze.

And the thunderbolt struck.