Merry Christmas 2014 from the
Dises!
We’re being
advised by every weather prognosticator in eastern Virginia that this is going
to be a cooo-ooold winter! And it may
well become one. But not yet. Our unseasonable warmth is making certain
folks blame it on global warming. On the
other hand, if it was colder than normal, they would be blaming that on global
warming, too. And you thought all roads
lead to Rome, didn’t you? Wrong! They all lead to a seat at the reviewing
stand in the Al Gore Eco-Scold Parade.
Be sure you give a big ol’ salute to Big Al when you march past. Meanwhile, I’ve been investing in Baffin
Island waterfront. Going with the floe,
so to speak. I’ve almost talked L.L.
Bean into carrying linen suits and Panama hats for those scorching Maine
winters. By the time we’re done, the polar
bears will be so confused, they’ll be bi-polar.
Speaking of
ice, Debbie and I, along with twenty bazillion Dise cousins and friends, took a
Holland-America cruise to Alaska this past August. (Their slogan: “Visit Alaska – before it’s baked!”) Our friends Kevin and Ann Schmalz from New
York joined us in Seattle, along with cousins Jim and Debbie Dise, Kelly and
Jean Dise, Ed and Sally Dise, plus a cast of thousands of family friends. Before boarding the ship, we took the “Tour of
Seattle, Hell” on an uncharacteristically sunny and warm Seattle day. The tour guide led us for many, interminable
hours through the neighborhoods of Seattle, stopping to marvel at every blade
of blessed grass that was fortunate enough to call Seattle its home. Debbie (my Debbie) complained that her blood
sugar was low since it was 1:30 PM and we hadn’t had lunch, and the sympathetic
tour guide responded by driving us through yet more neighborhoods for yet
another hour -- this time, we marveled at the lawn ornaments. We did finally board the ship in time; thank heaven,
but no thanks to Seattle’s most self-absorbed tour guide.
The cruise
itself, I’m happy to say, was a wild success.
Our ship wasn’t one of the really gi-normous ones that pull dwarf stars in
their wakes -- this one was only the size of a typical Virginia county, so we
were able to head all the way up into the fjords and watch the big glaciers do pretty
much nothing. Think of glaciers as the
ice machine of the gods. They’re mostly
blue, by the way, but well-peppered with soot.
You don’t see the soot in all those touristy travel brochures, do
you? I think it gets airbrushed away. And any soot you see with flippers? Those are seals, only slightly more frisky
than the soot. Then we arrived at
Juneau, Alaska -- not at all named for Juno, the Roman goddess of politics, but
for some old gold prospector named Mr. Juneau, who kept buying drinks for
everyone in town until they agreed to name the town after him. Political pandering has since gotten more
sophisticated. In the world of
adjectives, Juneau is nestled in somewhere between quaint and beautiful -- too many
state buildings to be quaint, too many run-down homes to be beautiful. To know what makes Juneau special, you have
to look at its setting: mountains and coastline. The town starts at sea level and is pretty
much built straight up into the nearby mountains -- after climbing the streets
to the other end of town, we had to rappel back to the ship. Best $15 ever spent -- we took a tour bus to
the Alaska Brewery, where we received a lecture-tour of the facilities… and
free samples. It’s a nice story -- back
in the Seventies, a young married couple visited Juneau, fell in love with the
place, and wanted to move there. But…
what to do for a living? She was a CPA,
he was a chemical engineer whose hobby was beer-making. They went door to door, trying to talk the
locals into investing in their start-up brewery; today, the unhappiest people
in town are the ones who turned them down.
Did I mention the free samples? Yowzah! Whoa,
did the island just shift? On our way
back to town, as we passed a small island about two hundred yards offshore, the
shuttle driver explained it had the world’s highest concentration of grizzly
bears. Can you imagine having to carry
an elephant gun just to take out the trash?
Also, Mel Gibson once owned a home there. The grizzlies had to carry elephant guns,
too. After Juneau, we also stopped at
Sitka and Ketchikan on the way back to Seattle, but, by that time, I’d decided
that life in the ship’s bar was more fun than climbing the streets, and the
wildlife was slightly more active.
Cousin Jim had a system worked out to where we could max out our bar
tabs during happy hour and carry a glass of cheap wine into dinner. It takes a Dise to figure the important
things out. Cara Wallo, a member of our
entourage, was one of the finalists in our ship’s version of “Dancing With the
Stars!” I contributed at karaoke time by
doing my very best Jim Morrison impression.
Plus, I got to spend lots of quality time with my wonderful wife. Don’t you love her madly? I do.
Unfortunately,
after thirty years of programming at a desk, my physique has come to resemble
an oyster’s. There are sports teams
named after the big cats, bears, and other species of nature’s strong and swift
predators, but I defy you to find an NFL team named after a mollusk. Not getting any younger, and here at age
sixty able to see old age from my backyard, I decided to sign up for strength
training. There’s a gym in Norfolk named
“Brute Strength” and I went there to see Stella. In the waiting area, I looked around and
realized, I’m the weakest person in this gym, and that includes the pretty
little twenty-something ladies. There
was a young boy sitting in the reception area, maybe seven years old. I thought I might be able to take him. Stella greeted me. She’s a very nice lady, and about as helpful
as anyone can possibly be. She’s also
only the ninth woman in history to bench-press 350 pounds. That there is what we call ‘street
creds’. Stella trained me for about a
month, and if I could afford it, I’d still be hiring her for every
workout. But I’m more or less on my own
now. And something happened that I never
expected: I kinda like this. After about
a month, I started noticing these little tiny bumps starting to spring up in
various places, where there had never been so much as a ripple or a ridge. They’re not big enough yet to call muscles --
I call them “muscle sprouts.” But recently
I’ve had to take some time off, because, somehow, I hurt my lower back, and have
been unable to work through it. Now, my
theory has always been, you have to have a muscle to pull a muscle. That theory seems to hold -- I never had to
worry about back pain until I had something resembling a muscle, and I never
realized how debilitating it can be.
I’ll just have to find some way to work through all this, because at the
moment, I seem to be hooked on lifting.
Speaking of
dead-lifts, about a year and a half ago, Debbie and I invested in a zombie
movie, “The Other Side”, written and produced by Pittsburgh’s Niespodzianski
Brothers -- John and Chris. I knew John
when he was in the Air Force, and simply could not imagine him doing a bad job
of anything he’d set his mind to do. The
biggest risk a movie investor takes is that the movie will never actually get
made. I just knew that wasn’t going to
happen -- and it didn’t. Cousin Jim Dise
and I drove to Pittsburgh last spring, with my pastor, Wally Sherbon, to see a
sneak preview, and again to see the theatrical premier in November, with my
friend and colleague Martin Barritt.
Still don’t know whether there’s a financial happy ending, but so far we’ve
gotten some excellent reviews, and the production team has announced we are
very close to a distribution deal.
Fingers crossed! If you happen to
see the movie, watch for my name in the “Executive Producer” credits -- what I
actually produced was a signature on a check, but it’s the thought that counts. And meanwhile, if some folks who look dead come
shambling toward you, don’t assume they’re just asking directions. They might want to pick your brain about
something.
Debbie’s
dad, Bill Wallace, at age 86, broke his hip this past January, and both he and
Debbie’s mom, Audrey, lost their ability to live on their own. Debbie intrepidly drove them both up here
this past March, and they took up residence with us here in our house. Audrey is still with us here, but Bill’s
health has met with a few setbacks, and he’s in a local nursing home now. Breaking your hip when you get older is sort
of a harbinger for other things, mostly not good. We have no idea how things go from here, but
we visit Bill a lot and he seems to be rolling with the punches pretty
well. We just celebrated Bill’s 87th
birthday with beer and pizza. Bill
flirts outrageously with the nurses.
And that’s
the year that was. Debbie is still
teaching 5th grade beginning orchestra, I’m still programming and
playing trombone, and we both are grateful for the Lord’s many blessings. This Christmas season; remember the One who
came into this world to make life and death both worth celebrating, -- the New
Life that is to come.
Love from,
Lee &
Debbie
Bill &
Audrey, too!
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