The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Family

Traveling Music

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Many of you have asked for us to provide you with a “how we make the magic happen” tour of the Traveling Jack show. And by gum we aim to please so here is a sneak peek at some of the  back stage activities and events that are tied into the tour.

A special soundtrack is prepared for every tour. Typically it is a multiple CD pack of music that is designed to serve a number of functions. There are “educational” songs that are included for the children. Educational doesn’t necessarily mean stuff that they would get in school, rather it is exposure to music that they might not be familiar with.

There is driving music that is included for those portions of the trip that involve heavy driving time. Sometimes the driving music is fast and upbeat and others it is soft and relaxed- something that will help the small passengers sleep.

One of the most important CDs is the airplane mix. This is specially made for Traveling Jack himself. The old man is a bit of a nervous flyer, but not necessarily for the reasons you might think. The guy has a dysfunctional digestive system that sometimes sends him racing for a restroom. The limited access on a plane always makes him crazy. It is made worse by moments where he is trapped in a middle seat, blocked by a drink cart and or instructed not to get out of his seat.

Since music soothes the savage beast these mixes have proven to be effective tools for meeting the needs of all involved. But they also serve a secondary purpose of helping to cement memories of good times. That is important to all of the members of the tour, but  even more so for the children. They don’t realize yet how special these memories will be to them down the line.

As promised here is a snapshot of some of the soundtrack:

You’re My Home– Billy Joel 
Tefilat Haderech
Ride Across The River– Dire Straits
Good Vibrations– Beach Boys
Sloop John B– Beach Boys
Our House– Madness
Moonlight Sonata– Beethoven 
Piano Concerto No. 21 – Andante-Mozart

If You Died, Who Would Take Care of Your Children?

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If you ever want to kill a conversation. If you ever want to change the tone into something more somber and muted ask a parent if they have made plans for where the children would live if something happened to them.

It is a frightening topic. It is a hard topic. It is uncomfortable to consider what would happen to your children if they were to lose their parents. It is painful to think about a future in which you do not participate.

It is a discussion that you have to have. As a parent you have to take the time to consider all of the angles. If the worst happens, who gets the kids. Who do you trust to raise them. If the worst happens is there someone who can provide for them. Is there is friend or family member who you can rely upon to take care of your children.

Will they respect your wishes and impart the same values upon them that you would. And assuming that you have someone in mind that you would like to act as a surrogate parent, will they be capable of taking this responsibility on.

One of my sisters and I recently spent time talking about this. We live on opposite coasts. She is on the Frigid East and I am out here in the Sunny West. Neither one of us is likely to pick up and move any time soon so if anything happened there is a good chance that the kids would find that their worlds had been turned upside down in every possible way.

Of course this is only a hypothetical, a worst case scenario that we hope never develops into any sort of twisted reality.

But you know the old saying, people plan and G-d laughs. As we head into another new year I ask again to be given the opportunity to see my job through. At a minimum I need another 100 years or so.

I’d like to meet my great-grandchildren. Is that so much to ask for.

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The Ga-Ga Master Speaks

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This is what you call a partially recycled post. Hard to believe that it has been three years since I first wrote I Am Still A Ga-Ga Master.

The game is tied into a family trip that is a hell of a lot of fun. This was Little Jack’s fourth time around and you could see that the years have been good to him.

The little boy isn’t quite so little anymor and has learned numerous tricks. He spent quite a bit of time trying to beat me, but only managed to do so once.

Unlike some of the fathers I don’t just let him win. I want him earn it, but that is a topic for a different post altogether.

Anyhoo, for those who missed the original post I have included it just below this.*************

I recently had the opportunity to play Ga-ga for the first time in many years and was pleased to see that I am still a Ga-ga master.For those of you who are unfamilar with it here is a short description.

“Ga-ga or GaGa is a form of dodgeball that is thought to have originated in Israel. “Ga” (×’×¢) means “hit” in Hebrew. The game is popular at Jewish, American summer camps, many of which have special ga-ga arenas or so called “pits” in which to play.

Game Play/Rules

Ga-ga is played within an octagonal enclosure when available, or in any other space that is completely enclosed by surrounding walls. The objective of the game is to eliminate your opponents by hitting a ball with either an open hand or closed fist into the region at or below his or her knees. That player is then out and must leave the playing area. A player can also be eliminated by having his or her ball caught in the air.”

Some of my favorite memories are of massive Ga-ga games in which there were just tons of people in the court. Those were fast paced and somewhat physical games but ever so much fun.I always enjoyed playing a very physical game.

I loved going after the people who would tap the ball off of the wall and try and stalk the other gameplayers across the court. I’d slide over to them and try to slap the ball away. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it led to an early demise, but no guts, no glory.

During this most recent edition of Jack’s Ga-ga experience I was able to teach my son how play and tried to teach him some of the finer points of the game. He loved it and I loved watching him play. He still needs to work on learning how to lose gracefully, but at 5.5 that is not always an easy thing to do.

He was also fortunate not to suffer a bad case of Ga-ga knuckles but if he is anything like me they are coming.

In any case, it was nice to have a chance to play with him and watch him learn to enjoy something that I have had so much fun playing.

A Tale of Two Widowers

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This is the sort of post that I struggle to write. I struggle because I have a story to tell and I want to convey the message in a particular way but I am not quite sure how to do it. It is a story of life and death, of the power and pain of love.

It is moments like this where I wish that I could write music because such a tale deserves an appropriate soundtrack. A full orchestra that could impart the highs and lows of this story because I am not quite sure that I can do it justice. Since that is just not possible I am going to do my best to fumble my way through this. All I can do try my best to catch the Silver man, so here we go.

Just a few short hours ago I was at a holiday dinner with my family. The table was covered in with a beautiful linen table cloth and adorned with china and silver. Several assortments of flowers were spread out throughout the table. And of course there were lots of guests surrounding the table.

Now I could tell you about the peals of laughter emanating from children like silver bells or I could share the sounds of my grandparents and relatives discussing the election and the rabbi’s sermon. It wouldn’t be hard because those are probably things that you can relate to.

But then I might miss out on sharing a tale of two widowers. Two men who lost their wives roughly a year ago. Two men who sat at the table and enjoyed the meal, but whose eyes and words revealed the depth of the pain of loss.

It seems unfair that I can’t tell you their individual stories because it is. It is unfair because they lost the light in their candle long before they ever expected to see them go dark. It is unfair because it is unfair. Sometimes evil people live much longer lives than good people. It is unfair because life is unfair.

And it bothers me that I have to teach my children that no matter what we do life will never be fair. It bothers me that I have to teach my children about death and that no matter what they or anyone else does, they will experience death. One day the people they love the most will be gone and all they will have left will be memories.

But I’ll do my best to teach my children to seek the positive side of all this. If the loss doesn’t hurt than there is a problem. I have often thought that to a certain extent you can expect the loss to be as painful as the love was joyful.

I spoke with both of these men at different times this evening and I spoke with both of these men during shiva calls. And part of what struck me is how deeply they loved their wives and how their losses wounded them.

At separate moments they both made a point of telling me to make sure that I truly live my life because the person I love most could unexpectedly be taken from me. It is a theft like no other. I can’t say that I truly understand what they are going through, but I can say that I am convinced that the hardest pain to deal with is mental pain.

You can always find a way to get around the physical pain, but mental pain is a harder nut to crack. How do you turn off your memory. How do you forget and would you really want to.

So I find myself lost in thought about the words that they shared with me and how to apply them to my life. I don’t want to wake up and say that I failed to live my dreams because I failed to try. It is one thing to have tried and failed and another to have never done so.

I can find a way to live with the failure of having tried and been unsuccessful, but I don’t think that I can live with never having tried. Someday is a great way to put off the future, but someday doesn’t always come.

And so I find myself pondering the new year with similar thoughts and questions to those I had last year. If I have any sort of resolution it is to make a greater effort to live my dreams and to do the things that I need to do to have a happier and more meaningful life because you really don’t know when it might all come crashing down upon you.

Crossposted here.

Coping With Sick Parents Part II

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This is the intended to be tied into a post I wrote this past February called Coping With Sick Parents. When I wrote that post it occurred me that I know many people who had the misfortune of losing a parent while still in their early childhood or young teens.

I felt bad for their loss as I know from my own experience just how lucky I have been. Until my mid thirties I had most of my grandparents and even at 39 I am still blessed to have two. And I feel very fortunate that my own father survived a major heart attack and triple bypass four years ago.

But this isn’t about my own luck. This is more about what I have seen from watching my parents help their own parents and things I have seen from my friend’s struggles. So there is nothing scientific about this, just my own observations.

Coming to grips with your parent’s mortality can be a brutal and heartwrenching experience. For the most part age doesn’t matter, meaning even if you are in your sixties it is not easy to watch mom/dad start to deteriorate.

Some people cannot deal with this. No matter how hard they try they simply cannot cope with seeing the man they viewed as superman reduced to wearing diapers. So they run away and make any number of excuses as to why they can’t spend time with them.

As you can imagine this can place enormous strains upon their relationship with their siblings and other family members. But even good coping skills can be tested. I have seen a couple of situations in which siblings engaged in battle and open warfare about the best way to help their parents.

It seems obvious that this would be the time in which the family pulls together, but life doesn’t always work that way. To be clear, I am not making a value judgment about this. Having been through my own situation I know how tough some of it can be.

When you see your father on life support and unable to participate in the discussion about the best course of treatment it is hard to be impartial and objective.

But let’s move away from that for a moment. I want to focus on my own grandparents. They’re 94 and in a couple of weeks are going to celebrate their 74th wedding anniversary.

During the past five years I have seen a steady progression healthwise and not in the direction I want. On the whole their mental faculties are good. They’re still sharp enough to know what is going on. They follow the news and are abreast of current events, but their is slippage.

Their memories are starting to give them a bit of trouble. My grandfather prided himself on knowing dates, birthdays, anniversaries, whatever. Name the person and he knew it. But he has lost a bit of his edge there, and the sad part is that he knows it.

I say sad because he is aware and bothered by what is going on

He recently told me that “the golden years are for shit.” When I asked him to elaborate he told me that he was frustrated because he can’t do what he wants to do. He said that he tires too quickly to enjoy some of the things he used to do and that he is scared to death of my grandmother falling down because he can’t pick her up anymore.

“Jack, the day you realize that you can’t protect your wife like you’re supposed to is not a good day,” he said.

I did my best to make him more comfortable. At his age he deserves some more peace of mind, but there is only so much that I can do.

From a different perspective watching my parents deal with their own parents has had its own lessons. I have to give them credit for the love and care they have shown. When the time comes I will have a hard act to follow.

But I am quite concerned about the strain it has placed upon them. They are paying a heavy price for the love and devotion. And while I would be the first to say that parents like children are invaluable, I also have to say that there are limits to what is reasonable.

Or maybe that is just my own fear that this will negatively impact their lives and I’ll lose my parents sooner than later.

If nothing else I am definitely aware of my own parent’s mortality. I don’t consciously live in fear of their dying, but having a sick father does keep the thought in the back of one’s mind.

It is hard not to wonder what else I could be doing to help improve things there.

What is a Mother’s Love Worth?

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Apparently not all that much.

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) — If a stay-at-home mom could be compensated in dollars rather than personal satisfaction and unconditional love, she’d rake in a nifty sum of nearly $117,000 a year.

That’s according to a pre-Mother’s Day study released in May by Salary.com, a Waltham, Massachusetts-based firm that studies workplace compensation.

The eighth annual survey calculated a mom’s market value by studying pay levels for 10 job titles with duties that a typical mom performs, ranging from housekeeper and day care center teacher to van driver, psychologist and chief executive officer.

This year, the annual salary for a stay-at-home mom would be $116,805, while a working mom who also juggles an outside job would get $68,405 for her motherly duties.

One stay-at-home mom said the six-figure salary sounds a little low.

Click here for the full story.