This article (”Clipping, Scrimping, Saving“) will be on A1 of the Washington Post tomorrow, according to the website. Heartrending tales of people who have to–gasp–clip coupons, buy sale items, buy bulk items, and otherwise economize on groceries.

The last thing Marti Tracy wants to do on a Saturday is clip coupons. But last month the 34-year-old Bowie resident felt she no longer had a choice.

…

Tracy and her partner also stopped buying the cereals they like in favor of whatever was on sale; stopped picking up convenient single-size packs of juice, water or crackers; and, in order to save gas, stopped going to multiple stores.

…

Other shoppers, like Kathleen Holly, are coping by visiting fewer stores and shopping closer to home…. “If I’m driving, I go to the bank, the grocery store, the cleaners all in one trip. That way, I can save money on gas and keep buying the things I’m buying.”

Am I wrong not to be terribly moved by the plight of these people? Am I wrong to be, so to speak, an unfeeling SOB? Because growing up in my house, we employed these tactics to great success and didn’t view them as some sort of last resort before landing in the poorhouse….

The last thing you want to do on Saturday is clip coupons? The last thing I want to do on Saturday is clean the toilet. Should I feel your pain?

You buy brands that are on sale instead of brands that you like? I still joke about this with my mom: growing up, I was told that my favorite brand of spaghetti sauce was whatever was on sale that week. Coke versus Pepsi? Whichever one was on sale. Hey–come to think of it, I still do that. One or the other is on sale every week, and that’s the one I buy.

And this novel idea about doing all of your errands in one trip…. Are there really people out there who go to the bank and come home, go to the grocery store and come home, go to the dry cleaners and come home…?

There are many, many folks in the Post’s circulation area who are genuinely hurting, genuinely struggling. Evidently the reporter couldn’t find any and had to settle for Marti Tracy, who had “already given up organic meat and decided to buy organic milk only for her two-year-old son, not for the whole family.” This qualifies for A1, sob-story-style coverage?

Oh: “Consumers also are saving by stocking up on sale items, then trying not to waste.” Brilliant! I can only hope that this fine work by the Post is circulated far and wide so that all may benefit from this wisdom. Buy sale items and don’t waste them! How wonderful it will be once that secret gets out.

(Addendum: If anyone from the Post wants to interview me about the toilet-cleaning hardships I’ll face this weekend, I’m here at the house most nights after 8:00, usually clipping coupons.)

It’s three years to the day since my dad died.

I wish I had something clever and/or erudite to say today; nothing came to me all day.

Not a whole lot came to me today–the taxpayers’ money was not spent well on my salary. That day’s timeline was on constant playback in my head for most of the morning and afternoon.

Lacking anything meaningful, I’ll just say that if he were still around, I’d be on the phone to him to see if he just got as big a kick out of Hillary’s debate statement on the Bosnian sniper fire incident (”…and I said some things that I knew weren’t in keeping with what I knew to be the case…”) as I did.

He’d probably be sick of the debate by now (as I am also) and flip it over to the Indians game.

They’re losing 9-1. Ack.

(As I said: I wish I had something clever and/or erudite to say today.)

I’m sitting at the computer and half-watching the Indians game on the teevee behind me, turning around when I hear the announcers and/or the crowd react to a play.

It’s reminding me of the days when I would sit and read and half-watch the Indians or the Browns and only look up when my dad reacted to something on the screen.

Every day I miss him, but some more than others. And I said I’d blog about him more, but haven’t been–so here’s this.

We got a touch of rain in Ohio when I was home a few weeks ago, if nine inches in one day counts as a “touch.”

We got a touch of water in the basement, if three feet counts as a “touch.”

I would have taken more pictures, but figured I would be the guy who dropped his camera into the water in the attempt.

My mom called today to say that the washer and dryer have been declared officially kaput as a result of all this. She said she would report our estimated damage to FEMA so that they can get an accurate assessment of the flood impact countywide, but she wouldn’t apply for any aid: “There are people who need the money more than I do.”

I’m a big fan of my mom. Not sure how I lucked out enough to get born into this family.

Crawford County declared disaster area by President Bush

They really should toss some adjectives or something into that headline–something to clarify and specify. Maybe “Flood-ravaged Crawford County declared disaster area by President Bush.” Something to make it less of a general statement.

Otherwise I might write my commissioners and get the ball rolling on this: “Bush Justice Department declared disaster area by Crawford County.”

I attended a friend’s wedding in Ohio over the weekend.

A traditional Catholic wedding–my first in a long while.

Very similar to weddings in some of our United Methodist congregations, except in this one a man got married to a woman.

I remember stopping at the Glass House on our way to Tulsa one year to visit relations. It’s built right over the interstate–an overpass restaurant, for lack of a better term.

It’s a McDonald’s now–which is fine, I suppose. It was a Howard Johnson’s back then. I have no idea what I ordered. Probably French fries and milk, the staples of my youth.

I do remember buying–and losing–one of these postcards. A quarter back then, now available for $12.95 plus shipping. That hurts almost as much as having taken the Star Wars landspeeder out of its original packaging.

It’s odd–the things that remind me of my dad.

My license plates, for instance.

When I bought this vehicle in 2004, I was issued Virginia’s standard Jamestown plate (”1607-2007″). (Not the ones with the little boat on them–they were $15 extra. I have no desire to enrich the People’s Republic of Northern Virginia any more than I must.) It was odd that Virginia didn’t have anything more timely to 2004 to put on its plates back then; I for one would have been honored to display a plate commemorating the Burr-Hamilton duel of 1804. Maybe with little stick-figure drawings with guns. Or the “before” scene on the front plate (Burr and Hamilton aiming their pistols at each other) and the “after” on the back (Burr dead on the ground, Hamilton standing with one foot on Burr’s chest–history be damned!).

But I digress.

I thought the plates were odd since the Jamestown commemorations were still three years away. And the first time I drove home in the new vehicle, my dad mentioned the plates right away and said the same thing. And then–ever the history teacher–gave me a little quiz on the history of Jamestown. Which I failed.

I have no idea why that memory sticks in my head. We had a lot of conversations like that when I was home.

But now it is 2007, and the Queen is in Virginia to mark the Jamestown anniversary, and this has come rushing back.

Stories like this:

GOATICIDE IN CRESTLINE

The 4-H goat was found dead. The family is considering it a suspicious death and an autopsy is being performed.

John Heath from Sunbury, acting as representative for the Kopina family, addressed Crestline City Council for permission to allow Julie Kopina another goat so that she may finish her project. Heath asked this after pointing out to Council that the Kopinas followed Council’s request that neighbors be consulted and sign a petition giving permission for the goat to be kept at the home. A copy of this petition was given to Council.

Debbie McKay was also present at Monday night’s meeting but made no comment the request for a replacement goat. McKay was one of two women who filed a complaint last month. Council decided to send the issue to the Legislation Committee since there is no precedent for this case.

My dad died two years ago today…more or less. I won’t go through the same blarg I talked through on Saturday. Two years and two days, or two years by the calendar, or something–the more I think about this, the less I think we should commemorate/celebrate/remember specific dates and lean more toward marking the 52-week anniversaries of things. Which would throw the calendars off altogether.

I mentioned earlier that I didn’t have a copy of the feature that the local newspaper did for my dad. Grabbed a copy today online–they interviewed his teaching colleagues from school, also a former student and some others. My dad once commented that I had his dream job; I know he mentioned that to others as well. But the stuff I do at work really can’t compare to the influence of a good teacher like he was. The tributes we received from his former students in the weeks following his death bear that out. One teacher is all it takes to make all the difference in one life. Or in many.

There’s a scene from a movie that gets appropriated at times like this: Sir Thomas More’s advice to Richard Rich in “A Man for All Seasons.” Sir Thomas is goading Rich into becoming a teacher, saying that he’d be a fine one, “perhaps a great one.” Rich asks: “If I was, who would know it?”

“You, your pupils, your friends, God. Not a bad public, that.”

Not a bad public indeed.

My dad died two years ago Monday–on a Saturday.

He died on April 16, which was Saturday in 2005 and Sunday in 2006. Today is the Saturday closest to April 16, so is today the day I should be marking? He died on the third Saturday of April, which is next week.

But it was also the third Saturday after Easter, which might have more relevance: I’d been home for Easter, which was the last I saw him conscious…. He had the heart attack the Sunday after, had surgery the following Wednesday, and died the second Saturday after that.

The third Saturday after Easter this year is April 28.

///

Why am I talking about this so pedantically?

I think it’s because I’ve never really talked about it. Written about it, I mean. I almost literally jumped out of bed this morning to write something about it, having mentally composed the first part of this entry. In the time it took me to fire up this computer and sit down to write, I lost the desire/spirit/will to write it. I have no experience writing anything about it. Other than the obituary.

I don’t have a copy of the obituary. I don’t have a copy of the newspaper feature that ran along with the obituary, where they interviewed several of his former colleagues and students. Maybe I have those somewhere in the files and just forgot. But I’m so spoiled by Factiva.com that I haven’t felt pressured to make sure I have copies and have them at hand.

That’s not who I want to be: a guy who wrote but doesn’t have handy a copy of his father’s obituary.

That sounds odd. But it’s not who I want to be. I’m not the guy who isn’t close to his family. I’m the guy who enjoys double negatives, but I’m not the guy who isn’t close to his family. I call my mom every week; I get back to Ohio maybe five or six times a year. My sister and I are close. (Closer now that we’re hundreds of miles apart than when we lived in the same house.) I’ve never been able to fully relate to people who aren’t close to their families.

///

Not sure why I’m focusing on an obituary so much. Maybe because he died on Saturday afternoon and I started writing it on Saturday night…104 weeks ago to the hour.

Maybe because I haven’t taken a step back to reflect on how odd an experience it was to write it. Sitting around in the family room, me with a yellow legal pad and a red pen writing down what my mom and sister were saying. Just as if I were sitting down with the Congressman, taking notes for a form letter to send out to constituents. I’ve done that numerous times; this was too similar. Then I trundled off to the computer and typed. I printed out drafts and brought them back to the family room for review–same thing I’ve done at the office. The only thing making it different than a constituent letter was the lack of a little sign-off box for everyone to initial.

Then I e-mailed the obituary to the funeral home.

That’s odder yet. Shouldn’t these things be printed out on fancy paper–even parchment–and hand-delivered somewhere? By courier, even? Shouldn’t there be a service you can call, and someone comes to your house in a black suit and white gloves and you hand him a cream-colored envelope for delivery to the funeral home? Nope–just zap it right over, and then the funeral home zaps it to all the area newspapers. And here’s a picture to scan and zap along with it.

That’s how I did it. And I didn’t print out a fancy copy even for myself.

I still have it on the computer at home, of course, and can print reams of fancy copies next time I’m in Ohio. So this is not a big deal. Why am I spending so much time on it? How did I get from wanting to talk about my dad to obsessing about the obituary? Where exactly is this post headed content-wise?

It’s probably coming ’round to Romans 7:15, same as quite a bit else in my life: the stuff I’m doing isn’t the stuff I want to be doing: it’s the stuff I hate. The not-writing-about-my-dad stuff is the stuff I hate, or at least know I should hate. The not-staying-in-touch-with-friends-like-I-should stuff is the stuff I hate. I was inspired this week by a post on the magnificent Lone Prairie blog about that very topic–specifically the need to communicate with those we care about.

I pledge to work on that. For immediate purposes, though, a tangential pledge: I will start writing more about my dad–funny things, serious things, memories in general. And I’ll put them up here and reflect on them often.

And–first thing I do next time I’m in Ohio: print out a fancy copy of that obituary.