Wish You Were Here

Postcards are a curious thing. Memories are condensed onto 4x6 cards, then obstructed by postmarks from far away places. By the time one reaches your mailbox, it's made a zig-zag trip from point A to point B, often arriving after its sender has already departed from what used to be the destination. These messages from the past, barely contained in the margins, give us the headlines to much longer stories. Scrawled at the bottom, in tiny print that hugs the address line, are four little words that come so automatically to a postcard that your eyes glaze over them. Wish you were here. Curious, indeed, for the words arrive long after the ink has dried. What they really should say is, Wish you were there.

~ ~ ~

I was there when my best friend, Adam Ringguth, threw a spiral bound notebook onto my bed and announced that we were going to write an episode of Cheers together. We were twelve years old and he had just recently introduced me to Sam and Diane, Frasier and Lilith, Norm and Cliff, Woody and Carla, and the rest of the Cheers gang. He was so adamant that we do this, so urgent in his demands, that I had no time to come up with a reason why we shouldn't. Through his eyes it seemed a perfectly natural way for two preteen boys to spend the afternoon. Most kids our age were either getting dirty or into trouble, but not us. Oh no, we worked on a teleplay. So while we knew nothing of beer or bar stools or sexual innuendo, we managed to cook up a story that had Sam Malone locked in his office until the Red Sox first baseman had to leave the field in the middle of a game to knock down his door with a baseball bat. Adam was in charge of the sports terminology and I supplied Carla's witty one-liners. We read the script out loud, laughed our way through it, then never spoke of it again until years later when he came to visit me in Minneapolis. Over burgers and fries in the Mall of America food court, I asked the question that had been on my mind for years.

"Why did we write that episode of Cheers when we were little?" I asked.

"Oh boy, that was terrible," he said.

"Probably," I replied. "But why did we do it?"

He picked up a French fry and chewed on the end of it while he spoke. "You said you wanted to be a TV writer. So I made it happen."

He must have noticed my heart skip a beat because he quickly pointed at the giant Ferris Wheel in the middle of the mall and said we should go for a ride. Same old Adam, I thought. Never one for thank-yous.

~ ~ ~

I was there when Adam saved the entire town of Oxbow from seeing me with my pants around my ankles. We were acting in a play together and before I had the chance to change costumes between scenes, the curtain whizzed open behind me just as I was stepping out of my drawers. Like a quarterback hustling a football through the goal posts, Adam came to the rescue and whisked me off-stage, thus preventing our little one-act play from turning into a teenage burlesque show. As I frantically yanked on the tangled cord that controlled the curtain, he just shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Calm down, Bradley. It's just a play." I can't tell you how many times I heard him say those words.

I joined the drama club in the sixth grade—a year before he did—and spent that first year as the only boy there. As you can well imagine, it didn't take long for all the girls to corrupt my innocence by sticking tampons in my pockets and convincing me that Maxi Pads were make-up sponges. I don't recall if I asked him to join, or if he saw that I was floundering in estrogen, but he auditioned for the seventh grade play and we spent the next six years acting together in play after play after play.

I always took these plays far more seriously than he ever did. On the bus to one-act festivals, he'd patiently listen as I confirmed each and every stage direction. In the back of our drama teacher's station wagon, he'd run lines with me until even Mrs. Rutledge had them memorized. And he never complained that I always got the lead role, even though he was every bit as good an actor. Actually, that's what made him a better actor. I could always, always count on him to prevent me from spinning out of control whenever I got too wound up to remember my lines.

It's just a play, Bradley. It’s just a play.

~ ~ ~

I was there when Adam and I crammed into the back seat of Cindy Bentson's two-door Toyota Tercel for an afternoon road trip to Estevan for Slurpees. Cara Morris was also there, squeezed between us like the creamy center of an Oreo cookie. The four of us had been close friends since we went to Sunday School together, yet it was quietly understood that the front seat of Cindy's car was reserved for the fifth in our posse, Lynette Gilroy. But that never bothered us in the least; being chauffeured to 7-11 was always a good time, no matter the seating assignments.

Cindy was really into the band Savage Garden at the time. I mean really, really into Savage Garden. In her cassette deck was a mix tape that had their two (and only) hit songs on it, looped back to back to back to back. By the time we returned to Oxbow, we were all truly, madly, deeply ready to scream. Yet now when I hear those songs, I'm transported to a simpler time, when security meant pressing my face against a cold, foggy window. With friends.

~ ~ ~

I was there when Adam returned from debate tournaments with trophies and medals and certificates. There was no winning an argument with Adam. I was there when he and Josie Carson made jokes about the British monarchy. I still have no idea what they were talking about. I was there when Shanna Meunier, when Daniel Mailhiot, when Tracy Fitzpatrick, when Rachelle McNab, when Rhonda Collins, when... There's just not enough room, nor words in the dictionary.

I always knew Adam would be successful, although that hardly makes me a member of any minority. Anyone who ever met Adam knows that he was destined for greatness. Big dreams and an even bigger heart pretty much assure that. He graduated high school with honors. He made a name for himself at the University of Saskatchewan. He majored in history at Brown University. He studied law at Harvard. He reached for the stars and grabbed every single one of them.

And now he has died.

It doesn’t make sense. I just doesn’t make sense.

~ ~ ~

I was there this past summer when a postcard from Adam arrived at my door. I knew it was from Adam even before I looked at the back. On the front was a picture of Frasier Crane, from a set of Frasier postcards I had given him in high school. Of course it was from Adam. And of course he had kept them. His thank-yous always arrived in actions.

He was writing from back home in Oxbow, where he spent his entire summer vacation. Home is not exactly a far away place, yet the older I get, the further it drifts away. So it came as a nice surprise to receive his message from the past, from the very place we called home for so many years. The headlines included a concert at the Bow Valley Jamboree, drinks with Tina Twietmeyer, and a lengthy discussion with our eleventh grade English teacher, Mr. Sully. What the card didn't say—what I had to look for between the lines—was just how much he cared for the community. He always had a special place in his heart for Oxbow, and all the people in it. His neighbors. His teachers. His friends. His family. And they cared about him in equal measure. His smile. His laughter. His kindness. His past.

The best thing about the past is that it never changes. We can always go back and revisit the moments in time that made us who we are, exactly as they happened. Just like a postcard, these memories arrive when you least expect them, offering snapshots of things that have been, and things that always will be. A Slurpee. A play. An episode of Cheers. 

If I were writing a postcard to Adam today, it would repeat the words he included at the bottom of his to me. Wish you were here. But since there's no sufficient postage that will deliver it to where he is now, I'll have to change the words. Only these words don't come from the past. They come from the present.

I'm glad you were there.

Self Help

If self-help books actually helped anyone, their authors would put themselves out of business. Their covers promise to “heighten your awareness,” but on the back flap they should also add, “Just long enough to make you aware that you’re crazy.”

“Self-Help” is a billion dollar industry that convinces readers they are capable of buying books. When I worked in a bookstore, unstable customers would flock to the section and take up residence in the overstuffed chairs nearby for hours on end. As these people flipped the pages, they would either sniff quietly into tissues or crush their thumbs with a fist, depending on their affliction. If someone requested an anger management book that was out of stock, I flinched. If they wanted an O-C-D title that had been dog-eared, I winced. And if they wanted a Bipolar’s journal, I surrendered.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not disparaging people with problems. We all have problems and it’s our right to solve them. I just don’t understand how doctors like Phil and Laura and Wayne can live with themselves. Their books don’t do anything but install swimming pools in their backyards. And they know it.

Take Joel Osteen, noted televangelist and motivational speaker. His first book, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential, hit the shelves in 2004 and was an enormous success. It was atop the New York Times Bestseller list for months and sold millions. I’ve read it and have to admit that it makes a lot of valid points. It even made me feel good about myself. Fantastic! But then a couple years later, I spotted his new book on a Wal-mart check stand: Become a Better You.

Hey, wait a sec. You mean to say that even though I’m living at my full potential, that’s still not good enough? Shit! Here, I thought I had it together. I’m sure the millions who bought the first book thought so too. I better buy this book immediately and see what I’m still doing wrong. Thanks, Joel.

Then Mr. Osteen makes an appearance on Oprah. The world gathers around their television sets and awaits further instruction. The show finally begins and — hmm — something has changed. Did Oprah get a new sofa? No. Has she lost weight? No. Is it Joel that changed? Hmm. Maybe that’s it. Ah, yes! His teeth. They’re whiter, they’re brighter, they’re bigger. And his hair. It’s thicker, it’s longer, it’s sexier. And, wow, his face. It’s tighter, it’s smoother, it’s richer.

My dad would have scoffed if a copy of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff appeared on his desk. His armpits were soaked. Weeds in the sidewalk were an abomination. Off-kilter staples were unacceptable. Unkempt fingernails were the end of the world. These requirements drove me nuts as a kid, as I’m sure they did my siblings and definitely did my mother. Yet the older I get, the more I appreciate his example. To be sure, Dad was obsessive and we all would have benefited had he lightened up. But now that he’s gone, it’s easier to see where he was coming from. He approached life like a leaky faucet. Let it drip and it will turn into a flood. Fix it and you can move on.

If I somehow knew I only had a few minutes left to live, I’d want my little brother by my side. Curtis is only 20 months younger than I am, so we share pretty much the exact same history. While we don’t have a lot in common, I’m pretty sure he knows me better than anyone else. And vice-versa. We never have a lot to say to one another, but that’s because we don’t have to. When he’s around, I don’t have to justify why my impulse is to sweat the small stuff. He knows. Neither do I have to explain how Mom taught us when the small stuff wasn’t stuff at all. He knows that too.

I believe that magic is anything that works. If self-help books make a person feel better, terrific. If they brighten someone’s day, more power to them. But make no mistake — they’re nothing more than a stocking stuffer. As far as I’m concerned, nothing good comes from helping yourself. I think it’s far more important that we help each other. Help your fellow man sweat the small stuff, I say. That way we can all sit back, relax, and enjoy the big stuff.

Together.