22 Stories to start 2022... vol. 1

22 stories told over 22 years in 22 sentences. Plus a few more words.

Jan 02, 2022

Lots of people write lots of things with lots of inspiration this time of year. Stories looking back. Stories peering ahead. Reflections wrapped in affirmations separated into lists so they’re easy to share on social media.

It’s all touching s**t, really.

But it’s not what you’re about to read.

Instead, what we have here is a collection of 22 stories spanning 22 years and originally meant to be told in 22 sentences. It took more words than that, though, which is why I’m sharing in two parts.

Here goes with Volume 1.

2000: On January 1, 2000, I was 17 and deep into building one of those pyramids of Bud Light at an overcrowded high school party. Y2K fears passed about the time the party’s host pulled out a shotgun to clear the rift-raft from his house and sent us scurrying away off to wherever had beer and no parents. I dialed for Internet back then, and while I hadn’t met email, I loved leaving quotes by Thoreau and Yeats as my away messages on my AOL Instant Messenger.

2001: Early October 2001. I was a freshman at a school in New Jersey and chewing on a pen cap in Spanish 101 class. The cap clipped a front tooth just right, and I spent half my first semester in college with only 1.5 front teeth.

2002: Come Christmas 2002, my cousin and I ran out of cash drinking can beer at a Fremont, Ohio, bar open late and always on holidays. My cousin found a $35.00 check from our aunt in his pocket. We signed it over to the bar and never looked back.

2003: Got dumped in July 2003. Spent the summer listening to The Tony Rich Project sing that sad song that everyone thought was by Babyface.

2004: Oh h**l. This one still hurts.

In late August 2004, I was a cocky little s**t who needed a dose of reality. That dose smacked me in the face right when I ran Mom and Dad’s Chevy Trailblazer through the front windows of a Sunoco gas station convenience store, sent two war veterans to the deck with flashbacks, and no commented the newspaper when they asked if I could shed light on what happened.

The cashier said, “I thought you were trying to rob us.”

“No,” I said. “I just can’t drive. Also, can I use your phone? I need to call my mom.”

2005: Dad, two friends from college, and I traveled to Dayton in June 2005 to watch another friend at the start of his professional baseball career. We were deep into pizza and pitchers of Bud-heavy at a smoky dive bar after the game when Dad and my baseball playing friend danced into their own conversation. They talked of careers and the hope that comes when your close enough to play professionally what so many of us loved playing as kids.

I watched as one shooting star at the start of a career talked with another whose brightness had long since faded. Dad’s eyes sparkled as they spoke. He smiled. And I think that short conversation on sports and life was one of the happiest I ever saw him.

2006: Party bus left NYC about 9:00 am on Saturday, October 21. We were headed back to Jersey for a homecoming game and homecoming celebration things. I time traveled most of the day, and when I woke again I was on my couch in lower Manhattan still wearing my tennis shoes from the day before and with a half-eaten slice of pizza by my side. Mean Girls played on the television. The homecoming events remain an unsolved mystery.

2007: I popped into a bar on Frenchmen Street. It was August 2007. Hot, sticky, and I was thirsty. I sat next to a man in his seventies. He wore a straw hat and had sparse teeth. We played our conversation to live blues until it was time to stop and then we found a jukebox somewhere nearby to keep us going until the High Lifes had run dry and the sun had come up.

I then caught a cab to a local high school ten minutes away to meet my volunteer group. Spry, rested, and ready to paint, they found me on the third floor of the school that afternoon snoring and surrounded by undipped paint brushes. We ate beignets together that night after dinner.

2008: A large man wearing only a towel stepped off a scale in the Cleveland Browns locker room. The scale had just tipped a few clicks north of 360 pounds, and so I said: “Three hundred fifty-eight and a half pounds. Well done, Shaun.”

The big man in just the towel smiled and gave me a big hug.

He’d just earned a bonus of $25,000 by weighing less than 360 pounds. I’d helped him earn it.

2009: 365 days happened in 2009. They got lost in what happened in 2010.

2010: November 20th. It was early, and I got a call from my sister. She was frantic. Something had happened to Dad. He was in the hospital. Signs weren’t good. We needed to get home immediately.

Several hours later the hospital room once full of family had emptied except for me. It was time to leave. Time to say goodbye. I gave Dad’s cold hand one last squeeze. I kissed his forehead. Then whispered, “Goodbye my friend. I love you. And I’ll see you when I see you.”

2011: I woke before the sun one day in August. Grabbed a notebook and a pen with blue ink. I stained pages with coffee and tears writing a letter to my dead dad. That letter became a book (To Dad, From Kelly). That book let me grieve. And the grieving allowed me to heal.