Don’t cry for me (yet), Alexander

Legend has it that Alexander the Great wept because there were no more worlds to conquer. I’ll never aspire to global dictator, but in my own small way I think I know how Alexander felt.

For about the past year I’ve had this growing sense that maybe I’ve achieved as much as I’m going to achieve in this life. That maybe I’ve reached the peak of whatever mountain – hill? – that I’ve been climbing all these years and there’s nowhere to go but down. That maybe, like the mighty Macedonian above, my best days are behind me.

Alexander was driven to tears

I want to believe it isn’t true and that there are still major campaigns to wage in my real-life game of Risk, but recent developments would indicate otherwise. Plus, at age 51, how many more conquests are left in me? Am I at my Douglas MacArthur “old soldiers never die; they just fade away” moment?

It began with the high school graduations of my two kids, and the realization that my job of parenting was nearly over. With it went my active involvement in the local homeschool athletic program I founded with gallons of blood, sweat and tears. Then came a significant professional disappointment – a seminal event that left me questioning my abilities, career path, and even my long-held beliefs about work ethic.

Suddenly, while the world was charging into battle, I was marching in place.

I spoke with a few male friends who are about my age, hoping they could help me sort through whatever it was that was going on inside my head. To my surprise, they were experiencing similar emotions: uncertainty about the future and their role in it, second-guessing decisions that brought them to this point, and a general feeling that their internal fire is slowly being extinguished by forces beyond their control.

One friend said men have a natural need to conquer. In our more civilized society that usually means changing jobs, taking on new projects or checking off the final items on their bucket lists.

“We’re always looking for the next big adventure,” he said.

“And what if there aren’t any big adventures left?” I asked.

“You just have to keep the faith and continue to do what’s right,” he said. “You never know what might be around the corner.”

Another friend said he was considering applying for a transfer within his company to another supervisory job hundreds of miles away. With one kid in college and the other joining her this fall, he said a change in scenery and responsibility might be just what his stale life needs. He acknowledged that the prospect of a new challenge is both exhilarating and terrifying.

What if I find the new job is a bigger struggle and less rewarding than the routine I know now? he asked in so many words. Can I really start over again at this stage in my life?

To his dismay, MacArthur faded away

“It’s the devil you know versus the devil you don’t know,” I said.

We continued on, talking about having to compete against younger go-getters who are happy to take our jobs for half the pay and benefits. We discussed the hurdles of keeping current with evolving technology. And we delved into the dreaded “L” word: layoff.

“I thought life would get easier as I got older, but it only seems to get harder and more complicated,” I said.

“I know what you mean,” my friend replied.

Despite their doubts and confusion, neither friend bemoaned his existence. Both were thankful to be gainfully employed, relatively financially secure and enjoying stable marriages. I feel the same way.

Still, there’s this itch that I can’t seem to scratch. There are all these nagging questions: Have I reached a plateau? Have I scaled my last rock wall? Are there no more worlds for me to conquer? With retirement still 15 years away, am I already in Alexander the Great territory?

Like my friend suggested, I’ll take it day by day. But I’ll keep that box of Kleenex nearby, just in case.

Ask and ye shall receive...no answers

I drove my parents crazy with questions when I was a kid. Now that I’m a lot older the questions drive ME crazy.

So much of life remains a mystery as you enter your twilight years. For example, why do we put peanut butter ahead of jelly in the sandwich of the same name? Each ingredient takes up the same amount of space on the bread, and jelly even comes first in the alphabet. Yet it’s always PB and then J.

It's PB & J -- got it?

How did this happen? Did Skippy beat out Smucker’s for naming rights?

Makes me wonder.

Then there’s this one: How can ants carry things bigger than they are in their mouths without tipping over? Do they ever pull their backs out hauling those things back to the ant colony? And how do they know what they’re lugging around will fit in the hole?

Surely science could provide an answer, instead of spending all that time digging up bones of dead stuff. Those bones aren’t going anywhere, anyway.

I’m also puzzled by those signs at construction sites that say, “Clean fill dirt wanted.” I have to ask, can dirt ever really be clean if we’re always so anxious to wash it off? And what turns “clean” fill dirt “dirty”?

I keep scratching my head.

Write it down: You'll lose the pen

Ballpoint pens present several questions for which I continue searching for answers. Why does ink move only toward the bottom of the pen and never toward the top? Better yet, how does it move at all? Ink is thick and heavy with greater viscosity than fudge. Is it gravity alone? A special chemical agent in the ink? Microscopic people pushing the ink toward the tip on tiny bulldozers?

And perhaps the most perplexing ink pen question of all: Why is it that the moment you become attached to a pen it immediately is lost forever?

I could go on and on:

* Why do lottery winners always show up at the check presentation news conferences in old T-shirts, jeans and ball caps? They certainly can’t say they couldn’t afford to go shopping for new clothes.

* Do opera fans in Italy feel cheated that they don’t get to hear singing in a language they don’t understand?

* How come M&Ms melt in your mouth but never when baked into cookies?

Grover "Don't Call Me Steve" Cleveland

* What was it about his first name of Stephen that Grover Cleveland didn’t like? It would have been cool to have had a president named Steve.

* If the Kentucky Derby only lasts two minutes why does the pre-race show on TV last two hours?

* Can’t restaurants come up with a better napkin dispenser than the traditional metal ones? You wind up either with a torn off piece of one napkin, or a handful of 15.

* Are cat’s lives really so exhausting that they need to sleep 18 hours a day?

* Why can women wear capri pants and be considered fashionable, but if men wear pants too short they’re laughed at for wearing “floodwaters”?

Does anyone know the answers? Or do I have to ask another question: Where’s the Shell answer man when you need him?

Be true to your school

As soon as I washed the winter grime off the car, I placed the red "LU" magnet on the back. I'll find a place for the "Liberty" window cling, too. And I still need to transfer all my keys onto the Liberty keychain.

A true LUnatic

I'm feeling a surge of pride in my college alma mater these days. After being mostly disconnected from Liberty University since I received my degree in May 1986, I'm now yearning to associate myself with the Lynchburg, VA, school again.

My 25th year graduation anniversary probably plays a part in this wave of boosterism, but there's more to it than that. Three unrelated events in the last five months have come together to focus my attention back on the university that I’d mostly lost touch with.

I’d never intended to become an alumnus in absentia. It just sort of happened, as it does with many college graduates. Too often unless we live in close proximity to our alma mater and can easily keep up with what's going on or, better yet, earn a fortune and drop a huge chunk of change on the institution to get a building named after us, we mentally drift away. After we claim our sheepskin the real world calls. Jobs, family, church, civic duties and other activities begin demanding our time and attention, and, before long, we aren’t even attending Homecoming. Unfortunate, but understandable.

I'd reached that stage myself. For the first couple of years after graduating from Liberty I made an attempt to stay connected to my school. I received a few mailings from Liberty, and wrote a few of my closest friends and professors on a semi-regular basis. In time those communiqués became fewer and farther between. Eventually, except for stumbling upon the occasional Liberty sports score in the newspaper or a Larry King interview with Liberty founder the Rev. Jerry Falwell, I had no connection to my school at all.

The Liberty campus. It's much bigger than it looks.

Then a postcard arrived in the mail late last summer. “The Liberty Flames football team is coming to your area!” it declared. Liberty was traveling to Indiana to play Ball State University in September. Ball State is in Muncie, just a couple of hours away from my Lafayette home. On a whim, my wife Margie – also a Liberty grad – and I purchased tickets for the game and a pregame meal with other Flames fans, through Liberty’s athletic department.

It was a blast. We met fellow Liberty alumni and football parents, as well as Liberty’s athletic director. The night ended with the Flames’ 27-23 upset of the Cardinals. The approximately 200 of us in Liberty red and navy celebrated with the team as it left the field.

Fast forward to New Year’s weekend. I was browsing the new paperbacks shelf of a Chicago-area Barnes & Noble, when I came across The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose. The book was about – you guessed it – Liberty University. Roose, a Brown University student, transferred to Liberty in 2007 to write a book about what it was like to attend the school. He spent an entire semester incognito chronicling his experiences. No one knew his real intention.

LU's basketball team warms up in Vines Center

I had to read the book. I bought a copy and devoured it in little over a week. Many of Roose’s tales sounded similar to my own experiences at Liberty except, of course, I never pretended to be someone I wasn’t in order to make my literary mark. On a side note, Liberty decided to stock the Roose tome at the campus bookstore, although LU chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said The Unlikely Disciple did not present a completely accurate picture of the university.

Whatever the administration thought of the book, it was a fascinating read.

The third – and most significant – event to reawaken my alma mater spirit was my daughter’s acceptance letter from Liberty. LU is among six evangelical universities she’s applied to and, to date, one of four that has accepted her for enrollment. This came as a surprise to me, given I’d never encouraged her to check out Liberty.

That letter quickly led to registering her for Liberty’s College For A Weekend, a four-day get-to-know Liberty event held a couple of times each school year for prospective students.

Last week Margie and I drove Alissa and her boyfriend to Lynchburg. It was only my third visit to LU since my graduation, and I was in awe from the moment my foot touched the Liberty parking lot.

LU has its own ski and snowboarding facility. Really.

We attended a Flames basketball game in the 10,000-seat Vines Center – new since I graduated (NSIG). We ate dinner in Liberty’s huge dining commons – also NSIG. I drank a strawberry milkshake at Doc’s Diner, a Jerry Falwell-themed restaurant (NSIG). We saw the 12,000-seat Williams Stadium (NSIG), LaHaye Ice Center (NSIG), Liberty Mountain Snowflex Center – a university-owned skiing and snowboarding facility (NSIG) – the giant “LU” monogram on Liberty Mountain (NSIG) and a number of academic and dormitory buildings that were NSIG. We also met so many friendly and helpful students and faculty, most of whom, naturally, were NSIG.

Although the campus has changed so much in a quarter century and enrollment is several times larger than my era, I felt a sense of belonging at Liberty. I found myself wanting to, well, be close to it again.

I filled out an LU Alumni Association information card. I figure I’ll get a call and all kinds of stuff in the mail. They’ll probably get around to asking me for money because, as we all know, alumni are the sugar daddies of higher education.

But, you know, that’s okay. I’m just happy to be part of the family again.

Big John

Thirty-five years ago this Valentine’s Day my heart was broken. It has never completely healed.

On that day in 1976 my father died.

A few years ago I wrote a long-overdue tribute to the man whose earthly life ended way too soon. Here’s what I had to say:

John Leland Leer was a man’s man. At 6’2” and 220 pounds, he was an intimidating figure, especially to a skinny kid like me.

Dad celebrates my sister Pam's birthday, 1964

A toolmaker at Delco Remy in Anderson, Ind., a then-components division of General Motors Corp., my dad embodied all the qualities I associated with manhood: strength, toughness, grit and competitiveness. He could tear an engine apart and put it back together. He played catcher in fast-pitch softball. He made decisions and stuck to them. When he thought he was right there was no convincing him otherwise.

I held dad both in awe and fear. I’m not sure I could have felt much more awe and fear if God himself had appeared before me.

Dad’s tough exterior and temper was likely the result of his being born the youngest of five children. Throughout his life he fought to be heard and to gain the respect that so often seemed to elude him. His frustration often boiled over at home, and when it did, I wanted to find a place to hide. Dad could send chills up my spine by simply barking my name.

I watched this hulking figure of a man for 16 years. I saw him get up at the crack of dawn to go off to work at the factory. He rarely missed a day. Even when he was sick and probably too ill to be working, he grabbed his lunch and headed out the door.

Dad taught me the meaning of work ethic.

I saw him crouched behind home plate in softball games, with his way-too-thin catcher’s mitt and no chest protector, snagging 70 mph pitches that were curving, dipping and rising. Halley’s comet streaked across the sky more often than a pitch got away from dad. I remember occasions where there was a close play at the plate and the opposing baserunner thought they could take out dad and score. They didn’t. Batting, dad had a knack for spraying the ball all over the field. Had he tried the Babe Ruth stunt of pointing to where he was going to hit the ball, dad could have pulled it off.

Dad taught me the meaning of competitiveness.

I witnessed my dad’s love for my mother. He doted on his Texas bride and showered her with affection in the presence of me and my sisters. Although dad and mom sometimes had disagreements and he would get loud, they never failed to make up. Dad was faithful to my mom from the moment they began going together when he served in the military until the day he was no longer with us.

Dad taught me the meaning of love.

I saw dad stand firmly behind his beliefs. A political junkie, dad was a George Wallace conservative when George Wallace was still a conservative. Dad had no use for big government, welfare programs, liberal ideas, schmoozing with communists and any political candidate or leader who believed in those things. Family reunions were always interesting, because, inevitably, the topic of politics came up. And when it did, there was dad on his bully pulpit, preaching the gospel of Barry Goldwater. He never backed down from a political debate. In the same way, but in a quieter, less confrontational manner, dad shared his belief in God and the Bible. With dad, there was no question where he stood on any issue, be it the direction Congress was taking the country or what he thought about modern translations of the Good Book.

Dad taught me the meaning of convictions.

In the fall of 1975 dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Although I didn’t know it at the time, the disease was too far advanced to be successfully treated. That didn’t stop dad from trying. He read books about natural cancer cures, and began a regimen of carrot juice and vitamin B-17. He also went through conventional chemotherapy treatments.

For four months, as his weight dropped almost in half and he lay writhing in pain on a couch in our living room, I watched dad battle the ultimate enemy. He approached the fight just like every other he’d encountered in his life: Do it my way, or else.

I believed dad would win. He always won in the end.

Dad died on Valentine’s Day 1976, at age 41. I was stunned. True grief came much later. In so many ways, the grieving process continues for me to this day.

At the close of his life, dad left me with perhaps his most important lesson. He taught me the meaning of courage.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think of dad. He was gruff, sometimes moody and could be difficult to live with at times, sure, but he was a great man. I owe him so much.

Thank you, dad. Your brief life has left an indelible mark on mine.

Brother's keeper

The road is long

With many a winding turn

That leads us to who knows where

Who knows where

But I'm strong

Strong enough to carry him

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

                                           -- "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," The Hollies

The Southwest Airlines jet ought to be somewhere over Illinois right about now -- the one carrying my younger brother Paul. He's heading back to Mansfield, Texas, and to the new life he started there three years ago this June.

The Leer men: Paul (right) and me

If I know Paul, he's wiping a tear from his eyes. Were circumstances different he'd still be in our hometown of Anderson, IN, working a factory job and living a couple of blocks from our parents and just two hours from me.

But as it seldom does, life didn't cooperate. The auto lighting plant where Paul worked closed and he had a decision to make: hope for the best in a city stripped of its manufacturing base, or accept a transfer to a General Motors Corp. truck assembly plant in the Lone Star State. He went back and forth on the decision but, in the end, chose the only sensible option available.

Once again, fate succeeded in separating me from the brother I've never really gotten the opportunity to know.

At 37, Paul is 14 years my junior. Because of the difference in our ages, I've often been going as he's been coming, and vice versa.

When I graduated high school in 1978, he was just preparing to enter kindergarten. As he moved through elementary school in Anderson, I was hundreds of miles away at college. By the time he received his high school diploma and entered adulthood, I was covering business and political news for a newspaper in North Carolina.

My professional travels eventually brought me back to Indiana in early 2000. For eight years Paul and I resided about 70 miles apart as the crow flies. Despite that relatively short distance, we saw each other only on holidays or special occasions. Family and work obligations made more frequent gatherings impossible.

I figured once life slowed down I could finally spend some quality time with my male sibling. Just when that was starting to happen, Paul was uprooted.

Until his visit to Anderson these past five days I hadn't seen Paul since his last trip to Indiana not quite two years ago. He looked like he'd lost a little weight (he probably would beg to differ), and certainly more hair. He gave me a jacket he'd bought in Las Vegas.

Over the course of the next 24 hours we talked sports, the economy, world problems and entertainment in my parent's family room, while Super Bowl preview shows droned on from a large-screen TV. After a Sunday afternoon lunch of takeout Chinese food, I gave him a hug, told him I loved him and wished him a safe trip back to Texas.

Godspeed little brother

"Tell that to the pilot," he deadpanned.

With that, I threw my bag in the car and returned to my somewhat new life in Lafayette.

I'm sure we'll talk by phone or text message soon, but it's a hollow substitute.

Take care, little brother. See you when I see you.

So on we go

His welfare is of my concern

No burden is he to bear

We'll get there

For I know

He would not encumber me

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

Here comes the Sun Drop

Kids say the darndest things. They bring them home, too.

A few days ago my 21-year-old son burst through the door with a huge smile on his face and a two-liter green bottle in his hand. "Look what they're selling at Pay Less!" he announced.

A sight for sore eyes (the bottle, I mean)

(Reader Note: Pay Less is a regional supermarket chain. Whether Pay Less customers actually spend less on their grocery bills than at other retail food stores is unproven, but that's not relevant to this story.)

In my son's hand was a bottle of Sun Drop. To the uninitiated, Sun Drop is a citrus-flavored soft drink popularized in the South. It's reminiscent of Mountain Dew, except don't ever utter the name of that other carbonated beverage around a Sun Drop drinker. I made that mistake once in North Carolina and nearly started a second Civil War.

It was while living in Gastonia, NC, in the early 1990s that I was introduced to Sun Drop. There's even a local Sun Drop bottling plant along one of Gastonia's main thoroughfares.

The soft drink has a sketchy, almost fish story kind of history. When St. Louis native Charles Lazier created Sun Drop in 1949 the product purportedly was made from real oranges. Sun Drop aficionados swear if you look closely at the outside of a bottle you can still see citrus pulp floating around inside. I've pressed my nose against the plastic several times and didn't see any -- even back in the days when I still had 20/20 vision.

Almost everyone I knew in Gastonia drank Sun Drop. Some Gastonians consumed the soda pop like other people sip Starbucks or gulp down Dasani. I had friends who drank a 20-ounce bottle first thing in the morning, followed that up with one over lunch and had a nightcap just before turning in. When I read the nutrition facts on a bottle the first time, I figured out why: 105 milligrams of caffeine. I also took note of the 290 calories per 20 ounces. By comparison, you could wolf down a Hostess chocolate cupcake and still have about 100 calories to spare.

Carolinians love Sun Drop

Despite its health-wrecking chemical makeup, there was something oddly comforting about seeing that green bottle with the red and yellow label again. It brought back memories of Jiggers Drive In, a 1950s-themed restaurant up the road from Gastonia in Bessemer City, where they serve homemade cherry Sun Drops with a real maraschino cherry tossed in.

I was reminded of the pulled pork plates at Gastonia's dozen or so barbecue restaurants, where you either drank Sun Drop or sweet tea (no one drinks unsweetened tea in the South). I recalled sultry summer nights at Gastonia's cozy Sims Legion Park watching the Gastonia Rangers -- then a class A farm club of the Texas Rangers -- with a hot dog in one hand and a Sun Drop in the other.

Then there were all the local events that Sun Drop sponsored, and all the volunteer T-shirts I collected over the years. Ever single one of them displayed the splashy Sun Drop logo.

The flash of memories in that instant my boy held out that bottle brought back wonderful times spent with family, friends and colleagues -- some who have moved on to points unknown. So many warm feelings from a product that's best served cold.

Welcome to Lafayette, Sun Drop. To rewrite a line from the Beatles:

Here comes the Sun Drop/And I say, it's all right.

Hello, it's me

Hello and welcome to my blog. Please make yourself at home.

Let me introduce myself. I’m a writer for a large Midwest university, a husband, the father of two college-age children and a half-century old. I’m proud and happy to share about the first three. The last one? Well, I’m still trying to figure out what it means and how I got here so fast.

I’m hoping that this online journal will help me make sense of getting older.

A blog about aging? Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, no, we’re going to get one boring story about the ‘good old days’ after another.” Let me assure you that that isn’t my intention. When you get to be my age a certain amount of looking back is normal, but in this space I want to look forward as much as possible. Or, at least, look at things as they are today.

No one wants to talk about, much less think about, growing old. I certainly hadn’t given the topic a lot of thought until I woke up one day and realized I was 50.

For the first time a birthday bothered me. I remember being excited at turning 20. I’d entered adulthood! Thirty was thrilling, with child rearing and the joy parenthood brings. Becoming 40 wasn’t so bad because I’d finally started to yield the benefits of many years of hard work. But 50? What did that milestone birthday mean? Aching joints, an empty nest and an invitation to join AARP? It didn’t sound very inviting.

Friends and family tried telling me 50 was no big deal. “You’re only as old as you feel”; “You’re not getting older; you’re getting better”; “Age is just a number”; “Fifty is the new 40” – they repeated all the usual lines. But somehow it didn’t help. While it may be true that life doesn’t end at 50, youth certainly does. There’s no way around it: When you cross over from 49 to 50 things change. Perceptions are different. No one who hears the word “young” imagines a guy with graying hair and crow’s feet who’s midway to triple digits on the age-o-meter.

Instead, they imagine – well, OLD.

The realization of 50 brought with it mixed emotions. While I was happy to be entering the so-called “golden years,” I grieved my exit from youth. I wasn’t sure whether to discuss my feelings openly with friends and family or keep them bottled up inside so as not to appear a candidate for psychotherapy. Unsure what to do, I decided to follow a middle-of-the-road strategy: I’d write about my experiences. That’s where this blog comes in.

Hugo

Exactly what I’ll write about from post to post, I can’t say. I’m sure each new day will provide material. I suspect there will be humor, introspection, poignancy, pontification and regular, everyday reflection. Feel free to leave comments/suggestions/criticisms.

Maybe by putting my thoughts into words I’ll get a handle on this aging thing. Perhaps somewhere along the line I’ll even view advancing age with the same gusto as French author and statesman Victor Hugo, who said that 40 is the old age of youth and 50 is the youth of old age. Hugo also said, “When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.”

Vic should have stopped while he was ahead.