Those Shoes

Those Shoes                            6702 (2662)

Wednesday, January 24, 2007-6:15 P.M.

My periwinkle 4-door Toyota Corolla is no more.  I drove up to St. Paul, Minnesota from Rochester, Minnesota on Saturday and collected my personal items from the vehicle in anticipation of it being junked.  I thought I would be very emotional about it, but as my wife said, "That car didn't owe us anything."  It died at mileage 329,525, a ripe old age for any vehicle, and I'm sad to see it go, but it was time to let go and start over.

The weekend at Goonie's Comedy Club in Rochester, Minnesota, was excellent.  We had four sold out (or nearly sold out) shows to work with, and the staff was just wonderful.  After the show, Mike and I packed out our luggage and drove home overnight, trying to beat the snowstorm that was threatening the Chicago area.

I started the driving shift while Mike slept, and got us down through Wisconsin and into Illinois.  We stopped for gas outside of Rockford, and we switched so that Mike could drive and I could sleep.  I folded my glasses up and put them in my inside coat pocket, reclined the seat and went to sleep.

It had started to snow a little coming down through Madison, Wisconsin and Janesville, but by Beloit, it had started to let up.  By the time we went through Chicago, it was nearly 6 in the morning, and the roads were sloppy and unplowed and covered with slush.  The lines were invisible and truckers weaved back and forth like they were drunk, but Mike did an excellent job of navigating all of this, thanks to his time working in Western Canada for Yuk Yuk's, where I'm certain it snows all year long, especially up in the mountains.  Our plan was to switch driving after burning a tank of gas, but I offered to switch with him in Indiana as he had done more than his time at the wheel, and with horrible driving conditions as well.  I took the wheel and almost immediately got pulled over for speeding.  My bad luck had continued to become an issue.

While I just sat there as the officer took my license and rental car info (I have no registration in such an instance), I shook my head and tried to figure out why I'd been tested so much these past two weeks.  In the first stroke of luck I'd had since we left home, the officer gave me only a warning, printed on a green form that looked like a speeding ticket, and asked me to slow down and be safe as I headed east.  I went on my way and drove until we reached Ohio.  Oh, did I mention my glasses were broken?  When I fished them out of my pocket in Indiana, the right stem had separated itself from the hinge and I managed to find where it had slipped out, but could not get it to stay.  Finally, after finding my eyeglass repair kit in my shoulder bag, I got it to stay a little bit, but worried about it until I got home.  A little super glue did the trick, but it was just one more thing in this horrible, horrible tour.

During the ride home, Mike counseled me as best he could, but it was a discussion I needed to have with truths I needed to hear.  I need to make massive changes in my act, the way I do business, the way I treat others, and the way I approach my family situation.  My passivity has created a situation of stagnation, and that stagnation threatens the security of my household, particularly the raising of my beautiful little daughter.  I'm a good comic, but I've allowed myself to become a parody of Mike, who I always looked at as a blueprint for success.  The simple truth is that I'm not Mike, and audiences are giving me the fish-eye because they don't buy it coming from me.  Along with his mannerisms, I seem to have co-opted his attitude, and that's not me, it's not genuine.  I'm a good writer and a nice person, and that should be enough.  I'm not going to convince anyone that I'm a gunslingin' tough guy, a badass or a rebel...I'm a soft-hearted family man who loves his wife and daughter and wants everyone to know it, and to ditch their own negativity and enjoy life.  I know that I'm going to face rejection initially, as comedy club patrons seem to thrive on negativity, but I'll grow into this and can't be afraid anymore.

We got home and Mike dropped me off, and I had to be let into the house because we got a whole new door, complete with new deadbolt lock, and I didn't have a key yet.  Pam wasn't home, but my mother-in-law was, and she was watching Harmony.  When she opened the door, Harmony was standing just behind her but came around to look and she smiled at me when she saw me, but I swear she changed so much in the two weeks I was gone.  It was a hollow, empty feeling in my stomach that such a big part ofmy life had been eclipsed by so much misery and bad circumstance.

I went to work putting away my luggage, dropping laundry and trying to ramp back into civilian life.  I fixed my glasses, changed into clean, comfortable clothing and fell on the bed to sleep.  Pam got home a little while later, and we just took it easy while she tried to explain to me everything that I missed.

Well, two days of really nothing to report have led to this; I'm gone again, writing at the desk of a hotel room in Clemson, South Carolina.  I have a show tonight and then run up to Charlotte, North Carolina for the weekend, and then go to see my father for four days before heading back north to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  My brother and sister had gone down to see Dad, and they overlapped Tuesday night, and as I drove out of a Western New York snowstorm, I talked with them for about an hour, trying to glean any information that would make my visit more pleasant (or less painful).  I'm tied up in knots about the prospect that my father doesn't have much time left in this world, and I'm upset that it seems like a "Hollywood ending" is coming; my brother visits, then my sister, and my father's spirits perk up and his dementia subsides.  Then I visit, as I have every year for the last three years, and spend the better part of a week with him, and when I leave, the realization that no more visitors are coming sets in, and my father nods off to sleep and doesn't wake up.....and I'm the last one to have left.  It's an enormous burden that I carry that I'm convinced that everything that happens around me is my fault, and I read that once in some horoscope book and now I can't shake it.

Things are going to be different, that's all I have to say.  I'm going to spend time with my father and still plan to visit when I work in Florida in June.  I hope that he'll still be alive, but if he isn't, then it's just his time.  He's going to be 74, he's had a full life, and he doesn't owe me anything. I am going to honor him by being the man he tried to raise me to be, and instead of letting fear and uncertainty rule my life, I'm going to have a plan and work towards concrete goals rather than just be happy with whatever happens to float my way.  I'm not going to eulogize my father here, because he's not dead, but suffice to say that he was not a man who sat idly by and waited for things to happen.  He got up, took action, and made his life what he wanted it to be.  And when he retired, he continued doing that, even though it meant a life largely spent sitting in front of the television, watching movies that he taped round-the-clock with a glass of Coca-Cola at his side, taking time out to have a smoke break out on the porch.  He was his own man, and I need to learn by his example.

I'm going to enjoy my visit this week.  But tonight, I have business of my own, a show in Clemson, South Carolina, and they're getting a good one...the best I have to offer, the best ME that can possibly take the stage.

Today I'm going to start to learn how my own shoes fit.

Ralph Tetta

Rochester, NY