Jen's Column / Skateboarding

Last week at dinner, my boys — sons Christian and Bergen and husband Jay — were planning the next morning’s outing to the Silver Lake Skate Park.

“I think I’ll join you,” I say, to their surprise.

“Really?” says my husband. He knows Saturday mornings are my work time — which is precisely why he takes the boys to the skate park. I decide it’s time to see what I’m missing.

“It’ll be fun,” I say. “Maybe you could teach me some tips tonight, Christian.” (By “some tips,” I mean, of course, “how to ride a skateboard.”)

So after dinner Christian and I head to the training grounds — i.e. the driveway — where my eight-year-old puts on his most serious teacher face.

“The first thing I want you to do,” he says, “is learn this trick.” And then he deftly flips his upside-down skateboard and lands on it in a single motion.

“Don’t you think I should learn to ride it first?” I ask.

“No,” Christian says confidently. “This isn’t hard.”

So I practice the skills Christian deems necessary. I learn to flip the board and land squarely on its top. I learn to rock like a teeter-totter with my feet on either end of the board. Thirty minutes later, I can even lift the nose of the board to pivot in circles. All of this is possible… as long as I’m on the grass.

But I can’t ride down the sidewalk without falling off. Christian assures me this is OK.

Bright and early the next morning, we have the skate park to ourselves. I’m relieved to see that I won’t have to face the pity stares of the 11-year-olds who wonder why someone’s mom is trying to skateboard.

Five-year-old Bergen rides his training-wheeled bike up and down the ramps. Christian practices his turns. Jay impresses his girl by popping wheelies. (“Wheelies?” There must be a new vernacular for this, but I’m not cool enough to know it.)

I practice moving forward. It looks easy enough. Stand on the board and push off, right? Not so much.

Christian tries to help. “Soft, like you’re holding a teddy bear,” he coaxes.

I have no idea what he means, but I nod and say, “OK” with the same seriousness with which he offers the advice.

When moving forward proves too difficult, I entertain myself with my “turning in circles” trick. Feeling confident with my skater grrrl move, I decide to show off for my husband. “Watch this!” I yell. I stand on the board, turn it once, twice, three times before it flies out from under me and I land on my ass.

I know there’s a certain stigma attached to skateboarders, but I’m here to tell you that skateboarding is a workout. It’s a challenge. Even with my limited repertoire, it’s obvious it’s no sluffer’s pastime. No wonder my children love to watch the “big kids” do their tricks — and try to emulate them they’re alone and have the freedom to fail.

When we leave, I entertain dreams of getting my own skateboard and practicing at home.

“Maybe we should build a turnpike!” I say excitedly as we load up our boards and bikes.

“It’s a halfpipe, Mom,” said Christian in a way that tells me that if he were any older, he’d be rolling his eyes.

But he’s eight. And so I’m still cool just for trying — which is why he’s already invited me along for next weekend, too. And it’s why I’m going to go.

Jen's Column / Harry Potter

I’ve never stayed up all night for concert tickets. Never stood in line outside a music store for the unveiling of a new CD. Never even watched the clock for an eBay auction.

Yet, there I was Friday night, waiting up for the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
I’d succumbed to PotterMania.

It started innocently enough. I was visiting my family “up north” in Thief River Falls. My sister and I were at my parents’ house, watching the fairly painful interview of Corey Feldman and Corey Haim on Larry King Live. And wincing. Apparently the 80s teen idols are trying to make a comeback. And Larry King, inexplicably, is helping them.

“Turn it off!” my sister yelled from behind her Sudoku book. “I can’t watch this….”

And so we got back to the topic at hand. Which was, of course the final installment of JK Rowlings’ Harry Potter series. We had an hour left until it hit the local Wal-Mart — the only store in a 45-mile radius open ‘til midnight.

Angie had been ready to leave the house since 10:30 p.m. I’d been stalling. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go… I was just a little nervous about advertising my geekiness in my hometown.

“OK,” I said, revealing my plan. “When we get there, let’s act like we don’t know the book is coming out. ‘What is this?’ we can say in mock shock. ‘Harry Potter? Well, golly, do you think we should pick up a copy?’”

Angie didn’t even justify my suggestion with a response. “Man, have you seen the pictures of Daniel Radcliffe on the Internet?” she said instead — referring to the boy who plays Harry on the big screen.

“Did he turn out to be a nice man?” piped in my mom.

“Oh yes he did,” Angie answered.

We finally left the house at 11:34. When we pulled into the parking lot nine minutes later — and realized it was filled with cars — I started to panic. “What if we’re too late?” I shrieked.

“This is what I’m saying!” yelled Angie.

We booked it to the entrance, Angie hollering, “Remind me that I need Pull-ups and milk while we’re here.”

“You’re ruining the moment!” I rebuked her. “You can’t talk about Pull-ups and milk — this is about Harry!”

And with that sentence, my geekhood was complete. I literally jogged to the book department and was relieved to see a large group of people (“We’re in this together!”) — that wasn’t too large (“I’m going to get a book!”) — standing in line.

When store employees worked their way down the chain of fans, handing out official Harry Potter bracelets, I wore mine with pride. When they unveiled a table with bookmarks and posters, I was among the first to collect. When they invited us to indulge in cupcakes decorated in Harry’s school colors, I wore my maroon-frosting mustache with pride.

A Harry Potter movie played on the overhead TVs. “I’m in love with Daniel Radcliffe,” my 29-year-old sister sighed. Then, quietly, as an afterthought, she added, “I better clean the history off my computer or Andy’s going to get jealous.”

I ignored her, focusing instead on the official-looking man approaching a large, covered pallet. With the flair of a matador, he ripped the plastic from the top as store employees and shoppers alike flashed pictures.

We grabbed our books, feeling their hefty weight in our hands. I opened the cover and breathed in the thick scent of paper and ink. I felt the thrill of being part of a multi-continent read-a-thon.

But first I’d go shopping for Pull-ups and milk

Jen's Column / Grandpa Farm

My grandfather is the oldest man in the world. Or, at least that’s what he’s been telling me for the last 20 years.

Every fall, when he and my grandmother would load up their sedan to make their annual trek south, he’d say, “See you in the spring, Jenny”— then add, dryly, “God willing.”

He was only half kidding — which drove me crazy. He was always certain he was too old to make it another year.
And so every year I’d tell him in exasperation that he’d be back. And every year he was. Still is. Last week, we celebrated his 90th birthday.

For the record, he thinks it’s ridiculous to reach 90. “That’s just too damn old,” he told me a few weeks ago. “Nobody should live this long.”

And I don’t blame him. The ailments that have accompanied his aging — emphysema, prostate cancer, a growing aortic aneurysm — aren’t fun. Most of his friends have died. His failing memory angers him and his hearing loss is frustrating. A broken hip — the result of a fall when he reached down to retrieve a newspaper from his driveway a few years ago — has relegated him to regular use of a walker.

Life is not as fun as it used to be. And it used to be fun.

The stories of his youth have always fascinated me. How he’d swim across Minneapolis’ Lake Calhoun to buy a hot dog. How he got into medical school after two years of undergraduate work — and dated a gaggle of nurses. How he spent time in Greenwich Village after the war — attending parties he couldn’t tell me about until I was an adult. How he met his future wife — my grandmother — as she was being wheeled into surgery for an appendectomy.

He’s the impetus of many of my childhood stories, as well. How he’d eat the curl from the top of my ice cream cone during our trips to Dairy Queen. How he’d tip his La-Z-Boy over so I could lay claim to the change he’d lost underneath. How he built me a dollhouse decorated with tiny, framed pictures of my grandmother.

Most memorably, however, my grandfather shared his love of words. When I was in grade school, he gave me a narrow book of poetry. Next to the poems he deemed important, he wrote, “25 cents,” “50 cents” or, rarely, “$1” in his familiar penciled script. When I could recite the passage from memory, he’d pay me.

I learned Donne’s No Man Is an Island. Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn. Whittier’s The Ballad of Barbara Fritchie. For an unprecedented $5, I even memorized the Greek alphabet.

I’m not sure it was an enviable skill at the time. In fact, it probably made me a bit of a weirdo. When I was ten years old, I attended a summer camp at which students had to sing a song or recite a poem to be excused for lunch. Other kids sang, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” or delivered a variation of “Roses Are Red….” I recited Leigh Hunt’s Jenny Kissed Me.

In high school, my grandfather sent me a dictionary for Christmas — and told me I should get a stand to put it on. (“You can tell something about a person who has a dictionary stand,” he said.) When I was in college, he sent me a copy of Cry the Beloved Country because, he claimed, it contained the most beautiful first page of any novel, ever. (He added, incidentally, that if I didn’t agree, I shouldn’t be an English major.)

My grandfather still ends our visits with his customary, “God willing.” Only now, there’s more truth in those words than I want to believe. I wish, of course, he could live forever. But I find some solace in the fact that the oldest man in the world has lived long enough to see his love of words continue in me.