You heard me

The other day, I needed to stop looking at the stories I was editing.

My brain was beginning to turn to mush, the kind of mush that comes from hours of reading details about local municipalities, such as the phone number, mailing address, town council members and what days trash is picked up.

So, like so many other mid-30-somethings these days, I turned to Facebook and found a friend had posted one of those click bait quizzes.

Steph posts such things from time to time, and I usually don't click. But this was "What Muppet Hides Inside You?"

You heard me.

Anyway, I needed the mental distraction. So, sipping my black coffee, I took the quiz.

The questions included things such as, "Out of the following adjectives, your friends would say you are most...?" Or, "Out of the following activities, what sounds the most appealing?" Or, "When you and your friend or lover get into an argument, you apologize by...?"

I clicked the most appropriate responses, then was told Animal hides inside me.

Animal

You heard me.

Anyway, the description that accompanied the results:

You can be quite the rager, and definitely know how to have a good time! You love music, and may or may not let it all out on the drums, (or some other instrument)... but you certainly connect with good jams, and are always up for a great concert. When it comes to other areas of your life, you are adventurous. You like to try new things, meet other wildlings, and let loose whenever possible. You know how to party, most certainly, but you also thoroughly enjoy a day in bed, or two, or even three!

It's been many moons since last I engaged in any sort of real raging. My college and post-college years could be described as a little Animal-like. I wasn't too crazy, I don't think, before I met Jen. But I had a good time.

These days, though, I'm more likely to be singing songs from "Mary Poppins" or "Cinderella" than Journey or Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.

"I do not think that's accurate," I wrote on Steph's original post.

"Maybe it was once," she replied. "Hence, it's hiding inside of you."

That made me sad.

The sadness was driven home further that Friday night.

Much like my tween and teen years, I found myself watching "Full House." Nick At Nite has become the echo of my youth the way it was the echo of my parents' when they were my age.

However, as the Tanner family navigated another trial and tribulation that was solved through family love and understanding, something occurred to me.

This time, instead of watching TGIF with my parents and younger brothers, I was accompanied by my wife and 2-year-old daughter who refused to go to sleep.

Through the television's glow, I looked at them.

There is nothing I would not do for Jen or Sophie. Or for our unborn kid, due in February.

That includes being silly so they giggle and have a good time. Or playing an eclectic mix of tunes and dancing like a maniac. Or going on adventures driving around the countryside or wandering stretches of the Appalachian Trail. Or encouraging them to try new things and lose their fears. Or encouraging them to sleep because sleep is a great thing and you should really try to sleep more often because why are you still awake?

Anyway, maybe Steph is right.

I am still Animal-like, just he's hiding inside and coming out in a different way.

You heard me.

Calling for Jane Jetson

They say that social media postings are the highlight reel of your friends' lives.

Sure, there are lots of photos of laughing, smiling children and adults.

Check-ins at restaurants for glorious meals or bars for tasty beverages.

Status updates musing on how lucky one is to have such a great family/wife/kid/dog/cat/guinea pig.

But what's not posted — the dark stuff — is really what makes up life.

The stresses of work. The arguments with parents or spouses or kids. The mounting debt brought on by trying to provide for your family while battling seemingly unending bills.

Or your own psyche.

I know those things are out there, too.

Yet, I'm human. Perception becomes reality, even if I know better.

So, with that, I'm thinking of letting go of social media.

That's tougher than it sounds, and not because of the huge role the medium has played in my life over the past decade.

I work for a news-gathering service. Part of the way we disseminate the news is through social media.

I've not gotten the kinks worked out on that end of it, so that's why I'm just thinking about it for now.

What about you, gentle reader? How have the creations of people such as Zuckerberg and Dorsey and Musk affected your perceptions and realities?

Is it time to get off this crazy thing?

The zen of Maryland crab soup

Making Maryland crab soup has become, for me, a form of meditation. 

There are some specific steps you need to take, but in general, how you arrive at the destination — crab soup — is largely in your hands. 

Beyond this, however, there is a simplicity that can inspire the mind.

I made some soup before heading to work today using the leftover crabs from the vacation dinner Jen, Sophie and I had at Chic's Seafood in Hagerstown, Md. 

There were maybe six or eight smalls we brought home. This is an instance where bigger isn't always better. Smalls (as opposed to mediums, larges and jumbos) are economical. 

Here's how I made my soup. 

First, you must pick the crabs. You can't have crab soup without crab meat. It took me about 45 minutes, and yes, you have to break apart a lot of shells. It takes time.

I've had friends and family tell me they don't like to work that hard for their food. Again, there's a life lesson here: A little work results in sweet meat. 

I picked out the lump meat from the backfin and what the professional crab packing houses would call the "special." (That's all the other meat attached to the legs and claws.) 

But I didn't pick the claw meat. I left the claws whole and, with the lids (the crab's top shell) and back flipper, I tossed them in the pot. 

Once I finished the picking, I moved on to making the stock. I covered the claws, lids and flippers with water, plus threw in a bay leaf, then put the spurs to it. After it came to a boil, I let it bubble for about a half hour, losing maybe an inch of liquid. 

Meanwhile, I refrigerated the crab meat, and got a large can of crushed tomatoes and a few bags of frozen mixed vegetables. 

Once the stock was made and I removed the shells, legs, flippers and bay leaf, I brought it back to a boil and added the tomato and vegetables. Again, I brought it all to a boil before cutting back the heat. I let it go until another inch of liquid had evaporated. Then it was time to add the star of the show: the crab meat. 

Yes, take a closer look. It was sweet. 

Gently, I pushed the meat from the bowl into the hot liquid. I kept the heat low for about 15 minutes. The meat is already cooked; you're just warming it. And you don't want the lumps to break apart.

Then, I tasted it. Good stuff. 

Please note: I didn't add any Old Bay or other seasoning. I let the pepper — a mixture of salt, cayenne, celery salt and other spices unique to each crab house — that was on the shells, as well as the unpicked claw meat, flavor the whole affair. 

That's sort of the big life lesson this little meditation is supposed to make clear to you, I suppose. 

A little effort to get the meat, but keep the preparation simple. 

The reward is worth it. 

Advice from the hairy buddha

It has been about a week since Jen, Sophie and I announced on social media we'd be expanding our family by one, due in late February.

It was Jen's idea to make up a mock front page; I just ran with it after my working hours were done.

For three months plus, my joy and excitement has been in high gear, knowing that another little Deinlein will be running around soon. 

At the same time, though, I've felt anxious, like riding with the fuel light on.

We're still not in the most ideal living situation, borrowing space generously provided by my in-laws.

We did just sell our old house in Clarks Summit, so that's a plus. But, because of the money we've had to spend, it will be a while before we will be able to move out and get a place of our own.

So, that has left me with questions: How are we going to arrange sleeping space, with a toddler who will be pushing 3 by the time the new baby arrives? How are we going to handle feeding and caring for the new little one with five adults and the aforementioned toddler in the house? How is Sophie going to react when she's no longer the single center of attention?

Those had been just a few things rattling in my brain.

But then entered my friend, Jonathan "Bear" Murren. 

I refer to him as a hairy buddha because his beard is a thing of beauty, and as Jen and I were announcing our impending progeny while moving the last items out of our old house, he provided wisdom:

Those of you that know me know that I'm not much of a motivational speaker. But I've noticed that some of you have been fighting some of life's gremlins lately, and it brought to mind something my instructor taught me in a motorcycle riding course a long time ago. When executing a curve, if you focus on where you're currently at, you'll find the ride through the curve to be a little wobbly and unsteady. However, if you put your focus ahead to the other end of the curve, you'll naturally glide smoothly through it.

Just something to think about as you navigate the twisted road of life.

Holy damn, it's been a twisted road. Just geographically for me: Baltimore to Dayton to Hanover to Port Huron to Hanover to Selinsgrove to Scranton to Harrisburg/York to Hagerstown (the last two were by way of Chambersburg).

I don't presume to speak for Jen, but her road has been rather windy, too.

Yet, if both of us focus on our Fiat 500 of a living situation, we're just going to grow more anxious. And that's not good for either of us, or Sophie, or Baby D.

No, Bear is right: We need to focus on the other end of the curve.

With both hands on the handlebars, we'll get there. 

Sold

Moving day on Woodcrest Drive.

We sold the house.

Finally.

Jen and I were ready to be done with the place, given the troubles we've had since moving away from South Abington Township about a year and a half ago.

Two floods. Ruined clothes. Ruined boxes. Ruined memories.

But also: A broken grinder pump. Dust. Dirt. Musty odors. Keeping the grass cut. Fixing the deck.

Yet there was a very real sense of sadness as we loaded up our oversized U-Haul truck.

It was the first house that I ever bought.

It was the house to which we brought our daughter from the hospital.

It was where we had dreams of creating a decorative stone wall behind the wood-burning stove.

It was where we were going to start a vegetable garden and grow tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers.

It was where Sophie was going to run around the yard and make friends with the neighbor kids and play games.

It's weird: A weight has been lifted off our chests, but the impression left by that weight isn't rebounding so quickly.

Formula for a long life

A glimmer of hope:

I laid out the editorial pages for a few days last week, and I received a letter from a 92-year-old gentleman entitled "My formula for a long life."

It was over the word count, and I had to trim it from about 560 words down to about 400. No small task, as this fellow wrote about keeping a positive attitude, healthy lifestyle and positive associations with people, despite losing his wife to Alzheimer's after 69 years, battling a brain tumor, radiation treatments for prostate cancer, triple-bypass surgery and seeing the front lines in Europe during World War II.

Much was accomplished by rewording sentences, losing adjectives and cutting extra sentences. But I was worried I'd lost his voice in the letter.

As we do, I called him to verify he wrote the letter and to get his OK on a slimmed down version of what he wrote. I read it to him over the phone.

Here it is:

My formula for a long life

To the editor:

First and very important are three things: faith, family and friends. My faith has been important since I was put on the cradle roll at 1 year old at the very church we attend now. It has been my strength through many trials and fills my life with happiness.

I also have three words that mean a lot to me: attitude, activity and association. I think we must have a good attitude about life. For instance, I was married to a beautiful lady for 69 years, the last five of which, we had to deal with her Alzheimer's. My attitude is that we had a wonderful marriage, raising three sons, and we had many years enjoying our grandchildren. Things happen in life; the attitude is to be thankful for what we have.

I also think we should be active, to exercise our bodies and minds. I've been very active all my life. I worked until I was 77, repairing, refinishing and selling furniture, along with playing tennis, bowling, dancing and singing. Since retiring, I've added golf.

Third, association. By this I mean to associate with people of good character. If I associate with people who use drugs, gamble, drink to extremes, smoke, use profanity and many things I shouldn't do, guess what? I would be doing the same things. Don't misunderstand me, I love all kinds of people, but I just don't think some lifestyles are good for us.

Now, as life subsides, it is still good and I've found a new love. About two years after my wife, Kate, died, I invited out to dinner a nice lady we bowled with. After a time, we thought it would be nice to get married. We are both very happy and satisfied. I'm very glad Mar Jo is my soul mate now. She goes to my church and sings in the choir with me. We also entertain in nursing homes, senior centers and other places.

This completes my formula for a long life, and it has been a great journey. I still enjoy life. It gets more exciting with each passing day. Love is either here or on the way. 

I am 92 and still active using my formula. I've had a brain tumor removed, triple-bypass surgery, 40 radiation treatments for prostate cancer and am a veteran of World War II in action in Europe. As you can see, it hasn't all been easy, but my formula worked for me. Best wishes to you.

"That's perfect, thank you!" he said.

I hope the folks reading the Letters to the Editor on Monday think the same thing about his letter and his formula for a long life.

And I hope, one day, to have even half the life this gentleman has had.

Valuable lesson

My Nintendo was similar to the one seen here.

My first lesson in economics, in the end, was worth $75.50.

Or $125.35 if I wanted store credit from 2nd & Charles in Hagerstown, Md.

Let me bring you up to speed. Jen and I have been consolidating boxes we've moved from the garage of our old house in Clarks Summit to a storage locker in the Chambersburg area.

In the process, I came across my old Nintendo. You know, the 8-bit. Up, down, up, down, B, A, Select, Start.

My Dominator was similar to the one seen here.

Along with it and the original controllers and gun, I also found about 50 games, plus "The Dominator" — a large joystick-equipped controller that worked using infrared.

The hours Nick, Stephen and I would spend playing these games. A lot of brotherly bonding… and fighting. Still, that Nintendo entertained us through much of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Despite pangs of guilt, I knew it was time the old NES and I parted ways.

To be fair, I had tried to do that once before. I offered to give the unit to a coworker in Scranton when Jen and I moved up there. I even brought it into the office. But for one reason or another, Big Jim never took full ownership. The system languished in a file-cabinet drawer for months after the sports department got its fill of playing Bases Loaded and Tecmo Bowl.

When I departed The Times-Tribune, I pulled the equipment and games from the file cabinet and put them in a milk crate in our garage.

There they sat.

Through two floods.

Now, they were off the ground. And the NES itself was not near any of the water. But some of the games were sprinkled. All of mine, however, retained their black plastic sleeve and thus were protected. Because I took care of my Nintendo games and system.

Because it was mine.

It was, indeed, the very first thing I ever bought with my own money.

As a boy, I begged my parents for a Nintendo, one just like all my apparently spoiled friends had received from their apparently rich parents who were apparently growing money on trees.

Seeing the opportunity to teach me the value of a dollar, Mom and Dad said I could get a Nintendo, but that I had to buy it. They drove me over to Chesapeake Federal Savings and Loan on Joppa Road and set me up with a passbook savings account. 

I don't recall the interest rate, but I know it was better than the passbook savings account Jen and I set up for Sophie last year.

I stashed away nearly every nickel and dime I came across, either through the exchange of services (I mowed a lot of lawns) or found on the sidewalk. 

Every few weeks, I'd pedal my bike through the neighborhood, up and down hills, dodging the dangers of Old Harford Road to deposit my spoils.

I'd wait anxiously as the bank teller would slide my passbook into her printer, the piercing DOT Matrix whine updating my growing financial empire.

TMNT II arcade version.

Meanwhile, I searched every circular put out by Toys R Us, Montgomery Ward and Circuit City for a unit that was less than $99.99 in hopes I might reach my conquest sooner. (A few years later, I received a coupon from Nintendo of America Inc. to make up for the price-fixing scheme.) 

But once that unit came into our lives, my brothers and I felt like normal kids. We could talk with the other kids at school about the secret mushroom extra lives on Super Mario, or how you could throw a bullet pass from Jim McMahon to Ron Morris in Tecmo Bowl if you ran McMahon back to his own end zone, switched the receiver to Morris, then passed. 

Original TMNT game.

I was too cool for school when I eventually received the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II Arcade game. I also had the original, less fancy TMNT game.

Through it all, though, the experience taught me the valuable lesson: If I work hard and save my money, I can get what I want.

In today's dollars, that lesson's value had depreciated to $75.50.

But in my heart, it's one of the most valuable ones my parents ever taught me.