Kansas City Star columns
Life in the fast (food) lane isn’t what it used to be (published in KC Star March 21)
by MATTHEWKEENAN on Apr.20, 2013, under Kansas City Star columns
I read where the average man thinks about food 18 times per day. I’m below average on most things; when it comes to thinking about food, however, I’m world class.
And I’ve always loved fast food.
In the early ’70s, any visit to a large city necessarily included a stop at McDonald’s. And when the day arrived in 1972 when one opened in Great Bend, it was bigger than a contemporary IKEA arrival. Even then, we were infrequent visitors in part because it was packed all day, every day. Plus mom hated fast food and loathed the notion of spending money when she was serving chipped beef on toast with mixed vegetables. But the dam broke in 1975 when McDonald’s rolled out a contest that remains unprecedented even by today’s marketing standards. If you could sing all the ingredients to the Big Mac, in order, in less than three seconds, you got one free. A laughable proposition today — some brat would lose in a disputed finish and his dad would file a class action.
But this was the ’70s. In that decade Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were planting the seeds to change the world. I had more practical goals: a free Big Mac. I remember very distinctly the day we happened to corner the manager and give it our best shot. Kid brother Marty crushed it. I transposed the special sauce and lettuce and got pure humiliation. Recently I read that more people today can name those ingredients than can recite the Ten Commandments.
So my partiality to fast food has continued. When our boys were toddlers, on Saturdays I would take them to the fast food trifecta on Metcalf and 119th Street — where Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC are all in one place. There I would eat three of the four food groups: a Burrito Supreme, a four-piece original recipe meal (extra biscuits) and a mini pizza. Other beloved hangouts — Captain D’s in Mission, especially during Lent, Don Chilitos, and my favorite, the White Castle on Metcalf, where an aroma of grilled onions still wafts in the adjacent airspace. One time at the Big 8 tournament in Kemper, I ate a funnel cake chased with a supersized Dr. Pepper. I didn’t know BMI from BMA. I was skin and bones.
And then I hit 50 and my metabolism vanished. Someone shot me full of air. The CVS robot kept calling me. I needed new belts. Probiotics, active cultures and anything else Jamie Lee Curtis was selling took on relevance. Lori started pushing blueberries, blackberries, brain foods, super foods, natural foods. When channel surfing sometimes I would watch infomercials for food blenders and colon cleansers. Tomatoes got into the act.
I rallied. I had regular checkups at the blood pressure machine at Wal-Mart, while staring at the stacks of Depends. Dermatology found its place — with Lori checking my discolored freckles: “Get that looked at. Plus that one. Call my doctor.”
And the news last week about the Mediterranean diet made my day, week, year. It would be cliché to call it a game changer so I won’t. But it was. It dominated the media and happily pushed sinkholes off the front page. It also flabbergasted the pointy headed organic food know-it-alls. Greek yogurt has been jamming our fridge for years now. But Greek food? Best known to me by Tasso’s and its acclaimed drink Ouzo.
Central to the diet is wine. The study encourages seven glasses of wine a week. A continuation of now compelling evidence of the health benefits of wine, this gave me the ammunition I need on a nightly basis. Merlot, Pinot, Burgundy, Cabernet, all to ward off strokes, heart disease and help lead a happy, healthy life. Goodbye, Jared. Hello, Robert Mondavi.
A column about my eyebrows. Yes, you read that correctly.
by MATTHEWKEENAN on Apr.14, 2013, under Kansas City Star columns
I had gone 54 years and 39 days before anyone had uttered to me what my barber said to me last month.
I was sitting in the barber’s chair at JD & Jake’s in Martin City, getting my hair cut, enjoying the sports page, and my mind was in a care-free zone most parents rarely get to enjoy. And everything came to a screeching halt when he asked me the following question: “Do you want me to trim your eyebrows?”
My brain skipped. My heart fluttered. My throat tightened. My eyes crossed. I looked up and I imagined a series of life events, running together like the Coke Zero ad — babies born, birds flying, leaves rustling, water splashing, people shouting, bulls running, and the check-out lady at Price Chopper repeating to me over and over: ‘paper or plastic?’ When I snapped out of my funk, Jake was standing in front of me, staring above my eyes, waiting like Edward Scissorhands, ready to pounce.
Everyone else in the barbershop seemed interested in my answer — even the toddler who had stopped playing with his Hot Wheels. This was not a moment for Q&A — like, “What?” It was decision time. “Uh, no thanks.” He moved on to my sideburns.
I returned to the sports page but the question never left. My worry list was plentiful and didn’t need any additions. For him to suggest that my eyebrows needed a weed whacker means I’ve been, well, blind to the issue. My brain trolled the database of people with eyebrows that had work done — trimming, waxing, shearing, or even fake ones that fall off, as happened to Ron Paul during a presidential debate last year. I always thought bushy brows were an endearing feature — like those adorning the eyes of Ted Koppel, Andy Rooney, Regis Philbin and Vincent Price.
Body language experts say eyebrows represent a huge part of the facial expression matrix — anger, confusion, dismay, even joy — all but the last one I was experiencing at that moment.
“The barber asked if I wanted my eyebrows trimmed,” I said to Lori when I arrived home. I was off kilter a tad but she was surprisingly tone deaf to it all. “You should have said yes. You have some long ones. They could use some attention.” My daughter chimed in. “Dad, OMG yes.” Bernie cared nothing of the bush-brow crisis du jour. Besides, she had her own hair issues.
Who knew? Who cared? Who declared a crisis?
I went to the bathroom and tried to get an upclose look. It was hard to do so without readers, which I refuse to buy. I squinted and got a sense for things. Generally speaking, these kinds of inspections are the domain of dermatologists and absolutely no one else. My face, my eyes, my bags — my skin resembled an asphalt road with too many salt treatments. The Mars rover Curiosity beams back more appealing images. The brow had some issues, no question. There were some grand-daddies in the mix. I briefly looked for a clipper to maybe, just maybe, do some trimming but stopped on further reflection.
It may sound strange to ask this but when you are my age and have a hair that has never been cut — how old is it? Fifty years? Forty? Like my own personal redwood tree. I admired those hard working buddies and pondered how many times they had to flex over the years. Moments of joy, sadness, confusion, anger. Amazing! When needed, they were there. Cutting them down? No chance.
If this is the first time you’ve ever read a column about a man’s eyebrows, you probably have lots of company.
Coaching girl’s basketball: the Ten Commandments, published KC Star, Feb 4, 2012
by MATTHEWKEENAN on Mar.17, 2013, under Kansas City Star columns
This year I’m enjoying a first — coaching a girl’s sport, basketball. A team made up of Sion juniors in the CYO league, it’s a rather unusual arrangement as most coaches do things I don’t. Practice, for instance. They also use those white boards to diagram plays, make strategic substitutions and scout their opponents. That’s not me, not us.
This experience has taught me that there are 10 rules, indeed, commandments, that govern the coaching of girl’s high school recreational basketball teams. And here they are:
1. Thou shalt reject any conventional notions of coaching.
You are a spectator on the wrong side of the court. Act like it. They are having fun doing something that doesn’t involve 140 characters. Don’t screw it up.
2. Thou shalt not yell, scream or point.
Yelling is reserved for fires, tornado evacuations and flash floods. The last person who barked at them was their varsity coach. The guy whose team was picked to win the league until half his roster walked because he forgot the word fun. Now he is selling Ginsu knives. He just rang your doorbell.
3. Thou shalt not hype big games.
Don’t pressure them. Sure they want to win, and have more competitive fire than their brothers, but not at the expense of hugs and keeping friends. If you achieve those goals and end the game with more points than your opponent, you just became dad of the year.
4. Honor the fact that they are girls; resist high fives and other guy things.
Old men trying to be hip with young adult women is not only uncool, it could be illegal. Sorry, this is the new normal. Accept it and move on.
5. Thou shalt remember that your players will take direction if it’s done in an “it’s up to you, whatever you feel like doing is fine” way.
Act like you don’t care. Wrong examples: “Get in there and make some stops!” Right: “Julie? Hi. How are you doing? Feel like getting in the game? It’s the fourth quarter.”
6. Thou shalt not commit a substitution faux pas.
Suggest that maybe, perhaps, their teammate needs a breather. But it’s wrong to replace someone who isn’t ready. Feelings are in play.
7. Motivational speeches might work if they have the right tone and content.
Wrong: “Remember in “Rudy” how…” Right: “In ‘Twilight’ just when Bella became a vampire …”
8. Thou shalt understand that basketball terminology has a different meaning with these players.
Example: block out: You’ve been de-friended. Rebound: He was a jerk, move on. Full court press: Two weeks to the girl-ask-boy party and no prospects. OMG!
9. Thou shalt restrict spectators to parents and siblings.
Tell that Rockhurst kid with the Bieber hair you are playing in Bonner Springs. At midnight.
At halftime kid brothers will want to shoot around and annoy their sisters. He’s got no game whatsoever, can’t jump, dribble or pass but wears $200 shoes like Lebron. Go ahead and laugh but in five years you’ll be his coach.
10. There will be texting, twittering and FB updates during timeouts and half time. Big whup .
Social media doesn’t take a vacation just because you are in overtime.
Dads, if none of this makes sense, it explains why you live alone in a van down by the river. With an incredible steak knife collection.
I hate Les Miz … so sue me … published in the KC Star Feb. 22, 2013
by MATTHEWKEENAN on Mar.17, 2013, under Kansas City Star columns
My wife likes pretty much all movies. Unless they involve infidelity, drug use, kids at risk, irresponsible adults, car chases, Apache helicopters, shootings and bombings. So we don’t go to the theater very often these days.
But over Christmas we returned to the AMC in Leawood. This was her choice, her movie. The theater was jammed with moms and daughters. The last time I saw this many women at a movie it was “Magic Mike” and I was the only guy there.
The plot was the kind of movie I would normally see alone. It featured inhumane prison conditions, wretched poverty, children raised in the streets and begging for their daily meals, war between a uniformed army and 9-year-olds, evil innkeepers, a love triangle, rebellion, church theft, snipers and barricades made by teenagers. And that was in the first 30 minutes.
In one scene a woman sells her hair, teeth and body just before she breaks out in a song about dreaming. All to provide for her daughter who gets put in an orphanage. The main character is known affectionately as prisoner 24601. The movie also had sword fighting, smoking, drinking, children bought and sold except for the one shot point blank. Through it all, mothers and daughters in the theater dabbed away tears in the biggest weepfest since my wife watched “The Notebook.” Meanwhile the husbands in the audience kept checking their watches and wondering when Russell Crowe was going to break out in gladiator costume.
Through it all, it wouldn’t be fair to say women love the story. They WORSHIP it. I read where one woman in Britain named Sally Firth has seen the play “Les Miserables” an incredible 958 times. She was quoted as saying the new film of the show is ‘absolutely brilliant.’ In some theaters the audience applauded various songs.
So when I asked my wife about all this, her response was swift: “Leave that movie alone!”
Look, I’m not picking on “Les Miz.” I’m simply trying to understand it, which most readers think is biologically impossible. Still, I count three reasons why women love this movie.
It has singing. Musicals are chick flick heaven (CFH). Think “Mary Poppins,” “West Side Story” and “Sound of Music.” In this genre, actors breaking out in harmony mean laughable plot lines, bad acting, even violence that is simply part of the musical expression. Had Julie Andrews pulled a gun on Rolf when he discovered the Von Trapps’ escaping, moms wouldn’t flinch because the aggression would be sandwiched between two songs. Dancing movies are similar in their CFH status — like “Dancing with the Stars” but without Kristie Alley. See: “High School Musical,” and “Hairspray.”
It’s French. Women love most anything French, a statement as newsworthy saying as Kate Upton is having a good month. Women see France as a romantic rendezvous where you buy things you can’t afford, eat truckloads of éclairs and still lose weight. “It’s a sophisticated country where the culture isn’t dominated by Bud Light ads,” my wife declared. For guys, it’s a country best known for military defeats, human trafficking (see “Taken 1” and “Taken 2”), and subtitled movies starring Gerard Depardieu.
CFH extends to British movies, especially if they have some remote connection to Lady Diana, her purses, gowns, sapphire rings, and polo ‘instructors.’ Ditto for movies with Colin Firth, like that movie where he stuttered. My wife took me to it but all I remember is that for a king he was pretty miserable.
It stars Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman.
I would elaborate further but a mob is starting to form outside my office.
Couch meets fraternity dudes and gets a new lease on life, KC Star, Oct. 15, 2012
by MATTHEWKEENAN on Nov.22, 2012, under Kansas City Star columns
In the universe of partnerships, you find outliers in all fields. Bill Gates and Paul Allen changed the world of technology, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis entertainment, and Harry and Marv reminded us of the brilliance of stupidity. But none could rival the collaborative genius of what began two years ago in Lawrence with Big Red and Tommy Keenan.
College is one place you need a wing man, a soul mate, a BFF through thick and thin. Red is always there for Tommy and his fraternity roommates, which varies between three and nine people. He serves as a worthy adjunct to drinking, laughing, drinking and more laughing. This was a match straight from “Animal House.” But if you think this story resembles Bluto or his band of social rejects, well, you’d be right.
Like all buddies, Red is a keeper of secrets, wallets and is always there for you. Red, you see, is an oversized leather couch. When the swine flu swept through campus two years ago, he doubled as an infirmary.
College is hard these days. Two classes a day, late nights, beer pong, headaches, hangovers, Chipotle. You need good furniture. Something that repels spills, stains and other things no mother should know about. College kids need a soft landing, a pillow pal, something to bounce them on their way to that ‘hard to make’ 2 p.m. class. Like a dog that never needs feeding or house training. Serving as a gathering spot, meeting place where decisions are made, which for a fraternity includes the date of the next toga party.
Red’s friendship extends in other ways. In fraternities, thing go missing. People take stuff, something called brotherizing. Important things like beer steins, pledge paddles, church keys, Ping Pong balls. Not Red. He’s always there.
But it’s how this friendship came about that makes it noteworthy. If Hollywood turned it into a screenplay, critics would declare it a cross between “Blind Side” and “Old School,” except that no one went streaking. As far as we know.
Red, you see, came from the fringe of Lawrence neighborhoods, barely on the grid to the epicenter of the social scene, a Tennessee street fraternity just a couple hundred feet from The Wagon Wheel. Paths that came to intersect thanks to an obscure ad noted on Craigslist — For Sale — Couch. $600. Its owner was a polite lady whose furniture had no idea that tequila could leave a permanent stain.
And when dudes 1 and 2 drove to west Lawrence to inspect the property, there was something the clicked. “I wanted it the second I saw it,” Tommy said. An hour later they moved him into the room and a relationship started.
Some furniture requires the action to come to it. Not Red. When KU made its run to that little game in New Orleans, Red couldn’t stay in the house. They took Red to The Wagon Wheel on Saturday evening and gave him a front row place in front of the big screen TV in the outdoor patio. Naturally, KU won.
Red’s seen it all. “One time he held six people, and then doubled as a late night dance platform.” Not that it’s been all smooth sailing for Red, of course. “Red lacked structural integrity necessary for frat life. He’s required constant fixes,” says Tommy. Poor guy.
“Red doesn’t go to parties. Red is the party,” Tommy says. Despite Tommy’s pending graduation, Red’s future remains bright. He’s headed for another room prone to late nights and large gatherings on his cozy cushions.
Keenan boy No. 3 has dibs.
College Textbooks: Tylenol Please? KC Star Column, August 14, 2012
by MATTHEWKEENAN on Sep.15, 2012, under Kansas City Star columns
I learned this drill when our sons went to Rockhurst High School. There we acquired a library of obscure but nevertheless intellectually challenging textbooks on subjects like Latin, calculus, St. Ignatius of Loyola, plus a few others not found in the Library of Congress: Hawklet Football 101, for example.
But high school is barely a warm up for what awaits your kids in college. The New York Times reports that college textbooks have increased in price 6 percent a year — twice the inflation rate — from 1986 to 2004. According to College Board, the yearly estimate for the average student at a public university runs $1,168. And if you, like us, have two in college, I’d recommend you double your Tylenol dosage.
What worsens my mood is buying textbooks for classes no one would mistake for the classics. Some popular ones at KU that the Keenans have mastered — Geology 101 (Rocks for Jocks), Earthquakes and Natural Disasters (EQ’s and Natty D’s), and English 210 — Intro to Poetry (my sons are haiku masters). One might argue the boys are merely taking a page from their father’s curriculum from his days at KU. Yes, I took Sex Ed my senior year — a famously popular choice with the football and basketball teams and half the Greek system. There is much I retained from that class in spring 1981. Western Civilization, on the other hand — uh, no.
Not long ago the back-to-school budget would barely dent the wallet. After all, the checklist was modest — pencils, crayons, scissors, stapler, spiral notebooks and maybe a new backpack. Now parents drop dough on the tuition, the dorm bill and new bedding (the EPAdeclared last semester’s bedding a biohazard). Other moms may add to the list a first aid kit, Theraflu, smoke alarm batteries, calculators, smartphone upgrades, desk lamps, and permanent markers to plaster their sons’ names on clothing that tends to go missing (shirts, socks and boxers). Your list might also include a mini-fridge, futon, beer steins, and, for the truly fortunate, the Keg-o-Rator.
They head off to Lawrence, and for about three days, peace and quiet return to the homestead. That is until you get a text that says “txtbks — $650! Need CC!” These blasts invariably occur at a moment when you are dealing with your own crisis — like trying to find your Price Chopper card at checkout.
Most college expenses you know in advance and reduce the effect of sticker shock. Books, on the other hand, give you little warning.
Conventional solutions have never worked for us. Like buying used books. Yes, you get a price break and most kids love books already highlighted. Our kids find the graffiti on the margins very entertaining. But the inventory for used books is always thin and typically sold out. So you buy new and then hope to recoup your investment, less the wear and tear, which for our sons have no relevance. And then when you want to resell the now used book, guess what? Buzz kill. No market. The excuses are well known to us:
- “I’m sorry, they are no longer using that textbook. There is a new edition.”
- “The class is no longer offered.”
- “There is used, and then there is this book’s condition. I’m sorry. How did it get wet? And what ran over it? Twice?”
This year we are doing it differently, however. We are planning ahead with instructions that our sons buy them online from websites or possibly even rent them. Like most things, our grand plan will hit some speed bumps along the way. Which will become my problem at the worst possible moment. Guaranteed.
Chaperone Duty at the High School Dance: A Parental Bucket List, KC Star, Sept 5
by MATTHEWKEENAN on Sep.15, 2012, under Kansas City Star columns
Every high school parent should commit themselves to do three things during their kid’s school years.
- Proctor a field trip, preferably to the zoo during monkey mating season. 2. Volunteer to work a concession stand during a football game, ideally when it’s cold and you run out of coffee and hot chocolate. 3. Chaperone a high school dance. Each one is a parental gold mine for social intelligence that blows past your kid’s pesky Facebook passwords.
There are other benefits, like giving your kid a chance to deny your existence three times:
- Isn’t that your mom?
- Your dad is waving at you. Where are you going?
- What’s up with the sunglasses? It’s 10 p.m.
But the chaperone gig stands alone. A couple years ago, Lori and I volunteered for this at the Rockhurst Blue & White mixer. This event is not as anecdote rich as a Homecoming Dance; still, it was the first social event of the school year. It has a large turnout, where kids try to test their new ideas for skirting the rules. That night it had an informal feel where girls traveled in packs and boys stood around and checked their phones trying to look busy while carrying on intelligent conversation like this:
“Dude. What’s up?” (Two-minute delay.) “Nothing.” (Crickets chirping.) “What’s up with you?” “Nothing.”
Meanwhile girls are hugging, talking, and updating their Facebook status.
In advance of our assignments, however, we had to review and sign an information disclosure. It contained one very important directive. “One individual should always remain at the position assigned.” This form was a sensible way to eliminate any confusion about the parent’s role: bust the boozers and those boys hoping to get tutored in the female anatomy.
Back door to the gym. This was our assignment — akin to the instructional league in baseball. “PLEASE stand by the doors, keeping people from the outside out and keeping people in the inside in.” This assignment was a total dud, save for the bird’s-eye view of the dance floor. Not dancing — identifying the ones about to find a corner and start barfing. Which did happen. Twice. Freshman girls.
This set into motion the Rockhurst SWAT team — mop patrol, 911 dialer and the person assigned to try to call her parents. Invariably, the parents are out of town. Typically, at the lake but sometimes on a getaway weekend while re-enacting Fifty Shades.
Front entrance. AA Ball. This spot includes a teacher, like a dean, who brought an official feel to the opening. This was the first roadblock to preventing Eddie Haskell with a handle of vodka from entering the premises. The form said to “Stand behind ticket takers and greet and be aware for smells or actions that might suggest alcohol and drug usage. Engage students in brief conversation.”
The newbie parents: “Good evening! How are you doing tonight?”
The Dean: “Good evening. Before you enter, I have some questions — please recite the alphabet backwards. While standing on one leg. With an arm behind your back.”
Other strategies — riddles: “The man who invented it doesn’t want it. The man who bought it doesn’t need it. The man who needs it doesn’t know it. What is it?” Three seconds later some kid wearing a polo and top siders is making other plans for the evening.
Bathrooms. AAA. This is where trouble typically begins. Girls change into skimpy outfits and put new meaning in the word ‘mixer.’ The trash can looks like Sullivan’s on a Saturday night. And so do the girls. Not your daughter, of course. She left the house in a blouse and baggy jeans. Carrying a backpack of clothes for ‘later.’
Parking lot. Major Leagues. This is reserved for the real pros. Like the principal or possibly the football coach. It’s a reconnaissance mission worthy of Black Ops. Groups of boys and girls quickly scatter as the adult approaches.
High school, teenage boys and dances. Very little nostalgic about it.
Keenan awarded third place in Heart of America Journalism Awards, KC Star, Sunday, June 9
by MATTHEWKEENAN on Jun.13, 2012, under Book Stuff, Kansas City Star columns
Kansas City Star and Ink magazine staff members won top honors in 10 categories as the Heart of America journalism awards were handed out Saturday night.
The contest, sponsored by the Kansas City Press Club, honors journalists at newspapers and radio and television stations in western Missouri and eastern Kansas. Longtime Star editor Darryl Levings was honored with the Joe McGuff Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dugan Arnett won two first place awards for his profile of Westboro Baptist Church heir apparent Megan Phelps-Roper. Other first-place awards in the newspaper division for daily circulation above 50,000 went to Christine Vendel, Donald Bradley and Joe Robertson for deadline reporting; Judy Thomas for beat reporting; Terez A. Paylor for sports writing; Cindy Hoedel and Lisa Gutierrez for magazine story; and Eric Winkler, Jesse Barker and Tim Engle for non-news column.
Second-place awards went to Judy L. Thomas and Laura Bauer for profile writing; Christine Vendel for beat reporting; and Cindy Hoedel for magazine story and for non-news column.
Third place winners were Judy L. Thomas, Glenn E. Rice and Mark Morris for deadline reporting; Tony Rizzo for general reporting; and Matthew Keenan for non-news column.
Honorable mention went to Cindy Hoedel for profile writing and Amanda Wilkins, Nicole Poell, Monty Davis, Tim Baxter and Todd Feeback for multimedia package.
Ink Magazine, also published by The Star, won six awards, including three first-place awards: Sarah Gish for profile writing and magazine story and Dugan Arnett for sports writing.
Second-place went to Arnett for sports writing and Sarah Gish for magazine story. Third place went to Terez A. Paylor for sports writing.
Got a dog trying to cope in this heat? Me too. She’s covering vent #2. KC Star, July
by MATTHEWKEENAN on Sep.15, 2012, under Kansas City Star columns
With the countless implications of the heat wave, there is really only one thing I really care about. Our dog Bernie.
A diminished corn crop, dead fish, dried up ponds, polar bears floating away on ice cubes, climate change —all take a back seat to Queen Bernie. Any risk to her health, emotional state, well being? I’m all over it. Talking to her in the morning before work, and when I get home? Check. Making a quick call in the middle of the day to my wife to make sure she is comfortable? Check. Scratching her belly and giving her a chin massage when I get home from work? Check. Refilling her water? Check.
With the heat this bad there are unquestionably a few places you want to avoid. Parking lot L at Royals stadium, for instance, hasn’t seen a car since the All Star Game. And given the team’s latest tank job it’s not likely it will see shade until football season.
Another place that to avoid: the brown metal air vent in our living room. I call it Vent No. 2. With our AC on overdrive, normally it would be chilly to the touch except there is something resting on top of it. Bernie. From morning to early evening she moves not an inch.
I read a website about how dogs cool down: “The only way a dog can cool itself is through panting and sweating through its foot pads. If the air is hotter than the body, the dog cannot cool down. Walking on hot pavement is like putting the heater on.” Sounds dreadful. That reality is a far cry from Bernie’s foot pads. They get the canine equivalent of ice bath.
Bernie’s been schooled in the art of cooling down. This is her 10th summer and eighth in this house. And she has mastered the technique of vent-to-mouth resuscitation. She’s refined it from her early years sticking her head out of the window whenever I drive to pick someone up. Vent No. 2 sits directly above the air condition unit in the basement and blows with a force of Hurricane Hugo. Until it hits Bernie, of course.
Her body is like a throw rug with four paws. She rests strategically on it; the air goes directly into her nose, circulates through her body and then powers her tail, which wags oh-so slightly when you declare “you are a good dog, Bernie.”
What little air escapes around the edges of her body must travel through her coat and is subjected to heat transfer principles that the folks at MIT couldn’t appreciate. Bernie knows cold air. She’s got no choice — Wheatens don’t shed and they don’t droop heir tongue to cool down. It’s bad form for their breed. Neither does she whine or complain, which means she is not related to anyone else in the family.
Vent No. 2 isn’t just chilly. It’s strategic. Like a dugout seat to all the action in the house. She can see the outdoor grill in the event I decide to fire up a BBQ. She can see the TV, which means she hears the same forecast everyday and the same ‘advice’ imparted to viewers. Suggestions that no one needs to tell us like “drink lots of fluids” and “don’t leave your dog in the car.” Bernie can watch my wife play Words with Friends while Lori keeps dialing the thermostat down.
We have a cat but she knows nothing about the heat wave since she hasn’t seen the sun in 10 years.
In cooler months, Bernie will head for the door anytime requested. Not now. Too old and too experienced to be tricked into going outside unless nature is calling or hamburgers are on the grill.
I read where the symptoms of heat stroke in dogs are: “restlessness, excessive panting, excessive drooling, foaming at the mouth, labored breathing, signs of anxiety.”
The symptoms of a great dog adapting just fine to this heat wave? Check Vent No. 2.
Here is one male with life by the tail … KC Star, April 18
by MATTHEWKEENAN on Apr.22, 2012, under Kansas City Star columns, Uncategorized
Apparently I’m different from most 53-year-old men. I have absolutely no worries about my testosterone level. Or that it’s dropping like a stone.
Call me strange, but in my mind, anything that contributes to men acting half their age can’t be good. Just ask former coach Bobby Petrino. Within a span of three days, he wrecked his motorcycle, lost his job, ruined his reputation, trashed his marriage, scraped his face, got a neck brace and had his text messages exposed to the world. The newspapers reported that he had texted his 25-year-old “lady friend” 84 times in a five-hour period.
But his testosterone levels? Ridiculous.
Wow. Sign me up.
Is my body ripped? No. Is my underwear? Absolutely. Do I have hair follicles appearing on my shoulder? So I’ve been told. Do I sometimes wake up on the couch alone with the TV blaring in the middle of the night? Maybe. Do I wear stretch pants to Wal-Mart to buy Fiber-con? Just once. Does my body itch at the dinner table? No comment. But do I love my wife/life/dog? Heck yes.
I’m sorry, but my abs don’t register on my give-a-darn list. I don’t walk around shirtless in the Plaza or hang out at Lifetime Fitness giggling with petite soccer moms. I’m happily married to the same women for 24 years and have zero interest driving a Corvette, sporting a bomber jacket, using Just for Men, applying hair gel that gives me a spiky look, or slamming down shots at Nick & Jakes or Sullivans. I’ve never tasted Red Bull.
Some product pitch-man called it ‘male menopause.’ Ladies — that guy is a fool. He’s either divorced or soon will be and living in a trailer home with a window unit because no man would dare make that comparison.
Men don’t need a fan blowing all night or sweat in the middle of January. Men don’t have a billion blogs for their midlife medical conditions or have a thousand Oprah episodes dedicated to it. Woman’s menopause is a living hell. Period. End of statement. What other brilliant pronouncements does this guy have up his sleeve? Labor is overrated?
Now back to me.
Guys who apply hormonal creams or gulp natural remedies do other weird things. They talk ‘cool’ and say things like ‘dude’, wear hip bracelets, Affliction T-shirts and imported sandals that expose bad toes. They wind surf, ride mountain bikes, go to Poison concerts, read Men’s Health and stare at ‘how to’ columns like “Stay fit, young and vital,” “Have frequent sex and run in marathons.” Really?
One ad I hear on the radio is called ‘Ageless male.’ It promises to “be the man you used to be.” “You used to be energetic… happy… and wow, did the ladies love you.” Pitch man — I have a news flash. The man I used to be had four kids under 6, changed a billion diapers, got three hours of sleep and worked 18 hours a day. I’ve seen those pictures. Invariably I was carrying one, maybe two kids, was wearing sweats and Chuck Taylors. Now? Well, the wardrobe hasn’t changed much but my life has. Empty bedrooms and more time with Lori, Bernie and my golf clubs.
Fear of aging? Bring it.
Matt Keenan’s book, “Call Me Dad, Not Dude. The Sequel,” is available at thekansascitystore.com. To reach him, send email to mattkeenan51@gmail.com
