Happy Hour 101

[Mom may object to some of the content in this post, but I will point out that the questionable events occurred way more than 7 years ago.]

After Dad's memorial service, Mom invited all family and friends to her house for dessert and coffee. I made the rounds, chatting with people that I haven't seen or spoken with in years. I met with Great Aunt Sylvia and we tried to place when we'd last seen each other. I couldn't place the date, but she remembered, quite clearly, that it was more than 20 years earlier at Jenny and Gary's wedding. And it all became clear to me, too, why I couldn't remember. "You got very drunk. You seemed to be having a really good time!" she said with enthusiasm. With that, all the shame and guilty pleasure of a 16-year-old washed over me. Her depiction of me being "very drunk" wasn't at all an overstatement. I do remember thinking, "I can't believe the bartender keeps serving me champagne." And rest of the evening quickly became a blurry slideshow. I awoke the next morning, with my first-ever hangover after my first-ever drinking binge. I had to do the walk of shame from my bedroom through the kitchen—where Mom and Dad were washing dishes—to my bathroom on the other side of the house. I was doing my best to tiptoe behind them. Dad, without turning, said "Tim?"

"Yes," I croaked.

Mom asked, "How are you feeling this morning?"

"Not so good."

"Good," said Dad. "Then maybe you've learned something."

That was it. Nothing more was said of the subject, although I did get a few raised eyebrows and knowing looks from them for the next few weeks. Julie and I spent the rest of the morning on a long pilgrimage to the store for bagels and other breakfast items. When I told her of my early-morning exchange with the Folks, she said, "That's all they said? Wow. You got off easy." Lessons learned: don't drink in front of the folks, and too much champagne is a bad thing.

There was an unwritten code in our family that allowed us kids, at or around age 18, to partake in adult beverages...within reason and with proper parental invitation. At age 16, I pushed my luck by ignoring the age, reason, and invitation requirements. But around the time of my high school graduation, Dad asked if I'd like a glass of wine with dinner. "Um, okay..." I said, waiting for the punchline. Lunch at the shop was occasionally had at a local dive bar, complete with pitchers of beer. Dad started getting an additional glass for me. While pouring, he'd say, "If you get caught by the bartender, it's your own fault." Certainly acceptable terms to me.

When Peter and Betsy got married, and as with many Ruszel weddings, the reception continued into the night at our house. Having learned my lesson from the previous wedding reception, and having been properly exposed to the unwritten code, I kept to moderate consumption. As the evening wore on and guests trickled away, Dad and I found ourselves sitting in the living room together. We'd finished our beers and Dad made the suggestion that we search for replacements. Dad huddled close to me and gave instructions, "Mom's cleaning up in the kitchen, so we shouldn't go there. I'll sneak out and check the coolers in the backyard, you see if there's anything left in the garage coolers." We headed off on our patrols and met up in the dining room a few minutes later, empty handed. Dad gave new instructions, "I'll check in the fridge, you see if there's anything in the pantry."

Dad was on his knees, digging through the refrigerator. Mom asked him, "What are you looking for?"

"Nothing in particular."

A moment later he turned and held a 20-ounce bottle of Japanese beer that had been given to him from our neighbor, Don. Grinning from ear to ear he called out to me, "Hey Tim! Look what I found!" His smile soon faded as Mom took the bottle from his hand and placed it back in the refrigerator.

"I think you boys have had enough for tonight."

With that, our quest for the last beer came to an abrupt end. There was no protest, no argument from us. We knew we were beaten and had to just resign ourselves for the evening. Dad put his arm around me, "We tried. I guess we better just call it a night, huh?" With that a new lesson was learned: be careful around Mom.

I've come to realize that the real lessons learned are: 1) it's important to drink in moderation; 2) don't flaunt privilege; and (the most important) 3) it's much more enjoyable to drink in the companionship of others you know and love. Sometimes we need to push our limits to learn those lessons the hard way, and blessings to Aunt Sylvia for fondly remembering my comeuppance.

Library Days

Dad loved books. Books of all kinds – science books, biographies, “shoot-em ups”, as he called them, mysteries -- you name it, he read it. There were always multiple books lying face down, opened to the page where Dad left off, in various places throughout the house. When he found a book particularly interesting, he enthusiastically passed it around for all of us to enjoy. Or, if he really, really liked it he bought copies for everyone. He was thrilled when the first Barnes & Noble opened nearby, and he made trips there frequently, buying a half dozen books at a time. His (and Mom’s) enthusiasm for learning and enjoyment through reading was inherited by all seven of us children in a very strong way.

When we were growing up, however, purchasing books was not a luxury afforded to the Ruszel family. Instead, every two or three weeks, after dinner, Dad would call for us all to collect our books and we’d head out to the library in Pleasant Hill. Mom, for reasons I never understood until I became a mom myself, opted out of these sojourns.

At the library, we’d all split up to go to our various areas of interest. I remember the progression I made as the years went on: starting out in the children’s section with the cool miniature wire chairs with colored seat cushions, to the young adults, to the adult fiction – which was upstairs! I once bumped into Dad up there when I was about 12, and he said, “Hey, what are you doing up here?” Uh oh – I thought I was caught! I replied, “Um, looking for a book”, “Oh, ok.” was his reply, and he moved on.

When the library staff announced closing time over the loudspeaker, we’d all bring our newly-found books to the counter to check them out. We would meet at a central table and read until the whole group was finished, and we’d happily pile back into the blue Volkswagen bus with our individual stacks of treasures for the drive home. Inevitably, the bus took control of Dad at the Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream store, and it pulled into the parking lot there so Dad could treat us all to ice cream cones. We brought home Oregon Blackberry in a sugar cone for Mom.

The "Dad Face"

Dad instilled in all us kids a good understanding of DIY and would often ask the question "why pay someone when you can do it yourself?" All projects involved his children and we all learned new skills from the experiences. Some of them came by default (like me, at age 7, being the obvious choice for dragging wires or soldering copper pipe in the crawlspace since I was the smallest), and others came out of sheer necessity of whoever was nearest. Then there was the Christmas where we all made our gifts. I know there were economic reasons for doing that, but it has come to be one of my most cherished memories. Dad made two gifts for everyone: one "real" and one gag. My daughters have inherited the Car with Square Wheels that Dad had made for me. "That car is crazy!" was Sophie's comment.

Before Ruszel Woodworks was relocated to Benicia, it was operated out of the garage. One of my first jobs was to run out in the street and check for traffic so we could feed 20' pine planks through the planer. Half-way through the planing process I'd have to run into the house to catch the plank as it came out the other side, in the kitchen. When the shop did move to a warehouse location, we fashioned our own square "tubes" for the dust collector out of particleboard; it was cheaper than PVC. When the shop outgrew the warehouse and moved to a larger facility, Dad looked around to find a contractor to remove all the old railroad track that was dug into the property. They required a sizable amount of money to break apart the track, but they'd haul it away for free. So he employed Peter and me to spend a few weeks over a hot summer breaking apart railroad track. And Peter single-handedly replaced a few hundred broken window panes.

When Paula and I moved to our new house a few years ago, we upgraded not only the square footage of the house, but also more than doubled the size of the garage. That meant that I could have a bigger woodshop AND have room for Paula to park her car. I've been adding tools as jobs require them: air compressor and nail guns when we put in new hardwood floors, a new tablesaw when I was building cabinets. Paula has surprised me on more than a few occasions with an assortment of new equipment. It's an efficient, compact little shop. Of course, every time I fire up the saw I see Dad standing across from me, arms at his side, on his face a gesture of concern: gritting his teeth with an exaggerated frown. When I worked at the shop that face was present while I used any machinery and it really bothered me. I felt it was a gesture of mistrust. I've come to realize that he always trusted me; he just knew that the use of any machinery included some level of danger and wanted me to be aware of his concern. His face was his way of reminding me of all the things he taught me: watch the blade, stand to the side of the feed, always unplug it when doing any kind of maintenance, and, most importantly and often repeated: "Be careful!". While he taught us all to do it ourselves, part of that bargain was that we couldn't get hurt in the process. His gesture of concern will always be with me and I'm very grateful for the reminder, even though I always think "Yes, Dad, I'll be careful" in the slightly sarcastic voice of a 17-year-old.

Mom and Dad came out to visit a few years ago and he brought me a nice collection of hand tools. "Every shop needs to have these" he said, presenting them to me wrapped in a paper bag—official Polish wrapping paper. I showed him some of the things that I'd built for the house, including a new coffee table for the living room. I'd wandered into the kitchen to fetch a few beers and returned to find Dad laying on the floor, looking underneath the coffee table. I asked if he was okay.

"Of course. I just needed to make sure my boy built it right, and you did. Nice work." Talk about a big compliment. I started to tell him how I had to jerry-rig some of the cuts to get the legs properly tapered. I stopped when he started making that Dad Face...

The Collected Words of JPR

I'm interviewing for jobs now, and last week, a prospective boss described the job he was filling as "mostly 'management by walking around.'" It made me laugh inside. Dad loved to collect phrases and use them in appropriate -- or inappropriate -- moments. He'd had a fling with participatory management in the early nineties, and I'm sure he had recognized his own management style in the jargon of the day: "management by walking around." Except when he said it, it came out as "walking around with your hands in your pockets." You gotta appreciate the translation. "Hands in your pockets" means "not operating the tools yourself." That had a very specific meaning for Dad.

Similarly, he'd absconded the Marty Feldman line from "Young Frankenstein": the one where Marty's Igor leads Doctor Frankenstein from the train station. I'm sure you've laughed many times at the sight of Igor, hunched over, urging the Doctor to "walk this way," and Gene Wilder follows him, and imitates his hunch-backed lurch, as well. But when Dad said it, it came out as "Walk like this!" which was actually funnier, because it added a third comic actor to the skit: the limping John Ruszel.

We had a little debate during our funeral preparations, wondering whether to include Dad's signature dinner statement in our public remembrances of him. He'd sit at the head of the table, crowded with family, guests, plates, dishes, and glasses, and remark loudly, as if to himself, "I wonder what the poor people are doing!" The comment always made Mom cringe, and the assembled family groan, and some of our dinner company undoubtedly found his words insensitive. But we knew what he meant: he was content, and grateful.

We realized as adults that one of Dad's favorite ways to express his displeasure was by attributing it to Mom. "Your mother is unhappy about..." or "Your mother is upset that...." was usually a mirror of Dad's feelings. After a couple of confusing conversations with Mom which ended up with "I never said that..." and "But Dad said...", we figured it out. Dad had his own communication style, which, while unorthodox, was very effective.

I'm enjoying the way Dad is appearing in my life these days. In fact, I'm thinking about his advice constantly as I wait for the job possibilities to align themselves into my future. "All you can do," he'd say, "is go until you hit a brick wall." And seriously. What else can you do?

Slotted Spoon

As kids, we took for granted a wonderful thing: every night presented us with a home-cooked meal, served at the family table. Okay, maybe I shouldn't speak for all of us, but I certainly took it for granted. I remember being so excited to go to a neighbor's house for a slumber party: TV dinners were going to be served. I'd never had one before and was looking forward to what I imagined to be a very sophisticated, tasty meal. The neighbor kids and I sat in their living room, TV trays on our laps. I peeled back the foil and was utterly stunned at what was beneath. It was a brownish mass, undecipherable as food and looking nothing like the nice picture on the box. And it tasted even worse...probably like the box itself would've tasted. It was a huge letdown for me, but it was at that moment when I started to understand how good a home-cooked meal really was.

We were all employed to aid in the production of meals, whether by helping cook, setting the table or cleaning up afterwards. Besides making and consuming meals, the kitchen was the meeting room, the place for social gathering and where we all congregated by default. Throughout the years, our kitchens have been remodeled, rebuilt, re-engineered to handle the growing family...and all the extended family and friends who've joined us. The kitchen has remained the central focus of Mom & Dad's house, although it doesn't have the low-hung wall cabinets of the Walnut Creek house that gave Dad a place to conveniently toss the used wine corks (Dad acted very sneaky when he threw them up there and Mom pretended to not notice).

Mom and Dad were both accomplished cooks, both similarly self-trained by trial and error and from thorough investigation of the many recipes they'd come across. Through their hands-on training at home and at the delicatessens, they also had the ability to cook for many; they had to hone their skills cooking smaller portions as us kids began moving out. However similar their training and experiences, they both had their own very individual methods. Mom found recipes that she tried and the successful ones went into her ever-growing repertoire of meals. We all had our favorites and she had a steady rotation of meals that kept us all satisfied. Dad's method seemed much more haphazard, but was equally rewarding. He cooked in a grand manner, most always starting with a huge stock pot simmering since the early morning hours. He listened to music or sang as he cooked and although he'd dirty most of the cookware, he'd wash throughout the process, keeping a tidy, buzzing kitchen. He was a firm believer of the Julia Child method of cooking: with a glass of wine in hand. Once, while making an enormous pot of chili, he showed me his "secret." As I climbed up on a chair to look in the pot, he told me that to be a good chef, one should "always measure with a slotted spoon." And he proceeded to let a good helping of spices run through the slotted spoon he was holding, into the chili. He rarely had a recipe, but he always had a plan.

Mom can still put together our favorite dishes and they're just as great as we remember them. She's also spoiled a whole generation of grandkids who can't imagine macaroni and cheese served in anything but a casserole dish, topped with slices of cheese.

We all took a bit from the folks' cooking talents. We all have our favorite recipes and some of us have even been successful at replicating them in our own kitchens. Julie has always been a naturally talented cook and took it a step or two further: after professional chef's school she's emerged as the Cooklady.

Most of what I've learned about cooking came from both Mom and Dad. I cook many of my family's meals, so I find myself scouring books, magazines and the web for tasty new recipes that we'd all enjoy. There's also the tried-and-true concoctions that I keep on a steady rotation, adding new recipes to the mix every now and then (the latest of which is something I picked up from Jules, which Sophie aptly named "Aunt Julie's Beans"; it's the girls' current favorite). I also have a few "slotted spoon" recipes that I bring out now and then: a big simmering pot with a dash of this, a handful of that. Every time I make them they're a bit different, hopefully a bit better. I take inventory of the available ingredients, pour some wine, put on some music, and I always have a plan.

It was just last weekend that Paula told me she's known for months about my wine cork repository above the cabinets.

What People Remember

I heard from Mom that Wally De Young's mom died recently. Her obituary was detailed and personal ("Longer than Dad's!" Mom said.) I can imagine it being written by committee, with input from all of her nine children and their families.

Grandma was such an extraordinary and influential cook, in the good old-fashion way of home cooks who don't use recipes or measure ingredients, that most of her children and many of her grandchildren have become accomplished home cooks themselves... One of the most amazing abilities she had was that all the dishes she made came together at the same time. She never had one dish drying out while one still had 15 minutes to cook; a true art. There is some question as to whether she knew how to cook for less than 30 people, yet she always did so with grace and poise.

That's a lady after my own heart!

Anyway, Wally was my eighth grade boyfriend, which meant that we passed notes during class and pretended to ignore each other on the playground. After about thirty years of non-communication, we recently became reacquainted, so I sent him a little condolence note when I heard about his mom. He emailed me this morning:

Julie,

Thanks so much for the kind note. I'm so sorry to have heard of your
father's passing - I had no idea. But I certainly know what you've been
going through and my thoughts are with you too. I remember your Dad
because he was the judge for our 8th grade school science fair and he
chose me for 1st place! My 15 minutes of fame and he was responsible!

Lots of warm hugs to you and yours!

Xoxoxo,
-Wally

Another memory that helps keep Dad alive in our hearts.

My New Car

When Dad bought his first new Volvo, it happily coincided with my 16th birthday. Happily because rather than take the heavily discounted return from a dealer trade-in, he sold his 6-year-old VW Rabbit to me. It had a ton of commute miles on it, but was still in good condition. I had to learn how to drive a stick and spent the first 6 weeks or so nervous having to start up on any hill I happened to be on. But I got the hang of it eventually. The new freedom I got from my driver's license and from ownership of my own car was worth every penny I'd paid for it.

About 8 months or so after I'd purchased the car, I found myself cruising down I-680. Somewhere around the Stone Valley Road exit, the car shook for a moment and the engine RPM hit the redline, sending a huge plume of smoke out the tailpipe. The engine stalled and I managed to coast to the shoulder. After letting it cool for a few minutes, it started up and I took the side roads home. I took it to the mechanic the next day to have it checked out. The diagnosis was a bad head gasket and, although the engine could still run, it needed to be either rebuilt or replaced entirely. I was quoted a price range of $700 - $1200 to fix it. I was furious.

I went home and found Dad sitting on the living room couch, reading the evening newspaper. I told him about how the car was in need of huge repairs and how upset I was that he sold me such a junky car. Dad, without missing a beat and without even looking up from the newspaper, said simply, "That's the price you pay when you have the luxury of owning an automobile."

I managed to keep the car limping along at low speeds and continued to use it often, trying to figure out how I'd save up enough to get the engine work done. A few months later, I was hit while driving home from school. It was the other driver's fault. The insurance adjuster met me at the house to assess the damage. I spoke about how great a car it was and what good condition it was in (which was mostly true...besides, he never specifically asked about the engine). The insurance company totaled the car and paid me full blue book price for it: much more than I'd originally paid Dad for it. This event happily coincided with my brother buying a new car and he happily sold me his 5-year-old Toyota. All was well.

Dad came home from work and saw my new/used car parked in front of the house. "I see that worked out pretty well for you, didn't it?" he said, with a smile.

This Just In - Grandma Cheats

What I would have said at the Rosary had I not been crying more than my mom after a hallmark commercial, and was also somewhat funny:

Around Easter of ‘04 Tammy came up North with me to meet the Grandparents for the first time. And unlike every movie you’ve ever seen, where the significant other meets the family, I had absolutely zero worries.

When we arrived at their house, Grandpa asked us both about our degrees and what we were to do with them (He always seemed to be interested in peoples business pursuits). We continued to chat over the Macaroni & Cheese that Grandma forced us to eat.

And like my visits to Grandmas usually ended up, I challenged her to a game of Flinch. On this rare occasion, (maybe it was his desire to be hospitable to a new visitor) Grandpa decided to play. As we all know, Grandpa was not a big fan of card games.

The result was not surprising - Grandma won the first two games, with Grandpa saying, "See that’s why I don’t play games with Grandma. She always cheats!"

We finished up and shortly after that we left. As we slid into the backseat, Tammy looked at me and said, "You know, that’s what grandparents are supposed to be like."

And right there it hit me. I thought “Yup. You hit the nail on the head.” Growing up, I had taken it all for granted - the jokes, the smiles, the food, the legos, the generosity. All of it – I was and am extremely blessed to have perfect grandparents.

And I didn’t even need to cheat.

Dark Side of the Family Room

Dad was a huge fan of music. From his involvement in the church choir to playing "his song" at the piano, he always had music around him in some way, and encouraged us to share in his enthusiasm. Not all of us had the skills to play our own music, but we've all made music appreciation a huge part of our lives.

His favorites were classical (Russian composers in particular) and jazz. Before us kids came along, he and Mom would go on dates to Chicago to catch acts at some of the many jazz clubs in town. His tastes adapted nicely to the evolution of music and even managed to enjoy some of the music that us kids listened to (although sometimes grudgingly—while working at the shop one Saturday he protested to Jack about the lyrics on a Jerry Garcia album we were listening to: "I like the songs okay, but why do they all have to be about smoking pot?"). But besides getting tips from us and listening to the radio, he had purchased very few albums during the time that he and Mom were raising kids.

The breakthrough for him came with the introduction of CDs. He read about the superior music quality they produced and bought one of the first consumer CD players available. We'd recently inaugurated the upstairs as the living room after 10 years of it being a bedroom and he set up his new system with new speakers upstairs and downstairs in the kitchen. The actual selection of CD titles was rather slim, consisting only of a 5' section of space at the local Tower Records. But the titles were mostly classical and jazz, so it was easy for him to pick some of his favorites. He'd turned the music up loud and smile as he sang along to the melodies. He was in his element. Of course, us kids purchased our own CDs to play. We'd buy a few titles here and there and add them to the ever-growing library of CDs. Dad picked up on a few and we'd find him cooking in the kitchen, singing along to The Eurythmics, or Eric Clapton.

I was returning home one Sunday afternoon when, from about a block away, I heard music cranking out of the upstairs windows. I ran into the house, furious that Lucy was playing my new CD so loud and without concern for Mom and Dad. When I got upstairs Lucy was nowhere to be found, but there was Dad, reclined in his lounge chair, lyric sheet from the jewel case laid open on his lap. His eyes were closed and he was grinning ear-to-ear. Dark Side of the Moon was playing at full volume and he was enjoying every moment of it. In a strange reversal of roles, I found myself turning down the music and asking him what he was doing.

He sat up, put his glasses on, and starting telling me about how great the album was, how amazingly deep the lyrics were. He gave me what is probably the most detailed and accurate assessment of the underlying theme of the album I've ever heard. He was on the second listen of the album and already he "got it." He asked, "Who are these guys? Are they new?"

I told him that no, it was not new, and, in fact, was released 13 years earlier. "Your older kids used to listen to this album when it was first released and you'd yell at them to turn it down."

"I did? But it's really good..."

Sure, Dad had his own likes and dislikes in music, but he taught me through example the importance of keeping an open mind and embracing new concepts...even if they're a bit old.

"Long you live and high you fly, and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry, and all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be."

Humilty

Dad was a proud man, for certain, but that doesn't mean he had any ounce of hubris in him. On the contrary, he kept around himself an air of humility. He was authoritative in his areas of expertise, but he was respectful of the opinions of others. He and Mom taught us kids the importance of humility: don't boast, don't flaunt, don't tease, and never stoop to Schadenfreude.

In the late '90s, when he was in the midst of his retirement from the shop, he came to visit me in Seattle on a solo trip. I think it was one of the few times that he appreciated my distance away from home, as he was looking for a bit of distance to gain some perspective into the next chapter in his life. Although he liked the idea in theory, having retirement right in front of him was a bit of a challenge. He was a man who always needed something to do, something to fix, something to build, something to nurture. He wasn't sure how he'd find those things in retirement. When we'd first talked about his retirement a number of years earlier, he described himself as the "old Polack who keels over one day while running the tablesaw." Seeing that this probably wouldn't be the case for him, he was looking for other options.

It was a good visit over a long weekend (I took a vacation day from work and he was concerned, "are you sure this is okay with your boss?"). We ate, drank, and talked...a lot, about our dreams, fears, concerns, hopes. One evening, we had drinks and dinner at the 5-Spot and walked back up to my apartment. It was a fair evening, so we sat in the backyard and looked at the city's lights down the hill from us. He brought up the subject of what to do with his time now that he was retired. I asked him, "What do you want to do?"

"I don't know," he said, "I just feel like I need to accomplish something with my life."

I could hardly believe what I'd heard. I reminded him that he earned multiple degrees, ran a number of successful business, traveled internationally for both business and pleasure, and, besides all those accomplishments, he raised a great family. "Dad, if I can claim one-tenth of the accomplishments you've had by the time I retire, I'd consider myself rather successful."

He looked at me and squinted a little, "Huh. You think so?"