Carlton Matteo’s Blog

Our place out in Las Vegas was broken into. We arrived there after 33 hours of driving to find that something was blocking the front door from the inside. When in doubt… shove, so that’s what I did! The couch that had been dragged in front of the door gradually moved. Even before we got inside it was clear what had happened. The flat-screen TV was gone, and the place had obviously been ransacked. We were dismayed to say the least, and after regaining my senses I called the Las Vegas police. They and a crime scene investigator arrived a short time later (Gil Grissom was busy), and we endured the lengthy process of finger printing various parts of the condo (me, too, which was a first!), watching them taking photos of shoe prints, and filling out reports. Among other things, the invaders had taken batteries, tools, a small DVD player, a second small TV, cologne, four pocket knives (I love knives!), some DVDs, wine and a set of condo keys we, for some inexplicable reason, kept here. I didn’t realize we had so much here that would be worth stealing! They had taken the garbage can from under the sink along with the ice cube bin from the freezer (we surmise they needed something to carry the stuff in). There was Comet scouring powder scattered EVERYWHERE in every room, and they had sprayed an oily substance on many of the furniture surfaces (I later determined this to be cologne… I guess they didn’t like that scent!). Of course, they also left some graffiti behind on some of the walls. At least they could spell correctly (Gee, our schools must be getting better!)

Both officers felt it was the work of high school kids. They might have been working for and been “trained” by a gang; no one is sure. They clearly knew what they wanted, and they left nothing, not a drawer or cubby hole unmolested. Even the mattresses had been moved. They had gained entry by breaking out one of the bathroom windows, reaching inside to open it and then crawling in. Once inside they opened the sliding glass door and took everything out the back. No one we’ve spoken with was surprised about this. The police officers, our insurance guy out here, restaurant wait staff, pedicurists… none of them showed the least bit of surprise. The economy is down, kids can’t find work, and vacant homes are ripe pickings!

The hard part of all this is not our stuff. That, of course, can and will be replaced. Everyone talks about it being a violation, which it is, but it goes beyond those words. We are left with an eerie discomfort. Our home out here has been tainted. We find ourselves suspicious of everyone, and some primal “us vs. them” dynamic has started to emerge. If other people don’t look like us, act like us or talk like us we are wary, and that goes against everything I’ve believed in most of my life. It’s not like we were robbed in a parking ramp or had a bad incident with someone at a shopping mall. This happened in our HOME, and the sense of security and safety you usually associate with home has been irrevocably broken. Now as we walk or drive around here we’ve begun to feel the way Sean Connery put it in “The Last Crusade”… we are pilgrims in an unholy land.

No, we’re not selling and leaving. No one is buying right now anyway, so that isn’t an option. I called an iron worker. He’s a highly recommended fence maker who has given us a good price on decorative bars for the windows and a sliding gate for the glass patio door. They will be installed next Wednesday, so when we come back in a few weeks all should be well… at least on the outside of the back of our condo. We’ll have to see how long it takes for the internal stains to fade…

As you may know, my avocation is blacksmithing.  I don’t shoe horses (that would make me a farrier), but I do forge a number of different items.  For the last several years, I’ve been making small tomahawks for a traditional archer friend of mine which he sells on his website. 

I was working on an order for a dozen of these yesterday when something happened to me that rarely does.  Ordinarily I wear leather gloves when I do a lot of heavy forging, but yesterday I was wearing only cotton/polyester jersey gloves.  They are thinner and allow me to more easily feel the hammer in my hand which allows me more control over it.  I was “drifting” out the eye of one of the tomahawk heads.  This involves pounding a large tapered metal rod into a slit I’d already cut in the head so that it will take on the tapered shape necessary to keep a wooden handle securely in place.  The hawk head was, of course, hot… yellow hot, in fact, which means it was about 2400 degrees.  After pounding the drift into the head an appropriate length, I tapped it back out and let it fall to the floor of my shop.  I placed the tongs in my slack tub to cool them, and when I returned to the anvil, I instinctively bent down and reached out with my left hand to pick up the drift.  When I do this wearing leather gloves, there is rarely a problem.  They get hot, warning me to let go of the drift which I toss into the slack tub to cool it down.  This time, though, the drift (being approximately 900 degrees warm but showing no red color) seared through the jersey gloves I was wearing, melting the material and giving me an instant quarter-sized almost 3rd degree burn on my index finger.  You know, it’s amazing how fast a person can take a glove off their hand when they are properly motivated!

The good news is that there was no permanent damage done.  This will slow me down for a few days, but I’ll be back at it again soon.  I’ve read where the old timers say that if you forge iron long enough you get used to being burned.  Well, I’ve been doing this for the better part of thirty years, and I’m not used to it yet!  

     I don’t know what it is about grandparents, but if they are at all personable, kind and caring there is something almost magical about them.  They are the purity of what every child wants to feel about his/her own parents but simply can’t.  Parents, by definition, are about raising – about right and wrong, about duty and future and, most of all, about responsibility.  To be sure it is a holy role, but it is never fully understood or appreciated until the children have their own children and are in the middle years of raising them.  Grandparents are about fun but also about mystery.  “You are my daddy’s daddy, my momma’s mommy?  How can that be, and what was it like back then, and what were they like when they were little like me?”  Grandparents give you stuff and take you places and spoil you.  They can afford to do that because they don’t have to raise you.  It was that way, too, with my Grandfather Matteo some 50 years ago and longer…

     Grandpa was a larger-than-life character, and I never had the chance to know him the way I should have been allowed to.  He was hard as nails on the outside, a fighter to the core, but when it came to his grandkids he was a softie.  He wore a very nice gold wristwatch (Elgin or Bulova, I think it was), a striking triple cameo tiger-eye ring, and he carried a well-made but plain Case folding pocket knife.  As the owner of a small Muskegon hotel he always had that knife with him for a wide variety of tasks, and that may be where I got my own unquenchable thirst for knives. 

     The knife was a Barlow pattern with an inch long steel bolster at one end.  It has stag scales dyed a dark red/orange color.  There are two blades: the larger one about 2.5” long with a clipped point while the smaller  is 1.75” long and more like the classic shape of a pen knife used two centuries ago for sharpening goose quills for writing.  He kept both razor sharp and wouldn’t let me touch his knife, probably because he knew I would have cut myself with it.  Looking back, I don’t doubt for a second that I would have! 

     When he died that knife became my father’s, but Dad, who used a precursor of the Boy Scout folding knife to cut off the ends of his cigars, never seemed to have an appreciation for it.  It remained for years as one of the relics of my Grandfather’s life, but it never lost its power as a totem for me.  It holds that power even now…

     I use to take the knife to high school with me (you could bring a knife to school back then), but I don’t carry it around any longer.  I’ve accumulated too many other knives through my nearly 60 years.  Some have multiple blades for a zillion uses, while others are larger or are made of rust resistant materials and fit my hand better.  Grandpa’s knife sits on my desk, and I use it there as a letter opener or for a myriad of other things.  I’ve buffed the age off the blades and keep it always sharp.  No matter its place, though, looking at it always takes me back to Muskegon in 1959 when I was old enough to remember my grandfather taking it from his pocket and opening it.  It makes me recall his face, his gruff voice, his cigar smell and his wonderful smile with the missing front tooth.  Occasionally it makes me sad, but more often it reminds me that where I am going, he’s already been.  If a man that dynamic could face his own death and walk that supremely lonely road, then maybe I can, too, someday.  He is my model, along with my own mother and father of how to take those final steps, and I am greatly comforted by the knowledge that when my time comes, he will be there waiting for me. 

     I wish, though, I could bring him his knife.  It will, of course, remain here.  Maybe I’ll start carrying it with me again, especially around my grandchildren.  Who knows?  Carson might end up with it some day, and if so, I hope when he holds and uses it he will feel a little bit closer to me.  And somewhere I’ll know the great circle continues unbroken…         

Even for an old Republican, I am proud of my country today.  In the midst of the worst economic atmosphere since the Great Depression the American people have delivered a clear message to ourselves and the world that we are still evolving, that we are willing to do what even a few years ago would have been unthinkable.  We’ve given notice that this remains a place where amazing things still happen, and though we don’t yet know what kind of president Mr. Obama will be or how effective he will become, we are willing to bet that things will be better with him at our nation’s helm.  So many things in life are influenced not by realities but by intangible things like faith, hope and the incredible power of positive thought.  This is what the nation voted for yesterday, and this may just be enough to sustain us through the difficult times ahead.  I can’t help but believe it will be, and I am excited by the prospect of watching that unfold.  Yup… even for an old Republican, I am proud of my country today!

Carson Salvatore Matteo was born on June 17th a little before 8:30 am.  He weighed 9 lbs. 6 ounces and was almost 22 inches in length.  We weren’t at the hospital; we were looking after his big sister, Clara, but we all got to see him later in the morning, and he’s a site to behold!  It’s funny to me that the words we all us to describe him are so different from what we said about Clara when she was born.  She was “beautiful”; he’s “a little toughie”.  While she was “gorgeous”, he is “strong”.  And, of course, he’s big, so we say he’s “a brute”.  The truth is that he’s his own miracle, just like his sister was, and I thank God that we’ve been given the chance to see both of them come into the world.

I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to be allowed to take care of Clara for a few days while her momma and daddy got to know Carson at the hospital.  If you know me, then you already know I think that Clara is about as perfect a little girl as God ever made.  To hear her giggles, see her joy for life and have the chance to carry her and care for her reawakens those protective parental feelings we haven’t felt quite this way in some years.  She is a fount of constant energy, and when I hear my bones creak at the end of the day, I am reminded that being a parent of little ones is truly the province of the young.  For a day or two, it was amazing to be let back into that world, but I will confess that I am grateful to be able to return to the slower pace of my Autumn years! 

Watching the four of them, Jason, JoAnna, Clara and Carson together is awe-inspiring, and I cannot help but get a bit teary-eyed when I think of all the joy they will know together.  And we feel eternally blessed to be even a small part of their lives, filled with the knowledge that all is as it should be as the Great Circle continues its never-ending cycle.

Welcome to our families, Carson.  We are excited by your presence and honored to have you with us!

Back in my college days at MSU I was the student-leader of a volunteer group.  We worked at Grand River Elementary School on the north side of Lansing engaging students in a variety of after-school activities.  At the time we were one of the oldest volunteer groups on campus, and as luck would have it, we were chosen to be one of the sites that then-First Lady, Pat Nixon, was to tour on a visit to Michigan State and the Lansing area in the spring of 1970.  On the day of her visit it was my privilege and honor to escort her around our school showing her the kinds of programs in which we had children involved.  One must remember that this was during the days of student protests and campus riots, so security for this event was understandably high.  I was so concerned that the FBI might chastise me for even the most mundane transgression that, to the advance agents, I admitted I had once attended a Students for a Democratic Society meeting.  In those days the SDS was one of the main underground institutions active in fomenting student unrest throughout the country, and I didn’t want to bring shame on myself, MSU or my fellow volunteers.  The advance agents, two burley all-business types, must have smiled and winked at my admission because nothing came of it, and Mrs. Nixon’s visit went off without a hitch.  While I was showing her around, along with a huge number of staff and news reporters, I took the liberty of moving her behind a piano where I thought I might have a word in “semi” private with her.  I was dedicated, you see, to idea that volunteering meant nothing if one was not being a truly “relevant” force in kids’ lives (ah, the righteousness of youth!).    She was very good at extracating herself from such traps, and as she smiled at the kids, cameras and me, she deftly moved away from the piano corner and back into the mix of reporters.  I felt momentarily defeated, but my job was to stay by her side, so I stuck with her.  When it was time to leave, the school district superintendent tried to escort her into her waiting limo, but I firmly elbowed him out of the way, holding my ground until she was headed down the road.  When it was all over I was convinced that I had missed my one golden chance to “make a difference” and that I would never hear from her again.

About three weeks later, I got two things from the White House in the mail.  One was a nondescript black and white picture of me standing next to Mrs. Nixon while she was seated with some 2nd graders.  On the back was a label that read “Official White House Photo”.  I didn’t like the picture because of my prominent double-chin, and I ignored it.  A few weeks later, I got a letter from my Grandfather, and in the envelope was a page torn from the U.S. News and World Report.  He had circled a picture (a smaller version of the one I had discarded) and had written, “Is this you?” in the margin.  I called him and informed him that indeed it was!  

The other thing I received from the White House was a color photo of Mrs. Nixon affixed to a hard board backing, suitable for framing.  She had signed it, “To Carlton Matteo  With appreciation and all good wishes”, and she had autographed it.  In the intervening 38 years, I lost that picture.  I was sure it had been underwater in one of our many basement ”floods” and that I’d long since thrown it away.  I recently had the opportunity to attend my nephew’s wedding at the Nixon Library in California, and I looked for both these pictures there thinking they (or similar ones) might have been on display.  No such luck…

But luck was with me after all.  I was looking for something else recently down in a rarely visited corner of our basement, and completely by accident, I came across that picture from long ago.  At the top you can see the rusted circles where two thumb tacks used to hold it on display, and there are various stains and discolorations.  The photo, admittedly somewhat faded, is in remarkably good condition, though.  I don’t know where I’ll put it, but it is a reminder to me of those years long ago when we all wanted to save the world and do something meaningful with our lives.  As I reflect on it now, the 35 years I’ve spent in education WERE meaningful.  I didn’t save the world, but I think I made a small difference.  And that was exactly the kind of thing Mrs. Nixon’s visit was trying to showcase…    

Back in the 1980’s my parents bought a new house.  Actually, it wasn’t new, and it didn’t look new either.  There was a chicken coop in the backyard along with a jungle of indiscriminate plant life.   The separate garage was weather-worn, and though my mother’s vision for what her new place could be was quite expansive, the house showed little of the promise she saw.  Over the next few years my folks rebuilt much of the house adding a Roman-style pool and turning the garage into a separate “guest house”.  They landscaped the yard and in time made the house match what my mother saw in her mind’s eye.  As I think back on it now, I’m convinced she did it for her children.  I think she thought that with more amenities and space, we would come around more often.  At the time I was knee-deep in raising my own family 2500 miles away, and I never really thought of Mom’s efforts in that way.  We came out usually once a year, sometimes more, but that was all we could manage.  While we all came to know the house very well over the next two decades, I don’t think it ever really became the great gathering spot my mother envisioned…

My wife and I are now in the process of upgrading the house and grounds of our property in northern Michigan.  We’ve divided the basement into a living room, a kitchenette, a bathroom and two bedrooms.  Outside we’re thinking of putting in a short basketball court, and we’ll definitely put in some playground equipment.   In my mind, we’re doing this for what I call “added liveability”, but in truth I guess we are doing the same thing my mother did.  We are expanding the house so that our children will be more comfortable coming up there and letting us share, even for brief moments, their lives.  My past tells me that even with these additions, ChinWhisker may never become the “gathering spot” I envision for our family.  One never knows, though, what seeds we’ll be planting in the minds of those who come here or what memories will remain long after, even from short visits each year. 

Isn’t it odd how the past tends to repeat itself?  It may look a little different on the outside, but at heart it’s really all the same…

I’m at a strange point in my life now.  For twenty-six years we were rooted to our home in the mid-Michigan area, the place we raised our five children.  It was the center of our lives, and though it wasn’t imposing, expansive or expensive, it was where we belonged.  Now, my wife and I spend most of our time shifting between three different places.  We move irregularly between our house in Michigan, our property in northern Michigan and to a small place we have in Las Vegas.  Each site has a different feel, and each one calls to different elements within us.  What startles me, though, is how easily I call each one “home” when we’re there.  Las Vegas has the look of the desert, sun-baked even in winter.  It is surrounded by mountains and is an oasis in the midst of nothing but unending dryness.  Overcast days are a rarity there, and after more than forty years in Michigan, it’s a wonderful change.  Northern Michigan is verdant, damp and tree-filled, a deciduous jungle with an abundance of wildlife.   These places are new to us, so they hold no memories.  Their focus is on the future.  In our house back home, though, there are ghosts waiting, powerful memories I am not yet ready or willing to release.  And so for a while we’ll continue to move between our three places, waiting to see what our future holds… and trying to pay the increasing cost of the gas we need to reach each of them!