I accomplished my first resolution in January which is better than most folks I think and probably better than I've done most years since. It wasn't a lavish apartment but the bedroom was separate from the living room and the kitchen was too. There was even room for a kitchen table we could eat at. I got a little chest of drawers and my stuff only took half of it so Joanie had the other half. Oh, you should have seen her eyes when I showed her that. You would have thought I had given her the crown jewels. It's funny how you know something is heading in a certain direction but each step you take toward it still seems exciting.

My other resolutions were taking longer but I did start taking a couple of classes to get me ready to take the G.E.D. tests. Once I could pass those, there were a lot of things that might be open to me. I got to looking at things and I knew I didn't have the skills to ever run my own business which I thought at the time might be something I wanted to do. More than those things though, I could see Joanie was proud of me. She might have said that she didn't care about my education and it might even have been true but she was proud of me trying to make myself better.

Joanie set to work on her own resolutions too. She was studying like I'd never seen before to get that Dean's list position. She still came home to me most weekends but she spent a good part of them studying but then I was studying too. Studying was sure something new to me and I wasn't even sure how to do it but Joanie helped me figure something that worked for me.

Lou and Kid left right after New Year's so they could get settled before school got in session for Theresa. They stopped by Al's on the way out of town. Poor Lou was doing everything she could not to cry. Theresa ran up to me first.

"I'll miss you, Uncle Jimmy," she said and buried her little head in my neck when I picked her up.

"I know you will, honey," I said, "I'm going to miss you too. But you're going to write to me, right?"

She nodded.

"And I'm going to try to get better about writing people and send you a letter now and then too."

"Promise?" she asked.

"Yeah, I promise," I said.

I put the girl down and turned my attention to Kid and Lou. Lou's lip was quivering and her eyes were moist and Kid was just looking at the ground.

"I'll be waiting on that call in March, you know," I said to Lou.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me tight and started crying.

"I don't know if I can do this," she whispered to me so Kid wouldn't hear.

"Lou if there's anyone in the world who is strong enough for this, it's you," I assured her. "There's a lot weaker women than you managing it. You just take care of him now."

"I will," she choked out between her tears.

I let go of Lou and walked to the man who'd stood by me when there was literally no one else in the world who gave a damn. Hell anything I'd ever had to tell Joanie or ever would, it seemed, Kid already knew. Aside from Joanie, he was the only other person that had ever seen me cry. Others might have seen me get a little misty but that's not quite the same thing at all. Now, I'll sit here and tell you that there's more folks that I even know who have seen me break down. I've done a lot more crying as things went on and I've cared less and less who knew. I didn't know it at that tender age but my tears didn't make me less a man. But Kid had been there every time my old man knocked me around or my mom locked me out. And I was the same for him. The number of times we had held each other and cried when we was just little kids, well, I'm not sure I can count that high. That's a good friend right there. I've heard people say a real friend is one who when you haven't seen each other in forever, when you are together again it's like you were never apart. I already had seen at that point that it was true for me and Kid but I knew we were going to get a much longer time apart to test that theory. I hated that he wasn't going to be there to take up for me and I wouldn't be where he was to stick up for him too. I didn't have words to tell him any of that so I just pulled him into a hug and felt his arms tighten around me.

"It's going to be weird here without you," I said still trying to sound normal and failing miserably.

"I was already gone once, remember?" he responded.

"Basic's not the same as being stationed somewhere," I told him, "You better watch yourself and don't do anything stupid. Lou needs you."

"It's not like I'm getting deployed, Jimmy."

"Yet," I said, "From the sounds of it, it's only a matter of time before we're sending guys over there. You have to stay alive for that baby."

"I know," he said and sighed heavy. "I'll miss you, man."

"Yeah," I said, "Me too."

I don't think either of us wanted to let go. I know I sure didn't. But we had to. They piled in their car and away they drove. I had a bad feeling in my gut about it and as it turned out there was good reason for that too. I'll get to that eventually. It's not the right place in the story to talk about it and I'm glad of that because I don't really like talking about it. It's still really hard to even think about.

I guess in time I got used to them being gone but it was hard. So often when Joanie and I would sit around in the evenings trying to think of something to do the first thought that would come to me was to call up Kid and Lou and see if they wanted to play some cards. I even said it out loud a couple times before remembering that they weren't there to play cards with and North Carolina's a bit of a trek just for a game of euchre.

Joanie did start doing some volunteer work too. Some of what she did was helping her dad with research. He and his partners did a lot of what they call "pro bono" work which means they work for people who can't pay and they don't ask them to either. Now, it might be true that everyone in this country is entitled to a lawyer and one will be appointed if you can't afford one but there's a difference between an overworked and often less experienced public defender and a man like Jacob Cohen or one of his partners and if I'm honest, I'd rather have the nice law firm in Bloomfield Hills representing me. I doubt any of those public defender guys played golf with any of the judges or the prosecutors like Mr. Cohen did. Things like that make a difference whether they should or not. I guess he also did some of his pro bono work for the ACLU so he could make sure people weren't being denied their rights to things like a place to live or education for their kids or even jobs. Stuff like that is important to folks and I was really proud to know that making sure poor folks had those things was important to Joanie's dad too.

But that was just the start of her work. She got into this community center thing in the city where there were all kinds of activities. Some of them were like story time for little kids but then there were other things like helping people find places that would help them get food if they'd been out of work for a while or helping get them a place to live if they didn't have one. Yeah, we had homeless folks back then too, we just pretended we didn't a lot. She helped teen girls who were pregnant find doctors that would see them for cheap or even free. There's a lot of nice people in the world even if you don't hear about 'em all the time and those people are willing to help others, sometimes it just takes someone in the middle to get them together. I think she got her dad some more clients through that work though he didn't get paid for those clients. He did get some recognition from the Anti-Defamation League, the Urban League and a couple other city organizations as well.

February came and about a week or so into it came little Lisa Cross, Buck and Carol's daughter. Joanie and I went up to visit in the hospital and actually caught them while the baby was in the room with them. Back then it wasn't like it is now. New mothers stayed in for a whole week and the baby spent most of the time in the nursery. I think the longer stay was better because that's a real tough thing to put your body through, giving birth, but sending a new mother home who's never even changed her child's diaper is sort of irresponsible, I think. But Lisa was in the room so we got to see her and hold her. I hadn't ever held a baby before so I was nervous and afraid I'd do it wrong or something. Babies are so tiny and it's easy to be afraid you'll hurt them. I got used to it after a while. To be fair, Buck looked just as nervous about holding her as I felt. Joanie didn't seem nervous at all. She cradled Lisa like a natural.

"She's so beautiful," Joanie said to them smiling. "I think she looks like Buck."

"Poor girl," said Buck chuckling.

"I don't think so," Joanie went on, "I think she's lovely. Just look at all that dark hair."

Then she turned her attention to Lisa.

"You're just a pretty, pretty princess," she cooed, "Yes, you are. And you're the luckiest little princess in all the land too because you have such a nice mommy and daddy."

I have to admit that Lisa was a pretty baby even if I still don't think babies are all that much to look at. They're mostly just bald, wrinkly little blobs. Get 'em a little older when they can at least smile or wave and I'm on board. Lisa was kind of special though. For one thing she was the first baby born in our little group and then, while she did have her dad's dark hair, she somehow got her mom's bright blue eyes. I know a lot of babies have blue or at least bluish eyes when they are born and they change but hers never did. Those eyes are real striking.

Joanie and I got into the elevator to leave the hospital and we were all alone.

"Ask me," she said.

"Ask you what?"

"Ask me to marry you. You've told me time and again that you want to and that you will someday," she said, "Ask me now. I'll say yes."

"That's why I won't ask you right now," I told her and then I had to explain. "I mean, yeah I want you to say yes to me but I know that right now it's not you who'd be saying yes, not all of you anyway. It would only be the part that wants a baby. The part of you that wants your degree and to save the world won't have a say. I love you far too much to take advantage of that. Someday it will be right and I hope to God it's still me you want because I want your babies to be my babies too."

It got quiet in the elevator after that and I put my arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

"I love you but I can't ask you that right now."

"I want what they have," she said softly into my shirt and I knew she was trying not to cry.

"I know," I said gently, "I do too. We'll have it but we'll have it on our terms."

People talk about how great it is that women have all these options now and the whole "You've come a long way, baby" thing. But no one realizes how hard it is to be one of the pioneers of all that. To see most of the friends you had growing up having these completely different lives than you have. She already had next to nothing in common with her high school girlfriends and guys at that time didn't really want to be friends with girls. There were the girls in the dorms but so many of them were really just looking for a guy and would drop out of school in a heartbeat to get married. They used to call it getting your MRS. You know how there are different initials for different degrees, like BA is Bachelor of Arts and stuff like that. Well a lot of these girls thought if they went to college they'd find some nice up and coming businessman or doctor or lawyer and get married, thus getting their MRS…or really becoming a Mrs. Joanie didn't fit with those girls either. There were a few who were like her. Sherry was in it for the education. Sherry was a pretty girl and I'm sure she got plenty of attention from the guys but she wasn't about to sacrifice everything she worked for to run off and get married. Things were only starting to change back then and I'm proud to say Joanie was one of the ones that made it easier and more acceptable to do the things that women can sort of take for granted now.

Joanie was a little distant for a few days and I knew she was lost in wishing for that life that would make her feel normal and like everything wasn't passing her by. But she got back to her old self fast enough and soon she was doing research for her dad and working at the community center and sitting in my living room studying like a fiend.

One evening she came running into the apartment with a record album under her arm. That's how music used to come you know, on big vinyl discs.

"Jimmy," she said all excited, "You have to come listen to this!"

Now I'll tell you what she played and you go and look it up on the internet and you might think it's a nice tune and you might not but it won't have the same effect on you as it did on us. See, at that point we were listening to Elvis and one of the big hits was The Marcels doing "Blue Moon". There were some real nice songs out then and songs I still like a great deal. Music is allowed to just be fun and feel good sometimes and there ain't nothing wrong with a love song but I don't think it occurred to any of us how music could be used. Well, it didn't to me. Joanie told me once about a ballet that got done in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century that riled people up so much that they rioted. And that was classical music so I guess the revolution comes in all shapes and forms.

Well, Joanie put this record on the player and the first thing I noticed was the woman's voice was beautiful but I had a feeling Joanie wasn't all excited about how pretty this Joan Baez woman sang so I listened a bit more and the story the song wove and it was heartbreaking. I don't know how she managed it but the song was hopeless and powerful at the same time. The song was called "All My Trials" and it wasn't a new song. I guess it was a traditional lullaby somewhere. It just had such a different meaning when you put it in a world like the one we were in where there were still colleges that were segregated and water fountains and Rosa Parks had yet to make her stand for basic dignity. That song spoke things none of the rest of us could find words for. Like I said, you look it up and give it a listen-and you still should-and it won't mean to you what it meant to us. It gave us a whole different way to look at the world and at music. I never quit loving rock and roll, not for a moment but folk music was always a part of who we were and what we listened to. Sometimes those songs just spoke the loudest, you know?

Howdy strangers! So yeah...Um, the song I referenced is off of Joan Baez's first album which is self titled. It is a beautiful song and was originally a bahamian lullaby. But it ended up being used a lot in the civil rights movement. I'm thinking there's not much more to tell about this installment. As always if there's anything that's not clear or a reference that you don't get, please let me know.

I do apologize for the sluggish pace of this update. I kept not liking this chapter and I don't think there was anything specific about it but I just didn't like it. And this week has just about done me in. I've got one kid cutting class and another not doing his work. I actually went to school with the class cutter. I always told my kids (step-kid included) that if I ever caught wind of them cutting classes or skipping school that I'd follow them around all day. so I did. Got some work done on a new book. First one is still in reviewing and revising status. This is a story I've sort of written before but it's a reimagining and a reworking really of a character I created a long time ago who still runs around in my head blabbing stuff to me. I love her but she's driving me batty. So got some work done on that and a little reading done and even crocheted in one class. It seems to have worked as the teacher who usually calls to tell me he wasn't in class and/or he's not doing what he's supposed to just called today and told me he was wonderful in class and very productive and even asked for the work he had missed. Here's hoping. I get it too. He's aspergian (person with Asperger's Syndrome) and social skills do not come naturally. He now has friends and they don't always do what they should. I know he wants to hang out with them but he has to find another time to do it besides when he is supposed to be in American Lit. His teachers are way cool though and I might wander back and sit in on his Physics class anyway just to learn stuff. I never took it in HS and I don't know if I would have appreciated how cool it was then but it was really interesting.

So here I am hoping to all that is good and holy that things can go a little smooth for just a little while and that the Red Wings can stop playing like petulent little boys. All preseason the new head of discipline for he league, former Wing Brendan Shanahan, has been doling out suspensions-hefty ones too. And he makes these little videos to explain the infraction and the punishment. He always looks so grouchy like he's Dad and the kids are acting up after he's repeated the rules for the umpteenth time and still they're breaking them and he has to ground them and he's just ticked off. Now it looks like he might have to make one of those for one of my boys. So upset at the lack of maturity in the guys Wed night. But, on a lighter note, Tigers start the playoffs tomorrow (or today depending on your position on the globe) against the Yankees. Go Tigers!-J