My allergies are acting up. Sneezing fits. Itchy eyes. Not sure what is causing it. Maybe it was the beer last night. We board the high speed train from leaving from Beijing and get off seven stops later in Sabrina’s hometown of Xiangyang. The train reaches speeds of 305 kph and it’s the stops that take the most time. Our first long trip since the end of the first covid wave so we are careful to wear masks. At least at first. Not so much for ourselves but as a social standard and because of security checks. But the mask wearing doesn’t last, at least not for me. There is very little virus, covid virus, in China these days. For these days. ...

Kobe is off leash as we walk along a nearly deserted part of the beach. There is a sheet metal lean-to hut just above the sand. A middle age man, tan and worn, who apparently lives there is walking from the hut to the beach carrying some lightweight anchor and other gear towards a make shift raft. Kobe runs up to him, curious and social as Kobe is. The man spins around to track Kobe. At first I think he’s being playful with Kobe. Then it’s clear Kobe and the man are both spooked. Kobe darts up and then darts away. The man gestures the anchor at Kobe. I can’t understand what the man is staying. Kobe runs around, the man follows. The man lurches at Kobe with the anchor. Aidan says the man says he will kill Kobe. Aidan jumps between the man and Kobe. The rest of us block Kobe’s path and I grab Kobe and leash him. I was about to explain to the kids there are some crazy people out there, but that word is out of favor these days. ...

It was one of those nights where sleep wasn’t easy until it was. It’s at that time Kobe, our beagle, decided to wake us up. 5am. First whining. Then reaching up onto the bed and pawing us. Finally, the beagle bark. There is little that makes me angrier than being woken from a deep sleep. And I was angry. I wanted to hit Kobe. So, in my most athletic move in a least a decade I lifted leapt from the bed. Was perfect except my food caught in the bed sheet and I fell uncontrollably to the ground, elbows then face. I looked up. Saw Kobe looking down. I surged off the ground, but my foot was still hooked to the sheets, so I fell right back down. Kobe just backed up two feet and then ran away when I was finally free. ...

There are moments and there are days and then weeks when I feel I’m the last of my kind. Like the Jason Isbell song Last of My Kind but played out with my own harmonies. It’s hard to describe what makes me feel this way and get the feeling across. Sometimes it just the raw feeling of isolation. Feeling isolated when it’s Friday night and I’m too old to hang out at the new hip place in town full of those young beautiful people. Feeling isolated when it’s Friday night and I’m too tired to go out anyway. Feeling the last of my kind when a photo memory shows a Friday night from five years ago. Music, a toast, maybe a dance. Also, a friend who no longer calls China home. They all leave after a while. Except for me. ...

Father’s day was two weekends ago and while my father crossed my mind on that day, he did not linger. Taking after him, I was self-absorbed with no slight too small. Instead, I found myself thinking about him today while I was on one of my long solitary Sunday afternoon walks. On today’s walk, I found myself trying looking for a through line connecting my son Aidan, 17, to me at 17, to my dad when I was 17, and then back to me now. ...

It’s one of my recurring dreams. The high school baseball team dream. I play shortstop or centerfield. Early in the dream nothing is expected of me but then I play well. Then it feels like “making it” is just on the cusp of happening. It’s going to be the next segment of the dream. What “making it” actually is I don’t know, the dream did not reveal but in the way that dreams do it felt tangible. Then it’s gone and I wake up. I interpret this dream as one of longing, longing for the high school baseball career that I cut short. No regrets? I do have regrets. ...

It’s Friday night when the rumors start to come in. New covid-19 infections in Beijing. An outbreak at a market. We continue with our movie night pizza party. No Country for Old Men. The next morning the rumors of infections are reported as news. Eight confirmed cases. Market shutdown. 10,000 to be tested. By the afternoon the infected count was 46. The market, which is massive and supplies other markets in Beijing, was shut down causing vegetable shortages across town for the day. Later in the day on Saturday schools and workplaces began checking if anyone had been to the market. Reports on twitter of community volunteers going door to door checking if anyone went to the market. ...

Google Photos reminded me that 13 years ago we took Aidan and Lydia to the Badaling Wildlife Park. My memory reminded me of a few other things that day. The caged white bus that we sat on. Passing locked gates into the animal habitats. First a wolf. Then another gate. Lions. A live chicken thrown out the vent in the top of the bus and the lions come pouncing. Paws slam on the bus windows. Chicken gone, looking for more. Me thinking this might not have been the best trip for Aidan, then four, or Lydia, then three. Past the lions there were bears. The bears looked worn. I’m sure others but I really remember the wolf, the lions, and the bears. Later during the walking section we saw people staring down a 25 foot high wall at lions below. They lions looked up eagerly and sometimes jumped. Not at the people. At the chickens extended at the end of sticks like a fishing pole. ...

I’m in Parkway Junior High School’s gymnasium with 18 other 9th graders. There’s a coach. It’s day one of practice. We are forming a team for the annual student/teacher game. The coach, a PE teacher, wants to pick first, second, and third teams but doesn’t know who’s good or not so he asks us players. I don’t say anything. I think I’m good enough for second team and expect to get picked for third since no one really knows me. To my surprise, I get picked for the first team. Not for merit but because the boys who knew each other well were uncomfortable picking amongst themselves, so they picked the outsider. Something I recognized in the moment and is now filed away as a life lesson. By the third and final practice, I was on the third team. Not so much for my actual play but because I took some undisciplined shots (even if they went in). And because I came to one practice high. When game night came we were sure we would destroy the old and clumsy teachers. Riding the bench to start the game two things were clear - I was incredibly nervous and the teachers were way bigger and better than us. At some point in the second quarter the coach sent me into the game. I felt a bit of swagger (maybe like Frank Knight felt at St Mary’s many years later). I was still very anxious. Throat incredibly dry. I had no real court vision. But I had a plan. Force contact and shoot free throws. It worked. When I got the ball, if there was a teacher nearby I drove into him. It sounds a lot clumsier in words than my memory. I was fouled three times and went 6-6 from the line. The teachers caught on to the plan and backed off me and I made two jumpers. Five touches in my two short stints on the floor and I led the team with 10 points. The teachers won easily. The players went to Fentons after the game along with some cheerleaders. A chance to be part of the cool crowd. ...

I remember going with my dad to look at bikes. Not a bike store mind you, but at someone’s house in the Westbourgh neighborhood of my home town. It felt like some kind of magic that we could be getting “new” bikes. I vaguely remember a short discussion on price. $25 or was it $45. For two bikes. Two “new” bikes! They were girls bikes. Not cool. At first it didn’t matter and then it did. I’ve had vivid recurring dreams of biking full speed into the slack chain link fence in my school’s playground. I would brag the the fence would catch me like a net. It didn’t. It hurt. The dreams are so vivid that from time to time, I think I may have really done it. ...