Return of the Farm Boys

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, Beloit Shopping News and Walworth County Sunday, 10-5-2015)

The memories came flooding back as my brother and I examined the 65-year-old Allis-Chalmers WD farm tractor on display at the Rock River Thresheree.

It had been a long time since I had seen one of those, but everything was just as I remembered from the pair of WDs we used on our farm. The choke and the starter underneath the steering column. The hand crank on the front. The toolbox attached to the inside of the left fender, which served as a perfect seat for a young passenger.

One thing not present that I vividly recalled was the smell of my dad's tractor. The steering wheel contained an aroma that is difficult to describe, almost like a combination of burnt rubber and oil. And suddenly, that odor from 35 years ago was fresh in my mind.

People are surprised when they find out that my childhood was spent on a dairy farm. My life since high school certainly doesn't reflect that background. Advertising sales, writing and community theater are a far cry from driving manure spreaders and carrying milk pails. Neckties were rarely worn with green seed corn caps.

It was a life that I have come to appreciate far more now than when it was my daily reality. As the baby of the family, my siblings were all a decade or so older and were out of the house when I was still young. In effect, I was an only child, and a pretty spoiled and bratty one at that.

When my siblings went to school, our neighborhood was still dominated by family farms. By my childhood, things were starting to change. Subdivisions were creeping in, and my closest school friends were not the offspring of farmers. Their lives were different. They took summer vacations and their hardest chores seemed to be picking up their room or drying the dishes. Meanwhile, farm kids were expected to help in the barn and in the fields. Rather than truly understanding the sacrifices my parents made to keep a roof over our head, resentment crept in. I am not proud of my behavior or attitude in those days; it's a regret that haunts me.

So my trip to the Thresheree was more than just a day spent for entertainment. It was a day to reconnect both with my farming past and with my older brother, with whom my ten year gap seems not nearly as long as it used to.

Naturally, the tractors that caught our attention first were the ones similar to those we grew up with: the Allis-Chalmers, the IH 560, the old Farmall. My brother pointed out a John Deere model B my uncle once owned, a 2-cylinder nicknamed the “Johnny Popper” because of its distinctive sound.

We marveled at older, early 20^th Century models that were astonishingly large, resembling steam railroad locomotives more than farm machinery.

Always present in our minds with these beasts, old or new, is the danger factor. We both knew about that all too well. While working in the hay fields with my father one day, he barely escaped serious injury – or possibly death - when his pants leg got caught in the power take off shaft between the tractor and the baler. The machinery ripped off his pants, leaving him straddling the shaft in his underwear, boots, and unbelievably, the belt around his waist. Bolting from the hay wagon to the tractor to kill the ignition was the fastest dash in the history of my life.

That was just one chain in the acres of information my brother and I shared that day. He inquired about my memories and offered his. We compared notes and told stories the other hadn't heard before. It was almost like we grew up on the farm in different eras, like a TV show that changes characters over time. He was Trapper John, I was B.J. Hunnicutt.

Sitting and watching a parade of antique tractors go by, a Simon and Garfunkel lyric came to mind.

“Old friends/sat on their park bench like bookends...”

Giving It Up For Vacation

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, 6-30-2015)

My father was a dairy farmer, the type of one-man operation that has all but disappeared from our area. From the time of his honeymoon to his retirement nearly 37 years later, he averaged one day of vacation a year. Often, his lone day off would be a trip with my uncles to play the ponies at Arlington Park. My mother rarely received even that limited respite from her responsibilities as farmer's wife and its daily regimen of cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. Any leisure time my parents afforded themselves needed to fall between the morning milking and the evening milking. Their bosses were literally bossies; four or five dozen Holsteins who dictated the work schedule.

 

When I think about my parents' lives, it makes me all the more grateful to have a job that allows me to take vacation, and that we have the opportunity to use that time to create family memories. My wife and I and our two college-age children recently made the long drive out west to visit all five of Utah's spectacular national parks.

I've come to think of vacations as more than sight-seeing tours. They have become the mental equivalent of a cleanse, a detox for the soul. Like a Lenten Season Catholic, I give up things. This year's list was longer than usual: work e-mail, Facebook, caffeine, soda and, um, shaving.

 

Shaving aside, these took some determination. Not checking my work e-mail – and doing actual work – can be a challenge for me. The urge is strong to make sure all is going smoothly with the job that finances these trips. I've written proposals from log cabins Up Nort' and responded to ad agency inquiries standing by the Hollywood sign. But the point of this trip was to be present with my family, consumed by nothing except our time together and the amazing works of nature around us.

 

There are ways to break habits, and as Occam's Razor states, the simplest solution is usually the right one. Once upon a time, I had a tendency to spend weekend afternoons woofing down an entire package of Double Stuf Oreos. At some point I realized that, gee, if they aren't in the house, I can't eat them. So I stopped bringing them home from the grocery store. Likewise, to ensure there would be no succumbing to temptation on this trip, the Gmail application was completely removed from my Smartphone. Ditto the Facebook app, as virtual interactions with friends had become habitual to the point of addiction. Once deleted, however, I didn't give either a second thought. Out of sight was truly out of mind.  

 

Foregoing caffeine had the potential to be painful, and by all rights, it should have been. When your usual daily intake is the equivalent of over a full pot of coffee and/or multiple sodas, you should expect a honey of a caffeine-withdrawal headache, but it never came. It feels like I cheated the system, going cold turkey without adverse symptoms.

 

Naturally, once vacation was over, the e-mail app was re-installed. So was Facebook, though I seriously considered deactivating my account and walking away from it for good. Unfortunately, I feel like I can't, because people would either think I unfriended them or died.

 

Not all of the vacation sacrifices were temporary. My eschewance of soda has been completely maintained; good riddance to aspartame and brominated vegetable oil. And I've only had caffeinated coffee during my regular Sunday morning visits with my mother and brother. Not because I find their company to be sleep-inducing, but because it seems wrong to drink decaf out of the Waffle House mug that I keep at my mother's house. Drinking decaf at a Waffle House (or at my mom's, for that matter) would be like eating a veggie burger at Culver's.

 

As for shaving, I met that one halfway. Let's just say this column might need a new photo.

A Head In The Clouds

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, 8-30-2015)

"The sky is an infinite movie to me. I never get tired of looking at what's happening up there.”

-k. d. lang

When this year's Perseid meteor shower was at its peak, my son Rob and I drove to the countryside, away from the lights of the city. Atop a blanket thrown onto his car, we lay on our backs, scanning the heavens. It reminded me of going to a drive-in theater in the days of my youth, but no outdoor screen ever compared to the vast canvas we were viewing. The Milky Way we were enjoying didn't come from the snack bar.

Unlike your typical B-movie fare, there wasn't a lot of action. The only thing resembling drama was when the odd motorist's headlights found us and wondered why two guys were parked on the shoulder looking at the sky. But our patience was rewarded with three bright meteors and a bonus glimpse of the International Space Station when we were alerted via text message that it was coming into view. Another memory came with it, from about 40 years ago, of a night when my father and I watched the skies over our farm to see Skylab orbiting overhead.

The Perseids aside, this summer has been an amazing one to look at the skies, through fair weather or foul. We've seen double rainbows, incredible lightning shows, and hazy sunsets dimmed by Canadian wildfires. When my wife and I take our regular evening walks, the setting sun always seems to create a new shade of pink, purple or orange shining brightly as we look down the railroad tracks to see the western horizon. And the cloud formations we saw during a stormy evening trip to central Illinois were like something out of a Hubble Telescope photo.

Some Wisconsinites have even been fortunate enough to see the Aurora Borealis this year. I have only seen the Aurora once, but like a major historical event, I will never forget where I was when it happened. Unfortunately, it was in the days before smartphones so I couldn't capture the moment, but the mental picture I took remains clear and unpixelated.

My renewed appreciation for the cosmos may have been spurred several years ago when my son and I camped with the Boy Scouts in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. In the middle of our first night, I ventured out of our tent to answer nature's call. The number of stars in that crystal clear sky, far from any hint of light pollution, absolutely floored me. It was easy to believe Carl Sagan's assertion that there were billions and billions. After a few moments of standing and staring in amazement, it finally occurred to me that I had better get about my business before a bear or cougar spoiled my stargazing.

That same trip also treated me to the most wondrous sunrise I ever witnessed. Our guide had us get up early and hike to the top of a mesa, where eight of us silently watched the day begin as the miles and miles of New Mexico before us emerged from darkness. I am not ashamed to admit that the beauty of it made me weep.

Funny how in a world filled with just about any amazing thing you can think of, sometimes the simplest pleasures are the most satisfying. We look at our computer screens, we look at our televisions, we look down at our phones. Too often, we forget to look up and see the wonders above us.

In Search Of My Father

(This is the first column I ever published, from a 1996 local magazine called "On The Rock.")

I've been thinking a lot about my father lately. It's been almost 11 years since we lost him now. I was a young man when he died, with 23 years of memories stored up. Yet as time marches further and further from the day we laid him to rest, I worry about forgetting him.

I have children of my own now, children to whom Grandpa Lyke is simply a series of photographs. Children to whom Grandpa Lyke is just a name in the list of “God blesses” at the end of their prayers, though his name carries the special addition, “up in Heaven with the angels and God.” When my kids get older, I want to be able to tell them in meticulous detail all out the grandfather they never knew. I want them to know about his subtle wink, his hearty laugh, his huge hands, and his arms that were constantly scratched and scarred from farm work. I want them to know how he would relax by pitching horseshoes when his work was done. I want them to know how he astounded me by reciting the 1957 Milwaukee Braves lineup from memory twenty years after their heyday. I want them to know how he would take us on long Sunday drives through the countryside, never telling us our destination.

I'll never forget him, obviously. Putting these items down on paper will help ensure that I don't. But for every detail I remember vividly, I wonder about what I've forgotten. For example, his voice. I can no longer remember what his voice sounded like. I am hoping that among the things at my mother's house, I can find a recording of his voice. I have always regretted that he wasn't here on earth to see me evolve from a confused kid just out of college to a proud home-owning father with a suit-and-tie job. That he wasn't here to see his two grandchildren, including the one that bears his name. I can only take solace in the faith that I have, that he does indeed know all of this.

After an unemployed summer spent in pursuit of an advertising job, I finally got the one I wanted early in September of 1985. I called home, ecstatic, and when my dad answered the phone, I filled his ear for 15 minutes about what a great job I had just won. When I finally got around to asking how things were on the homefront, he told me that he had been diagnosed with cancer.

I placed myself firmly in denial. I convinced myself that his surgery was routine, and that within a few weeks, he would be home and all would be back to normal. He knew better. The day before the surgery, my family got together. At the time, we were not a huggy, kissy family. So when I left that Sunday, I started to go as usual, with simply a goodbye and a wave. My dad suddenly came up to me and gave me a huge, long hug. I was surprised, to be sure, but it still didn't faze me that this could be the last time I ever hugged my father. It was.

A little more than a month later, his body unable to recover from the surgery meant to save him, he demanded to be removed from all the medical machinery and brought back home. My family and I spent an agonizing four days in our living room, taking shifts staying up with him and holding his hand, as he fought the sleep from which he knew he would not awaken. Finally, at 1:20 pm on Halloween, surrounded by his entire family, a pastor and a nurse, he finally lost the fight. It was not a Hollywood death. His eyes didn't close, his mouth didn't close, his head didn't flop. He just stopped living. His last words had simply been, “last day.”

I do not want to remember my father by the last month of his life. Those details are far too vivid, surreal and disturbing. I want to remember him by the first 61 years and 5 months of life; the 23 years I knew that preceded that final month. And that's why I am so concerned about forgetting those details.

It's amazing, though, the memories you can pull out of storage when something reminds you. Recently, I was reading my daughter a library book, when one of those vivid reminiscences occurred. The book was written by a farm boy who had witnessed his father get badly injured, and nearly killed, when his clothing got caught in some farm machinery. I did not know what the book, a true story, was about when I started reading. But when I read the story, it hit me hard. When I was a teen, I had witnessed something eerily similar happen to my father. He was climbing up onto a tractor when his pant leg got caught in the spinning mechanism that operated our hay baler. When I heard the commotion and turned around, I saw my dad, pantless, straddling this bar that was spinning at God-knows-how-many rpm. I got the tractor turned off and helped him, painfully aware that I had almost witnessed a tragic accident. Amazingly, his pants were ripped completely off him, but his belt remained around his waist. I can't imagine how much that had to hurt. Despite the pattern of bruises all over his legs, he was incredibly lucky. What if his pants hadn't torn free? What if his legs hadn't been long enough to straddle the bar? Too many farmers have suffered far worse at the hands of their machinery.

I have been interested lately in my dad's childhood, which I knew little about. My aunt recently told me where I could find their childhood home, the farmhouse where my dad was actually born. I'm sure I had seen it before, probably on one of our long Sunday drives, but that would have been when I was a child. Now, as an adult, I was determined to really see it. I was armed with an old township plat book and my aunt's description of the house to pinpoint its location. I didn't know what to expect. I imagined that I might see a neglected old farmhouse on an abandoned farm. To my surprise, the farm was still a working operation and the farmhouse was in great shape. I drove past it slow a few times, trying to imagine his arrival on a spring day in 1924.

As I drove away from that farm, I thought about all of the things I would ask him if he were alive. I hope, as my children grow, they will have both the interest, and the opportunity, to ask me.

I Like Iyke

(From the Janesville Messenger, 5-11-2015)

You might be impressed that 274 people are following me on Twitter. Until you know that 265 of them think I am someone else.

Of course, the first question you may ask is why on Earth I am on Twitter in the first place. And in all honesty, there is really no good reason, at least not from a personal standpoint.

It all dates back to 2009, the year of my great social media awakening, when I officially became part of the generation that stole Facebook from America's youth. Facebook was fun and even addicting, but Twitter? I didn't see the point.

Then my employer added a new feature to its digital billboards which allowed us to use Twitter to instantly update information on the displays. The primary demonstrator needed to create an account that tied into the billboards, and that fell to me.

In doing so, I unwittingly erred in two ways. One, it was set up like my own account, using my real name. Second, the profile identified me as an actor with a photo in costume as Cogsworth the clock from “Disney's Beauty and the Beast.”

The account served its purpose. The first 100 or so tweets were almost exclusively from trade shows in Janesville and Rockford. At some point in mid-2011, however, I noticed that I actually had followers – a lot of them. Most were women from the African continent, especially Nigeria. Assuming it was a scam of some sort, I ignored them. But similar friend requests, messages and followers started showing up on Facebook, too. After comparing notes with my friends, it appeared that no one else was receiving these African contacts.

Finally, a comment in one of the uninvited messages gave me a clue. A Google search revealed the answer – a Nigerian actor named Jim Iyke. He is a Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood) sex symbol and bad boy. The confusion with me was obvious.

Apparently, the lower case L in my Twitter name, plus the reference to being an actor, led to my large group of admirers. The profile photo of a dorky white guy dressed as a clock did nothing to dissuade them. Amused by this discovery, I briefly changed my Facebook profile photo to one of Mr. Iyke.

Boy, was THAT a mistake.

A tsunami of messages and friend requests from overseas engulfed my account. It was like the movie “Monty Python's Life of Brian” when poor Brian gets mistaken for the Messiah and can't convince anyone otherwise.

Three times in six months, I tweeted my followers to alert them they had the wrong guy. It didn't work; the fans kept coming. It was time for a new approach.

@jimlyke7 – 7 Jan 2012: I quit movies. I hate Nollywood. Moving to Turkey.

That didn't work. Therefore, another tweet.

@jimlyke7 – 25 Jan 2012: Nollywood is the worst. I am quitting movies. I hate my fans. I am moving to America because I hate Africa.

In retrospect, maybe that wasn't the most mature way to go about it, though it was kind of fun. Subsequent solutions included the hashtag #NotNigerian, highlighting my non-African heritage on my Twitter profile, and adding a big cover photo that practically screamed “I am a goofy Caucasian!” I even went so far as to change my Facebook name to Jim NotTheNigerianActor Lyke.

The message finally seemed to register. Though it doesn't appear that many of my foreign friends have actually un-followed me, the Facebook messages have trickled down to almost none except an occasional “hi plz frnd me.”

The recent Twitter activity to establish my true identity actually led to some real followers. This is turn encouraged me to send a few tweets; just for the novelty of it, I guess. But I'm still not seeing a real need or purpose for a guy like me to use Twitter, other than perhaps as a source of news, sports and weather information.

Or...maybe to promote a certain monthly newspaper column. What do you think, Mr. Editor?

A Role To Dye For

(From the Janesville Messenger, 4-19-2015) 

Being involved in community theater makes you do funny things.

That doesn't always mean presenting comedic lines. Sometimes, what you have to do to prepare for a stage role is the bigger, and stranger, challenge.

For instance, learning how to juggle beer cans. Or how to imitate Julia Child. Or how to talk like a donkey. Or how to waltz - while wearing a bulky clock costume - with someone dressed as a wardrobe. That particular dance ended up being cut from the show, a decision that may have saved lives.

Away from rehearsals, however, my only obvious concession to being cast in a play has been the addition of facial hair. Whenever whiskers sprout, friends and relatives automatically assume there's a play in my future. They are often right. For “Camelot,” it meant growing a full beard that came in so white, it added years to my appearance. As soon as the final audience was gone, so was the beard. To play Cogsworth in “Disney's Beauty and the Beast,” my facial enhancement was a snazzy Frank Zappa moustache and soul patch combo that I was quite fond of.

But for a recent role as a priest in the drama “Doubt,” the director requested two beautification events that are generally avoided by males of the species.

My character was at least a decade younger than my real age and the director thought my graying temples were not right for the role. A request was made to have my hair dyed back to its darker original color.

Chemicals in my hair is not a foreign concept for me. In my late teens, my sister gave me home perms to give me a hip afro, like a Caucasian Billy Preston or a “Hotel California”-era Don Henley. Many years later, I made an ill-fated attempt at dying the aforementioned white beard at home, which ended in a stained-face disaster reminiscent of an Emmett Kelly poster.

The risk of looking like I was fighting middle age was one thing. Growing my fingernails long was nearly a deal-breaker.

My character's long fingernails are mentioned several times in the play's dialogue. There is even a point where he shows off his nails to the audience. Reluctant to use fake nails for fear of them falling off during a performance, the director asked me to grow mine out.

The biggest concern was that, being in sales, long nails would look unprofessional and require explanation. But I dutifully followed instructions and allowed them to progress uncut.

Oh. My.

They were barely half the length they needed to be, and I was already going crazy. Longer nails just felt wrong. There were weird clicking sounds when I typed. Scratching an itch drew blood.

It was time to revisit the fake nail scenario. A nice, if amused, young woman at a beauty supply store helped me pick out some press-on nails. Trying them on for a rehearsal, it became apparent that losing one during a show was not a concern; those suckers weren't going anywhere. The director approved. My real nails could be cut. Oh, joy. Rapture!

Thankfully, one of the females in the cast asked how I was planning on removing the nails. Unbeknownst to me, normal nail polish remover wasn't going to work. She said it would require pure acetone. It might have made for an interesting evening at home if she hadn't mentioned that.

Wearing my winter gloves to disguise my benailed fingers, I made a second trip to the beauty supply store. To my surprise, when you buy pure acetone, you have to show your ID. Apparently, not only does acetone do a great job removing fake nails, but also your faculties; it can be used to produce meth. You can't say this wasn't a learning experience.

As it turned out, a cast illness resulted in the show's cancellation, so having my hair dyed turned out to be in vain. Or at least, that's what some people assume.

Anyone need a bottle of pure acetone? 

The Fall Guy

(From the Janesville Messenger, 12-7-2014)

I'm not what you would call graceful.

My history includes many episodes that range from awkward to downright clumsy. A classmate once described me as being “as coordinated as a cow on stilts.” But the defining moment of my school career occurred during a junior high basketball game when, after attempting a layup, a laughing teammate declared that I looked like a flying camel.

And lo, unto me a nickname was born. To this day, former school friends – as well as their parents – still refer to me as Camel.

On one recent morning, it was hard to tell whether I resembled a camel, cow, Bambi, or some other odd animal as I lay sprawled upon my icy driveway, howling in pain. Venturing out in a bathrobe and flip-flops to get the morning newspaper, the freezing rain claimed another victim, a cruel reminder that Mother Nature takes no prisoners during Wisconsin winters.

In pursuit of the day's headlines, I instead acquired a headline of my own, a Harry Potter-like laceration above my right eyebrow. When I went down, my forehead struck the corner of a stone wall, almost immediately inflating a bulge that looked and felt like a baseball growing out of my face.

After the ice melted on the roads - and in the pack on my forehead - we made the obligatory trip down to urgent care, where x-rays of my head showed nothing (apologies to Yogi Berra). The medical staff were all very nice and sympathetic, never once blurting out “You idiot! What were you doing out on the ice?”

Of course, when you visit the doctor, you get asked to rate your pain on the 0 to 10 scale, with 0 being no pain and 10 being worst possible. There is a chart on the wall to assist you in your pain estimate, with helpful facial expressions next to each number. For example, 0 is a big smile and 10 is a huge frown with tears. With each number up the scale, the center of the eyebrows moves upward, the smile straightens and then turns downward, the eyes look sadder and finally cry. Even with that as a guide, I never know what to say. It would be easier to self-assess with real world examples; say, a paper cut is a 2 and having your leg gnawed off by a tiger is a 10.

I was also brutally honest with the doctor examining me. When she asked how I was feeling, I simply replied, “stupid.” No other answer (“OK,” “Fine,” “Not so good,” etc.) seemed appropriate.

Fortunately, no stitches were required on the cut; instead, it was held together with a big glob of glue. It was like being in second grade art class all over again.

A knock to the noggin is the gift that keeps on giving. Three days later, swollen purple sacks formed in the corners of both eyes. Within a day or so, I sported two shiners straight out of a Rocky Balboa film.

Trying to hide facial injuries is an art. The head wound was camouflaged by parting my hair to the other side. With the black eyes, contact lenses were eschewed in favor of dark-rimmed glasses. The restyled coiffure just felt weird, though, so it didn't last long. There are worse things in the world than displaying a big purple splotch on one's forehead. Heck, it didn't stop Mikhail Gorbachev.

It is also an art to avoid staring at someone's injury. The wound on my head is just so darned interesting to folks. It is hard to avoid laughing when seeing people's eyes dart from my forehead to my eyes and back. At least they can look straight into my eyes to appreciate the shiners.

I guess I should have listened to the advice I dispensed from the theatrical stage two years ago, as I sang the line, “When on thin ice, please watch your step.” The musical? Of course....“Guys On Ice.”