Category: Family

“This is Not a Date!”

Published on by Andy Smallman2 Comments

Turns out ‘not a date’ can last a lifetime.

Melinda, the woman who will become my wife of 35 years later this year (if we make it to December 31st still married, that is) once firmly told me, “This is not a date!” This is the story of how that happened.

  • The Setup: In September 1990, I was re-emerging into the social world after leaving a challenging job and wanted to see a concert.
  • The Cover Story: My real plan was to ask my friend Bruce’s housemate, Melinda, to a wedding later that month.
  • 💍 The Surprise: Melinda not only agreed to the wedding but also to the concert, a spontaneous trip to a racetrack, and, less than four months later, marriage.

My plan was to call my friend Bruce about seeing Nick Lowe at Bumbershoot, the Seattle music festival. This was my excuse to get an opening to ask Melinda to a wedding. As it turned out, Bruce wasn’t in town, but he put Melinda on the phone. To my surprise, she immediately agreed to go to both the concert and the wedding with me.

After the concert, as we walked and made small talk, Melinda mentioned she had recently taken up horseback riding. I had connections at Longacres racetrack and could get access to the stables, so I asked if she’d like to see the thoroughbreds sometime. Her face lit up as she asked, “When can we go?” Seizing the moment, I replied, “How about now?”

I think she suddenly realized her enthusiasm might be misinterpreted. We had just been to a concert, she had agreed to be my wedding guest, and now she’d accepted a spontaneous trip to a racetrack. She clearly felt the need to halt any romantic ideas I might be getting. With a tone that matched her words for clarity, she stated, “This is not a date!” My less-than-eloquent response was something along the lines of, “Um, okay.”

Of course, we were married less than four months later. In those three+ decades, we’ve raised two kids to adulthood, started a school, lived in France for a year, become grandparents, and spent nearly every day together.

Occasionally, I’ll ask her if we’ve had a date yet. 😉

The 57th Grade: A Half-Century of Hand-Me-Downs and Happenstance

Published on by Andy SmallmanLeave a comment

I’m pretty sure the picture on the left was taken on the first day of school in 1975, what would have been my first day of 7th grade and my very first day at Tillicum Junior High in Bellevue, WA. Stick with me while I do the math: if that was 1975 and this is 2025, well, that’s 50 years ago. By that calculation, I guess I’m now in the 57th grade, assuming I’ve not been held back (or skipped ahead, for that matter).

The picture on the right, I’m almost certain, was taken by Mrs. Martin, my 7th grade homeroom teacher. Homeroom meant having a teacher for two periods: Language Arts and Social Studies. As initially scheduled, those classes were back-to-back, periods 5 and 6 in the afternoon for me. But Tillicum had this quirky system where the class periods rotated. So depending on the day of the week, your morning classes would take place in the afternoon and vice versa. Looking back, I suppose it was meant to keep things “fresh,” maybe even based on some circadian-rhythm research. But to us kids, it mostly felt like an extra layer of confusion and stress, as if junior high didn’t already have enough of both. We’d just come from elementary school, where we basically stayed in one room with one teacher the whole day, to suddenly juggling seven classes in seven different rooms. Why not add in mixing up when the classes took place? Not to mention going to school with 9th graders, some who looked like the teachers?

So, yeah, I can just imagine the Tillicum administration saying something like, “Hey, let’s mix things up! On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we’ll put afternoon classes in the morning and morning classes in the afternoon. That ought to keep those kids sharp.”

Now, if you look closely at the picture on the right, you’ll see I’m wearing the same shirt I had on the first day of school. That makes me wonder if Mrs. Martin snapped the photo on the first day. Maybe… but I look like I’m working awfully hard for a first day, and the pencil I’m clutching is way too stubby to be a “first-day-of-school pencil,” if you know what I mean. So let’s assume it wasn’t taken on day one. That leaves us with two possibilities:
1) I really liked that shirt.
2) I only owned one shirt.

I really liked that shirt. 70’s paisley. Sign me up!

Speaking of clothes, the jacket I’m wearing in the picture on the left was handmade by my mom. She was super handy with her mint-green Singer sewing machine (which, if I remember correctly, my parents “bought” with Green Stamps back in the ’60s). The fabric design was Buffalo nickels. If you don’t know, a Buffalo nickel was a U.S. five-cent coin minted from 1913 to 1938. Since my family were collectors, we collected coins and getting a Buffalo nickel was kind of a big deal. We kept them and our other coins in those blue books where you’d press the coins into little round slots, all neatly organized by year. Half the fun was jamming the coin in without bending the cardboard. Remember those?

By the early ’70s, my brother Steve had become the main coin collector. I’d moved on to hockey cards, and our older brother Scott, well, we always said he just collected money. Not coins, not cards, just the kind you stick in a bank or invest. Steve eventually eased up on coin collecting, and I sold off my hockey cards in the early ’90s. Scott? He’s still doing a pretty good job collecting money.

You might be wondering why I’m wearing the Buffalo nickel jacket if Steve was the coin collector. Good question. The simple answer: Mom made the jacket for him. She’d sewn a hockey-themed one for me. By the time 7th grade rolled around and I needed a jacket, Steve had outgrown it, so it became a hand-me-down. Being the youngest of three boys, I got a lot of hand-me-downs. And, yes, I’m still waiting for my first “new” bike.

As for the Buffalo nickel fabric, I think Mom picked it up at a store in the old Eastgate Shopping Center in Bellevue, right next to the old Bellevue airport. The center had a Safeway where, fun fact, a pilot crashed his Cessna in 1976. There was also a drugstore called Fischer Drugs, a Dairy Queen, and I’m pretty sure a Fotomat (look it up!) in the middle of the parking lot. My dad bought his Racing Forms at a place called Lil’ Johns, and my brothers and I bowled at Sun Villa Lanes. Sometimes we even got our hair cut at Jerry’s Barbershop. Get this, Jerry was my mom’s first cousin!

I think the fabric store was called Wigwam, a name that hasn’t aged too gracefully (kind of like some old sports team names; for instance, the Seattle Mariners are playing the Cleveland Guardians as I write this – see the connection?). I liked going to Fischer Drugs as they had sports cards and candy. Wigwam, though, was a colossal bore for me back then. Add in that my mom could get lost looking at the fabric, and well, “Mom, can I go to Fischer’s and get some candy?”

Keep in mind that my dad was a candy salesman.

I think I’ve digressed. Let’s get back to 7th grade homeroom and Mrs. Martin. I really liked her as a teacher, even though she was a bit strict. I was the kind of student who could meet a teacher’s expectations, provided they were clear, and Mrs. Martin’s expectations were crystal clear. That said, I’ve been a certified teacher in Washington State for 35 years now and in retrospect, some of Mrs. Martin’s teaching strategies clash with a lot of the principles I’ve spent my career advocating.

For example, she used competition as a teaching tool, pitting classmates against each other. I remember us having spelling bees where she divided the class into two teams, one lining up on each side of the room. The person at the front of each line was given a word to spell. Spell it correctly, and you moved to the back of the line for your next turn. Spell it wrong, and you slunk back to your desk between the two lines, feeling the sting of public humiliation. The team with the last person standing was the winner

See what I mean by junior high school stress??

I was one of the last people standing during one of these epic battles and got knocked out on the word receipt. Yeah, I got the “I before E except after C” thing right, but I forgot the letter P. Give me a break, I was 12 years-old! Do YOU hear a P in the word receipt? Boy, was I humiliated when I returned to my seat, especially when a girl named Katie on the other team spelled receipt correctly. Game over. My cheeks burned.

I do have to give Mrs. Martin some credit, though. I’ve never misspelled “receipt” since that day. Not once. But seriously, at what price? Some lessons stick for life… and some stick with a little trauma attached.

As much as I think spelling bees like that are really bad teaching strategies (After all, who gets the most practice? The best spellers, of course.), Mrs. Martin did something else that was quite hard on me, specifically. For behavior management, she handed out demerits to misbehaving students. That might not sound so bad at first, though getting a demerit in front of your classmates could be pretty embarrassing. The real kicker? She didn’t keep track of them herself. Too busy teaching, she handed the job to a student.

And that student was me.

How would you like to be chosen by your homeroom teacher in 7th grade to keep tabs on your classmates? When a student distracted her or otherwise misbehaved in a way that Mrs. Martin deemed deserved a demerit, she’d turn her attention, and that of the class, to me. In a little notebook she had given me, I had to make a mark next to a kid’s name every time they got a demerit — four lines for four demerits, then a vertical line through them for the fifth, and then start over with the next group of five.

It never even occurred to me what would happen if I got a demerit. But you can bet I was on my best behavior to make sure it never happened.

I can still remember the kid who racked up the most demerits – Kurt (I’ll spare his last name for privacy, but yes, I remember it, too). Poor Kurt. So many blocks of five. It was almost like he was collecting demerits on purpose once he got started. I think many of them were for making funny noises, probably something he couldn’t control. Kurt had a talent for distraction, and apparently, for accumulating demerits.

Here’s where the story takes a wild turn. Years later, after high school (Sammamish High, if you’re keeping score at home), Kurt went to Washington State University, the same university Melinda, my wife, attended. They were there at the same time, they knew each other, and yes, they even dated. Melinda says Kurt was her first serious boyfriend. Sadly, he passed away in 1984 while on an exchange program in Sweden.

Okay, enough of the sad stuff. Let’s lighten the mood. Back in high school, Kurt, I, and a few other friends went to see the Boomtown Rats (yes, that’s a band) in Seattle on St. Patrick’s Day, 1981. What a fun night! It started with a light dinner at Debbie’s apartment in North Seattle, Debbie being my brother Steve’s girlfriend (side note – on December 30th this year, which we’ve already established is 2025, Steve and Debbie, now Deb, will be celebrating their 43rd wedding anniversary). For us high schoolers, it was a big deal because Steve and Debbie were in college and had invited us over before the concert.

I don’t remember everyone who was there, but I know for sure it included my buddies John and Marc. Pretty sure Kevin and Bruce were there too, though don’t quote me on that. After the pre-concert dinner at Debbie’s, we carpooled to the Paramount, where the show was being recorded for future radio airplay. Bob Geldof, the lead singer and main songwriter for the Boomtown Rats, cued the audience at times to get the right crowd noise.

I don’t think Geldof gave any cues to John that made him throw up halfway through the show, which scattered a few rows of concert-goers. Could I blame it on something John had eaten at Debbie’s? Let’s be honest, it wasn’t what he had eaten. It was what he drank. Well, what he drank and how much, if you get my drift. It’s become one of those stories we tell over and over. And Kurt was there. I don’t recall him getting any demerits.

Here’s an interesting twist / digression: The reason Melinda and I even know each other is because she had learned you could make a surprising amount of money working at an Alaskan cannery over the summer, enough, maybe, to cover a year of college tuition. She and a friend found out through a classified ad, maybe in The Little Nickel (a pre-Internet Craig’s List – look that up, too). Later, at a party, another guest told her they had just overheard two guys talking about the same opportunity on a Metro bus.

Melinda looked into it, and in the summer of 1982, she had the “pleasure” of hacking up salmon to prepare it for canning (to this day, the smell of canned salmon is known to cause her to behave in a way that could scatter a few rows of concert-goers at a Boomtown Rats concert). She met Kevin and Bruce at the cannery that summer. Yes, THAT Kevin and THAT Bruce, two of the people who may or may not have been at the Boomtown Rats concert a year and half earlier. And by all accounts and as wild as this sounds, Kevin and Bruce were probably the two guys the party-goer overheard on the Metro bus.

In 1984, after Kurt passed away, Kevin and Bruce helped Melinda through the early stages of her grief. Around that time, she and I met at a party, though it wasn’t until 1990 that we became, shall we say, romantically involved. On December 31, 1990, we got married. Kevin and Bruce were our witnesses.

Can we all agree that it’s a crazy world — Buffalo nickel jackets, demerits, canned salmon, and all?

So, yeah, the picture of me on the left was taken on the first day of 7th grade in 1975. And I’m pretty sure the picture on the right was taken by Mrs. Martin, my 7th grade homeroom teacher.

A Boy, a Ballplayer, and a Ballad

Published on by Andy SmallmanLeave a comment

When I was a little boy, the youngest of three sons, my family lived in Omaha, Nebraska. That’s where I was born so 100% of my life’s experience was developed in Omaha; that is, until my father was transferred to the Seattle area a couple of months before I turned 11.

I was raised a sports fan, most specifically baseball and hockey. While my brothers and I played sports, it was more the garden variety neighborhood pick-up games than with organized teams, albeit with some exceptions. My oldest brother, Scott, played a year of Little League baseball and I played a year of organized ice hockey. Steve, the middle brother, and I played softball through Cub Scouts and we all bowled somewhat competitively.

Perhaps more than playing sports, my family enjoyed attending sporting events. Omaha wasn’t big enough for the major leagues, but we did have some really good minor league teams during the time we lived there, the 1960’s and early 1970’s. The Omaha Knights hockey team was affiliated with the New York Rangers and we saw some pretty good players and coaches begin their professional careers inside Ak-Sar-Ben Coliseum. Most notably, defenseman André Dupont and coach Fred Shero helped guide the Knights to a Central Hockey League championship before winning a couple of Stanley Cups with the Philadelphia Flyers “Broad Street Bullies” teams in the mid 1970’s.

The top farm team for major league baseball’s Kansas City Royals was in Omaha. Also called the Royals, we saw some excellent baseball players pass through on the way to the “Show,” as the big leagues is called, including future Hall-of-Famer George Brett. Outfielder Amos Otis, pitcher Paul Splittorff, and second baseman Frank White all played in Omaha before making it big as members of some solid Kansas City teams in the 1970’s and beyond. And manager Jack McKeon ended up winning over 1000 games as a big league manager after his stint in Omaha.

My favorite baseball player was one of the older members of the team in both 1969 and 1970, an outfielder by the name of George Spriggs. I’m not really sure why Spriggs caught my attention more than the younger guys on their way up. But if I was to make a guess, I’m pretty sure it was the way he carried himself. He just looked like a baseball player to me. He wore his socks up, making his baseball pants look baggy, which I tried to emulate when I put on my replica Omaha Royals uniform. His most notable characteristic, at least to me, was how he carried his baseball glove when jogging out to take his position in centerfield. With his hand in his glove, he somehow tucked the glove into the spot between his arm and chest, the top resting inside his armpit. Of course, that’s how I carried my glove when jogging from whatever we used as a dugout to my position in the field.

Spriggs came to the Kansas City organization from the Pittsburgh Pirates where he’d been languishing in the minor leagues. I suppose the Royals, being a new team at the time, thought he might make a good utility outfielder for them. For whatever reason, though, they sent him down to Omaha where he tore up the league in 1970. I remember him being super fast and stealing a lot of bases. He helped guide Omaha to the American Association championship that year and won the league’s Most Valuable Player award. My family was there at Rosenblatt Stadium to see a lot of those games.

We’d sit on the 3rd base side of the field and arrive early to watch the players warm-up. Looking back on it, I suppose arriving early extended my parents’ entertainment dollar, which I learned later wasn’t large. What I remember at the time was loving it, going down to the rail and calling the players’ names, hoping they’d come over to autograph our programs, gloves, or anything else we might have for them to sign. For some of the more veteran players on both the Royals and whatever team was visiting, players demoted from the majors, we’d bring their baseball cards. It was always a big achievement to get a baseball card signed.

About George Spriggs, as an adult I learned that he had played in what was the remnants of the Negro Leagues in the 1960’s. It’s well-known now that there was a time in which black players were banned from playing in the “major leagues” (I put that in quotes because the so-called Negro League teams were at least as good as the so-called Major League teams of the time). Jackie Robinson broke the “color barrier” in 1947 but due to racism and other reasons, aspects of the Negro Leagues continued on until the mid 1960’s. That’s when Spriggs played.

By the way, a well-written and heartfelt tribute to George Spriggs’s baseball career can be found here. I highly recommend it.

I don’t recall what made me think of George Spriggs recently but I think it had to do with reminiscing about my life in Omaha. As I often do, I was playing some songs from that time period and decided to try to create some “70’s soul ballads” on Suno, the artificial intelligence song generator that has captured my fancy for the better part of the last two years. I’ve been taking song lyrics and poems I’ve written at various points in my life and making them into songs, something that I’ve found both energizing and fulfilling.

Writing with a specific genre in mind provides me with an interesting challenge. I think I’ve been most successful with country songs, for whatever reason. But I’m such a nostalgia sap and I have a lot of warm feelings about music from the early 1970’s that I wanted to give that era a go, specifically some of the soul ballads of the time. “Midnight Train to Georgia,” “Me and Mrs Jones,” “You Make Me Feel Brand New,” and “Could it Be I’m Falling in Love” work like a time machine for me, bringing back feelings and memories from over 50 years ago. And because a couple of those years were really tough for me, punctuated by night terrors and a week-long hospitalization to try to get to the bottom of it, I think I have a need to make sense of the time.

Using Suno to create songs from different genres prompted a desire in me to come up with band names for the various styles. My country songs are “performed” by a fictional band I call Executive Estates, the name of the apartment complex in Seattle in which I lived when I started writing sappy break-up songs, perfect for country music. Two other of my “bands” are named in honor of tram stops on Line 2 in Nantes, France where my wife, daughters, and I lived for a year in 2010-11. Recteur Schmitt has an Eastern European / gypsy-punk vibe, and Motte Rouge has an alternative pop-folk feel with a female lead singer. You can find all three bands on Spotify or download some songs on Bandcamp.

Perhaps you see where this essay is going. What to name the fictional band of my new 70’s soul ballad songs, right? I got a little giddy when the idea of naming it for George Spriggs occurred to me. And given many of the songs include background singers, I decided I needed both a singer and the band in the name, you know like Gladys Knight and the Pips. So I’m pleased to announce the debut single of George Spriggs and the Omaha Royals, complete with the music video below.

END-NOTE:
I know a lot of people are understandably disturbed by AI-generated music. I’m not trying to promote it or defend it beyond saying that it brings me tremendous pleasure to create these songs. I write the lyrics and the prompts, then spend time adjusting the sound until I get what I want. The end result feels like some kind of magic to me.

The Summer of the Ladysmith Station, July 2007

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All families have stories they regularly retell, the ones you have no idea will have long-lasting significance when they happen. This was certainly the case with an experience from 18 years ago this summer, when my wife’s parents, Dwight and Michele, dropped off my family – Melinda, my wife, and our daughters, Chloe and Ella – in Ladysmith, British Columbia after spending a week with them on their sailboat.

Spending a week on Dwight and Michele’s boat for the Commodore’s Cruise was a semi-annual event for us. This Seattle Yacht Club (SYC) event was always a highlight of our summer when it took place, and it fit Melinda’s and my meager summer holiday budget. As administrators of a nonprofit school, money was always tight.

We’d drive from Seattle to Anacortes and park our car, then take the ferry from Anacortes to Friday Harbor in the San Juan Islands. From there, we’d make our way to Roche Harbor where Dwight and Michele would meet us on their boat. From Roche Harbor, we’d travel by boat to Henry Island where SYC has an outstation. They’d tie up the sailboat there, and we’d have the run of the outstation for the rest of the day.

The next day would be the beginning of the Commodore’s Cruise, a social event that includes both casual cruising and a friendly competition among a large number of boaters, including point-to-point races for sailboats. It starts in the waters of the Salish Sea before crossing into British Columbia, with stops at various SYC outstations and other marinas for planned dinners, parties, and social activities.

Dwight & Michele at the helm!

In 2007, Dwight and Michele were going to continue north on their boat following the conclusion of the cruise in order to circumnavigate Vancouver Island. Because of our work responsibilities, Melinda and I didn’t have that much time so we needed to return to Seattle. Checking train schedules based on our planned location at the end of the cruise, Melinda determined that we could catch a train in Ladysmith, a tiny town on Vancouver Island, that would take us to Sidney. From Sidney, we’d catch a ferry to Anacortes, reunite with our car, and head back to Seattle.

Simple.

Traveling by boat is different than traveling by car. You have to take into account things like tides and water depth. And the morning we were being dropped in Ladysmith created a tight window for Dwight and Michele to have the depth of water they’d need to get through a narrow passage later that day. In other words, dropping us off would need to be both efficient and quick – no long goodbyes or dilly-dallying.

Also, Dwight’s and Michele’s sailboat, while comfortable and tremendously fun, was not really built for six people to live for an extended time. Quarters were tight and this needed to be considered when packing for the week-long cruise. Most of our clothes and essentials were packed in a single large duffle bag that could be easily stowed. The four of us each had a small backpack for personal belongings plus this larger duffle, which was understandably a tad heavy.

It was overcast as we approached the Government Dock in Ladysmith, our drop-off spot. Dwight expertly navigated the sailboat to the dock and Melinda, Chloe, Ella, and I jumped off, along with our backpacks and overstuffed duffle. I recall that Dwight didn’t even have us tie up to the dock to make the transition from sea to land easier. We pretty much jumped onto the dock before he quickly powered away, Michele waving and blowing kisses.

The Government Dock, Ladysmith.

So there we were, Melinda, Chloe, Ella, and me, on this very industrial-looking dock in Ladysmith with four small bags and one overstuffed large duffle. This was before smartphones with GPS. We really weren’t sure where the train station was. To our advantage, we had a few hours before the train was due to arrive. We set off on foot, me, with Melinda’s help, hoisting the duffle bag onto my back and latching it around my waist.

The first part of the walk was straightforward. There was only one way to go and that was away from the water. But we quickly discovered that this involved climbing an incline. In short order, Melinda, certain she’d found a shortcut, suggested we leave the paved road and walk on a trail of some kind. I was wearing flip-flops (it was summer vacation). I had a heavy bag on my back. But arguing with Melinda in moments like this is a losing proposition. Up the trail we went.

The trail got a bit steeper and one of my flip-flops started to fall off. I stood up to adjust it. With the weight of the bag on my back and the steepness of the incline, I started to fall backwards. I’m not quite sure how I caught myself but the look must have been entertaining to the rest of my family. They seemed to think it was worthy of laughter. Me, I pictured myself flat on back, my feet above my head, stuck on the trail and flailing like an overturned beetle.

I guess it was kinda funny.

We trudged on and found, get this, train tracks! Melinda’s next brilliant idea?! To walk along the train tracks as they certainly would lead us to the train station. I agreed, that’s true. But what about being run over by a train that happened to come by before we managed to arrive at said station? Being the one to have booked our train tickets, Melinda was pretty sure our train, the one still a couple hours away from arriving, was the only train scheduled. We walked along the tracks.

Before continuing with this story, let me just say that we all had it in our minds that a train station would be a place we could rest and wait for the train. I mean, what do you picture when you think of a train station? People, right? Workers, correct? Maybe a place to grab a drink and a bite to eat?

The Ladysmith Train Station was nothing like that. It consisted of a lot of overgrown brush and trees and a single, obviously abandoned, outbuilding. Littered around it was drug paraphernalia and evidence of past romantic trysts (aka syringes and condom wrappers). Most entertaining, though, was the graphic “F*!@ You” spray-painted on the building. No one else was there.

I’m pretty sure this is when Chloe’s internal warning system, heightened by being a fairly sheltered 14-year-old, went off. “Is this where we’re spending the next three hours waiting for the train? Where is the town? I bet the train isn’t even going to stop for us!”

I think it’s fair to say her foot came down strong on the side of the “I’m not staying here.”

Melinda’s parenting instincts had already kicked in. I knew her well enough to recognize that she was feeling pretty much like Chloe, but knew she also had the perspective that our options were limited. The sign here did say Ladysmith and by all accounts, we would be catching the train from this spot in a couple of hours. I could see her mental wheels turning and pretty much knew I didn’t need to say or do anything. She was going to, and in short order, say how we were going to make the best of this situation and help two kids pass the time with a halfway decent attitude.

A photoshoot.

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.

A photoshoot!

We had our camera (again, before smartphones) and, I had to admit, the overall look of the place would inspire the most creative of set-designers. Following Melinda’s directions, I carefully set down the duffle bag and we placed our smaller bags around it. Then we proceeded to line ourselves up in front of the abandoned station to take arm-distance group selfies before selfies were a thing. We were a little too scrunched together to get all of us in a really good shot so I took a few pictures of the three together. Melinda acted as photoshoot director, working to infuse energy and silliness into the moment. In the initial pictures, Chloe is looking pretty skeptical but ultimately came around. Ella, at age 10, was pretty game from the beginning.

Melinda pointed out that our camera had a delay feature, meaning we could try to get some posed group shots at a distance using the timer. We walked around to the end of the building and found a spot that we thought we could all sit down, backed by the peeling paint and graffiti-tagged exterior. I stepped on a lower plank to get to where we would sit, and my flip-flopped foot broke right through the rotten wood. A reminder to be careful.

By then, Melinda had set up the camera at the proper distance to capture the four of us and the building. Suggesting this could be the cover for our “record album,” she set the timer and rushed back to join us on the shady platform. By then, the sun had come out. Perfect! The resulting picture is one of my all-time favorites of my family.

One of my favorite family photos.

Maybe 20 minutes had passed and the photoshoot started to lose its luster. It was still more than two hours before the train was due to arrive. But we did notice a road at the far end, opposite of the way we had arrived. We walked up it and found the edge of Ladysmith, including a place to get a drink and a bite to eat. We relaxed, realizing that we weren’t the only people on earth, and laughed at our experience so far.

Close to the appointed time, we returned to the “train station,” and pretty much right on time our train appeared. About the train, it really didn’t come to a full stop for us. It slowed down, mind you, and a conductor did appear, clearly aware that some people were scheduled to be picked up in Ladysmith that day (that probably didn’t happen too often). He helped Chloe and Ella onboard, then Melinda jumped on. She reached back and helped get that crazy duffle bag onboard. Then I jumped on. The train picked up speed.

We had a lovely train ride to Sidney. I highly recommend it.

END NOTES:
– What prompted me to write this story was having recently come across an article in the Nanaimo News. Dated May 26, 2025, the headline is “$1M awarded for restoration of historic Ladysmith train station.” This pleases me no end. When the renovations are done, here’s hoping Melinda, Chloe, Ella and I can return for an updated photoshoot.
– Perhaps of interest, Pamela Anderson of Baywatch fame is from Ladysmith and lives there again now. Her TV show “Pamela’s Garden of Eden” shows how she has renovated her childhood home.
– In 2011, my efforts to promote ordinary acts of kindness were featured in a publication called Gulf News. The editors asked for a photo of me to include with the article and I sent them one from our Ladysmith photoshoot. Find the photo and the article here.

Planned Renovation

France 2017 (From the Archives)

Published on by Andy SmallmanLeave a comment

I often use this blog as a memory jog and one of my favorite “jogs” is to review Melinda’s and my trips to France. Melinda left PSCS in June of 2017 and that summer we took what we intended to be our annual trip to France

The idea of an annual trip to France got blown up in 2018, the year I left PSCS. Instead, we moved to the Bay Area and stayed there until 2019. We came back to Seattle and bought a little fixer-upper house. But we really hadn’t made any money over those 12 months. And living on savings and then buying a house that needed a LOT of work, well, annual trips to France were out. Besides, in 2020 there was a little thing called a global pandemic…

Still, all was quite innocent during the summer of 2017 and Melinda & I made our annual trip to France. This trip included some extended time in Amsterdam with Christine & Bérnard, celebrating Bérnard’s parents’ 60th anniversary in Normandy, and lots of fun times with Laurent & Frédérique. One downside was that my beloved tram line in Nantes, Line 2, was closed in our old neighborhood. To help me cope, Bérnard took me dumpster diving to find some Line 2 souvenirs to bring home.

To easily see all the posts from 2017 in reverse order, click this link.

THE Finish Line at Emerald Downs (my dad’s final resting spot)

Published on by Andy Smallman6 Comments

You may recall that my dad died last year, almost exactly a year ago. Yesterday, my mother, my brothers, and I, along with three of my dad’s racetrack colleagues, honored his life by spreading his ashes on the racetrack at Emerald Downs. But not just anywhere on the racetrack, like in a tiny corner where the horses don’t run, but at the finish line.

In fact, we made my father’s final resting spot to be THE FINISH LINE. How poetic is that, especially for my dad, to become a visible line across a racetrack at the point where every race ends?

The photos below, I hope, put this in even better perspective than my short description here. As my mom said soon after we walked through the Winner’s Circle on our way out of the racetrack, “This was perfect.”

Indeed.

Spreading my dad’s ashes across the racetrack at Emerald Downs, we made a new finish line.

My mom, with a little help from me, gets THE finish line started.

Steve adds to the line.

Scott’s turn.

I moved over to the inside rail and connected the line to the center of the track.

My mom standing with her back to inside rail, the ashes remains of her husband now a line across the racetrack.

Soon after we had finished spreading the ashes at the finish line, the tractors came and my dad’s remains were more thoroughly merged into the racetrack.

Before opening up the box containing my father’s ashes, we posed for a picture in the Winner’s Circle, an apt place for my brothers, my mother, and me to pose with my father.

Before spreading the ashes, we stood in the Winner’s Circle and listened to legendary track announcer Robert Geller’s “race call” of my dad’s life, an obituary in the form of a track announcer’s call of a horse race:

“Does Time Tell Us?” by Recteur Schmitt

Published on by Andy Smallman1 Comment

Back in the late summer of 1996, my older daughter, Chloe, age three, and I were home, just the two of us on a Saturday night. My wife and Chloe’s mom, Melinda (who was pregnant with our younger daughter, Ella, at the time), had gone out with some friends. Together, Chloe and I made ourselves a casual dinner and now, the dishes cleaned up, it was nearing her bedtime.

At Chloe’s request, I had gotten out the art supplies and she was busy coloring, cutting paper, painting, and whatever else struck her artistic fancy at three-years-old. I was taken by the seriousness with which she was engaged, although it also struck me that part of her seriousness was to keep herself busy so maybe she would get to stay up past her bedtime. Watching her, all of these things kind of converged in my mind and this idea of who controls time came to me.

We use the expression “learn to tell time” to refer to being able to read a clock. But I had the inspiration that there was another meaning for that expression, that if we tried, we might want “to tell time” to ease up on us. I mean it’s Saturday night, your lovely little three-year-old is engaged in an art project. Do you really need to put her to bed because the clock says it’s 8pm? Who’s telling who what to do?

Do we tell time or does time tell us?

I made note of that expression and let Chloe stay up past her bedtime. After finally putting her to bed, I wrote a poem that ended with that line and referenced the evening we had had together. Over the next nearly 20 years, the poem was stashed in a binder where I kept things like it, songs, poems, ideas. Soon before Chloe graduated from college in 2015, I came across it while sifting through the binder in one of my frequent forays down memory lane. I asked an artist friend (Fish Astronaut) to illustrate the poem, and I presented the hand-printed illustrated version to her as a graduation gift (click on the image above, that’s it, to see it enlarged and read the original poem).

In the ensuing nine years, the poem would find its way back into my mind. Or, more accurately, the idea of being the master of my time or time being the master of me would find its way back into my mind. The concept of mindfulness, Eckhart Tolle’s book “The Power of Now,” and even expressions like “there’s no time like the present” would rattle around.

One night not loo long ago, I decided to see if I could make the poem into a song lyric, a song that would make the point about being the master of our time rather than the other way around with an added implication that maybe we could all learn something from little kids. The rewrite came fairly easily. Then this month, April of 2024, after I discovered the Suno AI music generator, I inputted my song lyric and the prompt “An eastern European gypsy punk ballad with accordion and power chords, sung fast.” The song here is the result. For the music video, I added pictures of Chloe from in and around the time she was three.

Postscript – I’ve named the “band” performing this song “Recteur Schmitt” for reasons I will explain at a different time. For now, understand that Recteur Schmitt is the name of one of the stops on Line 2 of the tramway in Nantes, France. Find an entire album of Recteur Schmitt songs on the usual platforms – Spotify, Amazon Music & Apple Music. If you want to buy a copy of the album for $1.00, go to Bandcamp and know you will have made my day.

DOES TIME TELL US?

Saturday night sunset, the moon comes up – big, orange and bright.
Too late for being on time, too early for saying goodnight.
You sit undisturbed, absorbed in the concentration of being three.
Your bedtime comes and goes, now what becomes of me?

What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?

I buried a wish in the sandbox when I was eight.
And lost more than my friends when they could not relate.
Now I hold your tiny hand and I’m back in the right place,
I thank the clock each time I see your face.

What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?

They mismanage the time they save for themselves,
while little kids listen for fire trucks, fairies, and elves.
You and me, we are the secret no one understands,
colored paper meeting scissors, manipulated by little hands.

Hour glasses to measure time, alarm clocks to wake us up.
Too much sand is passing through while morning is too abrupt.
Saturday night sunset, the moon comes up – big, orange and bright.
Too late for being on time, too early for saying goodnight.

What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?
What do we know, what is the fuss?
Do we tell time or does time tell us?

The Longacres Mile, My Dad, and Me

Published on by Andy Smallman1 Comment

In 1974, my dad was transferred from the city of my birth, Omaha, to the Seattle area by Brach Candy, his employer. I sometimes say to people in the northwest, if you’ve heard of Brach Candy, my dad likely had something to do with your awareness.

Legendary jockey Willie Shoemaker after winning the 1978 Longacres Mile – photo credit: me!!
What also transferred from the midwest to the northwest was my dad’s love for horse racing. Not far from SeaTac Airport was a racetrack called Longacres. I’ve written about this place many times as it has significant memories for me and they can all be traced to my dad.

As a kid, I watched him pore over the Racing Form, interpreting those little numbers into something that pitted his intellect against that of others. The intellectual challenge of this practice, what’s called handicapping, has always had a great appeal to me. In fact, beginning in high school and beyond as I made a career in education, I’ve often said that the best standardized test question I ever encountered is this:

“Pick the winner from a field of ten going six furlongs for a claiming price of $6250.”

The showcase race event of every Longacres season was the Longacres Mile. Taking place in August, it often brought the best horses on the west coast to Seattle, along with top jockeys and trainers. In 1978, my brother Scott & I stood at the finish line all day so I could be in place to take a picture of the finish and maybe get a photo of Willie Shoemaker. I got both as you can see here.

Longacres Mile Finish 1978 – photo credit: me!!
The Longacres Mile was an important event for my dad and me for reasons that I hope have become obvious. We shared the joy of Trooper Seven winning the Mile in back-to-back years, 1980 and 1981, the first horse to ever do so. I’ve embedded the video of the 1981 race below, as called by legendary track announcer Gary Henson (who, incidentally, became a friend of mine when I worked at Longacres in 1988).

Longacres closed in 1992 but racing stayed alive with the opening of Emerald Downs in 1996. And I was more than pleased to see the new track officials honor the old traditions by keeping the Longacres Mile alive. In August each year, the famed race has taken place. As you might have watched in the video embedded in my blog post three posts back, my dad predicted the winner of the 2005 Mile for the local and national publications he wrote for. The winner, No Giveaway, went off at 60-1.

This is especially poignant for me today because a few weeks before my dad died, we had put on our calendars today’s date. Yes, it’s August, Yes, the Longacres Mile was run today at Emerald Downs. I thought about going by myself but instead went over to help my mom with some organizing in advance of my dad’s upcoming memorial.

Of additional poignance for me is this – The last (and final) time I took my dad to the racetrack was a year ago for the Longacres Mile.

Broken Heart Syndrome

Published on by Andy Smallman1 Comment

First, let me preface this post by saying that my mom is fine and after a night in the hospital is back home, resting comfortably.

Everybody good? Okay, then…

My mom with Remy last week, a few days after my dad had died.
Yesterday morning, my brothers & I received a text from our mom that said, “Having a bad morning physically after a bad night. Think it’s a food reaction but it isn’t going away. I really don’t want to call 911.  Keep you posted.”

I immediately called her and after she described chest pains and tightness of breath, we agreed she should call 911. I had just arrived at work so I quickly packed up my stuff and returned to my car. It was going to be a slow drive from Northgate to Mercer Island at 8:30am so I knew I had better get going. Fortunately, my new co-workers were again understanding and said they had me covered.

As I was crossing the I-90 Floating Bridge from Seattle to Mercer Island, my cell phone rang and the caller ID indicated it was my mom calling. It wasn’t. It was a paramedic who said, “Your mom is having a heart attack. Instead of coming to her place, meet us at the ER at Overlake Hospital.”

Simple enough to do physically. A little more challenging mentally.

Upon arriving at the ER, I saw four or five people attending to my mom, inserting lines, changing her into a hospital gown, speaking with reassuring tones, but acting with the utmost urgency. Within a couple of minutes, a cardiologist arrived who explained to us both, “Okay, you’re having a heart attack and what we need to do is called an angiogram.”

A coronary ultrasound.
As he’s explaining this, another person arrives with consent paperwork and a pen. He is holding the form over my mom as the cardiologist continued, “We’re going to insert a probe into an artery, either through your wrist or your groin, to see what’s happening in your heart. There is a 1 in 1000 chance of something bad happening during this procedure, a stroke, or a heart attack, or the artery may break.”

Let me say that that’s a lot to take in. But he wasn’t done, “If we discover a blockage, we’ll be able to do an angioplasty and hopefully clear it. But there is a 1 in 100 chance of something bad happening during this procedure. But it’s much riskier to do nothing.”

My mom turned to me, “What do you think I should do?”

“I think you should have the procedure.”

At that point, the pen was placed in her hand and she signed the form. Almost immediately, her gurney was moved from the ER to wherever they would do this procedure. I hurried along after her, walk-jogging with the cardiologist, carrying my mom’s purse. The cardiologist repeated some things and told me she was in good hands, then took me to a waiting room with these words, “While the procedure is pretty quick, please don’t assume the worst if I’m not back out to update you for a little while. No news is good news.”

I sat down, updated my brothers and others via text, and wondered what a person is supposed to think about at times like these.

Just before my brother, Scott, arrived, a different cardiologist came out and invited me to sit down (is that good or bad when you’re invited to sit down?). She said, “We didn’t find any blockages; in fact, I hope I have the coronary arteries your mom has when I’m 90.”

Exhale.

Back in her apartment today having lunch.
“What we think your mom is experiencing is something called ‘Broken Heart Syndrome.’ It’s when a person has recently experienced a significant loss or some other kind of trauma and it impacts their heart. We’re going to admit her for observation but otherwise I think she’ll be just fine. Expect one or two nights in the hospital.”

It turned out to be one night.

About Broken Heart Syndrome, learn more at the Mayo Clinic website. It’s a pretty interesting read.

Continuing to Process My Dad’s Death

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On Friday last week, I attended a meeting at the school I’m now working for (I’m the new principal at Spring Academy in North Seattle – want more detail, ask). While still in France, I had informed the leadership team that my dad had died and that I might need some extra time away than I had already been granted for Melinda’s and my France trip. They’ve been extraordinarily generous with time off, given my status as a new employee. And they responded to the announcement of my dad’s death with continued generosity – “Take as much time as you need.”

Anyway, there was a meeting of the leadership team on Friday and I thought it was important for me to attend. It turns out that they weren’t expecting me so it was a surprise when I walked in. I first saw the retiring principal, Frank, who greeted me with warmth and kindness. He’d read the two previous posts I’ve made here about my dad and after the first sent me a very supportive message. Having read the second, the one with the video of my Dad at the local racetrack, Frank said, “I didn’t know you had a connection to horse racing.”

My dad and me at Emerald Downs in the late 90’s.
“Yeah,” I said, “It was a major connection for my dad and me. I even worked for The Daily Racing Form on multiple occasions back in the 80’s & 90’s.”

“My father-in-law was a trainer at Longacres back then,” Frank said. “Maybe you heard of him. His name was Marion Smith.”

“You’re kidding me? Smitty, Million Dollar Smith? Everyone knew him!”

So there was one of those small world connections, the kind that make you think there is more to this world than just random coincidences.

Our school meeting got started and I was still basking in the connection Frank shared. Knowing I’d be heading over to my parent’s apartment after the meeting, I compartmentalized the story, saving it to share with my dad when I arrived at my parent’s. I knew he’d really appreciate it.

Seconds later, I thought, wait. I can’t tell my dad that story…

That’s what’s going on right now.