Waiting in line at Wal-Mart

I was in the local Wal-Mart today, waiting in line at the express lane. The giant letters on the sign indicated it was for people with 10 items or less. Unfortunately, the woman two people in front of me apparently couldn't read, as she piled a whole cart of groceries onto the smallish table reserved for those who aren't really buying that much.

In general, I'm in favor of the limited role of government. But I'm willing to make an exception. There oughta be a law where the police can drag away people who flagrantly disregard signs like this that are designed to keep things moving. This same law should be used on people who wait until the last second to merge lane when they've closed that lane on the interstate.

Anyway, as I got to thinking about being in a busy express lane in a Wal-Mart, I recalled a funny incident from three years ago. So, for the first time in "Ramblings" history, I offer a rerun:

Sunday, January 02, 2005

In the checkout line
True story, which I found much funnier than anyone else involved: The local Wal-Mart was incredibly busy on the 31st as everyone tried to get their last-minute things for their parties. I stood in the express lane with a 12-pack of beer and a six-pack of soda in my arms. In front of me stood a couple with about 20 items they'd just put on the conveyor belt from their cart. The woman looks back at me and tells me I can set my beer in their cart while I wait. "That's OK," I responded. "I don't want you to think I can't hold my liquor."
Posted by David Trinko at 1:18 AM 0 comments

The biggest difference, this time around, is I had a bag of chicken nuggets for the 6-year-old and a box of cold medicine for my wife. Whew, I sure know how to party now.

Something to smile about

The new family picture found its way around the Trinko family Christmas.

One of my sisters commented, "I've never seen David smile in a picture before."

The response was simple: "I've never been happy before."

Baby doesn’t need a new pair of shoes

Baby doesn’t need a new pair of shoes
David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 12.20.2007

She’s only 4½ months old, so she hasn’t taken her first steps yet.
When she does, my daughter will have plenty of outgrown shoes she won’t be wearing.
Nineteen pairs of them, to be exact.
That’s a lot of shoes for a little girl who, until about two weeks ago, couldn’t even turn on her side alone. That’s a lot of protection for the footsies of someone who is constantly monitored throughout her days and nights. That’s a lot of untarnished rubber on sneakers that will never sneak.
And it’s a lot of wasted plastic too. A quick search on the Internet shows that baby shoes can cost up to $80 a pair.
My wife’s defense is we didn’t buy these shoes. They’re hand-me-down Robeez and Sketchers from both sides of the family. Often they were gifts to a child from someone who described the shoes with terms I reserve for the child: cute, adorable, sensible.
And they all look brand-spanking new. While someone may have worn them, no one ever had a chance to wear them out. After all, they’re baby shoes, in all their Size 1 glory.
I’m reminded of a Shania Twain song, “Shoes.” “Men are like shoes,” she repeats consistently. And while I’d generally disagree with the sentiment, it’s quite true for our baby. She doesn’t need men or shoes.
Perhaps I’m just not equipped to understand. I am, after all, just a man. While growing up, I had two kinds of shoes, “sneakers” and “church shoes.”
As I got older, we added a pair of “gym shoes” to the collection, at the urging of the school system. And typically every summer those gym shoes evolved into my “summer goofing off” shoes.
That rotation of three kinds of shoes stuck with me through college. When I graduated college, I renamed “church shoes” into “work shoes.” And “gym shoes” turned into “lawn-mowing shoes.” But they were basically the same thing.
It wasn’t until I got married that I learned I should have had two kinds of work shoes, now called “dress shoes,” in my repertoire. I don’t completely understand why, but now I wear black shoes with black or gray slacks and brown shoes for everything else. About that same time, I realized I was supposed to have belts that coordinated with the shoes.
By my count, that still leaves me well below our baby’s shoe count. And I’m in no hurry to catch up. If anything, I’d like to sneak some of these ridiculous shoes to someone who might actually wear them out, such as the family cat (if she indeed wears a Size 1).
I realize I won’t win this argument in my home or any other. I’d bet since the cavemen, there have been women talking about how cute the shoes look with a man staring at his feet and wondering why he didn’t have something covering his toes while he was out clubbing animals for food.
I can’t put my finger on what the baby shoes are supposed to do anyway. My best guess is they keep her socks from falling off.
And it keeps my wife happy — even if baby doesn’t need a new pair of shoes.

Learning what it means to be a father

Learning what it means to be a father

David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 12.10.2007

The judge leaned in to me, trying to size me up instantly, and asked the crucial question: “Do you completely understand what it means to adopt this girl?”
To this moment, I’m not quite sure what it means to adopt Lissie. She certainly doesn’t. After all, this beautiful 6-year-old child has been calling me “Daddy” for a year and a half. She already told her friends her last name was Trinko, just like her mom, dad and baby sister. She kept calling Purk her “old name.”
If you asked her, it was the day she would marry her daddy. Instead of getting a ring, she’d get a nice chain with a crucifix, similar to the one she envied at her baby sister’s baptism. She knew this short event in a small courtroom was important to her family, though.
As the judge asked that vital question at the final hearing for her adoption, so many thoughts ran through my head.
It means holding her hand and giving it a gentle squeeze when an unfamiliar surrounding terrifies her.
It means listening to her tell me how much she hates me when she can’t have more M&Ms.
It means listening to her tell me how much she loves me the rest of the time.
It means helping her when she’s working on her homework, perfecting the letter P and listening to her off-key silly song about Penelope, the proud and pretty pig.
It means hearing how she wants mommy when I’m there to help her and how she wants daddy when I’m not.
It means hugging her after she falls down and bumps her knee, calming her with the soothing words of “you’re all right.”
It means learning who her friends are and knowing which ones I trust and which ones I don’t.
It means being her best friend as often as I can but being the disciplinarian when I have to be.
It means I’m not one of those stepfathers who tries to be hands-off with a child coming into the marriage.
It means telling her I love her even when I’m furious she destroyed something of mine.
It means wondering aloud how she’ll turn out some day. Given her ability to negotiate on absolutes such as bedtime, I’m betting on lawyer.
It means wondering aloud how my actions and mannerisms affect her daily.
It means smiling back when she gives me a thumbs-up after trying something new, especially since Mom doesn’t use the thumbs-up gesture.
I haven’t met a parent yet who knows exactly what it means to be the legal guardian of a child. It’s certainly a position with plenty of on-the-job training. I never could have guessed how infuriated or how mushy I could feel in the same day thanks to that angelic-looking child.
I couldn’t express all of those ideas for the judge at that time, though. Instead, I said what I’ll always say about Lissie: I love this child, and I’ll do whatever I can to take care of her until the day I die.
The judge leaned back and nodded his approval. After short conversations with my wife and Lissie alike, he signed off on the adoption.

Squeezing hands and saying goodbye

Squeezing hands and saying goodbye

David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 11.26.2007
It’s really nothing more than placing one piece of skin atop another and applying pressure.
But it’s difficult to think of another human interaction with the same power as squeezing a loved one’s hand.
It means you’re safe even if you’re uncomfortable when I squeeze my daughter’s hand as we walk into unfamiliar surroundings.
It means she appreciates the care I’m giving her when our newborn squeezes my hand during a feeding.
It means there’s something funny to see but I can’t say what right now when I squeeze my wife’s hand in a crowded room.
But sometimes it just means it’s OK to say goodbye.
My grandmother, Mary Jacobs, had a rough night at a hospital about a week ago. In a misinterpretation of hospital rules, the much-loved 93-year-old matriarch of my mother’s family went without any family support in her room for one night.
Her daughters and son promised my ailing grandmother she wouldn’t be left alone again as she progressed toward death. For the remainder of her time on this Earth, someone would hold her hand.
They lived up to that promise. Each day, 24 hours a day, for nearly a week, someone held at least one of her hands. Perhaps it was one of her children or grandchildren. Perhaps it was a longtime friend. Sometimes it was someone my relatives didn’t seem to know that well, but that person felt touched enough by my grandma to visit her in her final days.
By the time I arrived at her hospital in suburban Chicago quite late Friday night, she’d been through dozens upon dozens of hands. Now unable to speak and sleeping constantly, people kept saying how unfortunate it was she couldn’t communicate anymore. But she did communicate, just as I would with my daughter or my wife in their circumstances.
When I made an uneasy joke to lighten the tension, she squeezed my hand to show her appreciation.
When I prayed with her, she squeezed my hand to show her faith.
When I talked about how hard it was to say goodbye, she squeezed my hand particularly hard. It was OK to say goodbye.
Late Saturday night, I heard the news that Mary Jacobs, better known as Grandma to dozens of lucky children including me, died. I think the woman behind the kind eyes left earlier in the day, as her hands didn’t include those communicative squeezes anymore.
Her funeral will be today, and we’ll all be there to do what grieving children and grandchildren do. Whenever I’m overcome with the grief, I’m reminded of that final squeeze of the hand. It’s the one that said it’s OK to be sad. It’s OK to miss her. But most importantly, it’s OK to say goodbye.
And it’s OK to give my own wife and children an extra squeeze or two of the hand, just to show them I care.

Hometowns change more than we care to admit

Hometowns change more than we care to admit

David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 11.12.2007
For most of my life, I was convinced nothing ever changed in Arlington. Something tells me other folks think the same of their hometowns.
Arlington is a small village like so many others in the region — close-knit, focused on its school and boasting a handful of home-grown businesses.
For the first 21 years of my life, that two-stoplight town in Hancock County was home. To some degree, that friendly town with 1,351 people remains home. My parents still live in that two-story house across from the fire station. People driving by still wave when I cross the street there.
The football team’s always good. The garbage bags sit outside every Friday morning. And warm summer nights are always interrupted by children screaming as they dive into the village-run swimming pool.
There are 43 boys, freshmen through seniors, on the Red Devils’ football team this year, which is pretty impressive since there are only 87 boys in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades in the high school.
I’m beginning to wonder if nostalgia might be holding Arlington and places like it back, though.
The world does change, even if we won’t allow it in our minds.
The Ford dealership closed years ago. There’s no proof left of the old Allis-Chalmers dealer, as grass covers where those tractors once sat. The pharmacy and hardware store each moved to smaller locations.
There is progress, even in a small town.
The football team made the playoffs for the first time this year. The Red Devils are playing Ada at Lima Stadium on Saturday for the regional championship. It’s a new honor for the smallest school in Ohio to win 500 games, a new plateau for a school that ranks 31st in the state in all-time victories.
There’s finally a steady pizza place in town, as Jack-n-Do’s Pizza from Findlay settled into the north side of town.
And there’s plenty of new housing popping up all over town. Fields that once raised wheat, soybeans and corn are home to a crop of young families now.
That swimming pool with the screaming kids is different from the one I used as a youth. They completely tore it up and rebuilt it while I was at college.
Even the people running the schools change. I see from the school’s Web site that only 10 of my teachers are still out there, and I don’t recognize any of the administrators’ names. I do recognize some school board and village council members’ names, but that’s because I went to school with some of them.
I’ve been out of that “red brick prison,” as we called it, longer than I was ever in it.
There has to come a time when you realize your nostalgic view of a place isn’t necessarily reality.
I worry that a proposed new school there failed last week for this very reason.
When I heard they wanted a half-percent income tax 7.9 mill bond issue to build a new school, I’d bet I reacted the same way everyone else did. I thought, “The school’s not in that bad of shape.”
That’s how nostalgia hits you. I didn’t think about the classes in the old locker room beneath the old gym. I didn’t consider how poorly heated or cooled some of those classrooms were back in the day. Instead, I reacted with, “If it was good enough for me, it’s good enough for them.”
I didn’t react with the reality I haven’t wandered those halls in more than a dozen years.
The reality is those kids don’t attend the same school I did. They don’t live in the same town where I grew up.
In that way, Arlington is a small village like so many others in the region — full of people who won’t accept that time changes everything.

Childlike glee marks first trip to an NFL game

Childlike glee marks first trip to an NFL game

David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 10.09.2007
You want your proudest moments as a parent to be something really meaningful.
You want your child to give the valedictorian’s speech at her graduation. You hope to see your boy pick up the Nobel Prize. It’d be great to see the twins work together to develop a cure for cancer.
So I’m a little embarrassed to say I’ve never been prouder of our 6-year-old daughter, Lissie, than I was when she attended her first NFL game.
She is deeply interested in “Brian.” Brian, as in Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher, is a one-name wonder in our house.
When Chicago went to the Super Bowl last season, we threw a party for the occasion. To Lissie, it was a birthday party for Brian.
When the Bears lost the Super Bowl last season, one of my wife’s co-workers gave us tissues so we could cry afterward. To Lissie, only Brian could cry with those.
When my wife and I each wore Urlacher jerseys on a recent Sunday, Lissie complained that she didn’t have one. She harassed us until she received an Urlacher jersey of her own.
Whenever the Bears are on television, she complains if the offense is on the field, since it means Brian’s on the sideline. Fortunately for her, the Bears’ offense doesn’t stay on the field very long these days.
She even told some friends at school that Brian’s her cousin. He’s not, by the way.
So when we had a chance to see a Bears game in Detroit last weekend, we knew we had to bring Brian’s biggest fan to Ford Field.
I never really envisioned taking a little girl to her first Bears game. I assumed it’d be a son. Call it a stereotype, but it’s one tried and true. I grew up with five sisters, and only one of them ever watched much football. Since I’m outnumbered three to one by women in my house, I’ll take whatever football fans I can get.
No one would ever describe me as a passionate man. I’m generally reserved and collected. I have a very laid-back way about me. Pro football is my one outlet. My wife once joked I get more excited about the Bears’ season than I did at our wedding or the birth of our newest child. In my defense, I would’ve yelled at those events if they were on a big-screen TV.
I couldn’t really figure out what Lissie thought about her first NFL game at first. She was unusually quiet. She looked around a lot but never commented on anything she saw. The noise levels seemed to unnerve her as the teams ran onto the field.
Then the Bears ran onto the field. She started jumping up and down, pointing at No. 54 and yelling, “There’s Brian! There’s Brian!” You would’ve thought Hannah Montana herself walked out of the tunnel.
She resumed her silence during the game. By the end of halftime, I was convinced she was bored out of her mind. We figured she would be, so my wife planned to take her for a walk around the concourses at the beginning of the third quarter to restock our snack supply. We’d assumed Lissie would jump at the opportunity to walk around.
That’s when she surprised us both.
“I want to stay here with Daddy and watch the game,” she said.
That was her valedictory speech, Nobel Prize and cure for cancer all wrapped into one for me. As my wife wandered away, Lissie sat on my knee and watched the game with me.
We didn’t talk much. We just watched the game unfold in front of us. I didn’t want to ruin the moment by complaining about a run up the middle on third-and-long or how the quarterbacks should stop throwing the ball to the other team in the end zone.
On the way out of Ford Field, she did something no self-respecting fan would do. Or maybe she did something every self-respecting fan should do. She waved at all the Lions fans who taunted her for wearing Brian’s No. 54 into their den. And she smiled.
I’m seeing in her the kind of passion for football and fairness that would make Brian proud. I know it made me proud.

What it means to be an American in a post 9/11 world

What it means to be an American in a post 9/11 world
mailto:dtrinko@limanews.com- 09.11.2007

I’m not a true American like I was on Sept. 11, 2001, as it turns out.
You probably aren’t either, depending on who’s labeling you.
As we mark the anniversary of the deadly terrorist hijackings that put airplanes into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, this idea of “true American” seems to be on trial. Different juries offer differing verdicts.
One side argues you can’t be a true American if you’re not supporting our troops. Whatever the endeavor, we must support our troops’ continuing missions.
Another side argues you can’t be a true American unless you put the needs of families ahead of all others. If you love America, you want American soldiers to come home.
Both sides tend to throw ridiculous labels at one another, saying you’re a gun-toting conservative or give-peace-a-chance liberal.
More than anything else, they like to say they’re a true American, and anyone who disagrees is un-American or, worse yet, anti-American.
It’s this unwillingness to even listen to another side that makes me question if anyone’s a true American anymore. It seems so un-American to adopt a “my way or the highway” attitude toward anything.
You’re not entitled to your opinion the same way you were before the towers fell. You can’t disagree with the government like you did before the plane plunged into the Pentagon walls. You’re not supposed to show your dissent like you could before those heroic passengers guided that fourth plane away from its extremist mission and into the field.
I think I’m still just as much of a true American as I was on Sept. 11, 2001. I still love God, my mom and apple pie, just the same as I ever did.
You probably feel the same way. More than likely, we all do.
But that’s just not the message we seem to hear nowadays.
We’ve become less open to hearing opposing viewpoints. We’ve become more intolerant to those who think differently than we do. We’ve begun lobbing people into groups, saying their opinions don’t count if they don’t have some arbitrary opinion in common with ours.
I heard that recently from a caller who obviously disagreed with an editorial decision we’d made. He asked me if I’d served in the military. When I told him no, he blew up into a tirade about being a fat, happy liberal sitting in my comfy chair, making decisions that ruined people’s lives.
Truth be told, my chair’s not that comfortable. And most of the rest of his characterizations were off the mark too. They lacked some nuance we would’ve demanded before the terrorist attacks.
On this, the sixth anniversary of those attacks, I’ll stop for a moment of silence this morning to think about what happened, just like I have every year since it happened. I’ll think of the wasted lives who committed no crime that day, people whose only sins were to live in America and go to work that day.
I’ll pray for them and their families. I’ll also implore God to help this country remember that our differences bind us just as much as our similarities. Our disagreements are our strength. Our dialogue is our power.
That’s what makes each of us a true American.

Life’s biggest challenge is doing the little things

Life’s biggest challenge is doing the little things
David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 09.07.2007
There’s a safety pin in a urinal at the office.
I’m not sure why it rests in the toilet water there or how it hasn’t flushed down the drain. I don’t know why it remains there at least six months after it arrived.
I take that second part back. I know why it’s remained; no one wants to reach into the toilet water to retrieve it and throw it away.
It really wouldn’t be that difficult for me to pick it out and toss it in the garbage can. I could wash my hands thoroughly afterward. It wouldn’t be that difficult for someone else to do it either. Yet it remains there, and the only time I think about it is when I’m doing what you do in front of a urinal.
Recently I realized how many safety pins are in the urinals of my life.
They’re these simply solved problems that never get addressed. They seem hardly worth the effort, but they bother you over time. You waste hours thinking, “I should work on that some day.”
Some just take some elbow grease. For instance, I like to keep copies of old bills. I have a good filing system, but I’m not always good at keeping up with it. If I file a bill as soon as I pay it, there’d be no hard work to it. Instead, I tend to grow piles of bills and have to take an hour to file three months’ worth of old bills. These piles of bills grow around the floor in my home office.
Others are changing your habits. We go out to eat way too often, especially considering everyone in our house save the newborn baby is a decent cook. There’s a stocked freezer and cupboard. The food’s not always that great when you hit a fast-food place, and the atmosphere will never rival gathering around our dinner table.
Another safety pin is my personal fitness. I’m fairly healthy, but I could take better care of myself. I’m not sure I like the looks of doubt when I tell people I weighed 140 pounds my senior year of high school. I could easily spend 15 minutes a day using those weights I’ve lugged from town to town over the last 10 years.
My e-mail habits are bad. I’ll receive e-mail and file it away until I have time to write a good answer. Then it may be weeks before I respond to a dear friend from college. Real friends don’t wait months before answering e-mail.
I should do more to live my faith. It’s good to go to church and try to take what you learn into your everyday life. It’s better to go out, volunteer and share your gifts with others.
I don’t see my parents enough. I moved back to Ohio to spend more time with them, yet I might not see them for a month or two in a row. I really should make that 40-minute trip at least once a month.
I should tell more people that I love them. Sure, they should know by my actions. It never hurts to say it though, and there are few things in life as sweet as hearing it.
Sometimes the easiest things to change in life become the hardest ones to do.
I seriously doubt I’ll put my hand into the urinal anytime soon. Maybe it’s best that it stays there as a reminder of all of these other safety pins in the urinals of life that need just one thing: action.

Warm and fuzzy

It's beard time in the Trinko household.
With the birth of our daughter, I was able to take two and a half weeks off from work. History has shown that in two and a half weeks, I can grow a pretty full beard. So I'm doing what I can.
I've had a beard, by my count, five times before since I turned 18. The first three were in college, as I discovered what worked and what didn't. The other two were pretty long-lived ones, including one I had for nearly two years during my first tour of duty in Lima and one I grew at the end of the Savannah tenure that endured perhaps two years into my Virginia time.
Truth be told, I've probably had a beard as often as I haven't since I was 18.
There's a wildcard this year, though. I have a wife now, and she's not necessarily sold on it. She tells me it's itchy to kiss, and she's not sure she likes how old it makes me look. I counter that the brownish-red beard detracts from the gray in my sideburns.
I don't know what it is I like about having a beard. It's not that it's overly comfortable or that I'm enamored with the look. Truth be told, it's just laziness. There's something to be said about not shaving in the morning and not having anyone be any wiser about it.
We'll see whether this one survives or not. I heard someone today call it "vacation shadow," and perhaps that's all it will be. Or perhaps I'll never be clean-shaven again. The world may never know.

Football teaches what you need to know about babies

Football teaches what you need to know about babies

David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 08.14.2007
High school football taught me everything I need to know about caring for a newborn baby girl.
It seems like a wild assertion, but it’s really quite true. I never would’ve guessed that those days of grunting in the summer sun would’ve led to such wisdom about swaddling and rocking a 6-pound, 14-ounce little girl to sleep. Apparently the coaches were right when they swore we learned valuable life lessons.
It started to come back to me Wednesday, when the fourth member joined Team Trinko. My mother gave instructions to one of my nieces on how to cradle the baby properly. Tuck the baby’s head into the crook of your elbow. Rest the weight of the child on your forearm. Cup your hand around the other end. Pull her in close to your body, and don’t ever let go.
It sounded all too familiar. I’d heard those same steps on how to hold onto a football without dropping it. Suddenly the voice of my high school football coach entered my head: “Trinko! If you drop that baby, the whole team’s going to have to run!”
That’s when the parallels between child-care and football really hit me. Or perhaps it was just the realization that I’m hopelessly outnumbered three-to-one by women now in our home. The only other male in the house is our dog, and he hasn’t had most of his boy parts since he was a puppy anyway.
Whatever the reason, August is a time to ramp up for football and the new baby alike in our household.
· If you want to play, you have to have the right equipment. Cribs, playpens and changing tables are absolute requirements. If you don’t have limitless energy to rock her, you need to pick up a swing (as we learned Sunday). If you’re planning for an away game, you’d better have a diaper bag packed with one complete change of clothes for each hour you’re going to be away.
· It’s all about the hydration. No one’s so tough she can do without proper hydration, especially a newborn. Gatorade’s not an option here, boys. You’d better get used to the distinct odor of Similac and Enfamil. You’ll also want to learn how to mix it in your sleep, or that 5 a.m. feeding will kill you.
· Two-a-days are where champions are made. You can try joining the team once the games begin, but you’ll be exhausted by the end of the game. If you really want to succeed, you need to suffer through every moment of two-a-days, err, the pregnancy. A screaming baby at 10 p.m. is nothing if you’ve already heard a hormonal woman question if you really loved her between bouts of sobbing. Changing a diaper in the dark is cake if you’ve already built a bassinet without directions because someone was so sure she’d never have another baby that she threw away the directions but wasn’t sure enough to throw away the bassinet.
· Save your time outs for when you really need them. I’m fortunate enough to take two and a half weeks off work to help out while my wife recovers. I’m so glad I didn’t squander my sick time on sniffles and sneezes. If I had, I would’ve missed classic moments, such as our 6-year-old trying to feed the baby or the newborn’s bowels releasing on my arm after her first bath.
· Enjoy the game. Your playing days are numbered. It won’t last forever, even if it seems endless sometimes. But these memories will stick with you for a lifetime.
You can comment on this story at www.limaohio.com.

Welcome to the world

Welcome to the world, Jillian Grace Trinko, as of 1:55 p.m. Aug. 8. At 6 pounds, 14 ounces and 19 inches long, you're quite an average baby. But to your proud mom and dad, you're the most extraordinary person ever born.

Life is full of possibilities. You're never more aware of that than when you hold a newborn baby the first time.

Blue-collar workers deserve any credit they get

Blue-collar workers deserve any credit they get
David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 07.31.2007
A friend of mine who works in a factory likes to tease me about the easy working conditions here at the office.
I don’t mind egging him on, talking about those days the air conditioning couldn’t keep the temperature below 80 degrees, that paper cut that stung for hours or how difficult it is to be here by 9 a.m. some days.
It’s good-natured ribbing because he and I both know the truth: Factory work makes this country what it is. It can be absolutely miserable this time of year. Anyone who clocks in and out each day to build the things we can’t live without deserves our gratitude.
Anyone who wants a white-collar job should try a blue-collar one on for size for at least one summer. It teaches you what America’s all about.
I spent my summers back in college (way back, it seems some days) working at the Whirlpool factory in Findlay. As temporary summer help, I rotated from job to job throughout the summer. Two particularly miserable jobs kept me motivated to return to college to earn my degree.
Imagine it’s 90 degrees outside on a muggy summer day. Then dream of wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Then stand next to a furnace.
Now for the fun part: Lift one 50-pound dishwasher tub from a line coming out of the furnace, and place it on another line. Repeat … for 15 minutes at a time.
That job had its perks. Because of the heat, you got to sit and rest for 15 minutes of every hour. The rest of the time, you rotated among three jobs, which all involved lifting those dishwasher tubs.
It was still one of those jobs that reminded me it’s better to use that muscle in my head than the ones in my arms and back all day long. It ranked right up there with stacking bales of hay throughout summers in high school in terms of exhausting jobs.
The second miserable task during those summers involved the most tedious work I’ve done to this day: Cleaning spray paint nozzles on third shift.
You’d be amazed how much gunk builds up in a spray nozzle over the course of a day. So each night, after the second-shift workers went home, I was down on my knees with a wire brush, cleaning out each individual hole where paint sprayed out.
The job didn’t really take a full eight hours. If you were an ambitious college kid, you could finish in three hours. If you were a smart college kid, you could drag the work out through six or seven hours so a supervisor didn’t make you do more jobs in other areas of the factory.
Unfortunately for me, I was more ambitious than smart.
I remember talking with one of my co-workers at the time, a man in his mid-40s named Oscar. I asked him how he survived the past 20 years in the factory with another 20 on the way, knowing the job wouldn’t change.
His answer was simple: “Don’t think. It’ll make you miserable.”
I hear factories are better these days, letting the line workers make some day-to-day decisions on how to best accomplish their goals. Still, the monotony of a real factory was never for me, and I greatly prefer the word factory here.
My summers in a factory gave me a chance to see how the real America works. I know I’m not alone in my respect for the working man and woman in America. A trip around the cable TV dial shows a dozen programs highlighting how everyday people make extraordinary products.
Everyone should take the opportunity to work in a factory sometime in his or her life. It’s an eye-opening experience that makes you recognize the true value of hard work.

Playing hooky

Today I'm playing hooky from work, sort of.
It's a planned day off, since I worked Saturday night. But still, it's 8 a.m. and I'm still wearing my pajamas, so it seems like something nefarious must be going on here.
It sort of reminds me of those care-free days of summer when you're in elementary or high school. You wake up when you feel like it, and you do what you feel like.
That "what you feel like" part is what amuses me. Back in those days I'd watch TV or go visit a friend. Today's list seems more like chores...
- Move a couple more items over here from the old house
- Get the computer in the basement to work with the wireless router for Internet use
- Weed-whack the yard, since only the weeds seem to be growing lately
- File old bills in the office, with the possibility of grabbing the really old bills and putting 'em in boxes.
What an exciting life I lead...

Drawing the line

Maybe it's a distinction the rest of the world doesn't care about, but I like to draw a line between "work me" and "home me."
When I'm at home, I prefer to be thinking about home things, such as my family, our home, our pets.
Don't get me wrong. My job's important to me. I check my work e-mail from home at least once a day to make sure there's nothing vitally important there. But I rationalize that, saying I can do that on my time.
There are people in the world who don't understand that distinction, particularly people in the "real world" who feel connected because they know the home number or cell number for an editor at the newspaper. They feel like they can call whenever it strikes them and try to pitch a story idea.
I try to be polite. I try to be pleasant. But deep down, it irritates the heck out of me.
After all, I leave for work around 8 a.m. I get home around 7 p.m. I usually chow down my lunch in less than 10 minutes. They get a solid 10 hours out of me each day. So having to deal with this stuff at home too is quite frustrating, particularly from people in the public.
It gets harder and harder to draw the line between here and there. E-mail, cell phones and high-speed Internet make it too easy to be in contact. It seems as if part of your mind has to be in work mode all the time.
I suppose it's silly to whine about it. I should be happy I have a job that matters to someone, even if it doesn't matter that much to me sometimes. I should be happy I'm in demand.
But most of all, I should just learn to let things go, no matter how frustrated they make me.

Buddy doesn't need wings to go to heaven

Buddy doesn't need wings to go to heaven
David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 07.10.2007

Last Tuesday was Buddy’s time to go, even if our 5-year-old didn’t think so.
The gray-and-white Heinz 57-variety mutt didn’t eat much dog food in his final days. He couldn’t hardly walk either. He’d had a good 15 years of life, even if the last few weeks of it were painful.
Good luck explaining that to a 5-year-old girl. Really, good luck explaining death and grief to anyone, regardless of age.
At first, our 5-year-old, Lissie, showed classic symptoms of denial. She believed Buddy would be lying on the floor next to the couch, where he loved to lounge. She expected he’d want to eat.
Then her grief turned into taunting. She started making fun of my wife and me for how we tried to explain death to her.
At first, we told her he went far away forever. In her mind, that meant we sent him 1,000 miles south. The next day, as we looked at a map on a restaurant placemat, she pointed directly at Texas and told us that was Buddy’s new home.
Then we tried telling her Buddy went to heaven. She seemed baffled by that. As she rode past our church, she asked my wife if Buddy was living there now.
Finally we tried telling her he lived in the sky, above the clouds. She informed us he didn’t have wings, so he couldn’t fly.
My wife and I commiserated at how difficult it was to explain death. We’d had enough trouble explaining life, as she anxiously awaits the birth of a little sister next month.
This “death” thing was too much for her to grasp. For nearly a week, she seemed unwilling to accept that her beloved pet was gone.
She wasn’t the only one.
I had the sad task of bringing this member of our family to the veterinarian’s office that one last time, and I had trouble accepting his fate. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t find his food dish the next morning. I got confused at night when it was time to put the dogs away; I couldn’t find the one who typically slept right behind the couch.
Our second dog, Amigo, was probably the most distraught of us all. He and Buddy didn’t get along. Buddy may have realized we bought Amigo a year ago to help ease the pain whenever Buddy passed. Whatever the reason, Amigo always liked Buddy more than Buddy liked Amigo.
Without his nemesis/best friend around, Amigo wandered around the house aimlessly. This usually rambunctious golden retriever settled down with a downtrodden look in his eyes.
We’ve all settled in for a post-Buddy life. Lissie accepts that Buddy is one of God’s dogs now, running around a big grassy field without that limp that plagued him the last year of his life. Amigo realizes he won’t hear the snarl of another dog when it’s time to go outside. And I know the dog that always curled up at my feet won’t trip me up anymore.
We learn to accept death, but I don’t know that we ever learn how to deal with it. There is no easy route for mourning. With a little time, though, we all heal.
Our recent loss reminds me how hard it can be to let go of people who mean so much to you.
While these people and pets may mean nothing to anyone else, memories of them live in our hearts and minds. We never forget.
You can comment on this story at www.limaohio.com.

The value of friendship

My best friend from high school, John, called yesterday. It'd been ages since we'd talked, and I felt pretty guilty about the time apart after we chatted.
There's a tendency to say not much changed since the last time we talked. That's what I said at first. Then, as we tried to hammer out exactly how long it'd been, it became pretty clear that quite a bit had happened.
It appears October must've been the last time we talked. He didn't know my wife was pregnant. He didn't know we'd moved to a nearby town. He wasn't aware I was about halfway through the adoptions proceedings with Lissie. He really wasn't even aware I had my current job, although we'd obviously chatted several times since then. (Heck, he was in my wedding since I got this job.)
This isn't intended to slam John, by any means. Quite the contrary. It's to slam me. I've become quite the slacker about keeping in touch with people who mean something to me.
I've taken the "my wife is pregnant" excuse to put on about 15 pounds, which is probably just repressed conversations. I don't e-mail. I don't call. And when I do see people, I tend to be a bit withdrawn.
When we went to my parents' house for Father's Day, I realized we hadn't visited their home in at least three months, given the carbon-dating method of knowing when my dad installed a new fish tank.
What've I been doing in all that time? Pulling back into myself, really. I'm worried about the future of the newspaper industry and whether my ideas are enough to keep my little corner of the universe afloat. I'm concerned about the world we'll be bringing our child into. And I'm a little bit terrified if I'm ready to parent a newborn.
I'll work it all out, in due time. I usually do. I just hope once I do I can be the type of friend I've had to help pull me through my doubts and worries.

Economic censorship hurts truly free speech

Economic censorship hurts truly free speech
David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 06.25.2007
Free speech may exist in our country, but money still talks here.
What exactly it says remains up in the air, but we’re heading into an era of economic censorship.
Take the example of the radio hosts for “The Opie and Anthony Show,” Gregg “Opie” Hughes, Anthony Cumia and Jim Norton. Their recent history shows the pros and cons of censorship via the flow of money.
On May 15, XM Satellite Radio yanked the comedy show off the air for 30 days. A week prior, a guest on the show, “Homeless Charlie,” described his desire to do vicious things of a sexual nature with Laura Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Queen Elizabeth. The company suggested the hosts weren’t sincere enough in an apology they offered for the homeless guest’s rant or during conversations on the air afterwards.
The Federal Communications Commission doesn’t govern satellite radio. It’s based on satellite usage and not public airways. The company hired Opie and Anthony, boasting of satellite radio’s uncensored nature. The satellite radio show allows graphic and crude behavior and language alike, pushing the envelope of taste sometimes.
To be quite clear, this wasn’t a matter of the First Amendment coming into play. It had nothing to do with FCC regulations. It’s about a company trying to protect its assets, if you know what I mean.
It appeared the company simply bent to economic pressures. It’s in the midst of trying to merge with its main competitor, Sirius. And certainly a number of people were offended by the talk of a homeless man taking certain liberties with powerful women in our world.
Opie and Anthony are probably most notorious for a radio contest in August 2002. A pair of listeners claimed to have sex in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. In the fallout, the radio team’s employer forced them to sit out of radio until their contracts expired without an audience. Certainly XM knew what it was getting when it hired the team, who focus on juvenile jokes, occasional randy conversations and sporadically thought-provoking conversations about politics and life.
As a subscriber to XM, I listen to the show on my way to work, and I enjoy the show. I don’t necessarily enjoy every second of the show, as sometimes the topics get too graphic for my tastes. The chat with the homeless man fell in that category. But I appreciated there was a place for people to listen to this, if they chose.
And there certainly is an audience for it. This is the part of economic censorship that leaves some hope.
In a Washington Times article, XM officials said the company lost nearly 5,000 subscribers after suspending the program. That’s out of 7.9 million subscribers nationwide. Still, the company must have felt some impact from that. It reached out to Opie and Anthony fans with an offer to waive a regular $14.99 reactivation fee until the end of the month.
During the radio team’s return to satellite radio June 15, Opie spoke up in favor of the fans. He said he believed they would’ve lost their jobs if it weren’t for the support of their fans and the economic pressures fans placed on the company.
This incident reminds us we live in strange times. A vocal group with the financial threat of a boycott can protest to the point speech protected by the First Amendment can get a radio host thrown off the air. That was the case with Don Imus, who referred to the Rutgers women’s basketball team with some rather derogatory terms.
It also shows the customer is still always right, as was the case with Opie and Anthony’s fans. They showed there was a demand for that brand of comedy, and the show is back now.
We’re fortunate at this newspaper, as there’s an ideological wall between our moneymaking side and our newsgathering side. Our news decisions aren’t influenced by what an advertiser wants. Advertising and the newsroom are literally on opposite sides of our building.
Still, the mass media considers the impact of what it prints or broadcasts before hitting the button. Maybe it’s an awareness of political correctness. Maybe it’s fear of economic repercussions. Whatever the reason, we think before we speak.
Ultimately, though, it falls back on the reader, listener or viewer. They must decide if they’ll be insulted, angered or wound up over anything. I worry too many people jump right to censoring when the language or ideas make them uncomfortable.
That’s where a quote widely attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire comes into play. It’s arguable whether the author, born François Marie Arouet, ever really said it or wrote it. Some attribute it to author Evelyn Beatrice Hall in a 1906 as an epitome of his attitude.
Whatever the source, the idea’s worth considering: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”
Perhaps it’s time for a revision to that. We can just add a few more words to the end, in much smaller type… “unless I lose too much money defending it.”
You can comment on this story at www.limaohio.com.

Gas prices make it cool to be a numbers geek

Gas prices make it cool to be a numbers geek

David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 06.12.2007
By spending 42 cents Monday morning, I could’ve saved you $1.08 on your next 12-gallon tank of gas.
That’s because I found gas at $2.889 yesterday morning, nearly nine cents lower than the average in our area. That makes that extra 4.4 miles and 14 minutes on my way to work worthwhile. It would be especially comforting if all 84,500 readers got a better price on gas, since they’d save a combined $94,500.
It’s all in a day’s work for the http://www.limaohio.com/gasprices team and math geeks like me.
Like everyone else with a car, I found myself paying a lot more attention to gas prices these days. It was hard not to, especially when prices crept near $3.50 for several days.
I quickly added gas-price tracker for our Web site onto my list of things to do each day, and it gave my inner dork room to run.
Using the fastest, most direct route to work, I only pass four gas stations on my 23-mile trek from Ottawa to Lima each day. With a little bit of research, I added those 4.4 miles, those 14 minutes and another 12 gas stations to my list. And it’s truly a list, printed out each week with neat little boxes for those 16 gas stations I pass each day.
It’s really my dream job. Deep down inside, I’m a numbers geek. While most of my journalism brethren disdain math, I enjoy it. I open up Microsoft Excel on my computer before loading Word on most workdays.
I’m half convinced I spent the first eight years of my journalism career in sports simply because I enjoyed adding up rushing yards in my head during football games.
I even spent a few minutes trying to work up a formula for happiness in our family’s home. I tried to think of an inverse proportion of hours worked to number of compliments given to my wife, multiplied by the number of times our daughter shot root beer out her nose because she laughed so hard.
I couldn’t find one that worked until I found this mathematical truth: My wife’s happiness equals everybody’s happiness.
I think there’s a certain degree of math geek in most of us. As soon as we learn what greater than and less than mean, finding a bargain consumes us. Most of us will drive the extra half mile to get gas from a cheaper gas station.
That’s why so many people wonder aloud if it’s worth their while to drive to Beaverdam to save 10 cents per gallon of gas.
The answer, at current gas prices, is maybe. At the roughly 30 miles to the gallon the ol’ Sebring gets, it’s worthwhile for nine cents or more. If you have a gas-guzzler, such as my wife’s Jeep and its 20 miles to the gallon, it’d have to be 13 cents cheaper per gallon.
I warned you I was a math geek deep down inside.
It all makes me wonder why we fixate on gas prices so much. Consider my other preferred fuel, Dr Pepper.
After a little number crunching, I realized I spent $8 per gallon for Dr Pepper at the office. It was the same whether I bought 12-ounce cans or 20-ounce bottles. If I buy it in 2-liter bottles, the price drops to $4.73 per gallon. Or I can get it for a mere $4.26 per gallon by buying it in six-packs of 24-ounce bottles.
It appears milk might be the most efficient way for me to get around. I can get that for $2.59 per gallon. Something tells me most people don’t comparison shop on milk, though. When I called Wal-Mart, the woman laughed at the bizarre question before answering it.
It all offers perspective. With nearly any product, people will pay what it’s worth to them. Whether it’s $2.889 a gallon for gas, $2.59 a gallon for milk or $4.26 a gallon for Dr Pepper, you’ll buy it if you think you need it.
Occasionally you’ll reduce your consumption, but that’s the exception to the rule. You’ll pay whatever they ask for it. You can count on that.
You can comment on this story at http://www.limaohio.com.

Strange thoughts dance through your head at a recital

Strange thoughts dance through your head at a recital
David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 05.08.2007
Three hours at a dance recital probably doesn’t count as culture if you snickered at it the whole time.
That thought kept going through my head Saturday as I watched little girl after little girl tap-dancing, hip-hopping and balleting her way across the stage.
Their ages ranged from 3 to 18, but really all I cared about was that one 5-year-old. There were 43 dance numbers in the show. My daughter was in one of them, which is to say she was not in 42 of them. Thus, my mind wandered.
• Does Trace Adkins mind his song “Swing,” about three men trying to pick up the same gal at a bar, being used as a line-dancing song about baseball for junior high girls?
• Does it bother a songwriter when dancers act out every lyric in a song literally?
• Which of the unenthusiastic dancers in the back row is the next YouTube hit waiting to happen? I wish I had a video camera to capture those girls with the expressionless faces and rapidly moving arms.
• How does a grandma in the audience feel when her little sunflower gyrates wildly on stage to a hip-hop song?
• What possesses a parent to yelp out “woo woo!” after the daughter finishes a routine? Does this embarrass the child? It embarrassed me, and I wasn’t even on the stage.
• They shouldn’t make the preschool kids dance in the same performance as the high school kids. It’s unfair to the parents to sit through that much dancing by someone else’s kids.
• Why don’t you notice how suggestive some song lyrics are until you’ve seen a freshman in high school dancing to them?
• I spent some time auditioning names from the program for our house’s little coming attraction, due out in August. Why are there so many ways to spell Ashley, Brittney and Jennifer?
• Is it wrong to watch dancers like you do ice skaters and hockey players, waiting for one to fall down or start a fight?
• Did someone just sneak out the backdoor as soon as his daughter’s routine ended? That doesn’t seem fair.
• Why do dance outfits cost twice as much as regular clothes when they look so cheaply made?
• Do choreographers see dance patterns the same way a great hitter sees the ball coming to the plate?
• Were people thinner back in the early 1900s? Every seat in the old auditorium seemed cramped. Come to think of it, none of them seemed that cramped when I saw a show there as a kid.
• Would more pedophiles come in to watch this if it didn’t cost $7 per seat?
• How does a mother learn the routine enough that she can wiggle in her seat with every motion, trying to urge her daughter into keeping up?
• Every little girl looks like a middle-aged burnout when you put a pound of makeup on her face and put her hair up into a bun.
• Do organizers of these types of events have the express written permission of the music companies to use the music, like you’re supposed to do before replaying a sporting event in front of a crowd?
• What are all the other fathers thinking about when their daughters aren’t on stage?
• Is someone snoring?
• Was that me snoring?
I live to tell from the experience. And really, the two and a half minutes our 5-year-old spent on stage dancing to a Winnie the Pooh song made the rest of the show palatable.
It reminded me of something important. While other people’s kids may look silly and strange, your own children always look cute. Love may be blind, but it’s just nearsighted when it comes to your kids.

Glory days weren’t so glorious after all

http://www.limaohio.com/story.php?IDnum=37161&q=david%20trinko

Glory days weren’t so glorious after all

David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 04.10.2007
The scene would’ve seemed dull just 10 years ago.
It was 9:30 p.m., and I reclined on my couch. My wife’s slumbering body pinned my lap down. Our 5-year-old had been sleeping for about an hour, and Mrs. Trinko was asleep for nearly that same amount of time.
The television set clicked off, leaving only silence and time to reflect on life. We make a decent living, and there’s plenty of laughter in our home. There’s love, happiness and joy. By all accounts, life is good for us.
I started thinking about a fellow I knew, in his early 20s. He would’ve hated that scene. Silence intimidated him. He was young, and he wanted to live.
The Lima bar scene was his place in the world. Nearly every night he’d head out after work, consume a few too many alcoholic beverages and somehow stumble home. “Bud Heavy,” he’d call his drink of choice. If a bartender looked at him cross-eyed or confused, he’d clarify, “Budweiser.”
That’s how he spent his free time, drinking with a group of friends, talking about the issues of the day and arguing how the world would be different if he were in charge.
He had good friends, and there were plenty of ideas in his life. There was independence, spontaneity and thrill. By all accounts, life was good for him.
A few weeks ago, my wife and daughter were off visiting other parts of the state, leaving me free on a Tuesday night to relive that nighttime scene.
That’s when it became obvious to me that I’m the man I am now and not the man I was 10 years ago. The conversations I overheard seemed trite. The alcohol seemed like a Band-Aid on bigger problems in lives. It was a chance to vent. Once the venting was done, all that remained was a room full of emptiness for many of them.
Yet that will become a glory day for many of the people there. I think back to some of those hilarious stories you share about those days.
We had one friend who fell asleep in nearly every drinking establishment in Lima. We had another friend who eventually ended his marriage so he could have more fun. Then there was the time we left a guy behind accidentally when we were swept away for a surprise half-birthday party.
And none of us will ever forget the night we stayed up drinking all night and headed to Bob Evans at 6 a.m., only to find out it opened at 6:30 a.m. in that location. Some brave souls even tried playing golf that morning before returning to work in the afternoon.
As I look back at those fond memories, I have to wonder if I should enjoy them and be proud of them. It makes me realize what a stupid kid I was, relying on suds to help make my life seem right.
I’m no teetotaler. I still enjoy good beer and great conversation. I also realize how it could’ve easily destroyed my world if I’d ever been caught being so reckless and ridiculous. I could’ve truly hurt myself or someone else by being so dumb.
I could have ruined the life I’m living and loving now, even if I would’ve hated it then.
So here’s a word of warning to the young and bulletproof. Be careful with your lives. Every decision you make could affect your future.
Have fun, but be responsible with it. You’ll thank yourself for it, say, 10 years down the road.

Bathroom humor

I was sitting in the bathroom at work earlier this week, doing what one does in a bathroom. As I looked down at my exposed leg, I noticed a scab over a wound I didn't remember suffering.
"I wonder how that happened," I wondered aloud.
"Must've been something you ate," the voice from one stall over said.

Memories really are nothing more than memories

http://www.limaohio.com/story.php?IDnum=36196

Memories really are nothing more than memories
David Trinko dtrinko@limanews.com - 03.13.2007

I just don’t remember having that much of it when I first got out of high school.
I had a little bit more when I graduated college and took my first job here in Lima. Whenever I moved, it seemed like there was a little more and a little more.
This past weekend, when I moved into the first house recorded in my name, I noticed I had a lot more of it than I’m proud to admit.
It’s not my gut, although there’s a bit more of that than I might like too. It’s stuff. It’s junk. It’s garbage I just can’t let myself throw out.
They’re silly little trinkets that have no real value whatsoever. There’s that red, plastic football from the homecoming dance my senior year. There’s that “Dream Team 1998” T-shirt I got the one year for helping compile The Lima News’ all-star team. There’s a plastic basketball from when I organized a high school basketball tournament for a newspaper in Virginia.
It’s all junk. It’s all worthless.
Still, when my wife suggested I trim back my collection of memories, I bristled. And I really don’t know why.
Do I really need to display the “110-percent award” I received in track? Sure, it’s a reminder that I tried hard my senior year. It’s also a reminder that I finished third or worse in the two-mile race dozens of times because I was slow.
What purpose does that spray-paint ocean-view from Cancun play? It was fun to watch the Mexican performer create it with flames and artistry. It was also depressing, as I went to Cancun alone because my girlfriend at the time and I broke up after I’d already purchased the tickets.
What about the softball jerseys for newspaper teams everywhere I’d worked? My claim to fame was always hitting a single to third base but outrunning the throw. Half the time, it also meant I forced out a runner at third base.
They’re all memories of who I was, both as a winner and as a loser.
I’m making plenty of memories now. I’m a husband, a father and a boss, although never two of the three to anyone. Deep down inside, I think I fear losing who I was in favor of who I’ve become.
That’s one of the challenges as an adult male in today’s world. There’s an expectation that you’ll give up some of your childish things to adopt the role society sets for you. Happily, I’ll never put my childishness behind me.
I will, however, let some of those memories become strictly memories. All of those old jerseys are gone now, but I’ll always remember the joy of outrunning a throw to first. Some of those other trinkets are stowed away in boxes now, ready to be conveniently tossed when I’m ready to forget those years. (Or ready for the David Trinko Museum, whichever comes first.)
I finally gave in when I realized junk didn't make me who I am. My reactions to events and humorous stories about them did. It’s not cutting back on who I am to let go of some of it.
Now if I can only talk my waistline into dropping some of those memories from Saturday night’s dinner.
You can comment on this story at www.limaohio.com.

Changes...

Whew... I've been sloppy about keeping this blog updated. It's been a tad bit nuts around here lately.
Just by way of explanation... My wife's due in August, we just moved into a new house and work's been crazy lately. (Just visit http://www.limaohio.com/default.php?IDnum=64 to see what I'm talking about, in terms of the Bluffton bus crash.)
Anyway, among other little vows, I'm hoping to be better about this in the coming weeks. (Yeah, like long-time readers haven't seen that one before.)

Accusations of racism will chill a person

They’re words that sting as badly as a hit from an aluminum bat to the funny bone: “You’re a racist.”
They’re words I’ve heard twice in my life. And they’re words that change your outlook on everything.
To clarify, each time I’ve heard those words it was because I told someone over the phone that I wouldn’t put something in the newspaper. In each case, it was something that wasn’t as newsworthy as my standards required.
I don’t know if the people on the other end of the phone line intended the line to be so brutal. That’s not the point. It still hurt.
“You’re a racist” is the death knell to the conscience of a good-hearted man with compassion for others, regardless of race or religion. It makes you question if perhaps you’ve veiled yourself to how your mind truly works.
This phrase perpetuates true racism. It generates anger. It generates self-defense. It generates a certain degree of loathing.
You start thinking about all the friends you’ve had of other ethnicities, wondering if they felt the same way.
“I’m not a racist” is a statement that, when you hear it out loud, sounds more like an admission than a defense.
Racism is treating one race differently than another. Racism is using your language differently around one group than another. Racism is thinking differently about another group.
It inevitably sounds idealistic, but there is only one race here, human. If we treat one another as such, regardless of the hues of our skins, we’ll be fine.
Black History Month ends Wednesday. I won’t debate the need for this daily reminder of how African-Americans contributed to our history, although there are issues with the month’s moniker.
The key to that phrase, though, is “our history.” It’s not black history. It’s not white history. It’s a history we share, regardless of where our ancestors were born.
Throughout this month, we’ve seen leaders talk about the “black community” here. This type of separation doesn’t benefit anyone. It pushes an us versus them mentality that is, frankly, 30 years out of date.
As the comic-strip philosopher Walt Kelly once had Pogo say, “We’ve met the enemy, and he is us.”
As long as there is a black community, a white community, a Hispanic community, an Asian community or a left-handed flautist community here, we’ll never see eye to eye. We’re one community, facing and solving our common problems together.
Sure, you must value diversity. It’s what makes America such an interesting melting pot. That’s not the same as creating division among us by accenting our differences, though. True diversity is recognizing the good in everyone.
I hope I’ll never hear those chilling words of “you’re a racist” again, but I know I will some day. It’s the nature of a job where you have to say no to people sometimes. As long as I stay true to my principles of fairness and truth, I know I won’t fall victim to actually becoming one.
I can only hope everyone else fights it too.

COLUMN: It’s finally good to be a Bears fan again

From The Lima News, Feb. 1, 2007

If it’s a boy, we’re thinking about naming him Brian, after Brian Urlacher.

My wife and I both have replicas of Urlacher’s jersey, although I have trouble imagining him wearing that tight, midriff-bearing shirt she received for Christmas.

Even our 5-year-old knows that the guy with No. 54 on his back is Urlacher.

It’s safe to say our house is a Bears house as the Super Bowl comes this weekend. You’ll have to pardon my glee, but Bears’ fans haven’t had much to celebrate in, oh, 21 years.

When the Bears made their Super Bowl Shuffle video on their way to winning the Super Bowl after the 1985 regular season, I was on cloud nine. So were most of the kids in my class, who’d hopped on the bandwagon.

I recall my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Davis, declaring the Monday after the Super Bowl that none of us would be Bears fans in 20 years.

He was wrong with me. Family ties to Chicago built that bond with the Bears, and I’ve stayed with them through tough times. There were 11 losing seasons since then, including three 4-12 campaigns. There were 11 pretty bad quarterbacks in that stretch too, including three who were so totally forgettable I had to look up their first names (Chad Hutchinson, Dave Krieg and Steve Walsh).

Twenty-one years is a really long time, even though that Super Bowl win against New England seems like yesterday for me. That Super Bowl drought is old enough to go out drinking now. It’s old enough to be a junior in college. It’s old enough to serve in the military.

My wife’s passion for the Bears is a bit newer. She never cared much for Chicago until she began watching games with me. It was one of those compromises couples make: She watches the Bears with me, and I watch “Desperate Housewives” with her.

Something magical happened with her. Most of last year, she merely watched the games. This year, she began cheering. She began yelling at the TV. She began sitting on the edge of the couch as the defense made key stops.

She also made a dream of mine come true. Even though I’d been to Chicago at least once a year nearly every year I’ve been alive, I’d never seen a game there. She surprised me with tickets around my birthday. The photograph of her and me sitting in front of Soldier Field brings back a treasured memory.

She’s been hooked on the team ever since. I’m proud to say we plan our Sundays around when the Bears play.

There’s just something alluring about those Monsters of the Midway.

I credit my grandma, who still lives near Chicago, for my fanaticism for the Bears. She’s in her mid-90s now, but she’s still sharp as the pain Peyton Manning will feel after a sack Sunday. And when the Bears are playing, you simply know you don’t call her; she’s busy watching da Bears.

At the reception for my wedding last summer, I chatted with my grandma for a bit. After we got through the pleasantries, she started our annual July conversation: How do you think the Bears will do this year?

Neither of us imagined this team would be good enough to get to the Super Bowl. After all these years of disappointment, you just stop expecting it.

I’m not expecting a win, but I’d sure like to see it. If you’re going to go to the effort of playing in the Super Bowl, you might as well win the thing. After all, it might be another 21 years of heartache before you get back there again.

Column: Staging sets up unrealistic view of home

Staging sets up unrealistic view of home
BY DAVID TRINKO - Jan. 9, 2007

You never realize how small your house is until you’re ready to move.

You never realize how big it is until you’re preparing to sell it.

My wife and I recently received some exciting news that made it clear our current home was one bedroom too small. It became obvious we’d have to leave our cozy home behind.

The real estate agents stuck the sign in the front yard quickly enough, but that’s when the real work began. Selling a house is easy enough, but preparing it for sale is a literal pain in the back.

People looking for homes are often in the same predicament as my family. You look around, and you realize there isn’t enough room for all your stuff and all your family. You love your stuff. You love your family. Thus you decide to make room for both of them.

One of the real estate agents came to the same conclusion after looking around our humble abode. We have a beautiful house. We have a lot of beautiful stuff, much more beautiful stuff than the beautiful house will hold.

Thus began our journey into “staging” the house. It’s a cute term that’s very similar to how children look at divorce. Half of the stuff moves out of the house, yet you hope it gets back together with the other half some day.

Given Mrs. Trinko’s condition, she’s not that much help in moving half of our nice, heavy stuff out of the house. Our 5-year-old isn’t much help either, although she’s seen her mother in action enough to tell you when you’re about to hit a wall with a piece of furniture way too big for just one person to carry.

The idea of staging sounds simple enough. You’re removing unnecessary items from the home, so it appears much larger than it really is. It gives the illusion of space.

It also removes the illusion that a man lives there. Every piece of furniture I brought into our marriage is now residing in our garage. I’ve learned not to complain too loudly, though, as I fear I might reside there too.

I spent New Year’s Day packing up our office area, boxing up the remnants of the once-manliest room in the home. For staging purposes, it’s a computer/playroom for our daughter.

I admitted defeat about the time I plugged a Disney Princess television into the wall where my beautiful 32-inch television set used to play. You haven’t lived until you see Cinderella next to the channel number as you flip between the Gator Bowl and the Capital One Bowl. You gain a new perspective on college football when Ariel from the Little Mermaid swims across the screen as you turn up Kirk Herbstreit’s commentary on the Rose Bowl.

Eventually you get all of the useful, comfortable furniture and belongings out of the house. Your home looks the way you hope it does when company visits: Spotless, spacious and not even remotely close to how you really live.

You also realize something else … the house is huge. You don’t really need more rooms. It’s just more room for more junk to accumulate.

Still, I’ve accepted we’ll move before too long. We can’t really live like this, unless the real estate agent has some tips on staging our lives.

Until then, I know I can visit the rest of our furnishings in the garage. Some day they’ll reunite with our staged belongings in a real home again.