Terranella - Tales of the Tarantula

Copyright 2019 by Frank Terranella

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Cover design by Jordan F.A. DAmico

Tales of the Tarantula/Frank Terranella 1st ed.

ISBN 978-1-54-399018-8

Contents

For my family.

Thanks for providing me with an endless supply of things to write about, and the love to give me the confidence to let others read it.

This book collects articles I have written over the past seven years. They have been a momentous seven years, and they have provided lots of things to write about. For example, in those seven years, my son got married, my daughter got married, my two grandchildren were born (and another one is on the way), my mother and stepfather died, I traveled to all 50 states as well as most of Southern Europe, I lost 50 pounds (and gained back 20), I celebrated my 40th wedding anniversary, and I sold my house and moved to a townhouse. All these things became subjects for my writing.

But why write? The short answer is because Im a writer. I started writing when I was 13 and I have been doing it ever since. If youre a writer, writing is how you express yourself. A dancer dances, a singer sings, a writer writes. So when I have something on my mind, I write about it. Years ago I would write long letters to friends and family. And then I wrote professionally for newspapers for a while. But these days, with a worldwide audience available with a simple post on an internet blog, thats where I write. You can find me online at www.tumblr.com/blog/frankterranella.

So why Tales of the Tarantula? Thats easy. Back in high school I had a teacher who was an Irish Christian Brother named Brother Howe. He was an amazing guy who liked to joke around in class and was beloved by all his students. When he would call attendance every day, he made a point of mangling everyones name on purpose. When he came to my name on the first day of school he said, Is the tarantula here? Is Frank Tarantula with us? And that was it. I was Tarantula for every day after that.

I hope you enjoy my Tales of life in the 21st Century, and my take on the world we live in. The variety of my interests is broad enough that I think you will find at least some of the topics interesting and even enjoyable. As a writer, if I can give readers a chuckle here and there and an occasional tear, I will be happy. But no matter what, I will keep writing, because thats what writers do.

September 2019

Montclair, New Jersey

October 2012

As I rapidly approach the end of my fifties I find that I have a different sense of my mortality than people younger than me do. Younger adults dont think much about dying (except to fear it) because the odds are theyve never been very sick. But I actually think that facing the fact that you will not live forever is very healthy and helps you live a better, fuller and happier life.

You may recall the longstanding soap opera Days of Our Lives that begins with the words Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. Well, the average life span of a Baby Boomer is about 30,000 days. If youve reached age 50, youve used up 18,250 of them. By the end of your fifties, youve used up 21,900. If youre lucky, there have been a lot of good days in there. But just as the hourglass runs out, so do the days of our lives. But most people dont want to face that reality. That is, until they get sick, really sick.

About 12 years ago, I got really sick. It started with a heart attack, which is one of the most effective ways for the Grim Reaper to get your attention. And just in case I didnt get the message, five years later I developed testicular cancer, followed five years after that by prostate cancer. I was lucky in that the heart attack was minor (my clogged arteries were unblocked by angioplasty) and the cancers I had happen to be the ones with the highest survival rate if caught early as they were. So the bottom line is that Im fine now. But I also have been forced to face my mortality.

Surprisingly, I have found this to be a very positive development. I now know more certainly than I did that my days on this planet are limited. My vacation plans are now influenced if not governed by my bucket list. Younger people go around never contemplating kicking the bucket. We all are guilty of that when were young. We postpone good things like sailing the Mediterranean until some amorphous time called retirement. I now know better.

Before my heart attack I was in a job that I did for the money. After my heart attack I looked for a job that I would enjoy and I found it. With the likelihood of less than 10,000 days to go in this lifetime, I have planned vacations in my 50s that allowed me to visit every state in the continental United States. I have ticked off bucket list stops like the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park.

I think that if we all knew the exact date when we were going to die we would not waste time doing things that are unimportant like watching sitcoms. While everyone places different values on activities, I think we all would set different priorities if we knew we had a year to live. I am a two-time cancer survivor, and I know that cancer will get me eventually. The obituary pages are a testament to its ability to cut short lives. That knowledge provides a certain clarity of purpose and urgency of execution. My 401(k) is less important than my desire to experience all that life offers.

George Burns, who lived to be 100, is quoted as saying If I knew I was going to live so long, I would have taken better care of myself. I think the converse of that is If I knew I was going to live so short a time, I would have taken better care to live life to the fullest. With most of the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass, we post-50 men and women have a better sense of this than our younger friends and family. And thats a good thing. I just booked that Mediterranean cruise.

October 2012

I was looking for something in a drawer in my bedroom recently and came across a relic from the 1970s my draft card. It occurs to me that the Baby Boomer generation is in a unique position when it comes to military service. While we were the last generation of men in recent times who were saddled with compulsory military service, most of us didnt serve. So we are unlike our fathers who mostly did serve, and unlike our sons who never experienced the threat of compulsory service.

I think that every man my age remembers going down to the Draft Board and registering. Those of us who were more fortunate were able to claim college or other exemptions. The less fortunate got their induction letters and were sent to war.

And then there was the lottery! There were lotteries held every year from 1969 to 1975 (although no one was drafted after 1973). Before that, the U.S. simply drafted the oldest man first. But beginning in 1969, the order of induction for people born in the same year was determined by a lottery based on your birthday. So for example in 1972, the year they picked inductees born in 1953, people born on March 6 got called first.