In the midst of all my mid-life reflection last week, I received an email from a guy I hadn’t heard from in twenty years. John* had tracked me down through the massive power of the Internet, so of course, I immediately directed him to the Basement Songs (we writers are kind of narcissistic that way). After a friendly exchange of e-mails that detailed an overview of our lives, John checked out a couple of my columns and wrote me a follow up e-mail. He told me to disregard the previous e-mail as bullshit. He then wrote one of the most confessional letters that has ever shown up in my Gmail inbox. I’m not going to go into details because his life isn’t an open book like mine (again, narcissism), but I will say that John had a rough time in the ’90s. Happily, through the love of a good woman who never gave up on him, he’s dug himself out and now leads a happier life.

I understood what he was talking about. I went through a period of months a couple years ago in which I suffered through a paralyzing depression. I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and each day it got harder and harder to get up and face life. I, too, am lucky that I had a good woman and good friends to help me through the times and to right the course of my life. Have you ever experienced that? Have you ever tripped into the dark sides of your psyche and dragged your loved ones with you? If you haven’t been through that hell, then you, my friend, are fortunate.

Reading John’s letter and getting reacquainted with him got me thinking about the past 20 years of my life and how so much has happened to me, to him, and the world in that time. It was the week of my birthday, so I was already in reflective mood, leading me  to take down some old photo albums and begin leafing through chapters of my life.

As I sifted through pictures from kindergarten, my fifth grade football team, that ill-advised moment as a goth, old marching snapshots and memories of the our home in North Olmsted, I came upon the scrapbook I put together for Julie after we got engaged. In it were old movie stubs, programs from the plays we saw in downtown Cleveland, Peter Gabriel concert tickets, and memorabilia from a trip to Baltimore. Tucked away in the very back was a letter Julie wrote me back in ’93, a seven-page confessional I’d forgotten existed. Standing in the middle of the kitchen while music played in the background, I read that letter again, absorbing the words and the naked honesty with which Julie wrote. Once again I thought about how much has happened since I met Jules and how far we’ve come. Rediscovering that letter was one of the best surprises I received last weekend.

There was a brief period when we were dating that some questioned whether we were doing the right thing. Some friends thought we were rushing things, and I didn’t think they believed we’d last. There was never any doubt in our hearts; fate had spoken and we would always be together, through good or bad. Today, 17 years after we got engaged, I can’t imagine my life without my best friend, my wife, Julie, there by my side.

The very first time I heard Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s recording of the Everly Brothers song “Stick With Me Baby,” I was struck by the tenderness with which Plant sang and how well his voice harmonized with Krauss’. They transformed the old rockabilly song into a prayer of devotion between two people in love who have the world questioning their actions. It sounded familiar. The fact is that Plant, an artist whose solo work I was passionate about long before I ever listened to Led Zeppelin, teaming up with Krauss, someone I’ve always associated with my wife since the first time she played me “I Will” from Krauss’s Now That I’ve Found You: A Collection, made this collaboration seem more magical than it already was.

I know that I profess my love for my wife constantly in this column, but when you are as blessed as I am you want to shout it to the world, or at least share a quiet hymn sung by two of the greatest singers in popular music.

No life, no relationship glides along without bumps in the road; sometimes a pebble, sometimes a pothole. That’s life, right? It’s what you do after the hard times, after the tears and apologies, after the healing; what you do to continue moving forward is what defines your life. My wife has a heart big enough to love me for all of my idiosyncrasies, inconsistencies and idiocies. In that way I was able to relate to my old friend John, and smile, thankful that he’d made his way through the tunnel and found light again, thanks to a woman who stuck with him.

In an effort to conserve gas and save money, I’ve been riding my bike to the train station on a regular basis. It reminds me of my sophomore year at BGSU, when I’d zip around the campus on the red one-speed I bought for three bucks from my friend, Brett. With my Toledo Mud Hens hat turned backwards and an obnoxious turquoise backpack over my shoulders, I’d ride to classes or just tool around aimlessly with the strong Bowling Green winds trying to blow me over. Accompanying me on these journeys was my semi-reliable Emerson portable cassette player (made from the finest plastic China had to offer). And blasting through my headphones in October of ’89 were my favorite albums at the time: Edie Brickell & New Bohemians’ Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars and Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop.

Brickell and her band were the flavor of the month, with a hit single and exposure on the radio and MTV. Beck’s record, on the other hand, was released with hardly any airplay and little press (the only review I read appeared in Rolling Stone). What the mainstream missed was their loss, because this is one killer album. Featuring his longtime collaborator Tony Hyams on keyboards and former Missing Persons drummer Terry Bozzio, Guitar Shop is a solid mix of rockers and ballads. Moreover, each instrumental displays a 45- year old Beck on fire, showing up the hair metal rockers half his age who dominated the radio in the late ’80s. In the movie in my head, when I wanted to feel cool and ride around like I was Mel Gibson on a bike, I would cue up “Big Block,” with its funky beat and nasty guitar solo, and just cruise the campus.

Those autumn months in ’89, when the air was crisp and the skies were gray, when the co-eds began dressing in snug jeans and sweatshirts with the school colors — those were carefree days. Sure, there was pressure to succeed and get good grades, but the sense of security the campus provided made me feel invincible. It sometimes surprises me that I was never hit by a car or ran over any pedestrians — although that could have been a good way to meet girls (damn!) — because I was pretty reckless on that bike.

Recently, while riding my 18-speed Crossroad bike, I’ve been acting like I was twenty again: reckless. I’ve got my helmet loosely secured under my chin and a tattered old blue backpack over my shoulders, and I ride the edge of the sidewalk with the strong winds of Santa Clarita trying to blow me over. And wouldn’t you know it, accompanying me on these rides is my reliable iPod blasting the music of Jeff Beck through my headphones.

Two weeks ago I set off for the train station and realized that I’d forgotten my monthly pass. I made a U-turn and rushed back home. Here’s the thing about pedaling as fast as you can in 15^th gear: there’s a danger of losing sense of how fast you’re actually going. As I came up our driveway, the bike veered toward the large cypress trees growing alongside the side. For a split second, I thought I could save myself; then the front tire hit the bed of stones at the base of the trees and I lost control. The bike smashed into a cypress and I was thrown five feet from my bike. Landing with a sickening thud, my hip slammed into the concrete and my elbow crunched hard. I sat up with a gasp and nearly threw up.  After a minute of silent cursing, I got to my feet and assessed my injuries. Elbow? It felt like needles were poking in it, but manageable. Hip? A dull throbbing pain shot through my joints and a burning sensation when I walked. Eh, bearable.  As I limped into the house, one thought kept repeating itself in my head: “Dude, you’re going to be 40. You have to be smart. Think of the children. The children! You’re not 20 anymore!” (I also thought: “Dude, you’re a dumbass,” but that’s beside the point.)

I didn’t feel confident enough to ride the bike afterwards, and fell into a two-week funk. This whole business about turning 40 started to become a big deal. As the weeks have wound down to my birthday I’ve been thinking “Why? Why does this age suddenly make a difference?”

Is it that 40 was the first birthday I can recall for either of my parents? It sure seemed to be a big deal when mom and dad turned 40. I was a kid, and frankly, that number seemed so far off in the future it just made my parents seem, well, old.  Of course, they weren’t old. Throughout their forties, and beyond, they accomplished so much.

Thinking about them I was reminded of October, 2007, when my parents came out to California so that my dad could help me paint the house. This turned out to be one of my favorite experiences with my dad, just the two of us, talking while sports radio and the Indians/Yankees divisional series played in the background. He shared many stories about growing up in North Olmsted and working on his father’s chicken farm. At one point he had to take a seat and catch his breath; he was 70, after all. “You okay?” I asked, trying to mask my concern. He chuckled and replied, “I’ll tell ya, I’m not 40 anymore.”

He could have said “I’m not as young as I used to be,” or “I’m not as spry as I was in my thirties.” Well, maybe he wouldn’t have used “spry,” but you get the gist. Dad using 40 as a barometer gave me reassurance that 40 is young. A mature, graying young, but young nonetheless.

This week the air became cooler and the leaves began to fall from the trees; it felt like Ohio in the autumn. It also felt like it was time to turn off the funk and get back to rock and rolling. On Monday, I hopped back on my bike and started off for the train station. With “Big Block” blaring once again, I pedaled through the streets of my neighborhood feeling like I was 20, or at least 32. Screw 40, or 50 or 60. The future is wide open and I’m going to stay atop my bike until I’m 70 — or at least until I run into a cypress tree again.

Since the day we moved into our house, I have regularly snuggled my daughter Sophie for about 10 minutes before she goes to sleep at night. When she was younger, it was to help ease her fears over the creaks and rattles of her room when the lights were off. As she got older, this routine turned into an opportunity for the two of us to catch up on our days. I found out about how school was for her, and Sophie asked me questions about my job.  For the past year I have tried to end this nightly routine.  Whenever I expressed this to Julie, my great wife admonished me by saying, “There’s going to come a time when she wants nothing to do with you. Enjoy this while you can.” Generally I pooh pooh this comment; I can’t imagine my daughter not wanting her dad around.

I vividly recall dropping her off for the first time at daycare when she was just two months old. It happened to coincide with my first day at a new job, so I was already a bundle of raw nerves. Letting her go and placing her into the care of people I barely knew was one of the worst things I ever had to do, and after I left the daycare, I had a meltdown in my car before finding the strength to start the car. I felt like she was already moving on.

In 2002, my son Jacob was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. While Julie stayed with him down at Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles, I took Sophie to preschool and went to work, then would pick up Sophie from preschool and we would drive all the way into the city to see them. It was a long, stressful week and I leaned on Sophie’s tiny shoulders (she was three at the time) to support me. She cried, missing her mommy, while I tried to put on a brave face so as to not scare her. I’m ashamed to admit that I lost my cool with my three-year-old. Amazingly, when I would hug her, apologizing for raising my voice, Sophie would pat my back and say, “It’s okay, Daddy.”

We got through that time together, though I was lucky to have the music of Badly Drawn Boy’s About a Boy and Patty Griffin’s 1,000 Kisses to free my mind from dwelling on things. If there is a moment when I felt like I made a unique connection with my daughter, it was during that time.

The end of the baseball season is my favorite time of the year. Sophie and I huddle on the couch to watch our favorite teams battle for a spot in the World Series. As I pace the room, anxiously waiting the result of every pitch, she’ll ask a hundred questions about the rules of the game, the players, the players’ numbers, the lingo, what an umpire does, strategies and the team colors. When I throw my arms up in frustration from her bombardment of inquiries, I quickly apologize and she responds, “It’s okay, Daddy.”

Last week, most of her classmates went on a weeklong camping trip, and Sophie didn’t want to go. She’s always had trouble sleeping over at friends’ houses, so a week in a strange cabin was too much for her. Still, she felt left out, and decided that come next year, she wanted to go on the school trip. Julie felt that in order for her to do this, she first had to conquer her fears of having a sleepover with one of her friends. What this means is getting accustomed to going to sleep alone and putting an end to our nightly snuggles.

I didn’t expect the pangs of sadness that filled me when she told me her plan. I thought I’d be happy that I didn’t have to help her settle and that we could have a normal conversation each night while sitting on the couch rather than lying in her bed. This was my first dose of separation anxiety: My little girl is starting to grow up.

Puberty looms on the horizon. I’ll be honest; I’m scared to death about the changes she’s going to go through as she grows into a teenager. It may be a couple of years away, but soon she’s going to start liking boys, and they’ll pass her notes and maybe (gasp) she’ll hold hands. I don’t even want to talk about what comes after that. I know how guys can be; I’m one of them. I broke hearts, and made rude comments, and wasn’t always the nicest guy. I wish I could protect her from all the bad things, but the best I can do is tell her I love her, comfort her in her low times, raise her up during her triumphs and always — always — tell her how much I love her. And maybe I’ll continue slipping songs onto her iPod when she isn’t looking, like this gem from 1,000 Kisses. Sophie may never realize that I think of her when I hear this song, but that’s fine.

Will we maintain the bond we’ve had since the day she came home from the hospital? Will she still want to hang out and watch baseball? Will I someday get to take her to a Springsteen show so she can finally scream out “Big Man” during “Dancing in the Dark?” Will she still draw me wonderful pictures that I can hang above my desk at work? Will she still ask me to snuggle her on occasion when the creaks and rattles of the house have stirred up some old fears?

I can only hope.

One of my brother’s infamous parties was going on downstairs in the basement.  He didn’t have to return to Columbus for a couple weeks, so I guess he felt one more bash was justified before he left for college. In the past, I had sat upstairs and watched a video while the music thumped through the basement door, but this year was different. I was a freshman in high school and I knew some of the people downstairs. Furthermore, I was deemed old enough (not “cool enough,” mind you) to join the older kids in the basement.

I may have been the youngest person in the room, and I didn’t care. Sitting on the second-hand, musty green couch, located right next to the stereo, I stared as the few girls I knew  (just a year ahead of me) made out with guys two or three years older than them. I studied the techniques of concealing alcohol in plastic cups in case my parents decided to make an unexpected visit. Mostly, though, I just listened to music and got to play DJ. I was spinning The Big Chill soundtrack, that collection of ’60s hits that started the Hollywood trend of marketing movies to the sound of nostalgia and oldies. I hadn’t seen the movie yet; it wasn’t on my list of must-see videos — it didn’t have blood and guts or lowbrow humor. But I loved the songs compiled by writer/director Lawrence Kasdan. While I tapped my foot and did some dorky air drumming to Marvin Gaye and The Rascals, I felt the couch shift as someone sat down next to me.

“Hi,” she said, “you’re Budd’s little brother, right?”

Holy shit, she was talking to me.

I adjusted my glasses, wide framed monstrosities that took up half of my face, and smiled. I tugged on my purple Huey Lewis and the News tour shirt and flexed my tiny biceps, trying to make myself look bigger.

“Yeah, that’s me.”

I recognized her as a girl from the marching band; I knew all of the kids in band because my father was the band director. She had graduated the past spring and was getting ready to leave for college.

“So, you’re in high school now?”

“Yep.”

“You play an instrument, too?”

“Drums. Yeah.”

“Just like your brother. That’s cute.”

Cute. She called me cute. Well, okay, she said what I did was cute, but close enough, huh?

“This is The Big Chill soundtrack, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I got it last week.”

It was true; my copy of The Big Chill soundtrack LP had recently arrived in the mail from the Columbia House Record Club.

“That’s so cool. I have it, too. Do you like this kind of music?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. There’s so much on the radio that sounds the same and it’s kind of cool to hear these old songs. They’re all pretty cool… and awesome.”

I had a limited vocabulary in 1984.

She and I sat for the next five minutes talking about music. I can’t tell you exactly what we said because being 14, all I could think about was how hot she looked in her skintight Button-Fly 501’s, and how much I would like to put my hand in her feathered hair parted down the middle, and how much I’d like to glimpse between the buttons on her Polo shirt with the collar turned up. At one point I made her laugh. How about that?

In that brief moment I started to realize that music and women had something in common, that I could actually use music and my knowledge to impress girls and, dare I say (dare, dare) maybe get lucky. This girl was, well, she was kind of flirting with me. She was digging me, even in my dorky half-face glasses. And why? Because we liked the same music. This wasn’t like in 7^th grade when I passed notes with a girl and she mentioned that she really liked Greg Kihn’s “Jeopardy” and I happened to think the song was cool and I got all mushy inside whenever I heard the song because it made me think of the girl and I thought maybe, just maybe she would like me enough to hold my hand. No, I was sitting on the couch with a pretty girl in brand new Reeboks who thought I was cute, while in every corner of the basement people were kissing.

I thought I might get a chance to finally French kiss a girl.

Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World” faded out and I knew that the record needed to be turned over.

“End of side one,” I said, jumping up to handle my DJ chores. I turned my back to her and carefully lifted the record needle, flipped the record and placed side two on the turntable. When I looked back, the girl was gone. Glancing around the room, I saw her silhouette in a corner by my dad’s workbench, her arm around some beefy guy and his hand deep in her hip pocket.

Damn.

The opening drum fill from the Temptations’ “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” came through the speakers. I plopped down on the couch as quickly as my heart was sinking. I felt like a loser; I felt like I’d always be the dorky little brother of the cool guy from the band.  I would have sat there wallowing in disappointment, until I suddenly realized:

An… older… GIRL…was just talking to me!

I sat there on the couch with my back against the wall under the St. Pauli Girl poster hanging on the wall. I didn’t have to speak to anyone the rest of the night; my evening was complete. Soon thereafter I went upstairs to watch TV with my folks.

It would be a couple of years before I finally saw The Big Chill. Being familiar with the music from the film actually informed my experience. As much as the characters had memories they recalled from the music in the movie, so did I. My favorite sequence occurs when the characters are cleaning up after dinner and Harold (Kevin Kline) slaps on the Temptations’ Anthology. As “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” accompanies the scene, I always want to leap up and dance with them. I think back to that night when I wasn’t just the little brother and someone took interest in me.

Julie said she was waiting for me.

In 1994, outside the special effects warehouse where I worked, a cat had delivered a litter underneath a pile of lumber directly next to the open area where we used fiberglass chemicals. To save these babies from cancerous fumes they were moved to a safer location, but the mother never returned. A group of us divided up the kittens and when the runt, a squeaky fur ball with white fur and black and white gray patches one her back and legs, was the only one unclaimed, Julie and I adopted her. We named her Doodle.

The first night the two of us woke up periodically to feed Doodle from a syringe. She was so tiny that Julie could put her in the front pocket of her overalls. Over the next week or so she slept on the bed with us, or on my chest where she would knead my chest with her claws. When she was hungry she would “mew,” which was pathetic and sweet at the same time. This all took place in our first apartment, a one bedroom sweatbox located in North Hollywood. It was a big place, but the AC didn’t work, thus the summer days were almost unbearable from the hundred-plus degree heat in the San Fernando Valley. Couple that with the class bells from nearby North Hollywood High during the school year, and you can understand why the rent was pretty cheap.

Our other two cats, Otis and Ella, treated Doodle with indifference. As the two of them were skittish and would not let us near them, Doodle became the type of pet we always imagined. She was friendly, purred when you scratched her ears or butt and tolerated whenever we picked her up and danced around the living room. On blazing afternoons when I tried to stay cool without moving I’d often doze off with Doodle lying on my chest. It was relaxing. One afternoon I returned from work and she was missing. Then I heard her cries, as if she was trapped somewhere in the apartment. After a frantic search I discovered that Doodle had wedged herself under our convertible couch and crawled into a crevice between the metal springs of the pull-out bed. If you’ve ever owned a convertible, you know how damn heavy they can be, and can imagine how fun it was lifting the couch to get her out.

She did this regularly until she got too big to squeeze under the couch.

During that first year Julie and I were a young married couple with little money. We went out maybe once or twice a month, but were quite content sitting at home on a Saturday night lounging on the couch with Doodle close by, the other cats chasing each other around, and listening to Shawn Colvin singing Tom Waits’s “Heart of a Saturday Night” or covering Greg Brown’s  “One Cool Remove” as a wonderful duet with Mary Chapin Carpenter. Colvin is one of those artists who is not only a fine songwriter, but also interprets other people’s work with a degree of grace and beauty that makes the songs her own. I find her Cover Girl album, and the numerous contributions she’s made to tribute albums, just as moving as any of her deeply felt personal songs.

When Sophie was born in 1999, Doodle was now the cat that showed indifference. By then she was the queen, lounging around most of the time. She was friendly enough to Sophie, although we had to make sure she stayed out of Sophie’s crib; I believe she thought it was some special bed we’d constructed for her. Two years later we made the big move from apartment life into our house, which had a new hallway to run up and down, rooms to hide in, and a outdoor patio where the cats could bask in the sun as long as they wanted. Doodle tended to stay indoors, choosing the comfy pillows of the couch or our bed to continue her reign over the household. Her reign would not last.

The end of that year was very tense and full of a great deal of uncertainty, with Jacob’s birth and his diagnosis of CF at Christmastime. Thus, when one of the cats began urinating throughout the house, primarily in the living room, our stress level went through the roof. Not only did it smell horrendous, it was unsanitary for a 3-year old and infant to be rolling around on. We knew we’d eventually have to purchase new carpeting to get drive out the stench. The problem was we didn’t know which cat was behind the foul deed. Doodle answered that question one night as I sat watching Sportscenter. With my feet propped on the coffee table, she trotted out to the living room, directly to the spot where all the peeing had been done. Then, with a look that said, “Hey, look at me, I can do whatever I want,” she cleared her bladder. It was all I could do not to wring her neck. That was the night Doodle became an outdoor cat.

After that night, for seven years Doodle owned the patio. She often roamed through neighbors’ yards (I’m not sure exactly where to), but each evening she returned to reside on one of the metal patio chairs, squeeze herself between the air conditioning unit and the house (she always liked cramped spaces) or just lay in the dirt under the large tree in our backyard. When the sun went down and the air grew cooler I’d bring her inside to place her in a kennel, for safe measure. But Doodle preferred to remain outside, often sprinting back to the door the moment she was set down in the house. Outside she could rule, and rule she did. If another cat from the neighborhood dared enter our yard, Doodle became very territorial, growling and hissing to chase them off. Meanwhile, whenever a raccoon or possum would sneak up to eat her food, Doodle looked on with disinterest. It was as if she thought these wild creatures beneath her and not worth the hassle. After all, she was domesticated. Either that or she was smart enough not to tussle with a huge coon. Doodle remained a loyal and friendly cat, always rubbing against your leg and shedding her fur on your clothes.

Last week, quite suddenly, Doodle began walking more slowly and looking feeble. We quickly realized that she had stopped eating and drinking her water. I’ve heard that cats know when their time on earth is up, and we would tell just by looking at her that she was dying. Doing all that we could to make her comfortable the one thing that seemed to put her most at ease was holding her and petting her fur. By Saturday night her once strong “meow” was a weak “croak.” When I laid her down to sleep that night, the assumption was that she’d pass away sometime in the night. The next morning I was the last one up and was surprised to find Doodle still conscious, with Julie sitting beside her.

“She feels so cold,” Julie remarked.

Doodle let out a few more of her warbled croaks and I took her up in my arms. Looking into her eyes I knew she was close to the end. For the next half hour I laid on the floor with Doodle on my chest, much in the same way I used to 15 years ago, when Julie and I were a young married couple and Doodle was a kitten. I stroked her head and back as Doodle’s breath became more labored. A minute would pass in which she would be still, and then the old girl would gasp for air. This went on for ten minutes.

Silence, then a gasp, then silence, then a gasp. Then just silence.

It’s a strange feeling to hold a creature as its life leaves its body. I hope in the afterlife that Doodle is lounging around in the glow of the eternal sun; I hope that she is at peace.

As I placed Doodle down and covered her with a blanket, Julie came over to me and we looked at each other.

“She was waiting for you,” she said.

Matt and I had a plan. Fed up with the director of our high school fall play, we decided to play a practical joke on her. We were seniors; we thought we ruled the school. Even though we still had to worry about grades and the prospect of getting into college, we carried with us an air of invincibility. We thought we were kings.

October, 1987. The air was cooler; the days were shorter and the leaves dangled for life in shades of red and gold. When we weren’t studying for AP English, running cross country or out on the practice field with the marching band, we were rehearsing in the junior high auditorium on its sturdy old stage and hundreds of empty seats in front of us. Matt and I would typically carpool to rehearsals, generally in the Whomobile. To psyche ourselves up we’d blast the car stereo and sing at the top of our lungs. We’d listen to U2’s The Joshua Tree and Sting’s …Nothing Like the Sun. The latter album, with its chilly demeanor, intricate music and thoughtful lyrics, felt better suited for the autumn. My favorite song was “Straight to My Heart”; Matt liked Sting’s collaboration with Gil Evans, the cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing.”  We both loved “Englishman in New York.” Sting’s tribute to his friend, writer Quentin Crisp, has a whimsical tone, tinged with Sting’s typical melancholy and Branford Marsalis’s weeping saxophone. It will always remind me of my friendship with Matt and the evening we rewrote Agatha Christie.

The play we were rehearsing was Christie’s long running The Mousetrap. Those of you unfamiliar with the murder mystery, a quick synopsis:

Mollie and Giles Ralston are the proprietors of a hotel and find themselves snowed in with four guests. An additional traveler arrives after he runs his car into a snowdrift and soon thereafter, a Detective Trotter shows up on skis to warn everyone that he thinks a murderer may be headed to the hotel. When one of the guests is murdered, everyone realizes that any one of them could be the real killer, even the hosts themselves.

I was cast as Christopher Wren, a hyperactive, peculiar young man who is the first suspected of being the murdered. I imagined myself as the dashing leading man type, but the director thought I was better suited as the whack job that may be a killer. Matt was cast Major Metcalf. The two of us were in the play for a good time, living a dream of emulating our idols, like Steve Martin, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. I’ll tell you, Matt was a natural on the stage and  lively presence amongst the cast and crew (he even claimed to have had relations with one of the actresses in the back gymnasium one night after rehearsal). Our director was an absentminded, unorganized, overwhelmed woman who paid little mind to what was happening on stage. Occasionally she would bark out comments from her 10^th row seat in the empty auditorium, usually with a direction for something that occurred 20 minutes earlier. Otherwise, she spent her time complaining, searching for her keys or staring off into space. While it was liberating to be running the show on our own, it was difficult to know how well we were performing without constructive feedback from our director.

The cast’s frustration grew until finally, Matt and I came up with a plan to have some fun. One evening before rehearing the second act of the play, we decided to jump from approximately five minutes into the second act to the very end and the big reveal of the murderer (a plot twist I won’t reveal here). Our rewrite turned The Mousetrap into a bloodbath in which nearly everyone gets shot down in cold blood. We turned 30 minutes of stage time into 10 minutes of improvisation.

The conspiracy quickly spread through the ranks. After a very quick discussion about who would say what and who would die when, everyone took to their places and commenced the second act rehearsal. Of course, after calling action, our director went to clipping coupons or nodding off. Soon the fun began. Brian, the actor playing the murderer, pulled out his prop gun and shot down two of the characters, including me. I’d like to say I didn’t ham it up, but come on — when have you ever know an actor not to draw out a death scene? Two more characters were shot, leaving poor Mollie and the murderer standing alone. Brian then went into his final monologue from the play. Just as he’s about to kill Mollie, Matt, er, Major Metcalf burst through the door and shot down the killer.

From out in the empty seats, the director’s voice called out, “Wait a minute, where are we?” We all burst out laughing. Matt and I looked at each other with broad smiles. For one brief moment, we had owned the stage like our idols. For one brief moment, we were kings.

Friday night, Julie took me aside to tell me the results of Jacob’s latest throat culture. Each time he goes to an appointment with his CF doctor they shove a swab down his throat and test him for harmful bacteria. One bacteria they look for is Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a particularly menacing bug for people with cystic fibrosis that can create havoc on a patient’s lungs. To combat it the antibiotic tobramycin, or TOBI, is added to the daily regiment of inhaled medicines a CF patient must undergo each morning and night. This latest test revealed that Jacob is culturing Pseudomonas aeruginosa and will be starting a daily regiment of TOBI. Although he only showed a small amount of the bacteria, the news is still unsettling, another reminder of how helpless we sometimes feel in combating CF.

Soon after Julie gave me the news, the elephant returned. The elephant is this pressure I feel on my chest that takes my breath away. The elephant is always accompanied with his friend, the snake, who winds its way through my stomach and causes unrest. Joining them this time, for a limited engagement, was the sloth, weighing down on my back, making slouching on the couch in front of the television or curling up in a ball the only things I wanted to do.

The following afternoon, with Julie away working and Sophie attending a birthday party, Jake and I had some “guy time” together. We could have taken in a movie, rode our bikes, maybe throw the ball around. No, Jake just wanted to hang out in the house, rent a video game and play some Rock Band. I love Rock Band. For an old drummer whose Rogers kit is cased up and collecting dust in the garage, the opportunity to play simulated drums is a great joy and an even greater stress reliever. It’s been a great fun watching Sophie and Jake take to the drums and singing. I know that these game components in no way replace the real thing, but it gives me hope that both children will take up actual band instruments come junior high, or sooner.

Sophie is older and more coordinated with the drumsticks; she has a knack for percussion. Jacob also exhibits talent in drumming, though he has to work a little harder than his sister. I know what it’s like to have to try harder when an older sibling is a born natural, but I’ve seen that spirit in him, a determination to learn the rhythms and the beats by practicing songs over and over again until he gets it right. I have watched him go from fumbling and failing a song on Rock Band to scoring four stars and a 90%.

For me, it’s exciting to be exposed to new artists featured in the game. But like any parent I’m even more excited when my children take a liking to songs from my formative years. The generation gap narrows a little bit, especially when a song like Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” gets played. I must have listened to the song a thousand times since first hearing it in Rocky III, and watching Sophie and Jacob play the song in Rock Band, I’ve been reintroduced to a rock anthem I used to listen to constantly on my portable cassette recorder. And of course there is the theme of never giving up and fighting to the end. If ever there were a mainstream rock song I want Jake to play on the simulated drums over and over again, it’s this one. I hope it will inspire Jake to continue being a fighter against this illness, remaining strong and courageous like Emily Schaller, a young woman with CF riding her Vespa scooter and bicycle from Chicago to Burbank in hopes of getting on The Ellen DeGeneres Show to help raise awareness for CF.

By nightfall Saturday, Jake and I had played “Eye of the Tiger” five or six times. Even though we would tackle more difficult selections, we kept coming back to Survivor. Our guy time wound down with Scooby-Doo and pizza before Sophie returned home and it was time for bed. The end of the perfect day. Yet the elephant was still in the room and the snake was still mucking up my gut. Eventually Julie came home and the two of us talked about our mutual anxiety. Exhausted from a long night, she went to bed while I settled down for a drink. And another, and another.

Around midnight, I sat down to write this column in a haze of scotch and tears. I must have typed a thousand words before I hit the wrong key and everything disappeared; my first draft was accidentally deleted. Devastated at first, I eventually felt the relief I needed having gotten the tormented words, the outpouring of my heart, released from my aching body. By 2:00 AM I found my way to bed and fell asleep.

Throughout the week I’ve been climbing out of the hole that I sunk into on Friday night. With the love of the Julie and the kids, (and plenty of Rock Band) I feel like I’m back to normal and ready for another round against this fucking disease. There are times when the fear and worry get the better of me and in order to refocus and find the determination to keep moving forward I need to write about it, to cry about it, to howl at the moon, and sometimes I just need to sit down with my family and rock out to the “Eye of the Tiger.”

We began dating in August of 1992, and soon thereafter, I threw this tape together in a flurry of inspiration, wanting to give Julie something that came from my heart. I don’t recall the actual minutes spent in my parents’ basement picking the songs or laying them down on a Maxell cassette (my brand of choice), but looking back on the list of songs, I’m happy to see they still add up to 90 quailty minutes of music.

Before Nick Hornby wonderfully wrote about what makes a good mixtape in High Fidelity, I assembled exactly the right combination of hip, well known and somewhat obscure songs from my small music collection. Combining big hits like “Learning to Fly,” “What I Am,” and “All This Time” with lesser-known songs by popular artists such as “Until the End of the World,” “Shining Star,” and “Getting to Know You,” while tossing in some hard to find (at the time) songs like “Baby Mine” and “Wild Night” made this tape eclectic, but still enjoyable to listen to and quite accessible.

More importantly, the randomness of the songs and the way I tried to make them flow instead of carefully choosing each selection gave it a high spirit; it’s a fun tape. I love these tunes, even though the B-52’s “Dreamland” is extremely long at over seven minutes and Barbara Streisand’s version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” is a little schmaltzy. One of my favorite moments is the transition from James Newton Howard’s powerful theme to Lawrence Kasdan’s L.A. drama, Grand Canyon, going right into Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.

Besides this being my first attempt at taking a part of myself and expressing it in some creative form for Julie, this tape is significant because the day I gave it to Julie, I pointed to the Springsteen song and told her to listen to it closely. Although we hadn’t been dating long, I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. That song became our song; we danced to it on our wedding night and through the years we have put it on for slow dances in the living room, bedroom and kitchen.

After I wrote that original Basement Songs entry in 2007, my friend John Burland practically demanded that I find this tape and digitize it. I always planned to do so, but it took me time to figure out what to say about it. I soon realized tat there may not be a proper way to define a moment of inspiration. Sometimes things just have to be.

Last Friday, I accompanied Julie and Jacob to his cystic fibrosis check-up at Children’s Hospital; it was a draining and emotional day. I’ve been on a roller coaster since then, finding it difficult to be creative. As the deadline for this week’s Basement Song approached, I had trouble finding words that had any meaning. Then I found this cassette sitting in our office, collecting dust because we haven’t had a working tape deck in years. Suddenly it felt like the right time to digitize the mix. What better way to lift my spirits than to celebrate the music that Julie and I first bonded over? When it came time to actually explain this week’s selection, I thought it best not to put too much thought into what I wrote and just let the words flow freely, kind of like the mixtape I put together 17 years ago.

So here it is: HEY, HEY, JULIE! the group of songs that began a long journey that never ceases to thrill me and fill me with hope. Maybe one of these fine selections will find its way onto a mix for your loved one.

Oh, and Julie, when you read this, check your iPod: I finally loaded the songs as a playlist for you.

Until next week,

Aloha.

Side A:

The B-52’s – “Dreamland”

Bonnie Raitt and Was (Not Was) – “Baby Mine”

The Smithereens – “Too Much Passion”

Melissa Etheridge – “The Angels”

INXS – “Shining Star”

U2 – “Until the End of the World”

Cincinnati Pops Orchestra -  “Grand Canyon Fanfare”

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers – “Learning to Fly”

Indigo Girls – “Kid Fears”

Crowded House – “Recurring Dream”

The Replacements – “Within Your Reach”

Side B:

Ike & Tina Turner – “Proud Mary”

XTC – “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead”

Bruce Springsteen – “Book of Dreams”

Edie Brickell and New Bohemians – “What I Am”

Poi Dog Pondering – “Be the One”

Martha Reeves – “Wild Night”

Colm Wilkinson – “Bring Him Home” (from Les Miserables)

James Taylor – “Getting to Know You”

Suzanne Vega featuring  Joe Jackson – “Left of Center”

Sting – “All This Time”

Barbara Streisand – “Send in the Clowns”

During the summer of 1990, I entered the Record Exchange, my hometown indie store, to buy my first Beatles album. Hard to believe that an audiophile like myself didn’t own a single Beatles LP at all. At one time I copied a friend’s parent’s scratched up White Album on to cassette, and I once recorded the second side of Abbey Road off the radio when Akron’s WONE played it in its entirety during one of those late night “album sides” half hours of airtime, but I had never made the commitment of laying down my own cash and purchasing one of their albums. Perhaps because so much of the Fab Four’s material was consigned to the oldies station, I didn’t take an interest. In 1990, I was a wreck, unsure of who I was, unclear of my place in the world, uncertain about my career choice. I was a 20-year-old college student, confused and lost. (Huh, imagine that.)

It was under this mindset that I entered the Record Exchange, aching for a good melody and some intelligent lyrics. Bypassing the CDs and cassettes, I headed straight for the record bins, crammed full of used Beatles albums. Flipping through them, trying to decide on what to buy, I came upon Rubber Soul and its warped photo of John, Paul, George, and Ringo staring up at me with the same expression I felt on the inside. There was no question which record I would be walking out of the store with that afternoon.

In the seclusion of my parents’ basement, sitting on the dingy yellow recliner facing the record player, I settled the needle into the groove and the music began. I sat motionless and was swept over by a wave of emotions rising from the vinyl and coming forth through my stereo speakers. I cursed myself for not finding the music sooner; then I smiled and realized that the music had found me at just the right time.

Taking their cue from the American folk rock scene, the Beatles crafted a masterpiece of melancholy and introspection not only lyrically, but melodically. George Martin’s production is stellar, the instruments are warm, the harmonies pleading (except “Run for Your Life,” which is just bitter) and the craftsmanship exquisite. Rubber Soul comes from a shadowed place in the heart where all men ache for love and companionship. This is the work of artists maturing before your eyes, transitioning from the happy-go-lucky pin up stars of their early career to the thoughtful philosophers they would soon become. While Help! contains signs that the band was tackling deeper subjects, the title track and “Yesterday,” in particular,  I believe the songs on that record are overshadowed by the silliness of the movie.  Free of the sheen of movies and Beatlemania, Rubber Soul is a step forward and a sign of things to come.

All summer long I listened to this record, turning to it at the end of the work day, even finding solace playing along with Ringo’s drumming. I had mocked Ringo’s musicianship for years, not realizing that what he did sitting behind the other three performers was let them shine. His playing was appropriate and intricate and exactly what each song needed. In August when I moved back to college, Rubber Soul accompanied me to my new basement dwelling, the downstairs bedroom of the duplex I rented with friends. At night, when the room was cold and I sometimes needed a space heater to keep warm, I would drift off while Rubber Soul played. There is nothing finer than succumbing to sleep while Paul McCartney is singing “Michelle” and that lovely guitar solo takes you into your golden slumbers.

In the years since college, Rubber Soul has been a constant companion, lifting me when I’m down, bringing a smile when in need. But in recent years, I hadn’t given it many listens, especially as I became a slave to my iPod. As with many of my original LPs, I never replaced Rubber Soul with a CD. I’ve heard it and the sound was never quite right; the warmth was missing. Thus, when I heard of these new Beatles remasters, I questioned whether newer digital technology could actually capture the human qualities of Rubber Soul, the qualities I had come to love 19 years ago. When the opportunity was presented to review the remastered Rubber Soul, I did so with excitement, but a hint of trepidation.

This past Sunday morning, while Sophie and Jacob were coloring at the kitchen table, I loaded Rubber Soul on to my iPod and pressed play. As the music blared throughout the kitchen, the quality of the remastered album popped out at me the instant Ringo does his first snare fill in “Drive My Car.”  The vocals, the guitar, and mostly the fullness of the bass are magnificent. However it’s the second song, “Norwegian Wood,” in which you can really tell that there is magic here. You can feel the guitar strings plucking; the sitar strings, when they vibrate, slip into your soul. It’s no wonder George loved the instrument so much; the spiritualness of it comes through with every single note. What can be said about the entire album is that you actually feel as if you’re in the room with the band as the music is being played, it’s that alive. When I first heard Rubber Soul in the early ’90s, I was lured in by the words and the emotions of the Beatles. When I listen to it now, I am marveled at the musicianship and the wonder of their playing. The highlight of side one (I still can’t separate them) is the bass line on “The Word.” Paul takes the Beatles’ early political anthem and gives it such a funky groove that I challenge anyone to listen to it and not end up dancing around their kitchen — as I did Sunday morning, and have done every day since then.

It’s a cliché to say it was like hearing the songs for the first time, but I felt like a layer of film had been lifted from my ears and suddenly I was hearing subtleties I never knew were there: The final note of the guitar solo in “Nowhere Man” that seems to hang in the air; the crisp maracas on “The Word”; The snap of the rim shots in “Michelle”; Lennon’s sucking in of air during “Girl,” a sound I always thought was a brush sliding across the snare drum; Hand clapping during “I’m Looking Through You” that is so vivid you can hear when someone makes a mistake during the bridge; the lovely melody that McCartney plays on the bass during Harrison’s great “If I Needed Someone.” Even “Run for Your Life” has more bite, not just from Lennon, but from all of the Beatles, who sound like they’re having wicked fun. My favorite moment on all of the album occurs during Lennon’s enduring “In My Life,” that haunting, reflection on life. Who among us is able to listen to that song and not get a little misty-eyed? By now we’ve all suffered sorrows and loss; hopefully we have a companion that we can say “in my life, I loved you more.” And now, with the wonderful remastered version, every triplet of George Martin’s stunning electric piano solo is perfectly clean, including that amazing run at the very end.

It’s been four days since I received Rubber Soul to review and I have listened to nothing else. I haven’t wanted to! Hearing these songs refreshed, remastered, revitalized, I’m transplanted back to my parents’ basement, rocking in the dingy recliner, idling away the afternoon with the Beatles; I am carried into the a Bowling Green apartment, laying on my futon bed while he space heater buzzes; I am taken to the first apartment Julie and I shared, lounging on the couch while Julie is at work, humming along to the refined melodies of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison while Ringo Starr keeps perfect time. And now, whenever I hear those songs, I’ll be reminded of the Sunday afternoon, skipping around the kitchen while my children watched with frightened smiles as their dad lost his mind all over again.

You don’t need me to tell you how great the songs of Rubber Soul are, and if you’ve come this far on the journey with me, you know how amazing they now sound. Still, the greatest thrill for me is that these songs will be discovered and loved by a new generation of music lovers. As a father of two young children, I can attest that both Sophie and Jacob are starting to become fans. I’ve seen my son nodding his head and doing some air guitar to “Drive My Car” when he thinks no one is looking, and I’ve heard Sophie humming along to “You Won’t See Me” as she does her homework. There’s no better way to describe witnessing your child’s act of discovery, especially one of your essential albums, than as glorious. And that’s also, not coincidentally, the best way to describe the improved Rubber Soul.

That’s all I have to say. The only thing left to do is get up and dance.

Two particular moments come back to me from that Sunday morning in November of 2008.

Early in the run, around the five mile mark, I began an ascent up a mile long hill that leads past a new subdivision. I came over the horizon to the sight of the sun hanging up in the air like an orange, trying to burn through the smoking plumes coming from the south. A deep blue sky filled in the background behind the sun and the haze, creating an impression of glory and dread. As I gradually worked my way to the top on tired legs, Death Cab for Cutie’s “Grapevine Fires,” from their remarkable CD, Narrow Stairs, accompanied me on my journey. This song carries the weight of Death Cab for Cutie’s typical melancholy, yet I found strange comfort in the shuffling drum beat and the haunting lyrics, words that I read as strangely devotional between the song’s characters. Of course I thought of my family and how committed we are to each other. As the day progressed, all three of them, Julie, Sophie and Jacob, would meet me at various locations to provided me with a refill of water, snacks, and the cheers I needed to complete my solo run.

Later, around mile 10, my feet scuffled along the bike path that leads past, our local bowling alley, the train station and the Saugus Speedway. To my right was an open field, untouched by the local land developers, full of dry mud and overgrown grass. I looked up and saw a coyote standing regally on a ledge, observing me. Avoiding eye contact for fear it might feel threatened and pounce on me, I watched it out of my periphery. The coyote remained still as I passed by. I wanted to get one more view of it before going on my way, but when I looked back, the coyote was gone.

Last night, as I comforted my daughter during some bad dreams, sirens rang out somewhere in the distance. Outside, the moon was full, high above, away from the smoke and flames of our current crop of blazes. As I drifted to sleep with Sophie on my shoulder I thought of my family cheering me on as I ran that day, filling my heart with more love than I know what to do with; I thought of the orange sun hanging in the sky, a lone coyote staring down at me with wonder, and the wonderful strains of “Grapevine Fires,” its melody lulling me to sleep.