Bang Camaro's Easter Show, Where my Son Nick and Vocalist Nate Went Missing

Speaking of terrorist hijackings, do you remember how in the 60s and 70s that was all terrorists could do? No one worried about an Underwear Bomber or concealed knives and C-4 inside sneakers or nerve gas sprinkled in greeting cards.  

Back In The Day, we were just afraid that our planes might be hijacked to Cuba, causing a delay.

Those were good times.

Meanwhile that is not what this evening's post is about.

 This post is about EASTER!  I love writing posts about Religious Holidays and I sort of forgot to update you on Easter, which was not precisely the Easter I had planned in my musings.  I'd planned on being out of the country, and when I found myself still here, I pretty much threw a ham together and went out with a couple of my kids to play Viking Chess.  It was uneventful, but fun. This forces me to offer a retrospective humorous vignette about an Easter from my past.  Let's get to it, shall we?

THE CHRONIC MISADVENTURES OF NICK AND NATE -- 2007

(…This Easter, Jesus Had Nothin on Them)

                         

Easter: a deeply spiritual Christian holiday, punctuated by Mystical Bunnies who lay chocolate eggs and colored bonnets in the yards of unsuspecting children. 

A time of renewal and rebirth.

And this year, a time to traipse to Philadelphia to enjoy Bang Camaro’s Spiritual Easter-Eve Show.  In fact, this Easter we experienced Resurrection Itself via the Very Missing For Eighteen Hours Nick Given and Nate Wells – each of whom draws breath because, this Easter, I let them live.

This… is their Holy Story.

“Carolyn,” gushed our children’s father, several weeks ago, “Did you hear about Jake and Zach?”

“I’m making a sandwich for lunch and I have to concentrate. Is this important?”

“Well, only if you consider Jake and Zach BEING IN BANG CAMARO WITH THEIR BROTHER, NICK, IM PORT ANT … WOO HOOO!!”

“Did someone die?”

“Um, they had a NEED for two BC Choir-ists and our own SONS were—”

“Who quit?”

“I don’t know.  Aren’t you EXCITED about your S—”

“I wanna know who quit and if it’s temporary or permanent but I have to go cuz of the mayonnaise and the meat.”

That was how the Unconfirmed Deaths of Nick and Nate began.

Once news was confirmed that Zachary and Jacob had officially been added to the BC Choir Roster, AND that the Easter-Weekend Tour to New York then Philadelphia was on with all three of our boys included, the GIVEN FAMILY-CAMARO WAS DOWN, AGAIN!  Only this time, we didn’t have to drive Zach and Jake to the shows since they were IN them. They Rode The Camaro-Convoy in the professional driving-hands of Nate Wells with Nick Given as Co-Pilot … like God and Jesus Christ.

What could possibly go wrong?
-----------------------------------------------

Nothing went wrong en route to NY.  And the NY show was to die for, though, technically, no one did. This performance was the second where the Givens-Three performed together without us in attendance, and both shows were HITS! Could everything go RIGHT with us IN AUDIENCE??

We believed so.

Which is why we boarded a Philadelphia-bound plane the morning of the Philly Debut with Abby, and Jess McGuire – our adopted Given daughter – both in tow. (Notice how her name begins with the letters Jes ??)

Once our plane touched ground and we bustled into the hotel, Jessie discovered she’d left her green purse-satchel on the airport-to-hotel shuttle … a deja-vu replay of my New York LEAVING OF OVERNIGHT BAG IN MASSACHUSETTS last November. I took this as a sign, and sent up to the Rock Gods a Prayer of Thanksgiving for this Portend of Good Things To Come.

Within minutes, Jessie’s purse was resurrected and delivered unto her, and we cried out, “Amen.”

That evening would hold another miracle with Dinner Reservations hours before kick-off of the Philly Show. We’d reserved a table for 7 at a restaurant across the street from the Khyber venue. *DISCLAIMER: The Given Family WELCOMES Spontaneous Dinner Guests (which Given-Camaro-Bros brought) but which Evil Restaurants Who Depend on Actual Reservation NUMBERS… Do Not.

Before our eyes, a rotating choreography of musical chairs afforded our ensemble sufficient time and space for all apostles to eat … almost together.  It was the Loaves and the Fishes… at the Last Supper.

Given this Rock-Solid Beginning, how could I have EVER questioned the safety of Nick and Nate when they Went Hopelessly Missing for Eighteen Hours After the Philly Show?

The Easter-Eve Philly Show was a phenomenon. The crowd was ecstatic, engaged, enraged (did Dirty Dan or Diamond Dick die that night?) arriving steeped in Camaro-lyrics and accompanied by celebrities such as ALEX’S MOM AND BROTHER, AND ALEX’S IN-LAWS WHO KNEW NOTHING OF THE ACTUAL CAMARO CAR THE BAND GAVE HIM AS A WEDDING GIFT but rest easy Alex cuz I told them. Also there was a girl in studded skull-and-crossbones T-shirt that matched my hat, attending with half dozen of her friends who’d seen the northeast Comcast promo of BC who fell SO in love with this band, they were prepared to convoy to Boston. Fortunately, they conveniently lived in Philly this particular Easter weekend.

Best of all was my proximity to Bang Camaro Documentarian, Rob, grabbing video of multiply poignant Philadelphian moments. I was positioned up front, just behind Rob, but technically beneath him due to height-disparity which brought my face to precision-armpit level and I have to tell you: Rob smells wonderful.  All evening I enjoyed his deodorant fragrance and hoped to learn its name.

The evening ended with Pete and Jake dancing with Abby, Nate convincing her to purchase a drum kit and take lessons, Nick dancing with me, last call happened, the Camaro Van was being loaded. And that is when the Badness began.

Jake and Zach were joining us back at our hotel, then flying with us to Providence Easter morning.  Nick and Nate would convoy back to the Fant’s house in New Jersey, then we’d all connect by phone Easter afternoon and settle on a restaurant rendezvous at suppertime. (Since I’d apparently agreed to adopt Nate, Graeme and Doz that evening, I excitedly made mental restaurant-reservations for 11 that could be bumped to 13 without stress or need for miracles.)

At 2:00 AM, Nick and Nate headed off to the parking garage with Zach and Jake to retrieve their overnight things. 

Four of them entered the garage. 

Only two would emerge.

Meanwhile, Jess, Abs and I had hailed a cab and climbed aboard, so when the two boys approached the car with their gear and boarded with their dad, it seemed natural to call into the darkness, ‘Safe trip, Nick and Nate! See you Easter afternoon,’ as we sped into the night.

Easter morning involved check-out and Easter brunch and a rush to our flight and Zachary being patted down and detained by Homeland Security. (They released him). Then came the near-crash landing in Providence. This still felt pretty natural.

The phone call Jake made to fellow Camaro-ists at 4:45PM after no one had heard from Nick was not, however, natural. It seems Nick’s third Pink Razor Cell in about as many days supernaturally died and Nate, of course, the Given that he’d become, left his cell in Massachusetts.

Jake on cell w/Clifford:  “Yeah, so since Nick and Nate have no phones, we’re wondering if maybe they could borrow one of yours so we can plan an Easter rendezvous with them and--     Oh.   Really.   No kidding.   Eh, no, dude, we left them in the parking garage after the show.   Huh.  Well, okay, then – thanks.”

 -click-

“What’s up?”

“Mom, I’m sure it’s nothing, but it seems Nick and Nate never made it to the Fant’s in New Jersey last night. And ahh – apparently everyone at the Fant’s figured they’d stayed at our hotel in Philly.”

“I see.”

“I’m sure they’re fine.”

“Mom, they’re FINE,” yelled Zach. “They’re FINE,” smiled Abby and Jess.

We drove in silence from Providence to Douglas, each absorbed by his own personal hypothesis on Nick and Nate’s demise.

I won’t prolong the agony. Naturally, they were fine. But just yesterday when I was reading the Boston Herald’s write-up on Nick’s band The Vershok releasing a new CD, I closed the paper and was assaulted by the 150-point, bold front page headline, WHERE IS MY SON?  with subhead: Anguished Mom’s Desperate Plea.  See Disappearance, page 7.  While Nick and Nate evaded police across three state lines and countless counties to arrive in our driveway at 8PM, not all families are so… lucky.

But Nick and Nate are too Rock-Crazy for sad fates to befall them. And we enjoyed this notion in the three-hour wait between discovering they’d gone missing, and when they rolled in alive.  Some of us used laptops to look up Mercedes SUV mileage and crash-test ratings; others phoned the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and alerted four sets of state police that Nate Wells’ car was “overdue.” We exchanged witty, bemusing tragedy-free scenarios that might have caused delay. (Please note that each proved true. In fact, Nate and Nick would relay additional events that Chevy Chase -- on Fudgeweisers -- with Hardening of the Arteries -- could never fancy in his wildest musings.)

Before I share Their Plight, huge thanks to the Local Douglas Police Authorities and their Heroic Dispatcher whom I contacted on the advice of a Boston-based State Policeman.  Our Douglas Dispatcher ran a Safety Check on Nate’s car – and checked on their status throughout Pennsylvania, NJ, NY and MA. (The New Jersey Turnpike Authority and their TRUSTY ANSWERING MACHINE were of no help, nor was the Philly PD or the PA, NJ and NY staties combined.)

Indeed, amid the incoming 911 calls where our dispatcher coordinated ambulances, fire trucks and rescue choppers to quell area-disasters, he managed to extract the following Nick and Nate data:

• A white Mercedes SUV had, in fact, experienced “difficulty” – but it wasn’t registered to Nate Wells.  PHEW!
• Nate was born on Christmas Eve in the late 70’s; his parents live in Vermont.
• He has no outstanding warrants; he has no criminal record.
• The same could not be said for our son, Nicholas.
• Nate has an active, viable driver’s license and no recent moving violations.
• The same could not be said for our son, Nicholas.
• We know the VIN number of Nate Well’s Mercedes SUV, which our dispatcher learned had been tagged for tow in Philadelphia. (How come the Philly Police Force was unable to extract THAT data but 300 miles away our fearless dispatcher acquired it in one keystroke I ask you, HUH?)
• Nate’s car is registered legally in Massachusetts, is insured, and is in his name.
• Nick’s last cell phone call was made early the previous morning – then All Went Silent – according to the report our Dispatching Wizard obtained from Verizon itself.
• Neither Nick nor Nate nor their dismembered body parts had turned up on even a single of the involved highways where state police were summoned to crash scenes.

The list below comprises scenarios we all GUESSED CORRECTLY had taken place – as well as outlandish events too bizarre for conscious thought that Nick and Nate swore actually happened.

To distinguish between each category, I have placed a smiley face :) after those situations we’d accurately predicted.  The frowns :( are for those ADDITIONAL events that actually took place, despite all laws of physics and human decency.

• Nick and Nate got lost trying to leave the parking garage :) -- asked local STREET WANDERERS for directions back to the Khyber :( several times:) :) only to find themselves WAY outside the city limits hopelessly lost.  :) (The muffled giggles from the Street Wanderers echo through Philly today.)
• Nick and Nate genuinely drove for hours, in circles :) still hoping to find the Khyber :) where the Camaro Convoy last was.  By this time, The Camaro Convoy had been in sleeping bags at the Fant’s in New Jersey for more than half an hour. :)
• Nick and Nate Drove and Drove Until The Day-Moon Rise… :)
• Which is when they ran out of gas :)
• After getting gasoline –then an Italian Sub -- :(  Nick discovered he’d managed to park between two intractable barriers at such an angle that it was impossible to get the SUV out :(
• After an 18-point turn, they were back on the road :(
• They decided to check into a motel :)
• It was a motel harboring a troupe of cute, black transvestites :(
• The notion of learning to use a Pay Phone to alert the BC or families as to a “delay” never occurred to either of them :)
• In fact, they told themselves that if they JUST woke up early enough and drove safely, NO ONE WOULD EVER KNOW. :)
• And when they DID wake up at 11 AM :) and got back on the road with maps and directions :)they realized they were in VISUAL SIGHT… of the Khyber :(

By 7:55PM, I’d started absently braiding and unbraiding a lock of bang-hair to release tension.

At 7:59, Zach peered through the diningroom window then perked up, “There they are! They’re pulling into the driveway now!”

From the kitchen someone said, “They are Risen.”

Apparently I DID adopt Nate Wells.  In my Relief-Hysteria where I threw open Nate’s car-door and shoved my braid at his face screaming “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS NATE THIS IS A STRESS BRAID” then burst into tears – Nate calmly responded as would any Given.  “But neither of us had a PHONE.”

You know, I am reminded of a lovely church hymn from my childhood:

              As it was in the beginning –

               Is now and ever shall be: 

                Nick & Nate … Without End

                    Making Amends …

                      Amends.

(Also the anthem, Fists Up If You Believe in Us.  I’ll never doubt again.)

  Thanks again to Douglas PD… (and the Rock Gods who smile upon us).

                                  xxxxxxxxoooooooo –cg

April 15 -- not just for taxes anymore

I truly enjoyed last week’s The Onion, which ran a piece entitled, “Jesus, this week.”  It was just what the psychiatrist ordered.  So on-point was this piece, the title alone was Pulitzer-worthy. Check out the link: http://www.theonion.com/articles/jesus-this-week,32105/

Beyond the Boston Marathon attacks where my daughter-in-law cheered on four workmates at the finish line hours before the bombings…beyond the Thursday FBI photo-release of bomb-suspects and that evening’s ambush of MIT Policeman Sean Collier… beyond the “Shelter In Place” ordered in Watertown and Cambridge where both of my sons and their fiancées live … beyond all of this was the ongoing journey of our favorite myeloma hero and my personal spousal unit, enjoying a neural-reaction to a new medicine. 

It’s times like these that I find the human psyche impressive.  My personal psyche likes to play a game called, “Which horror shall we focus on now? We can only do one at a time.  Choose wisely.”

By Tuesday, 24 hours post-bombings, he’d enjoyed a similar number of hours on a new medicine designed to combat nerve pain from myeloma therapies.

But instead of racing to his nerve endings, the drug coiled its way inside a piece of brain tissue responsible for generating incorrect emotions. Specifically, emotions wildly disconnected to events unfolding around him.

Oh, he was concerned for his daughter-in-law, his sons, a ski mate that ran in the Marathon. But alongside these concerns rested an uncharacteristically euphoric expectation that his upcoming myeloma blood test would reveal a long-awaited remission. There was no real reason to believe this miracle was en route.  But his emotion-generator was busy generating manic optimism. He even phoned to request his test results early, only to learn he, in fact, was NOT yet in remission. 

This went over… poorly.

The guy is genuinely happy and stable, so – between watching the news to ensure my children’s safety (a ridiculous but essential exercise in magical thinking) I researched his medication. What was my un-surprise to discover this drug caused mood-changes.

My handicapped focus continued to ping-pong between terrorist-updates and Jonathan’s mind-set, between follow-up emails about a family bridal shower thrown the eve of the Marathon, and emails from a realtor alerting us that a buyer wanted to buy – then not buy – then buy a piece of property my husband’s family was selling.

By Wednesday, I was addled.

This happened to be the day Jonathan’s drug-enhanced emotion-generator went into a new mode. His neural tissue now viewed his unchanged myeloma marker-number as a harbinger of stable disease… about which he was ringing peals of personal thanksgiving.

I was busy opening personal bottles of leftover bridal shower wine. 

Wednesday was not one of my finer-moment days.

Thursday wasn’t lots better, given that a member of his oncology team called his cell phone at dinnertime to confess that he had – and I am not making this up – “forgotten” to order his cancer medication.  

Normally it arrives each month on a Thursday or Friday and I sign for it in person. It arrives in a plain brown wrapper, causing my neighbors speculative envy.

I realized there had been no such plain brown-wrapper delivery that day.  And I was curious to know which way this news would spin inside his emotion-generator.

He could not have been more PLEASED to get to drive to Boston the next day to acquire those meds. He hung up as excited as someone who’d learned they’d won the lottery and got to drive to Boston to embark on a ten week cruise to paradise.

 "How inconvenient might it be, Mr. Given, for you to drive to Boston Friday to get your cancer medication in person?  Otherwise, it's not going to arrive until next Tuesday at your home, so you'd miss four days' doses. . . "

“Why, it would be my pleasure to drive to Boston tomorrow.  I’m en route to New Hampshire anyway on some personal real estate business.  See you then!”  

Why not?

Watertown wasn't yet under siege, nor on lockdown; the MIT policeman was four hours from being murdered; the radicalized bomb brothers were not yet minus one bomber in a shootout a few neighborhoods away from the home of our son.

Therefore, it was not spectacularly horrid when my husband’s work called, noting he had to delay his trip to New Hampshire and to Boston for his medicine.  There was a small work crisis afoot.

This was news of monumental good fortune!  “Great!  Now I can get some work done in Natick, go to Beantown and get my Revlimid, come back here to meet you and we can pack up for an afternoon ride. This is working out WONDERFULLY!”  He fairly skipped to bed.  Friday was going to be fun, fun, fun.

Was

It

Ever.

I had insomnia from real estate insanity co-mingled with terrorist thoughts, so I was awake when the MIT shooting broke on the news – and even more awake when Watertown was placed on lockdown in the wee hours.

It’s the town my son Zach and his fiancee Marina live in, so I am texting them both – before sunrise – then texting Jake and his Alexandra who live in Cambridge. Also on lockdown. I alerted our third son in Canada just so he could know everyone was safe.

And off Jonathan went in high spirits to his work crisis and his journey into Boston to get his Revlimid.

“But babe,” said I to him, “it seems that maybe everything is on lock-down in Boston.”

“Oh they can’t lock down hospitals.  Everything will be FINE.”

It appears that hospitals are the first places that are locked down. Which Jonathan confirmed late morning.  He called to tell me they are having his medicine mailed out.  “It will arrive next Tuesday. I’ll only miss a few days’ doses so DON’T … You… Worry.”

Oh

My

Gawd.

It is not possible to argue with Happy Neural Tissue.

 I instead went into Execute Mode and rummaged through a special cabinet near my spices reserved for Leftover Medicines.  I save them for special occasions.

Guess what I found?

Enough of his Revlimid medication to get him through Tuesday in the correct dosage.  It was left over from a January prescribing-misadventure. 

Now this stuff is a relative of Thalidomide, so it requires special handling and storage. I confess I didn’t exactly ‘store it’ appropriately in triple wrapped latex-free Hazmat coverings.  It was in its plastic bottle right next to my oregano.

 I’d have called to tell him all of this, but feared the joy he’d experience might cause him to drive into a tree.

So I distracted myself with plans my sister-in-law and I were making to share meal-preparation for Friday, Saturday and Sunday up in New Hampshire where we’d all convene to prep the property for sale. I agreed to “make something yummy.” 

But with Watertown, Cambridge and all of Boston locked down and a manhunt afoot – I couldn’t tear myself from the TV to go buy ingredients. 

By noon it was clear all of the fast-breaking action was neither fast, nor breaking, nor active. So I left the TV room to scour pantry shelves for ingredients, hoping for the same success I’d had unearthing cancer medicine.

I swiftly built a casserole from the only ingredients I could find: five blocks of pre-expired cheese, two boxes of pasta, half a curling zuccini, soy milk, and a hologram of swiss chard SO translucent from age, I almost missed it while reaching for a shallot.

I began assembling the ingredients hoping the Culinary Muses would inspire wizardry, and voila:  I built a casserole to which I added half a can of Pantene … no wait … Progresso-brand Lentil Soup.  It was so amazing I am sharing the non-recipe:

Lockdown Casserole

Take a box of tri-color rotini, whole wheat rotini or any pasta in your cabinet and toss it in boiling water until it is pre al dente.

While the pasta roils away, into a microwave-safe vat toss generic Velveeta, soy milk, aged cheddar, horseradish cheddar, American sandwich cheese and mozzarella  (*or pre-green cheese your particular refrigerator harbors.)  Microwave for as long as it takes to melt – which is way long – so you should stick a spoon in there and give it a good stir to keep apprised of its melt-status.

Drain the pasta and stick in a bucket.

Pour the runny cheese mess over the pasta and stir until your biceps seize. Finish with a half-can of either Pantene-brand Lentil Soup or Progresso. Both work well.

In separate bowl, snip an old shallot with scissors, use the same scissors on withering swiss chard, and use a knife to dice a flaccid zuccini-remnant.  Toss them in seasoned rice vinegar and citrus soy sauce, then fold the whole mess into the Bicep Pasta.

Finish with parsley or anything green, unless it comes from a darkened Rubbermaid vessel.

There you have it:  a casserole made of things in my house on a day I could not leave it.

It was fucking delicious.

While I have your attention, I’d like to discuss the eff-word for a moment.  It’s “The Word” teachers vow never to use but they break that vow daily.

Anyway.  I would like to ask … now that the remaining bomb-brother has been extracted from a boat on property less than a mile from my kid’s home … I want to know … what kind of oncology personnel forgets to order life-saving cancer medication, causing the patient to have to drive into Boston the day he is to start his treatment – except – oops – the whole city is on effing lockdown?

If you choose oncology as your life’s passion, you just do not GET to be human and ‘forget’ to order cancer medicines.

It is just lucky that Carolyn saves leftover drugs. 

I vow to continue to horde every expired antibiotic, sedative and opioid capsule, every ozone-defiling inhaler, every over-the-counter cold elixir containing phenylpropanolamine – an ingredient pulled from the market years ago and I’m never giving mine up. I’m not tossing the used nasal saline nor nasal steroids whose applicators teem with plague spores of random-guests whose nostrils I stuck em in when they arrived at my home complaining of colds and flu.

I’m a giver.

Jonathan arrived home that Friday afternoon, much less elated about things like the sunrise and the fact that his car started.

He was returning to Neural Ground Control.

Phew.

So I felt comfortable sharing my day.

“Since I was unable to extract myself from the TV, I used every viable house-ingredient and built tonight’s dinner, then I went to the pizza place and got us wraps for the ride to New Hampshire.  I gas’d up the car and deposited money in the bank and guess what?  I can no longer tell you what our balance is. Instead of a deposit slip revealing our balance, I got a receipt.  Like the kind that rolls out of a cash-register only flimsier. It started to compost itself once it came in contact with my skin, but not before it informed me that I had – get this -- just deposited money… then had taken some out. THEN, the receipt instructed me to go a computer somewhere to establish a password and securely read my balance.  The only way we’ll ever know how much we have in the bank is if we close out the account.”

“Yeah, I got an email saying they upgraded the system last weekend.  So this is what they upgraded?”

“Apparently. Anyway, when I got gas, the attendant told me our local Post Office was on lockdown.  It was one more Friday Irritant.  I feel like an oyster.”

“WHY was our post office locked down?”

“Seems all the post offices in the state were on lockdown. They released our local workers to their homes at 1:30 today.”

 “Well that’s good. We don’t wanna keep postal workers locked down much past 2.”

“They locked it down – get this -- in case the marathon bomber car-jacked a mail truck.”

“And the danger would be what, Carolyn? He’d deliver the mail even more poorly than our driver Jan with the wandering eye?”

 His humor had returned with his newly stable mood. 

 Which totally went south once a befouling odor enveloped him. 

“My gawd what is that smell?”

“Oh.  That.  Well.  I’d been awake since 3 am so by 9:30 I was starving.  And there was no food in the house, so I had lentil soup for breakfast.  But just half a can.”

“Where is the other half?  Throw it away now.”

“It’s in my Lockdown Casserole.”

As of Friday, the Marathon Terrorist Attack was responsible for mayhem and misery beyond understanding.

But it was also responsible for napalm-like farts that caused my immune-compromised husband to stagger off ‘to go pack up the car for New Hampshire.’

As the slider closed behind him, I noticed nothing in his hands to pack up.

The ride up was reasonably uneventful, with all four windows rolled down.  We were exhausted for so many reasons, with just enough energy to be grateful our children and their loved ones were safe, that we had each other, that we had that day together.  And that our pulverized hearts still held tightly to the hundreds of families whose lives are irreconcilably broken.

We were tapped out at precisely the right time to be in the sticks without access to news, other than texts from our kids that the second guy was taken alive.  The lock downs, the mayhem, the manhunt.  Those parts ended.

The educator and analyst in me still struggles to make sense of all of this, but how can you make sense of a nightmare?

Meanwhile, the English teacher and literary-device enthusiast in me did discern, albeit obliquely, one “theme” so here it is: During our three-hour road trip last Friday, my Breakfast Lentils caused my guts to feel like a pressure-cooker and my ass sounded like Watertown at 1 in the morning.

Given the circumstances, it’s the best I could do. 

Reminder:  check this out now!  http://www.theonion.com/articles/jesus-this-week,32105/

Long Live Posthumous Writings of Caroline Knapp -- Her Legacy of Female Power and her Elusive Autograph

I was recently compared to humor writer, Caroline Knapp, in a lovely way.  A respected critic and artist said to me, “You’re easily as good as the greats who have made it like Writers X, Y, Z… and Caroline Knapp.”

Caroline Knapp touched a cord for me.  We both wrote for the Phoenix at the same time. 

I wrote about the 90s urban revitalizations for Worcester and Boston that were ongoing.

Caroline wrote a weekly humor column called ‘Out There’ which featured Alice K., a fictionalized angst-ridden female ne'r do well who was super fun to follow! Knapp wrote her Alice K column  eleven years before her second book captured national acclaim.  

Between her first and second books, I was assigned a mission from a friend to acquire Caroline's autograph for her first published book: Alice K.'s Guide to Life.

At the time, I devoured Caroline's columns.  Becoming a humor columnist was what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Writing political investigatives for the same publication Knapp wrote humor colums for?  What a treat.  Not because writing political hyperbole brought me joy. It brought me angst. I wanted to migrate to Knapp-status and not defile the reps of pols in my district.  

But how?  Twenty years later, and eleven years after her death, I do not know.

 I never wrote my heart. I felt Caroline did. I so loved her for this. Our paths  -- mine and Caroline Knapp's -- might have crossed.  But they didn’t.  

 I learned of Caroline’s death in summer of 2002 from lung cancer. 

 In receiving the compliment that my work is ‘as good as the greats, like Caroline Knapp’ I felt compelled to rummage through my pieces to find the one I wrote... about failing to get her autograph.  So here it is.

---------------

In Search Of Caroline Knapp --  1995

When I heard from my friend Jan S. G. I feared the worst for her vehicle.

 “Jan, are you alright!? It’s only 10 degrees outside!”

“Carolyn, PUH-LEEZE!  I don’t just call you when my car breaks down. But listen, I do have a huge time-sensitive favor to ask.  You work for the Phoenix, right?”

“Well I wouldn’t say I WORK for them so much as I wait for them to assign me something. Usually after a selectman does something stupid.”

“Great because I need you to contact Caroline Knapp. Since you work with her, I thought you could help.”

I LOVED how Jan S.G.’s brain worked.  Since I had twice freelanced for the Auburn-based Pheonix covering Worcester’s political news, I had direct access to Caroline Knapp, weekly humor columnist for the BOSTON Phoenix, who wrote her columns from home.  A logistical impossibility.  So after giving it serious thought, I had to tell Jan S.G., “Of course I can contact Caroline. Tell me what you need.”

This is when Jan relayed the story of Wendy D’s Birthday Miracle.  It seems that the previous year, Wendy D expressed to her best friend, Anna V, that all she wanted for her birthday was the newly-released Knapp book about her alter-ego, Alice K.

 Anna V flashed at once to her local bookstore where, to her delight, copies of Knapp’s book were available for purchase.

The peals of joy issued from the throat of Wendy D have become a birthday legend. Oh, that Anna V!

It seemed, however, that Wendy D believed miracles relapse annually, like cold sores and Jehova’s Witnesses. Because this year, she asked Anna V to procure the autograph of author, Caroline Knapp ON the very book that Anna V purchased the previous year.

No wonder Anna V needed the assistance of Jan S.G. who knew a Worcester-based freelance writer for the Auburn Phoenix to transport a book from Auburn to Boston to Caroline to Worcester to Jan, then Anna V then Wendy D by her birthday on January 7.

In six days.

Jan noted she was calling Anna V "to tell her the autograph was en route." –click--

The first step on my six-day apostolic quest was to obtain the book from Jan S.G., which I did that afternoon.

Next, I tried to phone my assignment editor for advice.  Should I give the book to someone in Auburn to bring up to Boston for one of their regular meetings?

But this effort was waylaid by a chance encounter with New Year vacation time my editor was taking.

So I phoned and left a message with the Worcester news editor’s desk.

“Hi, it’s Carolyn Given.  You guys assign me political investigatives every couple of months.  Listen, when do one of you guys head up to the Boston office next?  I have something I’d like to send up!  Thanks.  Call me when you get this.”

I waited NINE MINUTES  for him to return my call before I phoned the managing editor’s assistant.

“Hi, I was hoping to speak to Cliff?”

“We have no one here by that name.”

“Yes you do.”

“I’m sorry but we do not employ a Chris.”

“No, no. Cliff. C  L  I  Double-Eff.”

“Ummm…. Nope.”

“His last name is—“

“Oh you mean Cliff!  The managing editor.  We DO have him, please hold. And sorry, I have a cold so my ears aren’t working” –‘click ‘

“Hello, you’ve reached the voice mail of Cliff, the Managing Editor.  I’m not  at my—“

I redialed the hearing-disordered person.

“It’s me again.  Cliff isn’t in today.”
“Well, that’s because it’s Thursday.  He’s at the BOSTON office.”

Hazzah! 

I phoned Boston to reach my contact, Cliff, to arrange a signing-rendez vous with Caroilne Knapp. Except my hearing-impaired helpmate suffered a vision misadventure and mis-quoted the Boston extension.

Consequently, I had a long conversation with an event coordinator at the Boston Aquarium who suggested we throw Caroline’s book away and bring Wendy D to the Shark Tank for a different kind of Birthday Miracle.

Meanwhile, Directory Assistance gave me a wonderful number that zoomed me straight to Subscriber Service, staffed by folks who cared astoundingly little about Wendy D’s Birthday Miracle.

Next, I was in the touch-tone hands of a Phoenix Operator who deftly connected me to the Busy Editor’s Desk.

“Busy Editor’s Desk.”

“This is Carolyn Given from the Auburn off—“

“What’s up.”

“I am looking for Cliff of the Worcester off—“

“This isn’t his extension. Ask the opera—“

“No, no. He’s from Auburn and won’t have an extension.  He’s physically up there with you guys.”

“Oh, right. The Thursday meeting.  He’ll be in that for hours.”

“Well, could you please have him cal—“

“Call back then.”

-click-

They’re THAT busy.

Day 2

I phone Jan S.G. to keep her apprised of Mission Knapp.

“Just want you to know, the Auburn office goes to Boston regularly and everything’s underway.”

“Well what did Caroline say? I mean, she must think this is late notice.”

“Uhhhhmm.  She’s always happy to assist her fans and I have a beep I must take.”

 -click-

Day 3

I have not heard from my assignment editor or Cliff.  I while away my wait by actually reading Caroline’s book.

Day 4

A very GOOD book.

Day 5

I called Cliff back in Auburn only to discover he had contracted the same vision and hearing virus going around the office and was home sick.  I was transferred to my assignment editor back from vacation.

“Carolyn, hi! I was just thinking about you. No I didn’t get your message but it’s been hectic with the holidays and I’ve been away. What’s up?”

I explained the story, which, according to my rendering, involved more tactical complexity and split second timing than the transport of vital organs from donor to DNA-matched recipient nine time zones and one dimension away.

“Carolyn,” chirped my editor brightly.  “Have you tried calling Caroline, directly?”

This is why writers need assignment editors, to assign us Rational Thought.

“Editor’s Desk and boy are we busy.”

“I’d like to speak to Caroline Knapp, directly.”

“Caroline freelances. She’s not in the office.”

“How can I reach her?”
“You can’t. You can leave a message with Beverly who’s out until January 9^th.”

“But that’s too LATE – you see—"

“Here’s Bev’s extension.”   --click--

Think think think.  What would my assignment editor do? 

“Directory Assistance, for what city and state?”
“Boston, Massachusetts. The number for Caroline Knapp, spelled Kay, Enn—“

“Yes, the Phoenix columnist, I know how to spell her name. Please hold for the number.”

I dial.  It rings. A machine tells me to leave a message.  I do.  As I reach the climax of Wendy D’s plight… I weep.  And leave my number for her to return my call.

Day 6

Wendy D is 24 hours closer to death.

I considered my options:  forgery or failure.

Then I remembered my assignment editor. She’d go with the latter.  Editors are like that about facts and truth and avoiding legal fines and prison.

Before delivering the un-autographed book to Jan S.G. I opened its cover.  And I wrote:

Dear Wendy D,

The Easter Bunny is dead, your parents paid your Tooth Fairy money then pitched your teeth in the trash, and in lieu of Caroline Knapp’s autograph, accept this Hero’s Quest saga, beginning with the morning Jan S.G. phoned me at 8 am and ending here, with me defiling the jacket of Knapp’s Book.

Love,

Carolyn Given, Auburn-based Phoenix freelancer who’s easier to reach than Knapp and cares DEEPLY about your birthday.

----------

I cannot believe it’s been 20 years since my failed attempt to get Caroline’s autograph.

In defense of Caroline Knapp, I DID receive a call-back the day after Wendy D’s birthday.  It came from a Caroline Knapp who lived in Somerville, not Cambridge, who told me she ‘gets Caroline Knapp calls all the time, but Knapp’s number is unlisted.”

This Caroline Knapp hoped that Wendy D’s Birthday was a truly magical event! 

It was clear from the photos taken by Jan S.G. that with sufficient champagne, magic was had by all!

I think the story has a happy ending:  it is clear that people who “make it” – either during their lifetime or posthumously -- are able to network a helluvalot better than I.  

 I am meanwhile saddened anew to recall that we lost Caroline Knapp eleven years ago. She was only 42.  We were the same age. Something I didn’t know back then.  I thought she was at least a decade older due to her insights and acumen.

 My six-day quest in futility to acquire her autograph brought a real affection for her, albeit born of elusiveness and irony.

But the strength of Knapp’s writing does go on.  Caroline, indeed, “made it as one of the greats.”  Her stories of power through recovery, of women who battle anorexia and alcoholism -- and some gorgeous work about the healing power of dog ownership and love – continue to teach, to empower, to live.  

 I still aspire to making it as she did – with my own unlisted number – and in my case some IT students in need of cash who will  create an electronic autograph I shall launch into cyberspace to enhance the Birthday Miracles of future Wendy D’s of the year 2020.  After I ‘Make it’ – whatever ‘it’ is. 

I hope ‘it’ comes in chocolate.