Undaunted Optimist: Essays on Life, Laughter and Cheerful Perseverance

By Chris Rodell

"Rodell writes about America the way Sinatra sings about New York, unflinching about the gritty realities, but with abiding affection and relentless positivity about the future." —Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge

Ever wonder how old you’ll be in heaven? Why couples always sleep on the same side of the bed? How to respond when a stranger mistakes you for an old friend? What happens when you get tick bit in a "sensitive" place? Or how you will feel when your daughter tells you she doesn't want to dress up for Halloween anymore? And, gee, if marriage is so great then how come there’s no Mrs. God?

Chris Rodell wonders about stuff like that all the time.

He wonders about holidays, occupations, traffic, marriage and if refrigerating your deodorant adds zing to your morning.

Yes, it’s a wonder-full life.

It’s a complicated world out there and it takes a nimble mind to sort it all out. Rodell does it with style, warmth, an engaging euphoria and undaunted optimism that lets every reader know he enjoys being human and enjoys human beings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Books
• Release date: Sep 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005215408

Book preview

Preface

I remember the 1993 day I became a committed optimist like it was a day most people strive to forget. It was cold and dreary. We were seated on the first base side at old Three Rivers Stadium, an in-decline multi-purpose Pittsburgh sports facility with all the sensory allure of a giant concrete ashtray.

Me and three like-minded buddies were there to watch the doormat Pittsburgh Pirates try and steal a win from the dominant New York Mets. Those hopes were dashed when Met Jeff Kent lined the first pitch off the right field wall for a stand-up double. What followed was a carnival of bumbling, kicked grounders, misread popups and wild pitches so errant the umps just shook their heads.

When the third out was finally, mercifully, recorded the scoreboard detailed the damage: The visiting Mets had eight runs, seven hits, four errors. The Pirates hadn’t even come up to bat and already there were fans streaming for the exits. A pessimistic friend wondered if maybe we should join them. What happened next became a foundational ethos for the rest of my life.

Our oldest friend—a Vietnam veteran—leaned back in his seat and said, Fellas, we ain’t going nowhere. We could be about to witness one of the greatest comebacks in Pirate history.

He with that statement proved the possibility of being simultaneously 100 percent right and 100 percent wrong.

Because it could have been one of the Pirates’ greatest comebacks. The odds were long but, hey, anything’s possible.

But it was not to be. We were among the last fans there when light-hitting Midre Cummings watched a nipple-high curve ball coast by him for a called third strike and the final out. Final score: Mets sixteen, Pirates two.

What else do I remember? I remember what a great time we had pretending with every pitch the historic comeback was about to begin.

It was an interesting time in my career. The year before I’d quit my job at a local newspaper because I was optimistically convinced my future was certain to involve best sellers, movie deals and Pirates championship confetti parades to celebrate all those World Series victories.

So how has it all worked out?

Well the Pirates have won (please don’t check my math) 1,801 times to 2,680 losses, and they haven’t come close to winning a World Series since, geez, 1979.

Me, I found a lovely woman and we’ve been together nearly thirty years. We have two daughters, nineteen and fourteen, and I adore them beyond all reason.

I love my darling family and they know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them …

’cept get a real job.

There is a lot of inherent tension in that compound sentence.

It leads to sometimes massive debt as I’ve rolled the dice on various publishing schemes intended to make me somewhere between stable and famous (I’d be deliriously happy with stable, as would my long-suffering wife).

Just two years ago my credit card debt was, gulp, $19,000.

I consider it a cost of doing business in a field that rewards creativity over sound business models.

Besides, I’m an optimist, remember? I wake up every single morning convinced something great is going to happen to my career that very day. That I’ve been mistaken every single morning since 1992 doesn’t negate the odds. It ripens them!

So I haven’t earned.

But have I learned? I think so. Some lessons:

The only time bitch, bitch, bitch ever turns into something productive is when you’re running a thriving dog-grooming business.

Be so at peace with the world that the only thing you have left to get off your chest are your nipples.

And this is key:

Both the optimist and the pessimist are right about fifty percent of the time, but the optimist is cheerful 100 percent of the time.

Studies show optimistic people are happier and healthier than their doomsday counterparts.

The End is Near?

It is for them.

I mention all this during a time when it’s reasonable to wonder why anyone would decide to be optimistic. There is pandemic disease, racial strife, social division and climate change projections contending we’re all toast.

The challenges are daunting.

Would it be possible for us to have our finest hour if they were otherwise?

When going through hell, keep going, was the advice of Winston Churchill. He certainly lived through his share of hell. He was a POW in the Boer War (ducked gunfire to escape); learned to fly planes, crashing two of them (surviving both); fought in the trenches of WWI; in ’31, he was nearly killed crossing the street in Manhattan at age fifty-seven. This all happened nearly a decade before he became prime minister and vaulted to the top of Hitler’s kill list.

These brushes with death only amplified his daily zest for life. He read and wrote great books, painted with skill and joy, reveled in lively conversation, befriended barnyard animals and drank champagne for breakfast (and something else alcoholic the whole rest of the day).

He understood life, as humbling as it can be, is still a spectacular gift.

My grandfather was like that. He enjoyed a long life and died feeling assured his soul was heaven-bound. I was impressed how he’d even had some spiritual sass ready.

When it’s my turn to meet God, he’d say, blue eyes twinkling, I plan on saying, ‘I know you created Heaven and Earth, but who or what created you?’

I remember congratulating him on his blasphemy. But aren’t you being a little presumptuous? What if you go to the other place? What are you going to ask Satan?

‘When’s Chris gettin’ here?’

We have to convince ourselves that better days are ahead and to understand that magnificent moments—the laughter of a child, a good meal, the touch of an eager lover—can all happen on otherwise bad days.

I think Churchill had it wrong. Many of us are going through Hell right now and it isn’t enough to merely keep going.

The trick is to go faster.

So hang in there. ’Cause, fellas, I have a feeling we could be about to witness one of the greatest comebacks in history.

Before We Begin … Mortal

Thoughts on COVID-19

If I Should Die before I Wake …

Give my shoes, the tri-colored Giorgio Brutini dandies, to the funeral director. I want to go to my great reward in stylish footwear. I don’t understand the how or why, but in the past two years I’ve developed an odd shoe fetish. I now look at the Johnston & Murphy catalog the way I used to look at Playboy. Either way, I imagine proper afterlife footwear will matter and I want to make a good first impression.

Donate my golf clubs to the First Tee organization so they’ll go to some less fortunate. Nothing has made me more persistently miserable than trying to properly strike a golf ball. Conversely, few things have made me as happy as the time I’ve spent either anticipating golf or talking about playing golf after we’re done. A five-hour day at the golf course would be a perfect way to spend a day if it didn’t involve trying to hit a golf ball.

I have two quality Cross pens. Give the gold one to Josie, the pearl one to Lucy. Tell them the pens are sentimentally significant to the old man. I commemorated the publication of my two most recent books with the splurge and signed lots of books with each. Then tell them that one day, guaranteed, each will lose these pricey pens. They will feel bad, like they let me down. Tell them not to fret. They’re just pens. I like my pens, but I love my daughters.

I have about fifteen Tommy Bahama camp shirts. Wearing one makes me feel perfectly relaxed. Perhaps because it’s rare I’m wearing one when I’m not holding a bourbon on the rocks. Have a party at the Tin Lizzy and let all my friends fight over who gets what.

Please give my wife an introduction to a handsome handyman who’s good with a wrench. After twenty-five years with me, she’s deserving of a man who can fix a leaky toilet, mobilize a busted vacuum cleaner and is eager to wage war with nature when the lawn gets a shade past shaggy. Please, too, preserve the dignity of my memory by keeping the courtship chaste through at least 2027.

Give all my Winston Churchill books to some bone-headed liberal so that he may absorb some of the warmth, wit and wisdom of one of history’s great conservatives, to me the most interesting man since Jesus Christ.

Give all my FDR books to some bone-headed conservative so that she can absorb some of the warmth, wit and wisdom of one of history’s great liberals and see why Churchill with an open-heart revered him more than he did any other man alive.

Am I forgetting anything?

I am.

My internal organs!

Give my kidneys to a pair of young single mothers who without the donation would orphan darling children who need their mommies. Give my liver to the army vet who’s struggled both physically and spiritually since the goddamned war. Let it be my liver that leads to a change of heart and may he grow beloved as he devotes his life to helping others.

My heart? Let’s give that to the dear granny whose own, though full of love, is weakened by hereditary defect. Let it be my heart that beats for her as she delights yet another generation of lapped loved ones.

Save the best for my eyes. Give them to the boy born blind and let him see the exact same things I saw. Let him see all the glory, the smiles, the kindness, the beauty and the all the hope that’s hidden in the pessimistic darkness.

Lastly, bestow upon the whole world my native optimism which has sustained me through so much unbidden tumult. It’s useful even when it’s foolhardy, giving birth as it does to the conviction that we’ll beat this and what will emerge in its ugly shadow will be a better, more tolerant place of cheer we can all share.

And on that day let there be a grand jubilee like the world’s never seen, a party of universal revelry …

On second thought, screw it.

Gimme all my shit back. Right now—starting with those snazzy shoes.

I’m not done kicking ass and, by God, I intend to look sharp while I’m at it.

And tell Mr. Fix-It to stop staring at my wife or he’s first!

Me on Me

Me by the Numbers

I’ve lived in thirteen residences in five towns (Pittsburgh/Athens, Ohio/Nashville/Greensburg and Latrobe) over my fifty-seven years.

I was tallying the number of places I’ve lived in the hopes it might lead to a decent post. Then I thought, gee, if I write about the number of places I’ve lived then sticklers are going to want to know the number of cars I’ve owned, the number of songs in my iTunes library and my waist size.

I thought that would be the easy way out so, of course, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Because the easy way isn’t always the right way, but it’s always easy and that’s alright with me.

So here goes . . .

I’ve owned five cars, three of them Saturns. The current one is a 2007 Saturn Vue with 149,898 miles.

I have 8,563 songs on my iTunes library, which is about 8,363 more than anybody reasonably needs, but you never know when you might want to listen to the 1968 hit One by the band Three Dog Night.

I still have size thirty-four pants into which I fit comfortably, but mostly buy size thirty-six, which are often loose enough to require a belt. Obviously, this problem will be solved whenever pant manufacturers realize the benefits of making odd numbered sizes so if anyone asks my waist size I can just say thirty-five.

I’ve been with the same woman twenty-seven years and married to her for twenty-three of those years.

We have two daughters, ages, nineteen and fourteen.

In my life I’ve shared my home with one cat and two dogs and about 200 inconsequential tropical fish. The cat was Buster, who lived from about 1989 through 2004 and died from about 2005 through 2009.

That stupid cat just wouldn’t die.

Casey was a male golden retriever who was born in 1992 and died in 2006. He was a good dog.

Snickers is of undetermined origin and was born in 2011. We’ve lived together nine years and I am still uncertain about whether he is male or a female. He’s nervous twenty-four seven and sharing the house with him is like sharing the house with a squirrel that barks.

I have been to thirty-three states and eight sovereign nations, but only three if you exclude the dinky inconsequential Caribbean islands too pissant to even sustain a Mickey Ds.

I am sixty-eight inches tall.

I weigh 194 pounds or about ten pounds less than what I weighed in 1994 when I gained twenty pounds in one week eating like Elvis for National Enquirer.

I wrote more than 1,000 features for Enquirer from 1989 through 2004.

I’ve also written more than 400 features for once-prestigious titles including Esquire, Playboy, Cooking Light, People, Maxim, Sports Illustrated, Men’s Health, etc.

Who cares more about the latter than the former? Maybe two people.

Sometime in the next month, I’ll have sold my 5,000th copy of Use All The Crayons!

The bio they use to introduce me at speaking events says I’m the author of seven books.

This is true, but only four of them matter.

In fact, one of the three that doesn’t matter is a novelty golf book that comes with a bubble pack of twelve adhesive tattoos.

Stephen King has written fifty-four novels and nearly 200 short stories and not a one of them comes with adhesive tattoos.

In 1990, I spent one night in a Pittsburgh jail for a crime I DID commit—drunk (sorta) and disorderly (definitely).

On a scale of one to ten with one being no fun and ten being tons of fun, I’d rank my night behind bars a nine.

I’m friendly with seventeen men and women who’ve done things to earn placement in the Guinness Book of World Records.

I tell people I’ve seen Bruce Springsteen live 173 times because it’s just such a fun lie to tell.

Honestly, I’ve seen Bruce Springsteen live twelve times, the same as the Rolling Stones.

I’ve taken two hot air balloon rides.

I’ve gone skydiving two times.

I am casual friends with one Miss America and one Playboy Playmate of the Year.

I’ve wrestled one alligator. I won.

It took me two hours to write this, but during those two hours, I stopped to drive Josie 1.4 miles to school.

The chances I’ll write another post like this one at any time in the next twelve months?

Zero.

Don’t Hate Me ’cuz I’m Beautiful

I never hated women because they were beautiful. I used to try to sleep with them because they were beautiful.

For years, it was my habit to approach beautiful women in dark bars and ask them straight faced and with the utmost sincerity, Was it as difficult for you growing up beautiful . . . as it was for me?

It was this question that led me to conclude that beautiful women share one other appealing trait: They love to laugh. Hard.

I’m maybe the last sensitive guy on earth who understands that, yes, it is difficult for a woman to be born beautiful.

Certainly, beautiful women have their God-given advantages.

They can sleep with any shallow man they choose. They can coast through life on their dazzling smiles. Doors closed to the homely swing wide open for them.

Wait a second. Which side am I arguing?

Oh, right.

It ain’t easy being beautiful.

I mention all this because of the furor over the way members of the New York Jets treated bombshell Mexican reporter Ines Sainz in the locker-room. Apparently, some of the Jets whistled and made adolescent comments when she was interviewing QB Mark Sanchez.

It was so bad Jets owner Woody Johnson personally sought out the comely Sainz to apologize for his team’s inappropriate behavior—and, yes, the bones in my fingers are practically splintering to keep from typing a lame joke about a man named Woody Johnson thrusting himself into a discussion about sexual harassment.

Woody Johnson! It’s the greatest unintentional porn name since Andy Roddick.

This set off a predictable round of hand-wringing about whether Sainz’s fantastic looks, tight outfits and playful questions provoke such a reaction in a room full of naked, smelly men who can’t catch poorly thrown passes or skillfully block men like Ray Lewis.

First of all, let’s consider Sainz. I saw her picture and immediately made a snap judgement based purely on her looks. It was: Not my type.

She looks like someone Tiger Woods would date, which means she looks like a hooker or someone who’s undergone extensive plastic surgery to make people think she’s a hooker.

Then I heard her being interviewed on one of the morning shows and did an about face. She seemed comfortable with her beauty and didn’t take herself too seriously.

I appreciate that in a woman. I’m married to a lovely woman who is shy about her beauty. It’s very sweet but like a lot of pretty women the fair Valerie lacks confidence in her looks.

I wish she could see herself as I’ve always seen her. She’d be blown away.

Me, I don’t suffer from such trifling modesty.

Believe me, you don’t want to spend a day mirror shopping with a guy like me!

It’s clear Sainz is the kind of woman who can handle herself in any social situation and that puts the 300-pound meatheads