Happiness is finding your way back to you!

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Michael Kane
rev kane, slower pace of life, relaxing

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity. ~ Douglas Adams

Happiness is finding your way back to you!

I love this picture of me for a lot of little reasons. I like the smile on my face, the mood that it belies, I love the spots of light caused by floating bits of ice. I love that I’m so committed to the photography that I’m doing that I’m standing in the arctic with no gloves on. This was the day after I had just had one of the most amazing nights of my life, my first time seeing the northern lights and it was an incredible show. People in Churchill said it was the best light show they had seen in fifteen years. I’m starting here tonight because the moment in that picture is someplace I’m working hard to get back to, I need to feel like that again. I’ve had that feeling many times, that day photographing a polar bear from 15 feet, the morning my brother was born, holding my niece Maddy hours after she was born, my granny’s hugs, a shot I made in a basketball league game at Eastern Kentucky University, a goal I scored in an indoor soccer league game at SUNY Plattsburgh, the night I met her, the day I hugged a 40,000 pound whale and ran my hand through it’s baleen plates, my first night on the playa, squatting behind a cobra in Jemaa el-Fnaa square in Marakesh, my first sight of the Southern Cross on a floating bar in the Amazon, sitting on a rock above the third sacred lake in the Gokyo Valley in the Himalayas, a night on the Appalachian Trail sleeping by a stream and being serenaded by Spider Chai the night before my 1000th mile on the trail and every single bite, of every single piece of Pizza Pit pizza I ever ate.

The last year has broken me, broken me more than I have been broken in decades, hell I’ve even, for the first time in years, considered drinking and using again, I won’t but it’s been tempting. So many goddamn things have piled on me that it’s like being buried at the base of an avalanche. Health, family, lost friends, shit job, relationships crashing and burning an unholy sense and realization of how alone I am and in the middle of it, no way or time to get back to the feeling in that picture. That quite simply has to change, and over the last couple of days I’ve had a bit of a realization, not quite an epiphany, I don’t want to go that far, but it’s been a start. That realization quite simply has given me hope, but I have always said, hope is a four letter word.

That realization came after my HR department completely shit on me, again, followed by the bosses shitting on me, again and one of my shit employees deciding to go to war with me. My boss then had the unfortunate luck of following that up with a call to give me just one more final bit of bad news and I was an asshole. The kind of asshole I am at my core, the kind that doesn’t take being run over and used and treated badly without speaking up with my full chest and throat. I snapped a little bit, not enough to get over the line, not enough to get me disciplined or fired, but enough to leave my boss quietly apologizing. It broke the crust of this shell of shit I’ve been surrounded by, the funk that I’ve been living under, it took the muzzle off. So today I had a meeting and it was one of those meetings, at least meeting number four over the last two years, the third starting over of the partnership where every time we tweak the goals and the plans because two new people have been thrown into the mix. I know this meeting, I’ve had this meeting dozens and dozens of times over my career and I know it will go on for another year and nothing will ever come from it. The meetings are always kicked off by people far up in the chain of command who’ve had a grand idea without knowing a bloody thing about how the operational details, the only things that truly matter, actually work. So today, I said pretty much exactly this in the meeting. I was the asshole I truly am at heart, I told the truth and everyone in the meeting was incredibly grateful. I also offered to explain the operational realities of what the project entailed to their board members and senior leadership so we could either decide to move forward or not, and stop wasting hours and hours of time for the people who have things to do, because we’re the people who actually do the things. I felt free and good, I felt like me for the first time in a year.

What I know about myself is that in order for me to get back to being who I am, to get back to being happy, I have to be that asshole. Turning fifty ten years ago was a revelation for me, it freed me to cut a lot of things loose in my life, people who were draining my happiness. It allowed me to cut loose things in my life that were bringing down my happiness. I think to get back to where I need to be, to get back to the core of me, it’s time to cut things and people loose again. I’ve been working on the big one, cutting loose this damn job and making a move which will allow me to change a lot of things in my life. I’m working on that, but in the time that I’ve been working on that, with everything else that went on I ended up in suspended animation, limbo, whatever the hell you want to call it. And I allowed myself to be muted and muffled, and the last few days have taught me that, that situation absolutely has to end and I believe that this is the beginning of that end. So here’s to me being be me, to me cutting loose and god help the poor bastards who get in my way.

So the message in a broader sense tonight my friends is to remember to not lose who you are, that when you get sideways in the world. When the world crashes down on you like a ton of bricks, make sure to remember who you are, to be who you are, and to not lose that, hang on to it no matter what. Hopefully that will help bring you happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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A Happy San Francisco Day

Posted on February 8, 2026 by Michael Kane

San Francisco is a lot like Amsterdam – free, open-minded and casual – though I expected better weather. ~ Marcel Wanders

A Happy San Francisco Day

I often walk in the city on the weekends. For a lot of reasons, a death in the family, lots of travel, a chilly winter season I haven’t been in the city much lately. For me a great walking day in the city includes a few things. First, some nice weather and of course good food. Additionally, although this has absolutely never been a problem, some interesting and/or weird things to see or experience. Yesterday was a good walking day.

Today the Superbowl is happening at the 49ers home stadium, and while technically that’s a San Francisco game, the stadium is almost an hour south of the city. However, San Francisco is officially the host city, so there were a lot of Superbowl events happening and signs everywhere including the official host site near city hall, hence the sign in the picture above.

The weather yesterday was perfect, high 60’s, lots of sun, a little breeze just really perfect walking weather. My first stop of the day was Tommy’s Joynt, an old school, long standing San Francisco restaurant. I’d known about Tommy’s for a long time but had never gotten up there before last year. Both of my heart procedures, the catheterization and my open-heart surgery happened at Kaiser near Tommy’s. Both procedures happened insanely early in the morning so I booked a hotel near the hospital in Japantown for both procedures. Before each procedure I walked down to Tommy’s Joynt for dinner the night before. It’s a perfect comfort food kind of place, their dinner plate with some roast beef, mash potatoes, salad and a roll reminds me of a really good dinner from my childhood. Topped off with a funky atmosphere inside and really great free pickles I really love this place. Having eaten there before both procedures has also given me a real emotional connection to Tommy’s and so it was my first good city food for the day.

On the way on my walk up to Tommy’s San Francisco didn’t disappoint. There was supposed to be a rally for the March for Billionaires at Civic Center, it was a bust, literally no rally. I really hope the march was a prank. But on the way up Van Ness there was an anti ICE rally that was really well attending and growing the whole time I was eating at Tommy’s and the image below really epitomizes how San Francisco makes protests their own.

After Tommy’s I needed a little dessert so I headed over to Hayes Valley and got myself a little dessert, it will not be shocking for regular readers to see what it is.

Finally, a few images of the interesting things I saw along the way including the former president enjoying a beverage in front of City Hall and a little bit of street art. Have a happy day my friends and get out in the sun and walk. ~ Rev Kane

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What’s the hardest thing you carry?

Posted on February 8, 2026 by Michael Kane

We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can’t cope with is therefore your own problem. ~ Douglas Adams

What’s the hardest thing you carry?

There is a really interesting classroom activity that flies around the internet every couple of years, it’s called the baggage activity. It’s a really interesting idea, the students write on index cards anonymously the hardest thing they are carrying emotionally. The thing that keeps them awake at 3AM, the thing they don’t know how to handle or just weighs them down. The cards are then read to show everyone in the class that others are dealing with big things as well and that no one is alone in having troubles. The activity is said to help build a deeper and more empathetic community within the classroom. It’s a neat idea, but in doing a little research on it for this piece I read a very interesting perspective form a long-time teacher.

She pointed out a couple of potential serious problems with the activity related to trauma informed education concepts. First, it might be possible that the reading of the cards, even though they are anonymous could trigger people, either the writer or someone who has had a trauma related to what’s being read. Second, and this one falls into a legal category, is that something on the card may cross into the territory of something that would require a teacher, as a mandated reporter, to act and that would certainly blow up everything the activity is attempting to do,

But I do think there is a good lesson in all of this and it’s about sharing our struggles. No one should carry anything alone, although we all do. Whenever possible and obviously with someone you deeply trust, you should share the thing you’re carrying, share the load if you will. The nice thing about a mental load, unlike actually physical weight, is that sharing someone else’s load doesn’t necessary add the same amount of weight to your load. In fact, the sharing can actually end up lightening both of your loads.

The thing about shouldering the load alone is that it will almost always catch up to you. I am a master at hiding what’s actually going on with me day to day. And at the lowest and worst part of my life I was still going to work every day, doing what I was supposed to do. In fact, I won manager of the year that year at my college. But one day I was walking down the hall, and a chemistry technician, an older woman that I really didn’t like, nor that I interacted with very often was walking past me in the hall. As we were about to walk past each other, out of nowhere she says, “are you ok?” It was this deep concern and she was looking me dead in the eyes. I muttered something and quickly moved on, because somehow she’d seen through all my masks and all of my defenses and saw my pain. I left campus and completely fell apart, if it was not for my good friend Kara really being there for me over the next month or so I really don’t know what would have come of me. It was sharing my burden with her that allowed me to come back to sanity, I almost typed normal, but if you know me, you know normal is never been a word anyone has used to describe me.

So my friends, take that heavy burden and share it with someone, be willing to share theirs, if you do, you’ll have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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Happy Cooking: Red Chimichurri

Posted on February 2, 2026 by Michael Kane

I think careful cooking is love, don’t you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who’s close to you is about as nice a valentine as you can give. ~ Julia Child

Happy Cooking: Red Chimichurri

So I’ll start in a really odd place for this post, I really don’t like the food chain Chipotle. It’s not that their food doesn’t taste good, what I’ve had there has been pretty good. However, I have two complaints. First, I don’t like onions and really don’t like raw chunks of uncooked onions and Chipotle is onion happy as hell, especially in their guacamole. Second, I have had intestinal distress about 50% of the time I’ve eaten there, now that’s like two out of four times but that was enough of a sample size for me. Not sure if it’s an ingredient issue or from their ads, the fact that they don’t have any freezers. Makes me wonder if they are using ingredients that have gone bad from time to time, or maybe it’s just me. If you like Chipotle and it doesn’t impact you the same way, enjoy.

Even though I don’t like the chain I have to give them credit for one thing, their ads are great. And lately they have been advertising their red chimichurri sauce and it looks fabulous. It looks so good, a couple of weeks ago I almost went to Chipotle just to try it. Instead, I looked up the recipe online and it’s been on my mind for a time. The nice thing is that nothing in the recipe is out of bounds for a diabetic, so as I’m working towards getting my blood sugar back in line, it’s a perfectly good sauce to use.

So after it gnawing on my brain for a couple of weeks today I went to a couple of stores to find roasted red peppers in a jar. I could have roasted my own but I was being a bit lazy and I liked the idea of the red peppers being stored in olive oil, which I could then use as the oil in the recipe. It took maybe ten minutes to get the ingredients together, put them through the food processor and mix it all up. At the first taste I was blown away, it’s amazing! I of course have never not doctored a recipe and this was no exception. First, I didn’t use red wine vinegar but I used what I had on hand, pomegranate balsamic vinegar and I think it added some sweetness to the mix. I didn’t have red pepper flakes, but once a year I roast, dry and smash up some Thai chilli peppers that I use in place of red pepper flakes which are a bit spicier. Finally, as I mentioned, the oil I used was a mix of the oil from the peppers and some extra virgin olive oil.

To use the mix I made some pinto beans and brown rice that I also fried some pork into with a little bit of homemade taco seasoning. I then mixed the red chimichurri into it all and it was absolutely delicious. So folks, give it a try, I think you’ll like it, it’s remarkably tasty and oddly sweet which I really didn’t expect. Honestly it’s so easy, I think I’m going to be making and using it a lot. Have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane

Recipe from Evergreen Kitchen

Ingredients

  • ▢ ½ cup roasted red pepper (from a jar, see note 1)
  • ▢ ⅓ cup flat leaf parsley (packed, see note 2)
  • ▢ 2 tablespoons cilantro (packed)
  • ▢ 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • ▢ 2 cloves garlic
  • ▢ 1 teaspoon smoked paprika (see note 3)
  • ▢ ½ teaspoon cumin
  • ▢ ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • ▢ ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
  • ▢ ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Instructions

  • Combine: To a food processor, add ½ cup roasted red pepper, ⅓ cup flat leaf parsley, 2 tablespoons cilantro, 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar, 2 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon smoked paprika, ½ teaspoon cumin, ½ teaspoon fine sea salt, and ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes. Pulse until red pepper is finely chopped but not pureed.
  • Add oil: Transfer mixture to a small bowl, then stir in ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed. Serve or refrigerate.
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Sunshine, freedom and a little flower!

Posted on January 31, 2026 by Michael Kane

Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

Sunshine, freedom and a little flower!

I’m happy to say that the last two weeks have seen my state of mental health improving, by no means am I yippy skippy happy, but I’m doing better and the weight or haze that was hanging over has seem to lifted. Continuing to work the basics does wonders for you and some other really simple things have helped, all described in the quote above.

Sunshine. One of the beautiful things about living in California is that right now, while the rest of the country is absolutely freezing we’re starting to see consistent days in the 60’s. It’s still chilly at night, tonight will be in the 30s, but for a lot of the country 30s would be the daily high. As I talked about in my last post on the basics of happiness, one of the things I’ve been making sure to do is to get at least 20 minutes out in the sun every day. Happily the weather has cooperated and here in the normally overcast Bay Area we’ve had sunny afternoons almost every day. This has allowed me to get at least 20 and some days even 40 minutes out in the sunshine. It’s amazing in the winter how much of an impact that sunshine can have on your mood.

Freedom. I think most people see and understand the insanity of the political situation happening in the United States right now. Freedom, something we take for granted is now in many ways in doubt. So it definitely warmed my heart today to see students on our campus participating in the January 30 walkout and protest. It’s starting in some ways to feel like the 60’s all over again.

Flowers. The beauty of the end of January and beginning of February in California, at least along the coast, means that trees and flowers start to bloom. We are lucky to really see spring here by mid-February so only a few more weeks of cold nights and mornings. Of course this type of weather only solidifies the reality of dressing in the Bay Area. In the mornings it’s in the 40’s, so hats and gloves and big sweatshirts, by noon time it’s in the 50’s so gloves and smaller jacket, by 2PM it’s low 60’s and light jacket time and as the sun starts to go down you reverse the process. But the upside of the weather is that when I’m out for my walk the citrus trees are full of ripening fruit and everywhere there are flowers. So below are a series of some of the recent flowers I’ve seen, enjoy. ~ Rev Kane

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The Basics Bring Back Happiness

Posted on January 25, 2026 by Michael Kane

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ~ Mahatma Ghandi

The Basics Bring Back Happiness

I’ve said it dozens of times on this blog, and I make no claims that I came up with it. It’s very old Taoist philosophy, to be happy you must secure the basics first.

Eat right

Get enough sleep

Drink enough water

Exercise

Get sunshine

Make sure you are safe

The last four months since I returned to work, still recovering from open heart surgery have been some of the hardest months of my adult life. I’ve been over all of it on the blog over the last few months, so I won’t go over it again. It’s taken a toll on both my physical and mental health. The two are of course interconnected. When my mental state goes to shit I find comfort in foods I shouldn’t eat, mostly carbs and cokes and that leads to bad blood sugar numbers. I’ll get my test results Monday and expect shortly after a call from my doctor that will not find her very happy. The good thing about me, is no matter how bad things get, I at least continue to exercise.

So, one of the benefits of writing this blog for so long is the obligation of being the Minister of Happiness. It forces me to have to walk the walk, no matter how bad I feel. So over the last few weeks I’ve really been trying hard to work on the basics. My eating has gotten better, I’ve been getting back to more regularly using my CPAP and giving myself enough hours of sleep, water is never an issue for me, neither is exercise but I’m being more consistent and regular, I’m working hard to make sure to get out into the sun for at least a half hour each day. Safety, usually an easy one is a little harder to come by right now in this insane country.

The good news is it has worked. Honestly, three weeks ago it was an absolute effort to even get out of bed, especially because it just meant going to work and dealing with shit every day. The worst thing, was this absolute constant feeling of numbness, nothing felt good. Not even a great slice of pizza and a coke. The world was absolutely dull in every way and felt like nothing more than a string of obligation, failure and disaster one after another, again and again like some groundhog day in hell. After three weeks of being diligent it’s better, not good by any means, but better. The numbness has burned off, the world is a little bit clearer, I still can’t seem to catch a break right now, but at least it doesn’t feel so shitty.

The lesson tonight is simple, we all fall into the well, some times, deeper than others, but there’s always a way out and you always need to start with the basics. Once those are consistently secured, then you can try some of the more sophisticated things we’ve talked about, but first the basics. ~ Rev Kane

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Happiness is a day off!

Posted on January 20, 2026 by Michael Kane
flowers, super bloom, travel
Rev Kane in the Antelope Poppy Reserve

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens. ~ Epictetus

Happiness is a day off!

As I’ve gotten more and more into coaching higher education administrators and the concepts around work/life balance I’ve landed on a really important core idea. It’s the idea that you should never work seven days in a row. It’s a simple idea, there is no such thing as only seven days in a row. As soon as you work seven, you’re into the next five day week and now you’re at twelve days in a row. It’s amazing to me how much of a revelation this is for a lot of people. So my advice is for folks to make sure there is one twenty-four hour period a week where you don’t work, no emails, texts, phone calls or work of any kind. It really is a powerful idea and technique for helping prevent burnout.

In our real life however, we’re not always so fortunate. I’m living in one of those periods right now. I’m still dealing with finalizing my mom’s estate, taking care of bills, making notifications, running down insurance policies etc… And that doesn’t include dealing with the house she lived in that I own. As the executor of her estate and person on her bank accounts there’s a lot. I’m grateful for the help my sister has provided, she’s been really great through all of this.

So right now, it may not be a work day but I still have estate related things to do. On top of that I’m looking for a new job, so I also on my “days off” doing job searches, writing cover letters etc…

On top of everything else, we’re living in an insanely tense time in America. Our government has released waves of ICE officers into Minnesota and other places. We’ve deposed the leader of Venezuela, threatening to bomb Iran, resuming war in Gaza, and even invading Greenland who is a NATO ally. Throw on top of that the Epstein file saga and there’s a constant level of noise in the background. For anyone informed and paying attention, there is a constant undercurrent of anxiety. But it’s not like a hum, a constant hum is like white noise, you can filter it out. Instead this is like a cat scratching at the door. You’re doing something and scratch, scratch – damn cat, you think. And that scratching is the madness in the world, nibbling at you throughout the day. The worst part is of course, that at the end of the day, when you finally stop running and take a deep breath -SCRATCH, SCRATCH, SCRATCH at an insane level.

All of these things make it an incredibly stressful and anxious time for most of us. So it’s hugely important to find that day off, or at least, a block of a few hours each week where you can do something you enjoy, or just be. Work hard to find that time and you’ll have happier days my friends. ~ Rev Kane

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Happy Little Pizza Review

Posted on January 12, 2026 by Michael Kane

Happiness is having a large, caring, close-knit family, in another city. ~ George Burns

Happy Little Pizza Review

So I was back in New York this past week, a sort of business trip. I was back there both to file the probate paperwork for my mother’s estate as well as have a job interview in central New York. The trip ended up connected to my baby sister’s family in a couple of ways. First, I was able to surprise my niece by showing up to her high school basketball game. I basically landed, got my rental car and drove off into the snow to show up at her game. Upon entering the gym my brother-in-law tapped my sister and said, “hey, isn’t that your brother?” It was a surprise for all of them. It was great to get to watch my niece play, unfortunately they lost but it was still fun for me to watch her play and visit with my sister.

My interview was near where my nephew attends college and so of course I called him and asked the most important question I can ask someone in my family, where’s the good pizza in Oneonta? He directed me at Tino’s on main street. Walking in I immediately felt good about his recommendation, the wall was covered with framed jerseys and minor league baseball pins. The staff had the right combination of attitude and friendliness and looking over the pies in the glass case everything looked good. So I ordered the slices pictured above and they were solid. The right level of crispy crust and the cheese and sauce were spot on. The pepperoni was good not great, but all in all really good slices.

The good news in that is that it meant I needed to text my nephew and let him know he could stay in the family.

When they brought my slices out they also brought out a little back of shredded mozzarella. Apparently it’s something they do they called a slice with cold cheese, so I gave it a try.

It was ok, I’ll never push back on free extra cheese and as it melted in and softened up it did add a little bit to the overall experience, but nothing I would pay for if asked. Of course, a decent pizza place is absolutely one of the criteria for any new place I might live, so we’ll see.

Have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane

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Getting Back to Happiness

Posted on January 5, 2026 by Michael Kane
rev kane, slower pace of life, can make you happy
A slower pace of life can make you happy

A rebirth out of spiritual adversity causes us to become new creatures. ~ James E Faust

Getting Back to Happiness

The past year has been a nightmare in many ways and absolutely incredibly challenging. It was a year of open-heart surgery, the death of my mother and a nightmare political landscape in America. With society changing at a high rate of speed there has been this underlying buzz of stress and anxiety that has just amplified all of the challenges that we all have faced this past year. For me, it’s also been a year of stress and obligation. Coming back to work I was constantly three weeks behind and it created a massive amount of stress for me all semester to pile on top of everything else. There was so much obligation this year, in the midst of everything I was dealing with, I was dealing with aging and dying parents and trying to support them and even more so my sister who was on the front line where they live(d) answering and dealing with the day to day running around and needs. So I am not unhappy to see 2025 end.

One of the important things about getting an aortic valve replacement at 60 years old is that you are on a clock. Most valve replacements average about 7 years before you need another one, maybe as many as 10 or 12 years if you get lucky. So I’ve got about 6 years where I can confidently do any serious physical challenges I want to take on, before I’m likely under the knife again, or having a TAVR procedure and there are no guarantees how I bounce back from a second surgery much closer to 70. So it’s time to get back to being the guy in the picture above.

This upcoming year will definitely be a year of change for me. I’m not afraid of change, anxious, but not afraid. This year, I will be looking for a change of venue. I have a final interview for a position in NY next week. If that doesn’t work out I’ll continue looking for a position, but I also be moving forward with adventure planning for the new year. I have three in mind. I have in my mind to hike the Overland Track in Tasmania hopefully in April. I have discussed plans with a good friend to do a cruise to Antarctica in Dec/January. If I accomplish both, I will have finally made my goal to set foot on all seven continents, although I may put a leg on my Tasmanian trip to New Zealand so I can grab the unofficial eighth continent, Oceania. Finally, it’s been a really long time since I’ve been out into the ocean, so if I’m on the West Coast Hawaii and maybe a little further, the Cook Islands hold a draw. If I’m on the East Coast, there are a whole lot of Caribbean Islands worth a visit.

The hike also means a focus on training and hopefully getting my blood sugar back into a better range and to drop the weight the last four months of stress have help me put on. My hope for you friends that is in this new year you can find your own adventures, find your way to happiness and that, that results in many happy days for you my friend. ~ Rev Kane

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Living in the Season of Death and Dying

Posted on January 4, 2026 by Michael Kane
grandpa, memorial day

Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them. ~ George Eliot

Living in the Season of Death and Dying

Tis the season I guess, the season of death and dying. My mother passed just about a month ago and we’re still dealing with everything, paying off bills, cleaning out the house, getting her ashes, getting the documents together to file for probate. Having all the conversations, dealing with insane family and near family members losing their shit, or completely being ignored by close relatives. Watching and helping family find their way through grief, it’s a lot for everyone.

And in the midst of that we acknowledge another death anniversary, it was 26 years ago today that my Grandpa Kane, pictured above, passed away. I was reminded today by my aunt who sent me an amazing message, he’d be proud of my tomatoes. A message that may seem insignificant, but my grandfather loved gardening, loved growing roses and tomatoes and he passed those passions on to me, taught me how to grow roses by tricking a little boy. You see, he convinced me to grow roses by telling me step one was to go fishing, and we did. Then we placed the fish into the holes we dug for the rose bushes and put them in. I now know of course, that this was a way to provide nitrogen fertilizer for the plants, and it was a genius approach. I honor and remember him each year by doing something he dearly loved to do, and that is to eat the first tomato of the year like an apple, with a little bit of salt while drinking a beer.

A few months before my grandfather’s death I was visiting and we were having a conversation. He turned to me at one point and said, “you know I’m turning 100 this year.” This was 1999 in the fall and I pointed out that he was born in 1910 and that he was turning 90. He insisted that because it was the millennium, he automatically turned 100. So I suggested it worked that way for me as well, he denied that and we proceeded to have a good natured argument between two stubborn Irishmen for about ten minutes when I finally gave up and said, “the hell with it, you’re so damn old be whatever age you want.” He seemed really excited about turning 100.

So it would be, several months later as I celebrated the new year holiday and the year 2000 by renting a house with a friend in Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. We got down there a few days after Christmas and coincidentally on the same day both of us got a phone call that our grandfathers were dying. Hers in Minnesota, mine in New York. It didn’t seem reasonable for either of us to travel as both were at death’s door but uncertain as to when they would pass. So we resolved to stay. When my father called and said I should come on December 30th, that it would be soon I laughed it off and told him no way. That tough old bastard, he’d survived the depression in New York City, his first action in WWII landing at Normandy, and then being blown up and taken prisoner by the Germans, escaping that camp and being recaptured. I knew he wanted to be 100 and there was no way he was dying before the millenium, and of course he didn’t.

My aunt (his daughter) is a nun, an order that is still full gear penguins, and she’s now Mother Superior of the convent she resides in and my grandpa lived nearby and took care of their gardens. So when he was dying there were all manner of Catholic religious folk around his bed, priests, nuns, hell even a bishop or two. He was in a coma and hooked up to a breathing tube, catheter, and IV’s. The night before he died the nurse walked into his room and he was gone. I don’t mean dead, physically gone, in the bed there were all the tubes but no grandpa, for a moment she thought, holy shit he’s been raptured. Then she heard the toilet flush and he came walking out of the bathroom. That’s right, at 90, he’d pulled out his own breathing tube, I just went through this post heart surgery and I have no idea now he did it. He pulled out his catheter and his IV’s, got up and went to the bathroom. The nurse exclaimed, “what are you doing?” He looked at her like she was an idiot and said, “I had to take a piss.” She got him back in bed, reinserted the tubes and the next morning he passed. So those were his last words. Given the tie to New Year’s Eve, I always think a lot about him this time of year and those amazing last words.

But those are not the best last words in the history of my family. No, those belong to my great uncle, hillbilly Joe Cutlip. By far the greatest character in my family. A West Virginia hillbilly who met my grandfather, Cordato not Kane, in basic training in the army. They would go on to marry two Kentucky hillbilly sisters who when they met them, were barefoot and hanging in a tree. Uncle Joe was amazing, great stories, great jokes, claimed to have been a sparring partner for Joe Louis, had the flattened nose to back it up. He and my great aunt never had children and he worked as an engineer and his one vice was buying a new Cadillac every year and driving up from Jersey to show it off to us in NY. He loved popping me into the driver seat and showing me all the new fancy gadgets and features. He had the first car I ever saw with a phone in it. Well, when my Uncle Joe was dying, he to was unresponsive and my mom’s sister was sitting with him. He suddenly regained consciousness and my aunt called in the nurse. She came in and checked him out, told him she’d call his wife. As she was walking out Uncle Joe turned to my aunt and said, “that nurse has an ass the size of a Bavarian oven.” My aunt chuckled and said, “I never heard that one before.” He smiled and said his final words, “I’ve never seen an ass that big before.”

So in the season of death and dying I’m reminded that before I go, I better have some damn good last words ready. ~ Rev Kane

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