That innocuous little sentence in what seemed like an innocuous email from my HR business partner kicked off what would be the worst period of my life. I would be unceremoniously canned from a job I loved, at a company I loved, by people I loved; and would tumble into a black hole of self-pity, resentment, and debilitating depression that would stretch on for nearly two years.

But ultimately the thing I feared the most – a cataclysmic loss of employment, reputation damage, and income loss – became the biggest blessing I could have imagined in my life. It led to immeasurable growth and much-needed change. Lives were literally saved (no, that’s not an exaggeration – more on this later). And I emerged from the other side of this dark period a better person, with a heart that had been necessarily softened. I developed more compassion for the people around me, more respect for my co-workers, and found a better understanding of the character defects that I needed to change.

But it was not a straight line. I made many mistakes along the way. Cried lots of tears. Marinated in resentment. Fantasized about revenge. Behaved like an idiot. Had screaming matches with my higher power. And ultimately turned to drugs to numb the pain.

It was not pretty.

The original email itself wasn’t unusual and didn’t raise any red flags. As the corporate communications leader for a bank based in Tulsa, Okla., I was often asked to be a part of the team when a termination became litigious, or when an executive was caught in an uncompromising situation. The potential for issues of this nature to rise into the awareness of the media–especially in a small town like Tulsa–meant my media relations insight was sometimes needed in HR matters.

In fact, just that week I was made aware of a situation in a small-town branch, where an employee was suspected of stealing from the bank but threatening to go to the media with discrimination claims if she was fired. I figured this was the issue I was being called to HR to discuss.

I made my way up the elevator to the HR Department floor. I was unconcerned.

But when I entered the conference room, I realized something was amiss.

There were two women seated there, neither of whom I knew. One had a notepad and pen. They both had accusatory looks on their faces.

Now my Spidey senses were tingling.

“We have something we’d like to discuss with you,” the more senior attendee–the one without the notepad—stated.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“Have a seat. Let’s talk.”

The conversation didn’t last long. Maybe fifteen minutes. But the accusations were clear. Earlier that year I had chewed out an employee whose severe lapse in judgement had compromised our team’s ability to serve our internal clients.

The employee had accepted a promotion into a vacant leadership role. This in turn led us to hire two recent college graduates to backfill her role and provide additional depth on the team. But days later, she reneged on her acceptance of the promotion, which required her to relocate to the company headquarters. This left us without a leader in a crucial role, but also with two newly hired college graduates who now didn’t really have a place on the team.

In reacting to the employee’s announcement that she would not accept the promotion because she did not want to relocate, I dropped an F bomb. Actually, two.

“You f---ed me over and you f---ed over the entire team!” I said on the phone call.

Weeks later, when the employee asked if her lapse in judgement had ruined her chance for future promotions, I was honest with her. I shared that her decision made me question her ability or desire to lead and that I would not likely consider her for a leadership role in the future.

There’s additional backstory, context, and nuance that supplements my case that my actions didn’t warrant termination, but the bottom line is that my employer decided this was a fireable offense.

The days after the conversation with HR were a blur. I went through all the stages of grief.

At first, as I was leaving the conference room, the “denial” phase was fully evident.

This is no big deal.

I was well respected within the organization by my peers as well as executive leadership. I had proven myself to be a valuable member of the team. I knew our CEO would be disappointed in me, and that I’d have some reputation restoration to do, but there’s no way he’d let me be fired over this. I was too important to the organization, and too visible with investors.

Before I even got back to my desk, I felt anger at the employee. How dare she! I wondered how I was going to continue to work with her on my team, given these events.

Then bargaining. Maybe they’d take away my managerial role. I could live with that. In fact, I was already planning to suggest to my boss that we transition leadership of the corporate communications team to the marketing department so that I could focus on my forte, investor relations, as an individual contributor and subject matter expert. This was in part motivated by some soul-searching and the realization that I was neither good at managing people nor did I enjoy it.

And then, finally, it occurred to me. This event might cost me my job. And that’s when the depression phase of the five stages kicked in, in force.

I felt the waves of a panic attack seize hold of me.

“If I lose my job, I’m completely screwed,” I thought to myself.

First off, I was in no way prepared for a sudden loss of income. I had just spent a significant chunk of my savings on a major home renovation. I had a modest retirement nest egg, but I was still in the process of building it back up on the heels of a costly divorce. And I still had several years of child support in front of me, as well as a requirement to provide healthcare for my youngest child who was still a minor.

I spiraled into catastrophizing. Job loss would leave me in my 50s, unemployed, and with a major black mark on my record as someone who had been terminated for cause. I’d never likely work again – at least not in my field, and not as a senior executive.

The rest of the week was a blur. I tried to read the tea leaves and got very conflicting signals. I called my boss that evening. He acknowledged that he knew HR was going to talk to me “about something” but when I explained the situation to him, he seemed to believe that it was not a big deal. The next day I ran into the head of HR at a company event, and he seemed unconcerned. “You did the right thing by admitting what you did wrong,” he said. “We will get through this.” My teammates seemed oblivious. (I’ll note that the employee in question worked remotely, so I didn’t cross paths with her that week.)

A few days later, on Friday afternoon in a conference room at the end of the hall where I worked, my boss dropped the hammer along with two other representatives from HR.

“We have decided to cut ties with you,” he stated curtly. “HR will tell you what’s next.”

With that, he left the room, and the HR reps did indeed tell me what’s next. And what was next was, I was indeed screwed.

No severance.

I would lose all my unvested equity.

Benefits would end at the end of the month for me and for my family.

And I would be terminated with prejudice and put on the “ineligible for rehire” list. Which essentially meant that any potential employer who checked my employment history would learn this and likely not want to hire me.

With that, I was walked directly to the elevator and I was gone.

I staggered out to my car. I could not think. I could not process the events. But I was sure that my career, and my life, were over.

I sat in the car and pondered my next move.

I contemplated ending it all. I had just the right tool for the job in my glove box.

“Do it.”

“Is this really what it’s come to? Is this really where I end?”

“Do it.”

“I can’t…I’m not strong enough…”

“Do it…”

For a good 10 to 15 minutes I struggled with this decision, trying to work up the courage.

Then my phone buzzed.

It was my daughter, completely unaware of all that was going on, completely unaware that her dad was in crisis at that very moment. I hadn’t even shared with her – or any family members – that my job was at risk. She was texting about a completely different matter.

It was enough. It broke the thought pattern and gave me the courage to hang on for a bit more. I texted my then-girlfriend (now-wife), Holly. She hightailed it to my location, gathered me up, and drove me home. I’ve been in the recovery community since 2001, and three friends from my home group, including my sponsor Josh, met us at my home and helped me get through that dreadful first day and night.

I managed to make it through with their help, but I crawled into bed that night a broken man, full of fear. But alive.

Despite my catastrophizing, I wasn’t out of work for long. One of the first phone calls I made was to a CFO I had met earlier in my career when I was working as an Investor Relations consultant. I had done good work for David and kept in touch with him over the years, and he had just landed a new CFO gig. When I told him what had happened at the bank, his response was immediate: “I’m looking for an IR person!”

David is a turnaround specialist, and the company he went to work for wasn’t in great financial shape. A failed acquisition and subsequent SEC review of its financial statements had put it on the brink of delisting and badly damaged its reputation with Wall Street. The company was highly leveraged and burning cash. But some income was better than no income, and my back was against the wall. I started work two months after the day I lost my job at the bank.

You would think I’d be grateful given I had just dodged a major career bullet and landed on my feet, but as I said at the start of this story, I didn’t do much–if anything–right during this time in my life.

I missed the stability of my previous employer and the status of my job there. It stung my ego to go from a respected multi-billion-dollar financial institution to a small tech company going through a turnaround. And it was doubly difficult to go from pounding the table on behalf of a company I was proud to represent, to being the whipping boy for an angry investor base that had seen their stock go from $50 per share to $6 per share.

The move to New Jersey for the new job was also a culture shock. When I relocated to Tulsa in 2013, I really adapted to life in the Midwest. The mellow pace, the low cost of living, and the kind-hearted people were a breath of fresh air. I had connected with a great circle of friends and just begun a promising relationship with Holly, who would eventually become my wife. Tulsa had become my home. So, I really didn’t relish life in New Jersey with its daily traffic jams, high cost of living, and intense pace of life.

Because of the company’s shaky financial condition, I continued to look for other opportunities. None of them panned out. In my mind’s eye, I convinced myself that my age plus my bad history at the bank made me an undesirable candidate.

I did get close with one opportunity. Not only was the company back in Tulsa, but its headquarters was in the same building as the bank.

The company had advertised on LinkedIn for a Director of External Communications. My diverse communications background combined with some previous consulting work in the company’s industry made me a good candidate for the job. I applied, even though I knew it would be a long shot. The two companies not only shared the same building, but they had common board members (as an example, the CEO of one served on the board of the other, and vice versa). And it was not uncommon for employees to move from one company to the other. Surely, HR would speak to someone at the bank and find out that I had been unceremoniously canned. And that would be that.

So, in our first phone call, I was upfront with the recruiter: “My exit from the bank was not a pleasant one. I lost my temper with an employee, used profanity, and was fired for cause. I want you to know this because if it’s a deal breaker, I don’t want to waste your time.”

The recruiter assured me she was unconcerned but said she would check with the hiring manager to make sure they wanted to go forward. A few days later she called me back and confirmed that I was still a candidate for the job, and they wanted to have me fly back to Tulsa for face-to-face interviews.

Back in Tulsa a few days later, I stayed at Holly’s house, and the morning of the interview I was on edge. The usual nervousness in advance of a big interview was heightened, as I was very concerned about running into anyone from the bank while I was in the building. It didn’t help that I spilled my first sip of morning coffee on my shirt during our drive to the office, and we had to turn around and go back so I could change!

Even with this, I arrived twenty minutes early and checked in at security. The security guard validated my ID, found my host in the building directory, and asked me to have a seat in the adjacent waiting area. Nothing seemed amiss.

As I sat in the waiting area, I noticed a well-dressed man hovering nearby. He looked vaguely familiar, and the thought crossed my mind that I may have met him during my tenure at the bank. I didn’t think anything of it. I nervously reviewed my interview notes while I waited, while keeping one eye on the elevator bank for my host.

Five minutes before my interview was to begin, I saw the recruiter exit the elevator bank and walk towards me. She smiled as she approached, extended her right hand for a handshake, and greeted me warmly.

We chatted for a moment about my trip to Tulsa and the weather. Suddenly, I heard a voice behind me.

“Joe? Are you Joe Crivelli?”

I turned to find the well-dressed man I noticed earlier. The first thought that crossed my mind was that he in fact was a former colleague from the bank and wanted to say hello.

“Yes?” I answered.

“I’m from the security department of the bank. We have you on a watch list. I’m sorry but we can’t let you enter the building.”

And with that my heart sank. This opportunity was shot. There was no way they’d hire me now, knowing that I was on a “watch list”. Blood rushed to my head, and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I felt dizzy and confused. I didn’t know what to do next.

To her credit, the recruiter stood up for me and got into it with the security guy. I don’t remember what she said, but it was essentially: “Joe has a legitimate business reason for being here, he’s interviewing with us, and we own the building – you can’t tell us who we can or can’t have here.”

Somehow, they worked it out.

As she escorted me to the conference room where my interviews would take place, she was visibly angry. I asked her if this meant my opportunity was over, and she emphatically stated that this in no way reflected badly on me.

I regained my composure, and the series of interviews in the conference room went well. The hiring manager gave me good vibes and seemed to imply that I was the lead candidate. I left the building that day feeling stung by the bank’s gamesmanship, but also proud of how I recovered from the initial shock and got through my interviews.

The following Monday, the recruiter emailed me:

I hope you had a good trip home. As we are looking at next steps, I didn’t get a chance to talk with you on Thursday about what is important to you regarding benefits, compensation, PTO, etc. to consider making a move to our company. If you don’t mind providing me with that information (generally or more specific), that would be great. If you’d like to discuss I can also give you a call today or tomorrow.

That was a good sign. It seemed like things might be moving in the right direction!

A day later, the hiring manager responded to my thank you email:

I enjoyed our conversation and the opportunity to get to know you! I know we’ve been in touch, and we are working to put an offer together and hope to have something to share with you soon.

Over the next few days, the recruiter and I went back and forth on compensation details, and she assured me that an offer letter would be forthcoming.

Holly and I were excited. I’d be moving back to Tulsa. I’d be working at a solid company again and wouldn’t have to worry about my employer running out of money. I’d be in a director role, which was a big deal at that company. We could move in together and start planning our new life together, and maybe even begin planning a wedding.

Likewise, my friends in Tulsa were excited. My recovery sponsor Josh was quick to point out that, for all my catastrophizing and self-pity and resentment, God still had my back.

“Josh, I just can’t believe that God wanted me to go through all of that, and move to New Jersey, only to land me back in Tulsa, at a company a few floors up in the same building as the bank.”

He assured me that God had a reason for doing the things he did, and that I just needed to accept them. And with the soon-to-be-arriving job offer and the prospect of landing on my feet through it all, I could finally accept that Josh was right.

But the week came and went without an offer. And the recruiter suddenly got quiet and became less responsive.

The following week, I checked in, and she was noncommittal:

Sorry for my delay in responding as I’ve been in a meeting all day. I am still hoping to have something to you mid-week. The company is announcing our org structures this week to employee groups so I am hoping that doesn’t delay me getting information to you. I will keep you posted but I requested an update on timing. Have a good evening.

Another week went by with nothing from the company. It was clear this opportunity had gone sideways. I checked in one more time, and her response was even more cryptic and noncommittal:

I am still waiting on an update. I’m sorry about this. Also, I leave on vacation Tuesday morning and will be out of the country so if I don’t have an update by Monday afternoon, my peer Melissa will be my back up while I am out and I will connect her with you. Have a good weekend.

Predictably, Melissa called the following week and told me that they had delayed filling the position. She blamed the internal restructuring, and said they’d be revisiting the entire structure of the communications department, and that they would be back in touch when they were ready to move forward. But I could tell this was just platitudes.

Later that evening, back at home, I stood at a crossroads. All the pain from my failure at the bank merged with emotional whipsaw from the past month’s experience. I was in intense emotional anguish.

A range of emotions swept over me.

Deep hatred for the people who had done this to me – “The Ten” (ten people from the bank who I viewed as largely responsible for my termination: 4 teammates, the CFO I reported to, the CEO, the two HR execs who officially terminated me, and the two HR professionals who interviewed me about the incident.)

Intense anger at whoever derailed this job opportunity. I was sure that, since the bank knew I was interviewing for a position there, someone had intervened to send it sideways. What else could explain the sudden detour from “we are preparing an offer for you”?

Raging resentment for my Higher Power, who had allowed all this to happen.

I fell into a morass of self-pity.

I stared in the mirror and despised the man I saw looking back for being so stupid as to allow all of this to happen.

I opened the medicine cabinet and reached for a bottle of Oxycontin.

A year earlier I had suffered a debilitating bout with proctitis and had been prescribed Oxycontin for the intense pain. And I took a few of them but subconsciously or consciously banked the remaining pills in my medicine cabinet.

Without even thinking, I popped one in my mouth and downed it with a handful of water from the sink.

As the drug permeated my system, I felt the relief I was looking for and sank into my couch in a state of blissful oblivion.

Thus, would start one more journey with addiction and recovery. For the next six months, I was spiraling down the rabbit hole with opiates and THC and looking for ways to procure even harder stuff. It was a bad path for someone with my history.

My time with the company in New Jersey lasted a lot longer than I thought it would, even though I was using the last six months I was there. I ended up staying there almost two years. But once Covid hit, costs had to be cut. My boss approached me and asked if I’d be interested in hanging out my shingle as an IR consultant and offered to be my first client. We explored possibilities, but I ultimately decided to go in a different direction.

The different direction was teaching. I had studied education as an undergraduate and thoroughly enjoyed the one year I did teach before I “sold out” and went into the business world and pursued my MBA. I wanted to move back to Tulsa to be with Holly and teaching jobs in the region were plentiful. In fact, in many respects, having a teaching certificate in the Tulsa area guaranteed me at least a little income. Doing the math, I figured if I watched my spending carefully, I could live on my teachers’ salary for ten years and put myself in a position to retire at age 65.

After going through the process of getting my Oklahoma teaching certificate, I secured a job teaching freshman algebra at a Tulsa-area high school and made plans to move in with Holly and get married later in 2020.

There was one problem. I had to pass a drug test. So, it was time again to quit. And if I was going to quit, I was going to have to get honest with all the people in my life.

My first phone call was to Josh. He was understanding and compassionate, and unsurprised as well. It’s axiomatic in recovery that an addict can’t live with deep resentments – and I had been marinating in deep resentment for the past 18 months.

We talked about a plan for getting back on track, and he gave me one critically important piece of counsel.

“Joe,” he said. “You’ve always been diligent about working the steps. But there is one step you’ve always neglected: Step 111. So, I want you to look up the Set Aside Prayer and start saying it every morning when you wake up.

You can find the Set Aside Prayer in various forms on the internet, but I zeroed in on a simpler form of it, and modified it slightly:

God, help me set aside everything I think I know about myself, the Big Book, the meetings, my disease, and you God, so I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. Please help me see the truth.

I began doing what Josh told me to do, saying the set aside prayer daily, while doing the other things I needed to do to recover from this most recent relapse: daily meetings (on Zoom, as this was in the throes of COVID) and getting honest with the people in my life, especially Holly, who was incredibly understanding, accepting, and supportive.

My first meeting on day one of this new phase of recovery, I told my brothers in recovery about my relapse, and that to the extent I had been attending meetings for the past six months, I was lying about being sober.

“Thanks for your honesty, Joe,” they said one by one during sharing.

After the third or fourth person said this, I shouted, “DID YOU NOT HEAR ME!? I’VE BEEN LYING TO YOU FOR THE PAST SIX MONTHS!”

They laughed and continued to thank me for my honesty. To this day, it mystifies me!

A few weeks after beginning the daily set aside prayer, I added a period of quiet meditation to my Step 11 routine. Soon, daily prayer and meditation became a habit.

In addition, I was still living with the resentments against “the ten”. Something had to be done about it. Recovery literature could not be clearer on this point:

“It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die.”2

Once again, I turned to the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous. In “Freedom from Bondage”, one of the stories in the latter section of the book, there are specific instructions on how to be rid of a troublesome resentment:

“If you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or the thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.”3

I had used this technique earlier in my career, when my relationship with a boss turned sour. It had gotten to the point where his voice from across the office made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I realized this was no way to live, so I began to say the Freedom from Bondage prayer daily for this particular boss. Over time, our relationship evolved, and I worked in harmony with him for another five years.

So, I added this to my routine and began to pray for “the Ten”.

The reading from the Big Book says it takes two weeks to be free of the resentment. In my case, it was a bit longer than that. But I remember sitting in the shade in my yard saying my prayers. And on that day, I realized I felt no ill will towards anyone from the bank any longer.

“I think I don’t have to say this prayer anymore,” I thought.

The next thought I had was even more powerful.

“You owe them an amends.”

And I did. I spent just over five years at the bank. I did some of the best work of my career. My reputation grew both internally and externally as someone who was good at their job. I got awards for my work. The company’s stock broke out of its historical ranges and traded to an all-time high.

It all went to my head. I became an arrogant prick. And that’s what got me fired.

This was a major turning point for me, in my recovery, and in my career. And for the first time since my firing, I felt completely at peace with everything that had happened.

My teaching career began in August 2020. The first day of school, as I pulled into the parking lot, parents lined the driveway and parking lot, cheering us, holding signs that said, “HEROES WORK HERE!” and “WELCOME BACK TEACHERS!”. Tears welled up in my eyes. At no point in my business career had anyone called me a hero.

There were a lot of uplifting moments in the brief time I taught. One morning Devon–one of the freshman football stars–was walking into my classroom, and he fist-bumped me as he walked past me and said, “How’s it going, bro?”

That little gesture made me feel like a million bucks. I had arrived! I was one of the bros!

Another football player really tested me the first few days of school. This kid, Christian, was the prototypical jock: a bull-headed offensive lineman with a big mouth, wry smile, and quick wit. He pushed and pushed with his misbehavior, trying to get me to crack. One day we were doing algebra drills, and he loudly exclaimed, “Why are we doing this again? We got the point!”

“Christian,” I replied, “If there was a play that absolutely HAD to work for you to win a big game on Friday night, how many times would coach make you run it in practice?”

“Oh, we’d run it over and over again. Maybe a hundred times!”

“That’s what we’re doing here. We are running these ‘plays’ over and over again so when game time comes and I give you a test on it – you can nail it.”

I saw a look of recognition sweep over Christian’s face. He settled down and paid close attention for the rest of class.

That night when I went home, Holly asked me as she always does: “How was your day?”

My reply: “It was the single most fulfilling day of my career.”

Christian never caused a problem in my class again and became one of my most diligent students.

One more example. One of my students, Tamika, missed the first week of school. When she finally arrived, she explained to me that she had been in jail and was facing more jail time and might not be in school for long.

Despite this, she was a good student. She caught up quickly, did her work, paid attention in class, and seemed to really care about her education.

One day, Tamika asked, “Hey Mr. C – how come you’re so chill and my other teachers are so uptight?”

Again – I felt like a million bucks.

However, my teaching career only lasted six weeks. The CEO of the company in New Jersey recommended that a friend, who was CEO of a company that had just gone public, talk to me. A few weeks later, I had an offer to become his IR exec with a compensation package that was many multiples of my annual teaching salary.

But I really struggled with the decision to leave my fledgling teaching career. I was working harder than I ever had in my life, but I loved it. I could see in students like Devon and Christian and Tamika and many others that I had the potential to make a real difference in their lives. Once again, I talked to Josh.

“Joe,” he said. “You might be the only person in the world who would even think twice about this decision. You can always go back to teaching later.”

So, I made the heartbreaking announcement to my classes that I was on my way back to corporate America. Since then, I worked in my chosen profession – investor relations. None of my fears came true. The termination didn’t haunt me, and I was able to continue my career. And now Holly and I are in a place where we can retire comfortably whenever we decide to do so.

At the start of this story, I mentioned that lives were saved because of my job loss. Let me explain.

In the immediate aftermath of my job loss, I was contemplating drastic action to kill the pain I was feeling. The struggle I described sitting in my car in the bank’s parking lot continued for the next several weeks. If I’m being honest, it really continued for the next 18 months.

Josh was deeply concerned about me. He knew I was catastrophizing and spiraling down a black hole that would lead to a relapse, or worse that I would take the drastic and permanent action I was contemplating. Amid this, he developed a plan to try and change my perspective.

“You think your situation is desperate. It’s not,” he said. “But we are going to show you what true desperation looks like.”

Josh made a call to a local rehab facility in Tulsa to ask if he and I might start meeting with the men who were trying to recover there. He got approval for us to bring a meeting into the facility every other week.

This particular rehab is geared towards low-bottom cases, and the men there largely fall into one of a few buckets:

• They had been through multiple rehabs and no longer had the financial resources to go anywhere else.

• They were given a tough choice: rehab or jail.

• Or they were scraped off the streets and brought in for a shot at a new life.

Seven years later, Josh is still bringing that meeting to facility every Thursday night, and the meetings look more like a tent revival than a recovery meeting. Josh enters the room, often to cheers, and loudly exclaims “How y’all doin’!!!” Week after week, he takes the men through the 12 steps and teaches them how to apply the tools of recovery to live clean and sober.

With his guidance, dozens of men have turned from a life of drinking, using, and living on the streets to one of productive, happy, joyous, and free sobriety.

For example, Cole.

Cole did drugs for the first time when he was 15 years old and, from day one, he couldn’t get enough.

“Drugs destroyed my relationship between me and my parents and my entire family,” Cole said. “I was completely absent from my children’s lives. I grew to hate myself. I’d basically lost everything that I ever loved and pushed away everybody that cared about me until I was completely alone.”

After one last bender in 2021, Cole checked into rehab. On his second day there, he met Josh.

“I didn’t want to go to rehab but I had nowhere else to go,” he said. “But I woke up the next day and felt much better. I’m not sure why. I just had this feeling that I wanted to be there.”

“But the spark that really made me believe that my life could change was Josh,” he continued. “There was just something about him. I’d never met him before, and he came in Thursday night to lead a meeting and there was this glow about him and a spark in his eyes. He shared his story and talked about manufacturing meth, going to prison, being homeless, and it was like he was telling my story. He’d been through the same kind of stuff I’ve been through. And yet he was genuinely happy. And that’s the moment I realized my life could change, too.”

Cole asked Josh to be his sponsor that night. He started working the steps and taking the actions in his life he saw Josh taking. One example: today Cole is a noticeably well-dressed man, always showing up at our meetings looking good in a neatly pressed cowboy shirt, clean jeans, and cowboy boots. One morning at breakfast after the meeting, someone asked him why he always dresses so well.

“Because Josh does,” he said pointedly.

Cole is sober 4 years now, and his life has been completely restored. His children are back in his life, and the pictures he posts on Facebook show happy kids loving on their dad. He’s been employed by the same company since he graduated from rehab – a company Josh helped him connect with. And he’s a pillar of our recovery community, now sponsoring newcomers and taking them through the steps.

“My life has completely changed,” he said. “At a core level I knew I couldn’t have good in my life because of all the stuff that happened in my addiction–burning the bridges down so many times. I just had this belief deep in my soul that I couldn’t ever be good or have anything good. I’m not talking about materialistic things–I’m talking about the peace and joy in my heart, the love of my family, the love of my children, an employer that likes to have me at work. My own place with electricity and water and TV. But the biggest thing that I got back is myself. I believe that I am the person my parents raised me to be, and God created me to be. It’s a continual growth process. I’m nowhere near perfect and that’s OK because it’s progress not perfection.”

And there’s Mason.

Mason was 17 years old when he first started messing with drugs. In short order, he was off and running and addicted to the painkillers that were sweeping America at that time.

A great athlete, at age 18 Mason was drafted by a Major League Baseball club and given a $250,000 signing bonus. Over the next four years he played minor league ball up and down the east coast. At each stop, he found a supply line for his drug of choice: Oxycontin.

“Every place I played, I found painkillers, I smoked weed, I drank a lot, and it led to my health deteriorating,” Mason stated. “I had several elbow surgeries and then got into a fight with one week left in the season. I got hit in the face with a two-by-four and got taken to the hospital. They gave me a morphine drip, and I had to have plastic surgery done on my jaw. Then I got prescribed a bunch of painkillers.”

“The next season I went back to spring training totally messed up and blew out my elbow. I got sent home and cut from the team. That’s when everything really took off.”

For the next 7 years Mason ran the streets of Tulsa with other addicts, including gang members and his girlfriend, a meth-addicted prostitute. With his signing bonus exhausted, the pills he favored cost too much money, so he turned to intravenous use of methamphetamines, heroin, and fentanyl. He estimated he went to jail 17 times during that timeframe for a variety of crimes.

“The last time, I had to sit in jail because nobody would come bond me out. As a result, I was sober for nine days, and that was the longest that I had been sober in my adult life. After those nine days, I called my mom. She told me that she heard her son’s voice on the phone for the first time in years.”

Mason’s mother picked him up from jail and took him straight to rehab. There, he met Josh.

“My second week there I met Josh at a meeting and asked him to be my sponsor. I just knew that’s who I wanted to be my sponsor. I surrendered, and I kept doing everything that he asked me to do. I kept listening, I kept going where he told me to go. I kept trying to help other people.”

Mason is now approaching his four-year sobriety anniversary. He serves as the program director of the rehab where he first met Josh. He’s married to a beautiful, sober woman. And he is a pillar of the recovery community in Tulsa.

“My sobriety is a direct result of my relationship with God and my willingness to work the program. But it’s because of Josh being my sponsor and me being willing to do what he asked me to do and then being willing to help other people.”

And there was Clark. A life-long alcoholic, Clark checked into rehab at age 62 at the behest of his boss.

“I was messed up,” he said. “When my parents passed away, I was drinking way too much. The more I drank, the worse it got. And the worse it got, the more I drank.”

His boss encouraged him to reach out to a rehab where a fellow co-worker had found a solution to his drinking problem. Clark thought, “if it can help him, it can help me.”

Through the fellow co-worker, Clark connected with Mason, who was now serving as intake coordinator for the rehab. At his first meeting, he heard Cole tell his story. Both men encouraged Clark in his sobriety and gave him the help he needed.

Clark is now sober nearly two years and sponsoring other men in the program.

And there’s KP.

KP was abandoned by his parents at an early age and sent to live with his great grandparents and his uncle, a gang member, career criminal, and meth cook. The uncle took KP under his wing and taught him how to cook and use meth – at age 11.

For more than two decades, it was on.

“I spent my whole teenage life in in juvenile detention centers all over the state of Oklahoma,” KP said. “I was a monster everywhere I went, and everything I touched I destroyed. It’s been that way since I started using dope. I turned 18 and started going to real jail but that didn’t slow me down at all.”

“At the end, all I was doing was isolating and shooting up and living in this dark, demonic place. No one wanted me to be around for anything unless they wanted to get high. I hated God and all I knew was chaos and destruction.”

After yet another trip to prison in his mid-30s, KP became suicidal. And with a rope around his neck, he finally surrendered.

“I managed to cut the rope that I had around my neck, and that’s when I finally cried out to God: ‘I’m just done. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to continue living like this anymore. Please, either fix me or let me die.’”

A day later, God knocked on KP’s door—in the form of the county sheriff. He was arrested and taken to jail. With his disruptive history, he was immediately placed in solitary confinement and given two books to read: a Bible and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Later, he was sentenced to one year in rehab. And that’s where he met Josh.

“In rehab you go to a bunch of meetings, but Josh’s meeting was the best one. It’s the coolest meeting I’ve ever been to, anywhere. I felt comfortable talking about anything that I had on my mind. You can be yourself without holding back anything. I just loved it. That’s where I met Clark, and he got me hooked up with the sober living house where I’m staying now.”

Today KP is approaching his one-year sobriety anniversary, which falls on 11/11 – a reminder of his first meth hit at age 11. He serves as president of his sober living house. He works full-time at a local hotel. And he sponsors other men in recovery.

KP noted, “I don’t believe in coincidences. Everything happens for a reason and God has a plan for us all. I just had to surrender, and God was waiting for me. There was nothing He could do until I finally cried out to Him. And then He reached his hand down and said, ‘Come on, KP, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

KP’s newest sponsee just checked into rehab a month ago: Josh’s own son Mark, who has been drinking and drugging for years.

I’ve known Josh for over a decade and seen firsthand his anguish as his son followed his early path. At times, it seemed that Mark wanted to get sober. He even had six months of sobriety once after a stint in rehab. But within days of his discharge, he was drinking and using drugs again, and within weeks he was living back on the streets.

It’s befuddling to me that a kid who has a father like Josh could continue to struggle and resist sobriety, but that’s what is so confounding about this disease. It doesn’t matter who your parents are. It doesn’t matter how many good influences you have in your life. Once it takes hold, it doesn’t let go until some profound change happens, or you die.

And so, if KP’s sobriety and sponsorship is the profound change that happens for my sponsor’s son Mark, it brings everything that happened full circle.

My job loss set in motion a chain of events. I spiraled into self-pity and depression. A sponsor who loves and cares for me was concerned enough to take drastic action to help me snap out of it. He started a meeting in a rehab facility. He dragged me to that meeting.

All because God had a plan for Cole, and Mason, and Clark, and KP…and now Mark…and many others. God needed Josh in that building to change the course of their lives. And maybe he needed Josh in that building so his own son’s life could be saved.

Humans have tried to make sense of suffering since the beginning of time. And even though mine was self-imposed, God was able to make use of that suffering. In turn, he ended the suffering of many other men who have, “now recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body”.4

Ultimately, everything I thought I lost when I was fired on September 21, 2018, was restored to me. My greatest fear, the sudden cataclysmic loss of a job, ended up being…nothing. But the greater good that came out of that sad chapter of my life has been priceless.

Also at the time I was in the midst of a love affair with motorcycles. I had gotten my first bike on the heels of a divorce in 2008 and was having a blast riding everywhere and anywhere. I envisioned a future where I could turn my passion of motorcycling into a job in the industry. So naturally, I chose motorcycling as the topic of this exercise.

I created my blog on Wordpress, and named it “No Baffles” - removing the baffles from a motorcycle’s exhaust pipe is what creates the loud pipes that are now illegal in most parts of the world. And I grabbed the handle NoBaffles on the relevant social media platforms.

It was a modest success from the standpoint that I built a bit of a following in the motorcycling community, and even got invited to the annual motorcycle industry confab in New York City as a member of the media in 2012. The blog is still alive at nobaffles.wordpress.com but I haven’t written for it in a meaningful way in well over a decade.

Anyway, I want to pull some posts from it into this new venture. This article was always one of my favorites.

It’s been 14 years since I published this, and things have changed. I’m happily married now, I ride quite a bit less than I used to (although there’s still a bike in the garage - and I am planning a week-long trip in October with some motorcycling buddies), and my kids are all grown and on their own - and none are practicing Catholics. Nevertheless, this post is being published unedited from when I originally wrote it in December 2011.

Indulge me here. I’m going to take the risk of venturing off-topic for a moment. I’m going to get a little deep and flaky. Hang in there, I’ll come around to the point and how this ties to our first love: motorcycles.

Last weekend was a weekend for rituals. On Friday night I was at my daughter’s high school for their annual class ring presentation liturgy. She goes to a Catholic private girls school, and you can’t just get your class ring at such a school. The rings are presented within the context of Catholic mass. Mind you, this particular school ceased being truly Catholic many generations ago. Sure, it’s still owned by an order of nuns, there is the token nun who serves as principal, and there are crosses in the rooms and the occasional liturgy, but most, if not all, of the families sending their kids there are “cultural Catholics”. The once-meaningful rituals are now nothing but rituals. The mass itself. The blessing of the rings. The blessing of the students with holy water tossed in their general direction by an indifferent, frond-wielding priest. Various poems and songs and processions.

Then on Saturday, I attended a friend’s wedding, which is really saying something: nothing is more awkward for a divorced guy than attending a wedding and hearing the proclamations of commitment and celebrations of something that I’m absolutely certain is wrong for both parties. (Yeah, I’m a little jaundiced. I admit it.) More rituals. The exchanging of personally-written vows. The lighting of the unity candle. Processions and receiving lines and readings and toasts. The cutting of the cake, and the bride and groom feeding each other the first bite (they didn’t do that ludicrous shoving of the cake in the face, thank gawd.) It’s the same at every wedding. The DJ introduces the bridal party (who march in one by one to rousing applause) and then says, “FOR THE FIRST TIME IN PUBLIC, LET’S ALL GIVE IT UP FOR MR. AND MRS. XXXX!!!!!!!!” It’s all so hokey. (Another ritual: the Hokey Pokey and various other completely corny line dances like the Electric Slide and Cha Cha Shuffle.) I commented to a friend at the wedding, “I don’t think I’ll ever get married again. But if I do, I DEFINITELY won’t have a wedding.”

Anyway, that’s a longabout way of saying I was thinking about rituals and their importance to people. Which led me to one of the things I absolutely love about riding a motorcycle: the rituals of riding.

From that first warmish ride-worthy day in March when I de-winterize my bike, to the last weekend in November when I put it away for the season, the rituals of riding are repeated over and over and over again. And I cherish them. Each and every one.

The pre-ride check ritual. T-CLOCS (tires, controls, lights, oil, chassis, stand) or POWER (petrol, oil, water, electrics, rubber) depending on which side of the pond you’re on. Going over the bike and making sure everything is in working order before shoving off for the day. Checking the tires, the levers and switches and lights, fluids. For me this is a labor of love because it is a thinly-veiled opportunity to ogle my bike from every angle and aspect.

The gearing up ritual. Selecting the right riding gear for the day, the right helmet, the right glasses. Strapping on the chaps. Pulling on the helmet. Pulling on the gloves. Checking to make sure everything is tucked in, zippered up. Making sure I have a few extra layers of clothes in reserve in my saddlebags, a bottle of water, a pack of cigs and a light. Watching the other riders in the group for that perfect moment when with one silent knod from the leader everyone throws the leg over the ‘scoot, flips up the kickstand, fires up the engine, and revvs up the motor.

Rituals of fellowship. With every group ride, there is a communal meal, usually at a diner favored by other bikers. During the fall, a friend took me to the Brass Ring Diner in Ringoes, NJ, which is a virtual mecca for motorcycle riders. Walk past Fran’s Pub in New Hope and the entire street outside is lined with motorbikes. Which provides another ancillary ritual that goes right along with the meal: checking out the other bikes. During the communal meal tales are shared of riding, gear, mods, next bikes, past bikes.

The fueling-up ritual. Invariably at some point during the day one of the riders zooms to the front of the pack, points to his gas tank as he passes the leader, and we’re looking for the next available filling station. Once in the filling station we wait for our turn at the pump before pulling off and coming to a stop in front of the attached convenience store (there’s always a convenience store attached, isn’t there?) More stories, perhaps some coffee, another bite to eat, and a smoke or two. Then another round of gearing up and revving up and shoving off.

Rituals of travel. Each year I take one or two motorcycle camping vacations with a couple of riding friends. We have a spring trip and a fall trip with anywhere from three to five guys. My friend Al monitors the weather leading up to our departure day, and we meet on Sunday morning and travel off in whatever direction the weather is best. The rituals abound on this trip. We can’t pass through Virginia without stopping at Lexington Coffee Roasters or Front Royal Daily Grind, two of Ernie’s favorites. There are celebratory cigars smoked at the beautiful overlooks we pass by. Studying maps for motorcycle roads, and arguing about which to take and where to go next. Piss breaks in the woods. Keeping our eye on the clock so we can pitch our tents in daylight instead of by motorcycle headlight. Checking weather reports to make sure we stay away from deep pockets of rain.

Setting up camp is a ritual in and of itself. Cruising around the campground looking for the ideal open campsite. Breaking down the gear on our bikes and setting up our tents so that we are close enough to to each other that we don’t infringe on another campsite, but far enough away so you can’t hear the guy in the next tent over snoring or farting his way through the night. Building the campfire, and sharing stories around the campfire with more celebratory cigars (aren’t all cigars celebratory?) Breaking camp the next morning, bleary-eyed and cold, and packing the gear back onto the bike so it can all start again.

The best and most enduring rituals embrace every one of the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch. Having been born and raised Catholic the high mass is to me the archetype ritual, with its processions, gestures, changes in body posture (standing, sitting, kneeling), it’s eucharistic meal, incense, readings, bells, etc. Motorcycling not only embraces the five senses, it is an absolute feast for them. Which brings me to religion.

For us motorcyclists, our obsession has all the earmarks of a good religion. Arcane knowledge that makes us among the chosen few, the elect. We have our Gods (Billy and Wyatt, Steve McQueen, Erik Buell, to name a few) our Holy Places and pilgrimages (Sturgis, Daytona, the Tail of the Dragon); our sacred tomes (Motorcyclist, Cycle Word, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance); we even tithe (for me my tithes largely go to Manayunk Triumph here in Philadelphia.) It’s how we spend our Sundays. And most importantly, it’s what lifts our souls and sends our spirits soaring.

Can I get an “AMEN”?

It was the rise of Facebook in the late 00’s that got the ball rolling, connecting me first with coworkers, then folks from high school and college. Then Camp Clifton. It was a blast to reconnect with people who had been absent from my life for decades and find that we had all evolved into responsible adults with homes, kids, jobs.

Reconnecting with the Camp Clifton crew unleashed a flood of memories and emotions. A troubled, introverted, and lonely kid, Camp Clifton was one of the few places on earth that I felt like I fit in. It was the one place where I could be welcomed as one of the cool kids.

On my first day at camp I was wearing a tee shirt with the ubiquitous bunny logo. When teams were being selected for a basketball game, one of the counselors said, “Hey you - Playboy - you're on this team.” The name stuck. For the rest of my years at Camp Clifton I was Playboy. I relished that nickname.

There was one common denominator for all of us who attended Camp Clifton in the 1970s: Joe Balega.

When I first started going to camp Joe was one of the older campers, a senior camper really. He had he had achieved “Warrior”: the highest honor that could be bestowed on a Camp Clifton camper and was on a path to be a counselor once he was old enough. He knew the ropes and was respected and admired.

Joe and I were a stark contrast. He was driven, focused, confidently moving through life towards his goals. If you ask him back then what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would tell you he wanted to be a lawyer. Joe Balega kept his nose clean and stayed out of trouble, walked the straight and narrow. A model camper. A model kid. A clean-cut young man.

Joe Balega was the one who broke the news to me and my fellow campers that Yankees catcher Thurman Munson died in a plane crash. We sat in stunned disbelief while Joe openly cried for the loss of one of his childhood idols.

Me, I got in trouble. I smoked. Brought magazines that were associated with my nickname to camp. Snuck off to the girl's side of camp late at night to rendezvous with girlfriends. Basically, ignored the rules and annoyed the powers that be that ran the camp.

My last year at camp I was 15 and working as a counselor-in-training. And though it was never formally stated that I wouldn't be welcomed back the next year as counselor, it was clear to me that I shouldn't apply. The next summer I would find a new camp to try my act at. It would last one year. After that, I spent my summers lifeguarding at pools in and around Clifton. My camping days had come to a close.

Joe Balega continued to work at Camp Clifton for many more years, touching many more lives. When we all reconnected on Facebook, it was no surprise to me to learn that Joe had gone to Rutgers and become a lawyer. Now living in Ohio, he was a single dad to three boys. And dozens, if not hundreds of former campers who had their lives touched by him as a kid were overjoyed to reconnect with him.

Joe drove the furthest to attend a Camp Clifton reunion in the summer of 2009. He was engaged to a beautiful woman. His law business was going well. He seemed genuinely happy. All of us were thrilled to see him again, and even more thrilled to see him open the reunion’s “council fire” - a Camp Clifton tradition. We all said goodbye as darkness fell and the fire burned down, and we made a pledge to meet again a few years hence

Fast forward to April 1, 2010. It's morning and I'm settling into my routine at my office, when I get an e-mail from Amy Castillo, one of my newfound friends from the Camp Clifton reunion: “Joe, call me ASAP. It's important.” This was odd, and not at all like Amy.

Sobbing uncontrollably, Amy broke the news to me that the previous morning, Joe Balega had been found in his home, dead of an apparent suicide. I sat in stunned disbelief.

Not Joe Balega. That's not possible.

If you had asked me my impression of Joe at the reunion, I would have said, “he's happy.” He seemed genuinely happy to be there and genuinely happy with his life. He was all smiles, as were his sons. My lasting memory of Joe and his family was that they were joyful. My lasting memory of Joe as a teenager was that he had his act together. He was one of the good kids. He was universally nice and kind to everyone.

Others concurred. Renee Ilaria, a fellow classmate and fellow camper, said, “I didn't see someone who was struggling the day of the reunion. I saw someone who was filled with joy, pride, and promise for the future.” Amy Castillo added, “I think if Joe could be in such a place, anyone could. He had an amazing impact on all of us.”

We really didn't know each other all that well. A few summers spent together at camp. A few months spent planning a reunion as adults. But his life touched mine. He treated others well, and he did so simply because he was a genuinely good guy. He seemed to me one of those rare people who didn't have a mean inclination in his being.

He was the absolute last person I would have expected to do this. And the irony is that if he had asked any of us from the Camp Clifton crew for help, if he had called any of us on that fateful night, we would have been there for him. I think there are probably 100 people from camp that would have driven all night hopped or on the first flight to Ohio to sit by his side, talk him through whatever dark demons were haunting him, convince him that he was loved and needed - by his sons, by his family and friends, and by us. To open that next council fire at that next reunion.

On the one-year anniversary of that horrible day, a number of folks from camp posted on Joe's Facebook page.

“Grateful for the time we had. Heartbroken for the time we won't. Too many tears, not enough memories. Have a peaceful rest. I look forward to catching up.”

“Camp Clifton on the brain today thinking how amazing it was to have a reunion and reconnect with everyone, feeling lucky to have had those experiences, and missing you terribly, Joe Balega.”

“I miss you Joe, I think of you so very often. XOXO.”

And the most heartbreaking post of all from one of Joe's sons, which simply said: “Hi dad.”

Some have kicked around the idea of another reunion. But the idea of a reunion without Joe just seems so incomplete. In many ways, Joe Balega was Camp Clifton. If only we had known. If only he could have found the words, the word, to ask for help.

So many troubled kids spent summers at Camp Clifton - myself included. So many kids who you just knew were going to have a hard time making their way through life.

But not Joe Balega

.

I’m publishing it here unedited, but a lot has changed since then: I had a third daughter a few years later; the marriage I was so proud of in this story fell apart in the late 00's; and I turned out to be a just-OK (but probably substandard) father. That third daughter won’t speak to me anymore, and the silence tells me what I need to know about the parenting skills I never really had. I’m not as religious as I was when I wrote this - and in fact I’m not “religious” at all.

I’m now approaching my 60’s. As I mention in the story, life has had its ups and downs. And to be honest, they’ve been even more volatile than I could have anticipated at age 32. But despite it all, the punchline is still true.

I was six years old when I first started playing baseball, quite by accident. Every afternoon at School 16 in Clifton NJ, before school was dismissed, the school secretary read announcements over the loudspeaker. Most of the time I was in such a fog that I didn't pay attention or hear the announcements. But one particular day I heard something to the effect of “play... western” crackle over the loudspeaker. I thought, “Cool! I always liked playing Cowboys and Indians with my friends, I want to play western!” I told my mom about the announcement and asked if she would sign me up.

Mom took me to the school office the next day, and told Mrs. Gacy, the school secretary, that her son Joseph was all jazzed up about some Cowboys and Indians thing he heard on the loudspeaker. Of course, Mrs. Gacy had no idea what I was talking about. When asked, I meekly said, “You said something about playing western.”

Mrs. Gacy frantically pulled out the previous day's announcements to see what the heck I was talking about. After looking over the announcements, she replied “Aha! You mean the announcements for the Clifton Little League Baseball Western Division. They are taking signups for the baseball season. You want to play baseball?”

Now I was embarrassed, but also a little disappointed. Cowboys and Indians, I knew. I had played Cowboys and Indians. Baseball I didn't know. Never heard of it. I had never even swung a bat. But to save face I replied “Um, yeah.” Next thing I knew, I was the youngest player in the Little League.

The first season was an unmitigated disaster. For one thing, this was in the days before parent pitch or tee ball. The kids pitched, no matter how young. And the kids were wild. I was scared to death. I was completely convinced that the pitcher's goal was to kill me by hitting me in the head with the baseball. I was wincing and diving and running away from pitches every time they were thrown. Or closing my eyes tightly and swinging. I literally struck out every time I stepped to the plate that year.

Well, except the one time I drew a walk. My coach, Mr. McCann, was one of those nightmare parents who would take baseball seriously even for six- and seven-year-olds. He had no idea how to teach baseball, he just wanted to send his players out there on the field and have them win. One time I got up to bat with the bases loaded in the last inning with our team down by three runs. Mr. McCann called time out, took me aside and said, “Son just stand in the batter's box and don't swing the bat. Don't even take it off your shoulder.”

Naturally I swung wildly at the first pitch. And missed badly.

“TIME OUT!”, I heard from the third base side.

Mr. McCann irritatedly walked toward me. “Crivelli, what did I tell you to do?”

I looked sheepishly at my shoes.

“DID I TELL YOU NOT TO SWING THE BAT?!”

Embarrassed nod.

“Well then get in the batter’s box and DON'T SWING THE BAT!!”

As an aside, this was my first exposure to baseball, so I had no idea about strikes, balls, walks, etc. I thought the object was to stand in the batter’s box and not get hit and wail away with the bat. Conversely, the pitcher's job was to stand on the mound and whip fastballs at my head and try to kill me. But Mr. McCann was so pissed I figured I'd just better do what he said. So, I stood while the pitcher threw 4 consecutive balls.

“Take your base.”

Another new concept for me. So naturally I stood in the batter’s box and got ready for the next pitch.

“Batter, take your base.”

I stood diligently in the batter's box.

Mr. McCann came storming down the baseline from his sentinel in the third base coach’s box.

“Crivelli, you walked. Go to first base!”

Uh oh. Another new concept.

I can't remember what I replied, but the next thing I knew McCann was leading me into the field and I was standing on “first base”. I thought I was there to play first base. I won't even repeat McCann's response when I asked him for my glove

Of course, the next batter up got a hit. And, thinking I was playing first base, I stood diligently on first base.

As the kids in the field ran around trying to get the baseball back into the infield, my teammates and coaches screamed, “RUN! RUN!” Even the real first baseman was kind enough to encourage me to run to second base.

I had never played baseball, had never drawn a walk, had never been a base runner, in short, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. So, once the baseball made its way back into the infield one of the players ran over to tag me with it, the umpire called me out, and the game was over. It might have been my last game of the season because I don't remember playing again that year. Or maybe my parents had mercy on me and decided not to subject me to any more of this torture. Or maybe McCann encouraged them to not bring me back. I don't know.

Something possessed me to play again the next season when I was a year older and in second grade. While it was customary for players to play for the same coach in order to build continuity, I did not end up on McCann's team. To this day I believe some backroom lobbying on McCann's behalf got me moved to another team. But our first game of the season I did play against his team. My first at bat of the year, against my old coach, I got my first hit of my baseball career, a home run.

Well, a pee-wee league home run. I made contact, the ball dribbled into the infield, and the players on defense played pinball with the baseball while I ran to each successive base. At each base I heard the crowd screaming “Run! Run!” Not wanting to make the same mistake I had made the previous season, I kept running until I finally crossed home plate with a home run.

As I wait made my way back to the dugout, listening to the sound of the cheering crowd, I felt a variety of sensations: pride, relief, joy. I had done it. I had contributed. I belonged. I was so happy that I literally cried tears of joy. As I sat on the bench bawling, my teammates tried to cheer me up: “You were safe, Joey, you were safe!” That didn't help, it just made me cry all that much more.

Over the next six years, I played Little League baseball on a variety of levels. I was never very good. Most of the time I played right field - the universal language for “This kid can't play.” I never learned to hit, never got over my first-grade phobia that the pitcher was trying to hit me with the baseball. The baseball diamonds of Clifton, NJ became one of the places where I learned that the world wasn't rosy and nice and polite, but mean spirited, angry, and ready to pounce on the slightest sign of vulnerability. Thanks to the McCann’s of the world for teaching me that lesson at an early age

Life has had its ups and downs in the years since I hit my first home run. To be sure, there have been more strikeouts than home runs. I've lived through the ugly, nasty, and bitter divorce of my parents; high school, a minefield especially in Clifton; the death of a father, a brother, and a sister; and numerous career changes which bring with them their own highs and lows.

This past Easter my wife, my two daughters and I went back to Clifton to visit my mother, who still lives in the neighborhood where I grew up. We went for a walk with my sister and her four children and eventually ended up in the park where resides the baseball field that served up so many such memories. Nothing has changed. It was weird, to walk around the field, to stand at home plate and look at the pitcher’s mound, to run around the bases. I even sat in the dugout where I had cried after hitting that first home run.

As I sat on the dugout bench, I got misty-eyed again, thinking about that little 6-year-old kid who had so much in front of him, good and bad. In the years ahead of him he was going to experience so much pain. And yet, he was going to be a survivor. I prayed for him. As I sat there, my 3-year-old daughter, who was busily headed toward the playground, hollered “Daddy come on! Let's go play!”

It was at that moment that I experienced a sense of comfort like never before. It put everything in perfect perspective. At 32 years old, I have a wife who I love dearly; we have a wonderful marriage. Despite having grown up in a broken home with an absence of male role models, by the grace of God I've become a good husband and father. I have two gorgeous little daughters who I love with all my heart. A good solid career. I thought back to those kids in the dugout, promising me “You're safe, Joey, you're safe”. The voices of my teammates now seemed like a choir of angels reassuring a scared young boy that his life was in the hands of the Lord, and that he would be delivered through the trials and temptations of life, and that the Lord had a sovereign plan for him.

“You're safe, Joey, you're safe.”

Truly I was. I was safe all along.

The Staycation is Here to Stay

In the summer of 2023, my wife and I took our family on an epic vacation tour of Scotland. We splurged for first class airfare, rented beautiful VRBOs, hired a guide to take us on a private tour of the Highlands and the Isle of Skye. It was the first time we had our whole blended family together in quite a while as my daughters are grown, working, on their own and challenging to pin down schedule-wise. It was going to be the vacation of a lifetime.

Except, it wasn’t.

I have no beef with Edinburgh or the Scottish people but there’s no easy way to say this. Edinburgh was a disappointment – at least the parts of it we saw. The weather didn’t cooperate and our first day was a washout. The restaurants we chose were…below expectations (I’ll come back to that word “expectations” later). Our rental for our two nights in Edinburgh was, unfortunately, around the corner from a strip of popular pubs, so no sleep was to be had those first two nights as rowdy drunks passed by our bedroom windows at all hours of the night and into the wee hours of the morning. The showers in our historic VRBO didn’t want to generate hot water and had very little water pressure. And Edinburgh itself didn’t impress – the part that tourists like us see is basically a castle on one end and palace on the other, separated by a strip of tourist trap shops, pubs, and coffee shops (including the ever-present Starbucks).

The Highlands and Isle of Skye were beautiful, and Andrew our tour guide was charming and intelligent. He picked us up in Edinburgh in a tricked-out Sprinter van wearing traditional Scottish garb and chauffeured us around those gorgeous areas of the country. So that leg of the trip was much better.

Just one problem: we were all grumpy due to lack of sleep and the disappointment of Edinburgh. I was constantly breaking up skirmishes between my daughters. As I had to pry one more daughter from taking yet another social-media-ready selfie in front of a waterfalls or castle so we could stay on schedule, I became grumpy. As the cost of the trip added up and exceeded our budget, I became even grumpier. By the last night, we were all ready to be home. But another skirmish broke out at the dinner table. When everyone settled down, one of them asked my wife, “Holly, are you OK?” And when I turned to Holly, who was seated to my right, I could see she had her head bowed and tears silently streaming from her eyes.

“What’s wrong Love?” I asked.

In a barely audible voice, she replied with words that broke my heart: “I thought this would be more fun…”

Holly composed herself and we departed the restaurant, silent all the way home in our Uber. I won’t go into details, but it got worse from there. Back at our VRBO, the blame game started, then escalated, and my daughters devolving into a screaming match. The next day, as my daughters departed for home, nobody was speaking.

One last problem. Storms on the east coast meant two of my daughters were stranded and would now miss a day of work they didn’t plan on. One was dumped off in an airport three hours from home and told to either wait several hours for a bus to handle the final leg or find her own way to her final destination (she took a costly Uber for the three-hour drive from JFK Airport to her home in suburban Philadelphia). The other was stranded in Boston and had to catch a flight home the following morning, adding another night of hotel stay to the already-stretched vacation budget. Holly, my stepdaughter and I had our flight canceled and had to stay in Edinburgh another day even though after the stress of the trip, all we wanted to do was be home.

It was not the epic vacation we planned. As Holly noted at dinner that last night, it wasn’t even fun.

Is a vacation really relaxing?

If anyone asked me my hobbies before the Scotland fiasco, I would have included traveling on the list. I took some epic vacations with my daughters on the heels of my divorce. We drove the Pacific Coast highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and two years later did the same thing on the northern part of the highway from Seattle to San Francisco. We hiked the Grand Canyon and visited Sedona, Arizona. We visited several countries including Iceland, Switzerland, England and France. We took a camping trip starting in my hometown (Tulsa, Okla.) and traveled in my Jeep throughout Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. On another Colorado trip we rented a completely off the grid cabin and explored various Rocky Mountain Jeep trails for a week. There were also two pilgrimages to Disney mixed in there – not my kind of vacation but a rite of passage for an American parent, especially a divorced dad.

But when I looked back at these vacations, while epic memories were created, all of them had some similar form of stress. Not to the extent we experienced in Scotland, but stress, nonetheless. All of them were expensive. All of them involved a great deal of planning and varying degrees of execution. All of them involved some degree of skirmishes between people who at certain times want to go in different directions. The pictures we captured on those trips show smiling faces on once-in-a-lifetime locations, but they clearly don’t tell the whole story.

Enter the Staycation

After we got back home and regrouped, Holly and I concluded that (1) we were both tired of traveling, and (2) we wanted a home that could do double-duty as a vacation retreat. After the Scotland experience, it would be staycations for us from now on.

This was in line with other goals as well – I had been looking for land in the country where I could explore, enjoy the outdoors, camp out, and learn to take care of the land. We had long discussed having a pool in our backyard, but our current home didn’t have the space for it due to utility easements. So, we began searching for a new dream home with acreage and a pool. After a several month-hunt, we found the perfect place – just a half hour from downtown, but with 9 acres and a resort-like pool. It backed up to a massive cattle ranch, so the property enjoyed horizon-to-horizon views of rolling hayfields and uninterrupted views of both the sunrise and sunset. Yes, it was more expensive than the home we owned, but we would be able to put our vacation budget into the mortgage payment and kill two birds with one stone. We caught a lucky break when our bank ran a special on mortgages with rates a full point below market. A bonus was that our existing home, which was financed with a 3% COVID-era mortgage, had a below-market mortgage payment and could be turned into a rental property generating passive income to further offset the mortgage on the new place. It was a win/win/win. We moved in the spring of 2024.

Staycation #1 – July 2024

After completing the move, Holly and I both took the first week of July off to enjoy our new home and relax. It was beautiful. There were no flights to catch (or flight delays), no TSA agents to rifle through our belongings and toss our shampoo because it was not under 3.1 ounces, there were no tourists to compete with for dinner reservations. There were no expectations (there’s that word again – more on that later, as promised) and no timetables.

We slept as late as we wanted, enjoyed coffee poolside just steps from our kitchen, planned delicious home-cooked meals, and enjoyed each other’s company. We didn’t have to fight for a good poolside seat. We didn’t have to wait for service. We didn’t have to stand in lines with other tourists to see whatever attraction was on the agenda that day.

By the end of the week, we both agreed: Best. Vacation. Ever. We were completely relaxed and detached from work. We had spent incredible quality time together. We slept in our own bed, in our own home, we enjoyed the silence and stillness, and we recuperated the stress of from our respective jobs.

Staycation #2 – October 2024

Later in October I was able to take another Staycation for the first week of the month. I enjoy unlimited PTO from my employer, and the first week of the quarter is always super-slow for me. There were raised garden beds in the yard that we had ignored since we closed on the house – with so much to do it just wasn’t a priority. By the fall they had become completely overgrown with ragweed and grasses and such and become an eyesore. Plus, Holly was eager to learn gardening and wanted to plant a crop come spring. They needed to be cleaned out and readied for that.

So that was the first four days of my vacation. Hacking through the overgrowth, pushing the wheelbarrow to the woods in the back of our property to dispose of it, tilling the soil, pulling out the roots, and then covering the beds with cardboard and plastic sheeting so any remaining growth would die off by the time spring planting season rolls around.

It was exhausting, physically taxing work. But so fulfilling. At the end of the week, with the job done, I was exhilarated.

And when I reached my physical limit at the end of every day, I soaked in the now-cool pool water and recuperated on my backyard lounge chair with an ice water and a snack.

The remainder of the week I caught up on other projects around the house, and on the last day I treated myself to a round of golf at a local course I had wanted to try. And once again, it was a thoroughly relaxing vacation that allowed me to completely detach from the world, de-stress from work, and enjoy myself at home.

Staycation #3 – April 2025

My third staycation was more of the same. After a tough-by-Oklahoma-standards winter, there was a lot of work to do on the property. Flower beds to weed and mulch, lawn to fertilize, winter deadfall to cut up and dispose of, and new plantings to install. Plus, Holly was ready to start planting vegetables in the garden bed. So that’s what I did. For the better part of two weeks, I worked on getting the yard ship-shape for the spring.

Again, by the end of vacation, I was uber-relaxed and ready to leap back into work.

Tourism on the ropes

Yes, there is a lot of the world still to see. I enjoyed the vacations I took with my daughters (Scotland excluded), saw some incredible places, and created what I hope are lasting family memories. On one of our Jeeping trips, as we explored Canyonlands National Park in Utah, my eldest daughter said, “Dad, thank you for taking us on this vacation. I’m just going to have to marry a guy who likes to do this kind of stuff.” It was inadvertently one of the greatest complements she has ever paid me.

And there were places still on my bucket list. Patagonia and Norway were 1(a) and 1(b). I’ve never been to Asia or Australia or the Pacific Islands. I’ve never skied the Alps or ridden a motorcycle to Alaska or done a motorcycle tour of Europe.

But recently, a Facebook friend posted photos from a Kenyan safari. No doubt, the pictures were beautiful. Photo after photo showed her family smiling as they posed in front of elephants, or giraffes, or baboons from the safety of their Land Rover. And an inescapable thought occurred to me: we don’t belong there.

That native habitat for animals is now a tourist attraction. So, infrastructure is needed. There are roads that have been built through it. Gazebos are built so tourists can enjoy adult beverages and prepared meals while they gaze in awe. Vehicles now trespass on the animals’ homes, and people like my friend stop to ooh and aah and take photos for social media. It cannot not be disruptive. If I’m, say, a giraffe, and I want to grab lunch at my favorite savannah, now I have to worry about these humans who seem to be there every day disturbing me.

One particular photo haunted me. In it, my friend and her daughter are posing alongside the Land Rover with their guide, a Kenyan man who is dressed like he’s a pro at the local golf course, in khakis, polo shirt, and wind breaker with a ball cap and sunglasses on his head. He’s had to LARP as a westerner to appease his western tourists. And he’s become one more tourist attraction to pose alongside of for social credit points on Facebook.

This was not unlike Andrew, the Scottish tour guide, who showed up to meet us on day one in traditional Scottish garb. During the tour he felt the need to LARP as, well, a 17^th century Scottish Highlander instead of wearing the jeans and sweater that he admitted were more his style – and which he wore for successive days of the trip when we told him it was fine with us.

And what vacation photos don’t show – and will never show – are the stressful moments like the ones my family experienced on our trip to Scotland. The arguments between people who often have different agendas. The long delays in airports. The constant pressure of the timetables to make it to this attraction or that hotel or to make it to yet another restaurant in time for the reservation. The TSA agent picking through your luggage. The discomfort of the airline seat on the several-hour flight to the destination. The hordes of other tourists.

Furthermore, all over the world, at touristed spots, tourist fatigue is taking root. Locals who just want to live their lives are lashing out against the too many tourists creating too much disruption to their daily routine. Quaint neighborhoods are being taken over by VRBO and Airbnb properties, with many tourists failing to respect local customs. (Another negative to short term rentals – the depletion of housing stock, which in turn causes local housing costs to escalate.) The simple act of taking the family out to dinner becomes a chore as locals fight for reservations alongside tourists. The daily commute to work gets disrupted by, for example, Sprinter vans lined up on the streets of Edinburgh to pick up those who have paid for guided tours of the Highlands. The favorite local trattoria gets replaced by yet another souvenir shop, selling the same overpriced tchotchkes as the one just a block away.

The overtourism is evident in the numbers. In 2014, when my daughters and I visited Iceland, there were 900,000 visitors to the island country. By 2023 that figure had swelled to 2.4 million!

From Barcelona to Bali, from Amsterdam to Australia, the locals are starting to fight back. The internet is replete with news stories of ordinances being passed to tamp down tourism. Local governments are passing new tourist taxes. Venerated sites are being permanently closed to visitors. And protesters are even staging hunger strikes to draw attention to the problem of overtourism.

And for those concerned with pollution and climate change – it’s best if we all stay home. From cruise ships and airplanes that add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by the ton, to the trampling of native flora and fauna by hordes of tourists, to the construction of roads through savannas that were once home only to animals, tourism is disruptive to the environment.

So, while there’s no getting around the fact that tourism provides funding for local initiatives, more and more people are asking: is it worth the cost. Seemingly, the answer is becoming a very simple: “No”.

Expectations

As I unpacked the Scotland experience, and tried to understand how it went so wrong, I kept coming back to that word: expectations. The recovery community has a saying that is relevant here: “An expectation is a pre-meditated resentment.”

And so, when I looked at my part in what went wrong on the vacation, it was that I had very high expectations for the trip. In my minds’ eye, it was going to be a lovely coming together of our blended family. My teenage stepdaughter would bond with my girls. My girls would get to know my wife, who I married in 2020: Holly and I live in Tulsa and my daughters live in Philadelphia. Andrew would regale us with stories of the Scottish Highlands, and we would soak in the beauty of the place, in a state of joy and bliss.

What I didn’t factor in was that we were a collection of six people with different agendas, different triggers, and – yes - different expectations. So, from the start, when the vacation didn’t meet my expectations, I got resentful.

I wonder how many of my friends, who post blissful pictures on social media of their vacations, experience the same kind of disappointment that I did in Scotland. You see the pics of the family in front of the Roman Colosseum, or Eiffel Tower, or Hollywood sign, but we don’t see or hear about the things that went wrong. This also makes me wonder: for how many of us, are vacations really relaxing?

For me, they’ve been a mixed bag. There have been great vacations with very little stress (the off-the-grid cabin rental in Colorado) and those with very high stress (our London/Paris trip over the December holidays in 2017, which I won’t go into in detail. But we did post some beautiful pictures on social media!)

And then there’s the airlines

Ultimately, one of the biggest factors that made me decide to throttle back on travel has been the airlines themselves. I hold them in very low esteem. I have said for quite a while that from the time you buy your ticket, until the time you land back at home with suitcase in hand, you’re not a customer and you’re not a passenger. You’re a prisoner. They can basically do anything they want to you: strand you, make you sit in a wickedly uncomfortable seat for an unreasonably long time, lock the bathrooms on the plane and not allow you to relieve yourself, change your schedule, make you sit in an uncomfortable, overcrowded airport while they sort out whatever drama they’ve invented that day, make you sit in your airplane seat at the gate while they figure out who can drive the jetway to the airplane door. Just to name a few.

Even airlines that have been in business since the dawn of aviation act like they are a startup on their first day of work, figuring out how to effectively get an airplane from one airport to another. So, I’d rather not do business with them.

Conclusion

I’m not saying I’ll never travel again. I’d still like to take a motorcycle trip to Alaska or tour Patagonia or Norway. I’d like to return to my favorite resort in Cancun and relax on the beach. But it’s not the priority it once was. Yes, I won’t have the social-credit-generating photos for Facebook. But what I will have from my staycations is ultimate relaxation.

I think we would all do well to travel less frequently. We would save money and protect the environment while reducing our stress. And we might also preserve family harmony in the meantime. But most importantly, we would allow locals to live and enjoy their own lives - in their own homes.

“Sure, Joey.  What’s up?

“Was John Crivelli really my father?”

Silence.  Then a big sigh – the sigh someone would make when they had been running their whole lives, and the truth came out, and they knew the charade was up. The sigh of someone who couldn’t run anymore and was now resigned to the telling the truth.

“I have always wondered when you would ask me that.”

It was a question that had been on my mind my whole life.  John Crivelli was short.  Fat. Big round face.   Wiry black hair.  Deep set, dark, beady eyes.  A swarthy, paunchy, dark‐complected Italian just one generation removed from the old country. 

Me?  Tall.  Fair. Hazel eyed.  Narrow faced.  Lean and lanky.  Athletic.  I would look at pictures of my father and wonder, “did I inherit any genes at all from this man?  Anything?”  

So this was a question that had been percolating for some time.  Plus my mom had dropped some not‐ so‐subtle hints.  There was the story she told about the day she found out she was pregnant – how she took my sister to see the movie “Dumbo” and cried the whole time. My sister would chime in, “I didn’t know why Mommy was crying so much; the movie was not that sad.”  I would ask why she cried and she would say, “I was done with bottles, diapers, your sister Fran was in school  and I just didn’t want to go back to all that.” And then always the caveat, “But I love you and wouldn’t change a thing.”  

As if that statement would make right the fact that I was unwanted from the start.

Then there was the time – and I don’t remember how this came up in conversation – that she told me that she tried to have a miscarriage.  “I just didn’t want another baby.  I would go downstairs and jump up and down and try to lose the baby.  I would eat chalk – an old wives tale that this would cause a miscarriage – and I would gag and gag on the chalk but eat it anyway.”  And then, “But I love you and wouldn’t change a thing.”

I don’t know what gave me the courage to ask it in that particular phone call, on that particular afternoon.  But it bubbled up and out and now was hanging out there like a big hair ball.

Another sigh.  I already had my answer.

“So?”

“First I want you to know that I love you dearly and wouldn’t change a thing.  Not one thing…

But I always wondered when you would ask this question.”

More silence.

“No, John was not your father.”

“Who was my father?”

“Martin.  His name was Martin Weiner.” 

I waited.  Something instinctively told me to just wait for her to open up.  

“Joey, please promise me you won’t hold it against me.”

That was another of her throwaway statements:  Promise you won’t hold it against me.  Any time she messed up, any time she knew that she had caused irreparable damage to me, she made me make this promise.  The most noteworthy was the time John Crivelli died. 

Mom and John had split up 10 years earlier, and I hadn’t seen or heard much from him since then. And I know I should have taken responsibility for finding out when the wake and funeral were, but I didn’t.  I was 19.  I was a clueless teenager.  And I just assumed that my mother would let me know where I had to be, when I had to be there. 

So, she told me that the wake was Thursday night at 6:00 and the funeral was Friday morning at 10:00.  I showed up at the 6:00 wake on Thursday night only to find out there was a second, earlier wake and a bunch of my friends had shown up to pay their respects to my father…and I wasn’t even there.  I went to sign into the guest book – just like any of the other visitors – and noticed all these signatures from earlier in the day.  I turned to my mom and said incredulously, “There was an earlier wake???”

She withered and then, “PLEASE DON’T HOLD IT AGAINST ME!!!”

My mom and I had an up‐and‐down relationship, sometimes good, sometimes bad. By the end we made our peace. But this was one of the tougher moments.

So here we were again, with my mom telling me that she had done her best all my life to keep the truth about my paternity from me, and that she had hoped against hope that she could take this secret to the grave.  And once again asking me for pardon and forgiveness.  For a promise of everlasting filial love despite her failings.  I did the merciful thing.

“I promise.”

“Martin Weiner was a beautiful, beautiful man.  I worked for him when I was in my 20s and we saw each other off and on for years.  He was a beautiful man.  I loved him.”

“I met him when I was working as a telephone operator at one of his companies.  Mar‐Tex.   It was my first day, and he walked in and said, ‘Aren’t you a beautiful ray of sunshine!’ and I just melted. We started seeing each other almost right away.  Martin was your father.  And you look just like him. He was so handsome too.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Nooooo, he’s long gone,” she said in her whiskey drawl. “He died when you were 4 years old.”

“Did he know about me?”

“Yes, he knew about you.  I used to take you to see him, and he would hold you on his lap.”

“Did John know that I wasn’t his kid?”

“No, John didn’t know.  He always suspected something between me and Martin, but he did not know that you weren’t his son.”

Mom went on to tell me what she could remember about Martin, which wasn’t a whole lot considering they had a decades‐long affair.  He owned a textile mill in Paterson, NJ.  He lived in Clifton, NJ.  He had a brother, Jess.  A wife, Tilly.  And two daughters, Joan and Iris. He invested in real estate and owned the Empire State Building. 

The Empire State Building!!  I loved The Empire State Building.  Living in Clifton, that building was omnipresent, because you could see the New York Skyline from just about everywhere in the town.  It was called “Clifton” because it was literally built on a cliff that overlooked the New York skyline.  Clifton was a hardscrabble town, with nice neighborhoods (where we lived when I was a little kid) and not‐so‐nice neighborhoods (where we lived after mom and dad split up and sold the house.)  About once a year, mom and dad would pack us up in the station wagon and take us to New York City for a show, or the circus, or ice skating at Rockefeller, and invariably we would also visit the Empire State Building.  The view from the top was amazing, and the wind always howled, and the sharp points on the wrought iron grates that prevented would‐be jumpers from climbing over the top always scared me. 

To learn my biological father was an owner of the Empire State Building was on one hand quite a shock.  On the other hand, it was pretty typical of my mom to exaggerate. I had my doubts about the Empire State Building part of the story.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ 

I walked downstairs.  My wife Deanna could sense the heaviness.  She could see it in my eyes. 

“What’s wrong Joe?”

Silence.

“Joe, what’s wrong?

“I….I….just talked to my mom.”

“What, Joe?  What’s wrong?”

“You know how you always said I had a Roman nose?” 

I have an Italian last name, and Deanna was from an Italian family, and she liked my Italian‐ness.  But other than my last name, there was nothing Italian about me. She and her mom latched onto my nose.  I have a prominent nose, which they convinced themselves was a Roman trait.  Nevermind that my family supposedly came from Calabria, it made sense to them.

“Yeee..eees?”

“It’s not a Roman nose.”

“What?”

“It’s a Jewish nose.”

“I don’t follow.”

“I finally got the courage to ask mom if John Crivelli was really my father.  She told me the truth.  She had an affair with this guy, and he’s my father.  His name was Martin Weiner.”

“Wow. WOW.”

“He was a Jewish businessman from New Jersey.”

“Wow.”

Silence.

“How do you feel about that?” She came over and sat down next to me and touched my hand.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s big.”

“Yeah.  Too big for me to grasp right now.”

“It he alive?”

“No.  He died when I was 4.”

“Did he know about you?”

“Apparently. Yes. She said she used to bring me over to see him.”

“Did your father…I mean, did John…know?”

“Apparently not.  She says he didn’t, anyway.  But that could explain a lot of things.”

“Wow. Joe. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” 

“No, I mean I’m sorry you have to find this out.  Now.  This late in life.”

“It sucks.”

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Several years went by.  I would from time to time try to find some additional information about Martin, some talisman or touchstone to connect me with him and help me, in some small way, to know my father.  All my searching was a dead end.  On Google, I found a legal review article about an intellectual property lawsuit against his company.  The case, Peter Pan Fabrics v. Martin Weiner was a landmark case in trademark infringement.  

Other than that, I could find nothing.  No evidence that he existed, no articles about him or his business, nothing validating my mom’s unbelievable claim that he owned the Empire State Building.  Nothing on his daughters Joan Weiner or Iris Weiner.  Nothing on his brother Jess Weiner.

Until December 2006.

It was the Christmas season, and I was at work but nothing much was happening.  I was goofing off, and all of a sudden I got the idea, “Hey.  I haven’t tried to find any information about Martin Weiner in a while.  Let me see if I can find anything today.”

And with that, the floodgates opened.  The first Google search delivered an obituary from the New York Times’ website.

I blinked as I looked at the headline.  “MARTIN WEINER, 65, MAKER OF TEXTILES”

That’s him.  That’s his obituary.  My heart started racing.

I clicked on it, but it was a paid article from the Times’ archives.  Shaking, I took out my wallet.

I found him. I may finally see my father’s face.

I paid for the article.  When it downloaded, it seemed to take an eternity.

MARTIN WEINER, 65,

MAKER OF TEXTILES

Martin Weiner, a textile manufacturer, real‐estate man and philanthropist, died last night in Methodist Hospital in Houston after an unsuccessful aorta transplant operation.

Mr. Weiner, who was 65 years old and lived at 140 Hepburn Road in Clifton, N.J., was stricken with a ruptured aorta last week after his wife, the former Tillie Frankel, died.

Mr. Weiner bought a small textile mill at the age of 26 and converted it to rayon in 1929 because of the fluctuations in Japanese silk prices.  He was head of the Martin Weiner Realty Co., with interests in major properties across the country, including the Empire State Building.

He was a member of the board of trustees of Fairleigh Dickinson University and of Brandeis University and was president of the American Friends of Kyung Hee University in South Korea. He also served as an industrial consultant to the Department of Commerce and as an evaluator for the United States Information Agency.

He is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Sanfurd Bluestein and Mrs. Jack Konner, two sisters, Mrs. Florence Housman and Mrs. Sadie Wohlman, and four grandchildren.

No picture, but there it was.  The guy was a real player.  And he did own part of the Empire State Building.

I spent the rest of the day chasing down leads in the obit.  There were many.  I searched the Fairleigh Dickinson website, the Brandeis website, I learned about my half sisters.

And within hours, I had a picture of my father in my email inbox and on my fax machine. 

A search on the Fairleigh Dickinson website indicated that the library at the Teaneck campus was named after Martin (“The Weiner Library”.)  I called the library to see if there were any pictures of Martin hanging around.  The librarian indicated that she had a newspaper article commemorating the library’s dedication, and she faxed it to me within minutes. 

A search on the Brandeis website indicated that the archives had a picture of Martin.  A phone call to the university archivist led to a high‐resolution scan of the photo being emailed to me.

It’s hard to explain the feeling that a man in his 40s gets when he sees his father’s face for the first time.   Partly, there was relief.  After a lifetime of looking at images of my ‘father’ John Crivelli and wondering what – if any – of his DNA I had in me, seeing the picture of Martin Weiner told me that I really did have another half to me.  I could see where I fit, I could see the double helixes forming in me as Martin’s seed met Arlene’s egg and a new human being – me – came to be.  I could see how I came together in this universe

.And at the same time, I was pissed.  PISSED.  This guy was a multi‐multi‐millionaire.  He was a player in the New York business community.  He knew about me, he knew he had a son, and he left me nothing. NOTHING.  Not even a note, a letter, a picture, a memento that someday would enable me to connect with him. He never faced any consequences for his actions. He swept me under the rug.  He never did the right thing and acknowledged to the world, “I screwed up. But I’m going to do the right thing by this boy. He is my flesh and blood.” 

My mother - same deal.  She was so ashamed of herself that she couldn’t come forward, tell the world that her son was Martin’s boy, and follow whatever the legal process in those days was for establishing paternity – which would have enabled her to become a wealthy woman in the process. But no. She was too ashamed of the truth. 

With the leads from the obit, I learned that of Martin’s immediate family, only one person was still alive – my half‐sister Joan, a successful person in her own right.  She had become a famous journalist, a commentator and pundit on political issues, and dean of a famous journalism school.  She still owned the Weiner share of the Empire State Building, and she was a published author of two arguably spiritual books. She was the only person in the world who held the key.  The only person who could tell me: “What was my father like?”

At the same time, there was an urge to be a part of a family.  I had fantasies in my mind of meeting Joan and being welcomed into a family where by flesh and blood I belonged, but where by moral standards I was an embarrassment, a black stain on the family tree…the bastard child.

But times had changed, hadn’t they?  I had even read an article about John Major, the former prime minister of Great Britain, discovering a half‐brother late in life and being overjoyed.  Would Joan be overjoyed to know that she had a brother, that there was someone in the world who was connected to her and who shared her flesh and blood?  Or would she be brokenhearted on learning that Martin had cheated on Tillie?  Or would she be fearful that I was just some money‐seeking scammer looking to profit?  Should I let sleeping dogs lie?  Or should I demand my rightful place in the world and demand that those in the world who could do so acknowledge it?

At the root of it, I really just wanted to know my father.  But I will be honest that having grown up poor, having had to earn every dollar I ever spent from the time I was 14 years old, having had nothing at all given to me and having had to find my own way in the world – chose my own college, choose my own major, choose my own career with no helpful input whatsoever from a parent – there was something intriguing about finding I was the son of a millionaire.  By rights, I should have a piece of the building.  By rights, when Martin’s assets were divvied and sold, I should have had a seat at the table and a share of his life’s work.  My children should be provided for, and their children.  I should be rich, not poor. It was tantalizing.

Finding Joan online was not hard.  Once I knew to search for Joan Konner instead of Joan Weiner, I found her email address, various and sundry articles about her successes in life, her marriages, her children, her books. 

Rightly or wrongly, I sent her an email and a letter asking if she would be willing to meet. She politely declined through a lawyer who sent me a tersely‐worded letter back: 

Dear Mr. Crivelli:

I represent Joan Konner and write in connection with your recent communications with her. 

Please be advised that Ms. Konner does not wish to receive any further communications from

you.

Etc.

Ms. Konner does not wish to receive any future communications from you. That stung.  That really stung. The only living tie to my biological father, the only person who could help me learn about him, the only person who held the keys, my flesh and blood.  My sister.  My kin.  Not only unwilling to meet but clearly didn’t want any parts of me.

Rejection. 

I was devastated.  I know that it was probably scary for her to hear from someone claiming to be a blood relative, especially considering she is elderly and wealthy.  I understand that.  But years later, the pain of her rejection is fresh. 

Still today I can feel the pain of opening that envelope in my driveway on that midwinter day and reading those cold, cold words.  Hearing that steel door slam shut on any hopes of discovering my father.  

Ironically, Joan had written books and edited television documentaries about love, about family, about life and faith and connectedness.  She worked on a documentary about Joseph Campbell, in which the famous author, educator, and philosopher talked about the importance of the quest for father, the quest that every man goes on to find the true nature of his paternity. I watched it in wonderment. In it, a wide‐eyed Bill Moyers interviews a thoughtful Joseph Campbell, and they talk about the father quest:

MOYERS:  What impact has this father quest had on us down through the centuries?

CAMPBELL:  It’s a major theme in myth.  There’s a little motif that occurs in many narratives related to a hero’s life, where the boy says, “Mother, who is my father?”  She will say, “Well, your father is in such and such a place,” and then he goes on the father quest…the mother’s right there.  You’re born from your mother, and she’s the one who nurses you and instructs you and brings you up to the age when you must find your father.

Now, the finding of the father has to do with finding your own character and destiny.  There’s a notion that the character is inherited from the father, and the body and very often the mind from the mother.  But it’s your character that is the mystery, and your character is your destiny.  So it is the discovery of your destiny that is symbolized by the father quest.

MOYERS: So when you find your father, you find yourself?

CAMPBELL:  We have the word in English, “at‐one‐ment” with the father.  You remember the story of Jesus lost in Jerusalem when he’s a little boy about twelve years old.  His parents hunt for him and when they find him in the temple, in conversation with the doctors of the law, they ask, “Why did you abandon us this way?  Why did you give us this fear and anxiety?” And he says, “Didn’t you know I had to be about my father’s business?”  He’s twelve years old‐ that’s the age of adolescent initiation, finding who you are.

Excerpted from The Power of Myth; Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers; Anchor Books, 1991.

My half‐sister stood behind the camera, worked in the film room putting these interviews together, and was apparently unmoved.  Because when her own kin, her own flesh and blood called to ask for her assistance on his own father‐quest, she had a lawyer send him a letter saying, essentially, “Get lost.”

I remember receiving that letter in the mailbox and knowing who it was from.  I tore the letter open right at the mailbox, in the dark, in the cold, in the middle of the street. And I remember reading that one‐paragraph letter and knowing that the door had clanged shut permanently and that it was over, that my father‐quest had hit a dead end and that there were no other paths to go down. 

Other boys could have relationships with their fathers.  Other boys could have fond memories of catches with dad or fishing trips or ball games, or vacations with dad or going to the bar with dad for a beer or hikes or swims or canoe trips.  Of words of wisdom passed down innocuously over the dinner table while dad tucked into his spaghetti or borscht or bangers and mash.  Other boys could remember what their dad smelled like – his cologne or the booze on his breath or stogies or sweat. 

Other boys could remember dad helping them pick a college or teaching them the birds and the bees or teaching them how to draw a golf ball around the dogleg.  Other boys could remember hunting trips with dad and the frustration that they didn’t even see a buck, let alone get a shot at one.  Other boys could remember the look of pride on dad’s face when they made their confirmation or bar mitzvah or got drunk for the first time or got laid for the first time.

For that matter, other boys could remember getting their asses kicked by dad or dad being emotionless and unavailable and drunk in the armchair or dad talking in hushed tones on the telephone to his mistress or dad coming home from work late and going to bed early or dad telling them how much they had failed, how they could never measure up; how them they should have caught that fly ball to end the game instead of dropping it and allowing the other team to score the winning run.  And those boys would remember how hard it was to make their peace with dad, to forgive the old bastard for his failings and love him anyway and know that after all, he was dad.  Flesh and blood.  Kin.

Other boys had a dad.  Not me.  This haunted me even when I thought I had a dad.  It’s hard enough to grow up male, to learn how the game is played, to develop strategies for living in mine‐is‐bigger‐than‐yours world. I could have used Martin’s help.  He was a player.  He was a successful businessman who started a new business.  I could have used his counsel on what college to attend, what major to select, how to deal with the bullies on the playground and outmaneuver them with wit and intellect, how to defend myself, how to gain the upper hand in an argument or debate, how to sense when someone has your back and when they are about to stab you in it.  For Martin to have achieved what he achieved, even if he did have a head start, he had the arcane knowledge to navigate the landmines of human relationships and win more often than lose. And he left me, his only son, to fend for myself.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

I couldn’t let it go.

A few years later, I found out that Joan was speaking at an author’s convention in Albany, NY. The event was open to the public and she was on a panel. So, I went.

After her talk, I approached her tentatively.

“Joan. Hi. I’m Joe Crivelli.”

“Oh. What are you doing here?”

“Well, I wanted to meet you. And I’m a writer too, so I thought I’d check out the conference.”

“Oh.”

“Joan, you remember that documentary you did about Joseph Campbell? How he talks about the importance of the father‐quest in the life of a man? That’s all this is about. That’s the only reason I reached out to you. I just want to know about my father – what kind of man he was.”

With that she opened up a little.

“My father was a wonderful husband and father. That’s why it was such a shock to get your message. I could not imagine my father doing something like this.”

“Everybody makes mistakes.”

“He was a wonderful father. I loved him very much. My mother was sick for nine months before she died. He was at her bedside taking care of her the whole time. If you could have seen it you’d never believe he would have had an affair. So I can’t believe it. I won’t. That’s not the man I knew.”

We talked a little more, but that was all I needed. To hear that Martin was a good man, that he loved his family, and his family loved him, gave me a lot of peace. Even if he didn’t do right by me, there was goodness in him and so there was goodness in me. I left the convention feeling uplifted and happy. I was glad I went. I was glad to meet my sister – she seemed like a nice person too, and I understood why she reacted the way she did. I was happy to let things be from that point forward. I sent Joan a nice ‘thank you’ note, and left things alone after that.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Almost a year later, the receptionist at the company I worked for buzzed me in the middle of the afternoon.

“Joe, there are some men here to see you.”

“I don’t have any appointments. Did they say what for?”

“No.”

I went downstairs to the reception area, and two scary‐looking Special Forces‐type alpha men in business suits were standing there, looking sinister.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you Mr. Crivelli?”

“Yes.”

Can we talk confidentially for a moment?”

I took them into a conference room off the reception area, and they sat down and placed a rather large file folder on the table.

“We are here representing Ms. Joan Konner. You have been harassing Ms. Konner, and it needs to stop now.”

“I haven’t been harassing her. She’s my sister.”

“She denies that she is your sister. Last year, you accosted her at a speaking appearance.”

“I didn’t accost her. It was a public event. I listened to her talk and said hello afterwards. We had a nice conversation.”

“She claims she was very scared of you, that you did some things that led her to be afraid. If you ever make contact with her again, you will regret it for the rest of your life.”

With that, he gestured to the large file folder. The implication was clear. In that folder was all the dirt they had been able to dig up on me. I’m sure there was plenty.

I don’t remember much of the conversation after that. I went back to my office, closed the door, and broke down and cried. Any good feelings I had from my brief conversation with Joan dissipated, and all I could feel was injustice. Even today, as I write this many years later, the pain is still fresh and raw.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

With all the paths to Martin closed, over time, I got closure. It took time, and hard work, but I eventually got peace around the whole issue.

I did the work I needed to do to process these emotions; to clean my side of the street and make amends for any harms done to the family members that are in my life; and to put pain in the rear-view mirror. I deployed every tool I could find to make this happen. I sought therapy and counseling; I talked to friends; I’ve been in the recovery community since 2001, and I worked the 12 steps specifically on these issues. I wrote about it – which became this article. And at one point I did stand‐up comedy as a hobby, and even used this story as the opener for my routine; as they say, laughter is the best medicine:

“Hi I’m Joe Crivelli, and I know what you’re thinking. ‘Joey Crivelli from Philly, he’s probably a made guy, a goodfella, a Mafiosi.’ But the reality is I have no Italian blood in me, my father was a Russian Jew. So now you’re thinking, ‘Then how did he get an Italian last name?’ And THAT, my friends, is a sordid story and a bit of family history that my mother would NOT appreciate me sharing in public!”

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

In February 2018, I got a message on 23andme.

“Hi, I was wondering how we are related…my grandmother was a Weiner…this says we are first cousins….I am in New York, how about you? I am 61 years old…Would love to hear about you... Blythe

I stared at the message, pondering how to reply. A genetic test on 23andMe had indeed confirmed that I was not Italian, but rather 48.6% Ashkenazi Jewish on my father’s side. But this was the first direct contact I’d gotten from someone on the Weiner side of the family. And the first hard proof that I was truly connected through DNA to the Weiner family.

23andMe showed that Blythe and I were first cousins, one removed, sharing 7% of our DNA. In fact, after my mother, daughter, and sister, she is the person I share the most DNA in common with.  

I wrote back:

Hi Blythe, Thank you for your message. The first thing you should know is that I’m not a “welcomed” member of the Weiner family. According to my mother, Martin Weiner was my father. I found this out about 12 years ago, so very late in life (I’m 52 now). I’m inclined to believe my mother because I look a lot like Martin (I’ve seen a handful of pictures) and nothing like the man I thought was my father (John Crivelli.)

I did try to connect with my half sister, Joan Konner, years ago but was told in no uncertain terms to get lost - one of the most painful chapters of my life.

If you’re still interested I’d love to learn more about that side of my family.

Joe

To my surprise and joy, Blythe was more than happy to talk and build a relationship, and share with me what she knew about the Weiner family, which wasn’t much. After Martin’s death, the family scattered to the winds, and very few kept in touch. She and her mother (who was Martin’s niece) lost touch with Joan and the other surviving members of the family.

Nevertheless, Blythe became a good friend. She and I and her husband Paul met for dinner when I was on a business trip to New York City and connected on Facebook and such. She is a warm, loving, caring person. She helped me to heal from the cold shoulder I had received from Joan.

---

Every movie or TV show set in New York City shows the Empire State Building. It is symbolic of New York City and establishes place the way the Eiffel Tower, or Big Ben, or the Taj Mahal do. And so I can watch TV at the end of a busy day, and if the show is set in New York, I’ll see that damned building. It used to make me sad.

Today, the Empire State Building symbolizes something else entirely. It reminds me that I was created for a reason. God went to great lengths to bring me into this world. He kept me safe in the womb of a woman who didn’t want to be pregnant. He has protected and guided me every step of the way. He revealed the truth to me slowly, as I was ready, and gave me time to process my feelings and grow. And He has blessed me far beyond what I deserve. Whatever mom and John and Martin wanted, I’m here. I belong. I’m happy. I’m strong. I’ve gotten to a place where I no longer have any anger about the situation. I love and respect the man I see looking back in the mirror – he’s a brave, strong man who’s overcome much to get to where he is and who hasn’t been afraid to make radical life changes when those changes are called for.

I think, ultimately, that God protected me from two men who were not suited to be fathers – one, a sullen, emotionless, and unhappy alcoholic; the other an irresponsible philanderer who took his double life to the grave. 

So, I did have to find my own way and navigate my way through life without the help of responsible adults. And you know what? I did just fine.

So those times when the Empire State Building flashes across the screen and reminds us that the movie or show is set in New York, I’m reminded that today, I live, and I live for a higher purpose.

Epilogue

My half-sister Joan Konner died on April 18, 2018, at age 87. Like her father before her, Joan was a player. Her passing was noted by extensive obituaries in the New York Times and on the website of the Columbia Journalism School, where she served as Dean for nine years.

My mother Arlene Rodney died of lung cancer on February 16, 2019 at age 93. Mom was a rebel until the very end, even sneaking a pack of Marlboro Lights into the hospital in her bathrobe. She died peacefully, surrounded by family members who loved her. I consider it one of the great accomplishments of my life that when she passed, I had nothing but love and admiration for her in my heart.