Bob Cramer's Blog

My loyal reader(s), your highly inconsistent scribe confesses here and now that it is not just writer’s block.  This wet yet mild summer has left your blogger moving slower than normal, a torn calf muscle and a heavy heart partially to blame. But with time comes healing, and a new sense of optimism, like a late afternoon thunderstorm, is sweeping across my little mind, clearing the humid air, washing away clouds of doubt and hopefully opening a new blogging chapter.

To set the record straight, we had to put our beloved family dog, Lucky, down on July 17^th.  As I wrote in my June blog post, Lucky gave us nearly 14 years of love and affection.  While steroids gave us time to prepare for the inevitable, there was not a dry eye in the Cramer house after making the heartbreaking trip to the vet’s office on that miserable Wednesday morning.  Our house is noticeably quieter with a constant feeling that something is missing.  Fortunately, our kids have been home a lot, but even they don’t roll around in the grass, bark at squirrels or stare with amazement out the dining room window.  They just miss their white haired sister.

A freak tennis injury during the first official week of summer has also contributed to my summer swoon.  Running to hit a forehand in the very first game of a match, a snap, crackle and pop went off in my left calf, as if somebody had just hit me with an overhead; down for the count, carted off like you see on TV, and sentenced to weeks of ice, Aleve, and elevation, I did earn a sympathetic ride on the airport trolley that beeps throughout Hartsfield-Jackson airport. Now, some five weeks later, I am about good to go again and promise, cross my heart, to stretch with renewed conviction and consistency.

Perhaps stretching is also good metaphor for my blog moving forward. Age and time change things providing a treasure trove of material.  Two of my three children are out of the house, kind of, pursuing needed independence and new adventures; the third has a driver’s license and a little car.  My work today is different: less day-to-day, more strategic. With my wife going back to teaching next week, our house will reach new, unprecedented levels of inactivity, perfect perhaps for writing.

My little blog did get an unexpected endorsement a week or so ago.  I was deposed in a lawsuit involving the Metro-Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, the organization I served as Board Chairman for 15 years.  In the middle of the proceeding, the other side produced copies of all of my blog posts over the years.  Our lawyer, not being aware of my blogging past, turned to me and said, “You are a prodigious writer.”  I couldn’t help but smile.