Return of the Candy Man.

It's been over 10 years since I've been out looking for Candy.

The candy has changed over the years but finding it has stayed the same.

I didn't set out looking but just happened to be driving home from church a couple of weeks ago and decided to take a short-cut through a suburban neighborhood.

It was trash night and everyone had their big green cans pulled down to the side of the road.

In front of one can was a fax machine and 2 twin beds. I'd been looking for some rails for a bed I already have so I stopped to see if maybe the beds beside the road had rails that would fit it.

Much like smoking that one taste of crystal meth, I was hooked. But I didn't know it yet.

The bed frames didn't work but the next week, I took the same detour through the same neighborhood, knowing it was trash night.

This time, however, my trip was more fruitful. I found 2 bicycles in good condition. I didn't really need bicycles. In fact, I couldn't even use them due to the size and gender of the make, but I hated to see them just thrown away like that.

Later down the road I saw a kitchen table with 4 matching chairs. It just so happened that my caneback chairs were wearing out and these matched my table. So I threw the chairs on the back of the truck and hurried back around to the driver's door before anyone saw me.

Too late. Mom, Dad, and junior were standing at the glass storm door making binoculars out of their hands and watching that crazy man in the pick-up gathering up their trash. The Sanford and Son tune went through my head as I humbly placed my face in my chest and sped away. Hope it isn't someone I know from church, I thought.

The joy of finding the chairs overcame my embarrassment and I was truly excited when I arrived home. I grabbed one of the chairs from the truck, careful not to break it, and rushed into the house with it.

I wanted to inspect them and make sure they weren't damaged before I showed my wife. They weren't and I excitedly ran to the room where my wife was watching television and folding laundry.

"Come ear baby" I whisper/shrieked. My son heard me and climbed out of his bed, scratched his head, and said "Where is dem chairs come from, daddy?"

I didn't tell him. But he jumped right up in the chair and had an expression like he had just jumped in a Rolls Royce.

"Where did you get those chairs, honey?", my wife asked.

I told her--half fearful of her reaction--and she was impressed, though I did see a trace of concern in her eyes.

The next week I expanded my search.

You have to know the right neighborhoods to find candy. Otherwise, you'll waste a lot of valuable time. And time is important. There are a lot more candy men out there than you would think. So not only do you have to know where and when to search but you need to be able to quickly tell whether something is really just trash or might be worth something. That takes practice. A good truck also comes in really handy.

Here's a few pointers:

WHERE

Don't go to rich neighborhoods. These folks know the value of a dollar and they are stingy. That's how they got so rich in the first place. They aren't going to throw out ANYTHING if they can sell it for a dime.

Don't go to townhomes or condo's. These folks don't have anything to throw away and what they do have is generally as disposable and short term as their living arrangment.

Don't go to poor folk's homes. Their trash is worse than the stuff you already have. If it was worth anything, it would be in their yard sale.

That leaves middle-class wide open. Generally, newer developments are better than older neighborhoods. The people that typically live in these houses want everything in their life to be new. Therefore, as soon as something has lost it's luster, they are ready to throw it out. That's where I come in.

WHEN

Generally, about an hour after it has gotten dark on trash night. You don't want it to be so early that you get there before the candy does. That's easy to do because, for some reason, people like to wait until the last minute to throw something out. My theory is that they don't want it but they don't want anybody else to get it either. People are selfish buttmunches. What can I say?

So generally they wait until it is after supper time and good and dark before they throw it away. They'd wait until later but they want to be able to slip into something more comfortable and not have it hanging over their head all night.

It works out pretty well because you don't really want to be seen in the daylight going through their trash anyway.

On the other hand, you don't want to get there so late that you're just looking at the leftovers from the other candy hunters.

I have one neighborhood that I like to call the "candy shop". I never go home disappointed.

Last night I grabbed 2 metal yard torches, a barber chair, a bench press weight lifting set, about $80 worth of unopened ClosetMaid organizers , shelves, and brackets (I'll be taking those to Home Depot for a store credit), a toddler basketball goal, a little tykes wagon, 2 plastic doghouses, a battery-powered Hummer and more. For about $2 in gas and the last remaining drop of my pride.

The life we miss

The first time I saw a body.

A flash of the ride that scared me so much I jumped out of line.

A few moments when I was 5 and my family took a break for traveling and had a picnic at a little park. I had potted meat. My sister had a banana sandwich.

Waking to the golden light in the hallway of my grandmother's house and hearing the sound of her and other people laughing and playing cards.

A zillion micro-images of my first love but the inability to tune in a good picture of her face.

The expression on my wife's face and the emotion I felt when my son took his first breath.

These are the kind of things that make up my consciousness, my soul. They are memories. And they often fail me.

They are imperfect and sometimes they lie.

They are over-rated.

A memory cannot hold you, or kiss you, or even make you feel the way you did then. A memory offers no chance of changing things, no opportunity to return, no hope of redemption, no resurrection of the dead.

Yet, we often live our lives as if our future recollections are the soul purpose of living. We take pictures of special events rather than enjoy the moment we are in. We wait until our children are older before we take them to Disney World. Why? Because they might not remember, later.

We console ourselves at times of grieving with the thoughts that at least we have the memories. There are even times in my life when I consciously, in the moment, tell myself to file a defining few seconds away because the memory is too important to ever let go.

What do you remember about 1997? 2003? 1986? 1979?

Enough to write a book? Even if you could fill the pages, would anyone read it?

What is our life worth?

Sometimes I envision a heaven (and a hell) where we can go back in time and relive ANY moment over again with 100% clarity. Even FEEL the same things.
I imagine that our life would be our after-life. The joys would be our heaven. The pain and the inability to change things would be our hell.

I can think of a lot of times I would love to have back, even as soon as yesterday.

Now, I say to myself and you: I miss you, though I never knew you at all.

My special friend

There's a guy in town they call Crazy Dan. He likes me alot. I'm his only friend.

He showed up on my porch one day talking Greek or gibberish. I couldn't understand him so what's the difference? But I was young and single with little to do so I invited him in.

Every day when I'd get home from work, Dan would be waiting for me. He'd hang around just talking and laughing and sometimes he'd just sit there smiling and quiet while I watched TV or washed dishes or took out the trash. Dan was happy.

When I got ready for bed, I'd show Dan to the door and he'd walk outside and turn the corner and head down the hill at the end of my gravel driveway. I'd lose sight of him and I was never sure just where he went. He just had a way of disappearing like that.

One day I met a lady downtown and fell in love at first sight. I went home with her that night. And laying there while she was sleeping, I wondered if Dan was standing on my porch, waiting.

The next night I went home and he was there. My girl was with me but he didn't care. And she didn't either. At least not at first.

But later, when the baby came, she told me that she didn't want Dan coming around anymore.

I told her I didn't have the heart to get rid of Dan. But she insisted that I be a man. But how do you tell that to someone who doesn't understand a damn word you are saying?

So I took the easy way out. I found us a new house. We hired some folks to come move all of our stuff in the middle of the day. I didn't want Dan to see us leaving. I had a way of disappearing too.

I felt guilty about leaving Dan like that. I was his only friend and I didn't even say goodbye. But raising a kid takes alot of work and love and I put Dan in the back closet of my mind. Life became what everyone calls normal and I watched my daughter grow with pride.

One day I heard a knock at the door. When I opened the door, I found a package laying against it, wrapped in brown paper with my daughter's name written crudely across the front.

I turned it over and on the back it said "dan"

Inside was what looked like a children's book, thin and wide and colorful.

I opened the book to find pictures of slaughtered sheep and men with masks, airplane crashes, and cut and paste letters that spelled nothing at all. There were pictures of farm machinery and abandoned restaurants. On the last page was a picture of Dan, sitting on our new front porch, grinning like crazy and holding my little girl. He was wearing my shirt.

Beside him, lay my beautiful wife's head.

I ran up stairs to check on my daughter but she wasn't there. I called for my wife but there was no answer. Then suddenly, I saw Dan, standing right in front of me. In the mirror.