I Slept with Don Draper

The first time I saw Mad Men, a series on the AMC channel, I fell in love with the main character, Don Draper. Draper is hot and cool and a real man. His hair is perfect, even his frown is perfect, and he is just the perfect package as the total man. My youngest daughter hooked me on this series, It takes place in the 60s in an advertising agency. Don Draper is the top Ad Man. Of course he has a perfect beautiful wife and three perfect children. In spite of everything that is perfect on the outside...there is a deep dark secret that surrounds Draper. I am not going to go into that but trust me, the secret is interesting, but Draper is hot. Of course the real actor that plays Draper is a hunk of a man by the name of Jon Hamm.

In the third season of Mad Men...Draper loses his family, his wife, his girlfriend, and his old job at the Ad Agency. Draper cheated on his wife throughout their marriage. In the last episode, Draper's wife, Betty, is seen flying off with someone else to get her divorce, while Draper and a few of his old colleagues are going to start their own agency. Good luck! I know he won't need it because he is the golden man with the golden sell.

Let's face it, when I first started to watch the show, I hated Draper for how he treated his marriage, and for all those extramarital affairs. But the odd thing is I didn't really hate Draper. There is something about him that I really like. Maybe it is his vulnerability. Underneath all that cool, there is his painful secret.

It I were married to a man that cheated on me, I would have shown him the frying pan, and then the door. But now that I am no longer married, and Draper is no longer married, I decided to get in line with all the other tramps and have my turn with Draper. So, I did what every red blooded woman would, I slept with Draper. What can I say but underneath it all...he is a real cool man. And his hair never gets messed up. Can't wait for season four to be aired on Sunday, July 25, and to see where Draper is headed, and who will be the lucky women to land him. Okays, so the life size Don Draper in bed with me is a cardboard one, thanks to my daughter, who gave it to me for a Christmas present. All I can say is that a girl has to have some fun!

If you have ever seen Mad Men, Don Draper or Jon Hamm...you know what I mean. I bet your would flip for all three.

A King Falls

Even though I was born in Utica, New York...I lived in Cleveland from the time I was six until I married and moved away at 22. I went to grade school and high school in Cleveland, and then to college in Kent, Ohio. Wherever I have moved and lived, Cleveland is still home.

I rooted for the Cleveland Indians and remember when the gas stations used to give away a baseball booklet and individual photos of each baseball player.

I rooted for the Browns football team and remember the winning days of the Browns of the late 50s and 60s, and of course Jim Brown. I rooted for the team through every quarterback including Brian Sipe, #17, who led the Kardiac Kids of the 80s. Another favorite, Bernie Kosar, who was born in Boardman, Ohio, made sure that he played in Cleveland, only to have the owner, Art Modell, get rid of him.

In 1966, Modell took the Browns out of town and relocated them to Baltimore. The city of Cleveland hated Modell for that. The same fans filled the stadium for every game, and were loyal to the team until the owner dished the fans and the town. Until the football league brought back a new team to Cleveland in 1999, the fans during the football seasons would go to the bars and watched reruns of the old Browns football games. Now that was true loyalty.

Currently, Cleveland has lost one of the best basketball players in a manner that would parallel the Modell fiasco. Granted LeBron James left to play for the Miami heat after seven years of being with the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team. When James first came to the team, he promised Cleveland fans a championship but he never could deliver on that promise. The fans still loved him. This month after playing the season for Cleveland, James became a free agent. The fans waited a long time for his free agency to begin and that was when the circus began...and James played the game like a pro. Looking back at it now, I realized he never had any intention of staying in Cleveland. It was all staged. He finally made his decision on national television, the ESPN network in particular...that was when he delivered the final nose thumbing to the Cleveland fans, when he announced that he would be playing for the Miami Heat.

The town was let down once again but this time on national television, even before informing the Cleveland Cavaliers Management of his decision. Of course the owner wrote a scathing letter to the fans about James. I understood how he felt, but I wish the owner hadn't done that. Jesse Jackson has now weighed in with is feelings. Let me say this Jackson, the owners anger had nothing to do with race or slave ownership. Why don't you speak up about the Black Panthers spewing their hatred toward the white people when you can think straighter?

I saw Lebron James play in person once in a preseason game and I've watched him on television. I am in awe of how he played and what he has accomplished for a man of 25. He is a native Ohioan from Akron. The Cavaliers basketball team was the first and only NBA team he ever played for. He is a gifted player and a wonderful athlete and someday he just might win the NBA championship ring that he visibly lusts after. He did win back-to-back MVP trophies, he loved Akron, and he gave back to the community, both in Akron and in Cleveland.

He also dubbed himself King James and the Chosen. He even has those tattooed on his body. Outside the Cavaliers Quicken Arena...there used to be a 10-story picture of him with his head thrown back and his arms outstretched after his pregame powder toss. The words on the picture mural - WE ARE ALL WITNESSES, followed by the Nike check symbol. It was a famous picture to the fans and visitors and they loved it. It came down on July 12, 2010.

Now James has taken his game to Miami with two other big name players. This was planned for a long time. Regardless of his leaving and going elsewhere to get his championship ring...he left a town sad. In reality, we are the ones who bought his line of the"King" and the "Chosen" one, who bought his merchandise, and who believed in a player who couldn't deliver.

For whatever it is worth...Cleveland lost something when James said he was leaving. In particular his leaving might actually hurt Cleveland financially. We were the ones who elevated him to the status of King and now a mortal man believes he is a King and the Chosen one. Maybe that is a lesson for all of us to really ponder. I think the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer said it best with a back shot of Lebron James in his Cavaliers uniform walking away, with an arrow pointing to his finger stating - 7 years and no ring.

Maybe it wasn't the money, but it was all an image and a legacy that someone else was building. But whoever chose the manner for James to stick it to the city of Cleveland, was really uninformed. James fell from King to the ranks of one of the most reviled man in Cleveland, along with Modell. Maybe we ought to look at ourselves for elevating men to godlike status and believing that in all of this there is such a thing as loyalty.

Bottom line- it is the money, the hype, the legacy and the ring. Loyalty doesn't seem to be important.

"Past" Addiction

I thought I’d kicked my habit years ago. After all I’d hit a dead end in my life with nowhere else to go. And what made it even worse was I’d gotten my son hooked.

Then this week the craving started again and I gave into it. I signed up for a free 14-day trial around 6 p.m. on Monday and suddenly the next thing I knew it was midnight. For six hours I’d been mainlining my ancestors that familiar rush coursing through my veins. Every click of my mouse leading me closer and closer to people I’d never met but whose DNA I shared. Yes, I’d succumbed to Ancestry.com and their lure of an Independence Day discount with the promise of the latest and newest databases like the new Revolutionary War records or the Bounty Land Warrant Application files. What the heck are Bounty Land Warrant Applications? I didn’t care. I wanted in. And in I went.

What’s alluring and addictive about this ancestry site is how easy it is to find your kin and grow your family tree. When I’d researched my family ten years ago, I went to the nearest Latter Day Saints church and scrolled through their reels and reels of microfiche, which took hours and hours and sometimes caused vertigo. But with Ancestry I merely typed in a name, birth date if I knew it, city of residence, city of birth and up popped dead relatives and facts about them I never knew, facts that with a little imagination helped to explain their lives.

For example, my paternal grandmother, Mary Thiery (born 1893?), who everyone called Mamie and was reputed to once been a spicy strawberry blonde with a temper to match, came from a family of 12 children, 7 of whom lived. Her parents emigrated from Bremen, Germany in 1882 arriving in New York. I’m assuming at Ellis Island. What sadness must have been in her house growing up with the ghosts of 5 siblings. Did that account for her quick temper and need to control everyone? Did that account for her compulsive hand washing that my mother said was a symptom of guilt. What guilt, I wondered as a child. Now maybe I have an explanation. She might have felt guilty for surviving when so many of her siblings had died.

My dad’s father, Stephen Kalina born 1896, whom I never knew, barely exists on Ancestry. But I have photos of him and his father John Kalina. Both have lantern jaws-- a Kalina trait that occasionally asserts itself. Strange how even the pretty features of Stephen Kalina’s mother, Mary Paul born 1877 in Cleveland Ohio, couldn’t soften that jaw--a jaw that looks like determination and drive. But never translated to a prosperous life built on drive and determination. Not only had the Kalinas never left Cleveland, Ohio until my generation, they also never left their house on 54^th Street where they lived for generations.

When I find Mary Paul’s record (my great grandmother), I find an explanation for why the Kalinas, for all their time in the US, never seemed to prosper. Does Mary’s Paul’s bad luck explain it? She was widowed at a young age, left to fend for herself and her 7 children, the youngest 2 years old; living in one house with them, her mother, Barbara Paul born 1856 in Austria, and 6 other Paul relatives. What time would there have been to assert that lantern jaw, what motivation? Getting by must have been enough. And I remind myself that though they never seized the American dream of prosperity, they had an amazing capacity to live in the moment, to have a good time, not to take life too seriously.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to opt out when my 14- day free trial period expires. I’ve pretty much hit another dead end due to my obsessive searching. The next step is garnering birth, marriage, and death certificates, as well as military service and immigration records. I can almost feel the pleasure of opening those documents and seeing my ancestors come alive for me.

Any other past addicts want to share their experiences?