Life with a Super Hero

      It’s not always easy to be married to a Super Hero. Sure it’s great when you need a jar of applesauce opened or a car lifted up and moved, but there are other times when it’s exasperating.

      Super strength, speed, and impatience can be a tricky combination. One of the earliest examples of John’s super powers happened when he was just a boy. Another Mom was complaining about something her son did when John’s mom quipped, “Well, has he ever pulled the door knob entirely off the door because it wasn’t opening fast enough? My son John did that the other day.” The other mom couldn’t top that.

John says he was 12 when he started working out,
but here's evidence that he was younger. 

      After we’d been married awhile, John’s mom told me that while he was growing up, they were on a first name basis with the doctors and nurses at the emergency room. He had a lot of energy and was fearless.

      John started working out with weights and participating in sports when he was twelve. As a teenager, he was on the high school wrestling team. 

      He was also a boxer and competed in the New York Golden Gloves. He trained in the Huntington Athletic Club, the same gym Gerry Cooney trained in. Cooney went on to fight Larry Holmes for the heavy weight title in 1982 as well as Michael Spinks in 1987, and George Forman. Their trainer, John Capobianco, had John and Gerry spar often. Although Cooney was taller at 6’6” and was a heavier than John, John gave him a run for his money.

     Cooney went pro. John went to college, first to Quinnipiac in Connecticut, then to Syracuse University.

      We met at Louisiana State University. That’s also where John met his best friend Lee who was majoring in Chemical Engineering and teaching Kung Fu at the armory gym on campus. 

      John was working out and boxing there. A Venezuelan Kickboxer challenged John to spar. John agreed. Lee sat on the sidelines with some of his students. He saw it as a teaching opportunity and told his students to watch carefully. They would see why martial arts was superior to boxing.

      John got in the ring with his opponent who threw kicks at him. John covered up and planned his strategy. The sparring intensified to fighting. It didn’t take long for him to get the guy’s number and clock him. Fight over. Lee introduced himself and asked John to teach him to box. Lee and John became roommates and buddies with many tales to tell.

John and his buddy Lee

      But it wasn’t boxing that attracted me to John, it was his dancing abilities. The first time we met was not one of my finest moments. I was two weeks away from a broken engagement, and had decided I was going to get a cat and live the rest of my life as a spinster.

      My roommate Ann thought I needed to get out (maybe she just didn’t want a cat). She was a secretary in the Entomology Department where John was studying for his Master’s degree. I was an advertising copywriter at a retail store headquartered in Baton Rouge. One Friday afternoon in October 1978, she called me at work to say they had some new graduate students in the department and they were all going out to happy hour at a disco. She told me to go home after work and get ready to go out.

       I got home and planned to fake being sick to get out of it, but she showed up early with John and a female grad student and ordered me to get my purse and get in the car.         Let’s just say I wasn’t very pleasant. John was coming on strong and kept trying to impress me. I kept deflecting him and eventually broke down in tears about my ex dumping me. Any normal guy with some common sense would’ve run.

       But John the super hero, told me to just get up and dance. He coaxed/dragged me onto Pharoah’s dance floor which had squares that lit up like the dance floor in Saturday Night Fever. We shook our groove thangs. I got my emotions under control.

      Back at the table, he told me that he’d been to Studio 54 in New York City. At Syracuse University he boxed with a group of Puerto Rican guys. They got to be friends and introduced him to Latin and disco dancing. They were top notch dancers, so they (including John) danced in competitions. John had also taught salsa and disco dance lessons in New York. 

      I asked if he meant “holding on” dancing. He said yes. Could he teach me? Definitely. I thought he might be BS-ing me, but I softened.

      He was good on his word about the dance lessons. He taught me how to do the New York hustle—not the line dance one in Saturday Night Fever which he says nobody did in NY. The NY hustle is a six count dance with partners holding on to each other.  In my case, with John as my dance partner, sometimes that means holding on for dear life.

      When he leads, it’s not subtle. If he wants you to go in a certain direction on the 5 and 6 counts, there’s no doubt which way he wants you to go. When he wants you to spin, he winds you up, and if you don’t hold onto his fingers as you spot turn, you could launch into orbit!

      As I was counting steps and hitting my knees into his, he encouraged me, “Once you get it, it feels like you’re flying.” He was right, it really did!

      John disagreed with my spinster/cat plans. In December we got married in the Episcopalian chapel on LSU’s campus a little over a year after we met. Although I had met John’s father, other than that, our families had never met. John's family flew in from New York, and mine flew in from Hawaii.

      Somehow, after having our wedding rings engraved, I lost them. That wasn’t discovered until we were at the church and our friend who was the DJ at our reception looked in the ring boxes. John thought he was kidding when he told him there weren’t any rings. He wasn’t.

      John called me on the church phone from the room he was in. The lines connecting our phones were sizzling. After all the “How could this happen?" yelling, I told him very firmly that we’d just have to borrow our parent’s wedding rings.

      As our newly acquainted parents met to see whose rings would be used, John’s mother apologized to my mom, “I’m so sorry. My son John has a terrible temper.”

      My mother smiled sweetly and answered, “Well, you haven’t seen Laura’s temper.”

      When I stood at the back of the church holding my dad’s arm ready to meet my groom, I looked up front to the altar. My bridesmaids’ bouquets were trembling.  They had all heard the heated “missing rings” phone call. The groomsmen, John’s brothers, Lee, and Ray (from Syracuse University) looked back at me sheepishly.

Bridesmaids: Jaynie, Gail, Cynthia, Ann
Groomsmen: Roy, Glenn, Lee, Ray

      The first notes of “Here Comes the Bride,” boomed out from the organ. My eyes welled up. My father squeezed my hand and told me to take a deep breath. John looked back at me and beamed. I smiled back. My bridesmaids exhaled with relief. Their bouquets stopped shaking. All was right with the world.

      

After graduating from LSU with his Master's degree, John decided to get a PhD in Toxicology at the University of Hawaii. That's where he tried out Olympic Weightlifting. He also met another lifelong friend, Ed in German class.

      Ed was the Center on the UH football team. Because of that friendship, John got to work out with the football team. He met another athlete named Karl who was an Olympic weightlifter from California and a mathmetician. Karl taught John and Ed techniques for the snatch as well as the clean and jerk. They were always training to compete against Olympic bound athletes. In 1984 John won the state Olympic Weightlifting championship in the 198 pound weight class.

      John and Ed rode mopeds back and forth to campus. It looked awfully funny because they were huge buzzing around on their tiny mopeds. The two of them were like gigantic, unruly boys who didn’t know their strength.

      One of John’s friends in the Entomology department got his Datsun blocked into a parking space. No problem, John lifted it up and moved it out so he could pull away. Just a little extra weight training.

     Once John and Ed went to their friend Jim’s house to clean their carpets. After they moved the furniture out, it was obvious that it looked like wrestling ring. Ed had also wrestled in high school. The only hitch was that Ed outweighed John by 50 lbs. John ended up with a broken bursa sac in his elbow. There was also a broken lamp. Jim's wife Pam showed up in the midst of the mayhem and with hands on her hips gave them a much deserved scolding.

The Ed, Jim, & John Wrestling and Carpet Cleaning Company

     Fast forward to John as a proud father of son Johnny and daughter Sarah.  
He built them a wooden swing set. We knew exactly where we wanted it, at the base of a hill in our backyard, on a terrace. John and the kids worked all day on it. When it was time to finally set it up, he sent the kids inside to get me.

      “OK, this is what we’re going to do. We are going to drag the swing set up the hill. Then you are going to hold onto the top leg on your side and I will hold the leg on my side. When I say ‘Go,’ pull it down with all your weight. Then when it starts to fall, let go.”

      I was afraid. I looked down the hill, “Why didn’t you build it down there to begin with?”

      “Look, just do what I said.”

      “But what if it keeps going and falls off the terrace and breaks?”

      “Just do it. It will be fine. It’s physics. Grab the leg on your side.”

      With much trepidation, I did what he said. The whole structure flipped and landed like a gymnast sticking a perfect 10 landing. Our elderly neighbor who unbeknownst to me had been watching the whole time, shouted out, “Nice job John!” The kids, standing a safe distance away, clapped with delight.

The physics swing set.

        In injury situations, Johnny bore the brunt of John’s “walk it off” mentality. When Johnny fell off his bike and landed on a freshly chip sealed road gouging his knee, John walked him and his bike home. He started rinsing the gravel out of the wound and told Johnny to quit crying. 

      When he saw the actual bone of Johnny’s kneecap as he sprayed water in the gouge, he realized how serious it was. He bandaged it up and sent Johnny on his way.  

      Another time, Johnny was on the elliptical running machine barefoot. He hit his pinky toe and in pain, called to Dad for help. John looked at it and proclaimed, “It’s dislocated. I’ll pop it back into place, just hold on.”

      It wasn’t dislocated. It was broken. The emergency room doctor said John did a good job setting the fracture.

       Sarah took all this in and learned to come to me if she was injured or confer with John over the phone where he couldn’t actually reach her. She also gave John his family nickname.

       One day were going somewhere and I was driving my Camry. John went to the passenger door to get in. The next thing I knew, he was having a fit about something. I looked through the window and he was holding the door handle up in his hand, unattached to the car.

      I leaned across the passenger seat and opened the door from inside. “What happened?”

     He got in holding the outside door handle and fuming, “Look at this! This car sucks! Who makes a piece of crap like this?”

     “You broke my car!”

     “I can’t believe Toyota made such a crappy door handle!”

     “You broke my car!”

     “What is this made of, cheap plastic?”

     “You broke my car! Apologize!”

     “Why would they make such a defective piece of crap?”

     “You broke my car. You need to apologize.”

     “Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t believe they would make such a poor quality handle. All I did was try to open the door.”

      When I told this story to Sarah, she started laughing and said, “It’s like you’re living with The Hulk. ‘Hulk open door, get in car.’” She was right! I AM living with The Hulk.

      At the Toyota dealership when I checked in to get the handle replaced, the service lady asked what name the car was under. I told her it was under John Stark, but that she needed to change that. Her hands were ready on the keyboard. “What’s the new name?”

      I told her to change it to “Hulk Stark” because my husband ripped the door handle off.  Who does that? She laughed.

      Living with The Hulk explains a lot. Like the time while I was in Hawaii and during a phone call with Sarah she casually asked me why the side view mirror of my car was on the work bench in the garage. I had no idea what she was talking about.

      I called Johnny to ask him about it since he works on our cars and he attempted a vague cover-up-for-Dad shuffle, “Uh, side view mirror? Uh, for which car? The Camry?”  

      The Hulk knocked my mirror off while pulling out of the garage. He didn’t want to tell me because whenever he pulled into the garage, I’d flinch and tell him he was awfully close to the side and he’d tell me I was over reacting. 

      Not only did he knock my mirror off, he also backed into the brand new dresser that they’d just picked up for Sarah, but it was OK because it was still in the protected box. Hey, it’s all good!

      Johnny was home from college and sleeping in one morning when John went up on the roof to blow the pine needles off. I was always a nervous wreck when he went up there because in our other house he fell off the second story roof, bounced onto the lower level, managed to catch the rain gutter with his fingertips and hang there for a few seconds over the garage before falling. So he said he didn’t really fall, he just dropped one story!

      In this house, we have an open beamed ceiling over the family room, so I could hear him clomping around overhead with the gas powered blower. He finally got it started after breaking the pull cord and tying it back together until he could get a new one. So it was angry clomping.

      Then I heard him running fast back and forth and swearing. I ran outside, but I couldn’t see him and I was trying to yell over the blower. I ran back inside and busted into Johnny’s room. “Something’s wrong with your father! He’s up on the roof in trouble! Get out there!”

      Sleepy Johnny climbed the ladder in his boxers and relayed the message down to me, “Dad said there was a hornet’s nest in our chimney and they swarmed out at him. He was fending them off with the blower, but since the roof is an uneven surface, he tore his calf muscle and can’t move.”

      I asked Johnny if we should call the fire department to get him down. Hulk Junior was insulted, “What do you think I can’t carry my father down a ladder? No! We’re not calling the fire department!”

      John somehow hobbled down the ladder. He was absolutely furious that his leg cramped up on him when he most needed it. He blamed it on getting old. The next day, when his calf started turning purple he finally went to the walk-in clinic. Old age wasn’t the problem, 40-50 hornet stings in his calf was the problem.

       Over the next couple of months, I really paid attention to John’s modus operandi. Sarah and I would giggle and whisper, “Hulk!” whenever we witnessed him breaking something and then being genuinely surprised by his strength. He always blamed the “defective” object for breaking or being in the way.

     Sometimes the quality of whatever broke truly was defective. One night I picked him up from the airport. He was returning from Europe. I pulled up curbside and he hucked his suitcase into the trunk. 

      He opened the passenger door without ripping the handle off, and then turned around and showed me his backside. “Can you believe this? Look at what happened to these stupid pants!”

      They were split open from the crotch all the way up to the waistband.

     “I flew out of Copenhagen and on the layover in Amsterdam I thought I'd do some squats to get the blood flowing. On the third squat, THIS happened!"
      He didn't have a spare pair of pants in his carry-on. He was the comedy hit of the Amsterdam airport, Kennedy airport while clearing customs, and Seatac airport. Apparently, ripped pants are universally hilarious. (He bought two pairs of those cargo pants online because they had lots of pockets and were light weight, perfect for travelling. He split the second pair too!) This is quintessential Hulk behavior. Scientist Dr. Banner also rips his clothes when he transforms into The Incredible Hulk.

      One day John finally caught Sarah and me laughing when he did something hulk-ish. He was usually so angry during his episodes, he didn't notice us snickering. We 'fessed up and explained that he was our own personal superhero, The Hulk. 

      He thought it was pretty funny and took ownership of the title. We bought him a DVD of the movie, Hulk t-shirts and Hulk hands. 

That’s who he was the Halloween after he had back surgery to repair an old high school wrestling injury.

      There is never a dull moment around here watching John muscle through life. This is so much better than living alone with a cat. I’m glad that in 1979 we didn’t let a pair of missing rings stop our wedding. (They were in a tiny manila envelope that had accidentally fallen into my bedroom trash can.) Happy 38^th anniversary to my Hulk John!

Laura Keolanui Stark continues trying to minimize any household damage from The Hulk. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

New York Thanksgiving

After our trip to Washington DC wrapped up on Tuesday, November 21st, John and I caught a late night plane up to New York to visit his family in Huntington on Long Island. His Dad has recently been declared cancer free after months of treatment. Now his Mom is undergoing chemo therapy to treat cancer. John has gone to see them several times, especially when his travels take him to the east coast. Although I’ve gotten together with his family at other locations, it’s been many years since I’ve gone to New York.

John’s brother Roy arranged for a limo to pick us up at Kennedy airport. We joked that we hoped it wouldn’t be like the Seinfeld episode when Jerry and George stole O’Brien’s limo and it turned out that O’Brien was an anti-semite and white supremicist. 
Our limo experience was quite the opposite. Our driver was a Sikh whose home was in Connecticut. He drove all through the New York area making his living. I was glad he was driving and that John’s parents or sister hadn’t come to get us. It’s usually a 45 minute drive, but holiday traffic was heavy with accidents dotting the way.

Huntington and Northport are on the north shore of Long Island.

John’s sister Jane who lives nearby greeted us at the  front door and helped us lug our bags into the house that John spent his teenaged years in.

Welcome home!

 

Mom and Dad Stark looked great. That surprised me especially about Mom since she had her first chemo treatment that morning.

The next morning, Wednesday, Mom went to the Ecumenical Council Food Pantry that she has run for 33 years. She's made sure that thousands of families have food to eat.

The food pantry is in basement of the
First Presbyterian Church in Northport, New York.

Thanksgiving is their busiest time of year. She checked up on the volunteers helping out and made sure things were running smoothly. Dad went to the pharmacy to pick up Mom’s anti-nausea medications.

Jane made an airport run to pick Roy up. He flew in from Florida. John’s other brother Glenn and his wife Cheryl spent the holidays in North Carolina with her family. John is the oldest sibling. Next is Roy, then Glenn and Jane is the youngest.

For lunch we ordered take out from a small Chinese restaurant, Lai Lai Kitchen at the top of the hill nearby. John is a big fan of their Shrimp in Lobster sauce. I could definitely see why. We also got an order of Chow Funn noodles, General Tso’s chicken, and other favorites. It was delicious, better than what I ate in Washington DC’s Chinatown!

Sitting in the kitchen eating, we compared “war stories” about getting through airport security. John got extra scrutiny because he mentioned the metal rods in his back from his surgery two years ago. Roy was deemed suspicious because he had a tin of toffee in his carry on. (That just made that toffee taste even better!)   Both of them got pulled out of line for body searches and their carry-ons also got double checked even though we all had TSA Pre-check clearance. For once, I didn’t have a problem.

Eating breakfast and lunch around the kitchen table literally gave us a window on east coast nature. John’s parents’ house is set into a wooded hill. They have set up bird feeders and sprinkle bird seed along the top of their wooden wall in the morning. Watching the wildlife in action was as entertaining as TV.

New York birds

In Washington, we also have a wooded backyard and when John recuperated from back surgery, I set up bird baths and feeders to create a nature sanctuary.

Our side garden in Washington.

 
We also sit at our kitchen table with bird books and binoculars close at hand and watch the nature show.

New York red fox.

It was interesting comparing the wildlife on two different coasts of America. In the New York backyard, we saw a fox, several chipmunks, eastern gray squirrels, a feral cat and totally different birds than we see in west coast Washington.

They have blue jays, cardinals, red belly woodpeckers, tufted titmouses (titmice?), slate juncos, and doves. Although we didn’t see them this time, they also have deer and raccoons.

NY blue jays.

Cardinal

Red belly woodpecker

But the mysterious star of the show made a special appearance. John’s mom had been trying to identify this particular bird for weeks. She consulted her wild bird books with no luck. She told Jane that she was sure John would be able to identify the wild mystery bird when he got there.

Domesticated blue parakeet or budgie.

Sure enough, within minutes of sighting him, John identified it as a blue parakeet. Someone’s pet had gotten loose. We worried about its survival, but it was a pro about defending its food, chasing the wild birds away. Dad went out early one morning to replenish the bird seed and was puzzled about a blue ball. It was the parakeet, curled up to stay warm. It unfurled for food. We are all hoping it finds somewhere warm to survive the winter.

In our Washington backyard, instead of blue jays, we have Stellar’s Jays. They screech to be fed if we don’t get out there early enough and they will even chase the crows away. Just like the New York Stark bird ritual, John goes out here every morning to feed our Washington feathered friends.

Washington Steller's Jays

Steller's Jay

John’s mom said they haven’t had crows there since the West Nile virus wiped them out in the early 2000s.  We don’t have any cardinals. We do have lots of Oregon juncos, chickadees and flickers.

Oregon Juncoes

Varied thrush

Oregon junco and flicker

Varied thrush, pileated woodpeckers, hairy woodpeckers, and downy woodpeckers also show up at our feeders. They love suet!

Pileated woodpecker

A few times we’ve had owls, but so far they have not preyed on the birds that flock to our feeders.  

Barred owl

Ana hummingbirds love our hanging baskets of fuschias and the sugar water that we put out for them (with heaters when the temps drop below freezing). They have to eat every twenty minutes and hover using their beaks like straws. Mom and Dad Stark haven't seen any hummingbirds on Long Island.

Then there are our gluttons--rascally, acrobatic squirrels who gorge themselves on suet and peanuts. We have to make sure that we give them enough time to jump from the deck onto a branch of the cedar tree before we let the dogs out.

Eastern gray squirrel scarfing down suet.

We’ve also spied raccoons and opossums cutting through our yard and have watched coyotes walk up our street. Deer frequent the neighborhood woods. There have been reports of bears nearby, but luckily we haven’t seen any. And, we always keep an eye out for Big Foot who was spotted around these parts in 1983.

Meanwhile, back in Huntington, New York, we caught up on everybody’s lives and listened to Dad play classical piano pieces on their grand piano.  We had a running joke that we shouldn’t talk politics, but it was more of an introduction to political conversations. Most of the time we were on the same page, or at least the same chapter so it wasn’t a problem.

Jane showed us her new apartment in the neighboring town of Northport. The sun was out so we walked down along a pier on the Long Island Sound.

Laura and Jane

Laura, John and Jane Stark

Roy, Laura, and John Stark 

Three Stark Siblings: Roy, Jane, and John

Northport, New York

It is a beautiful area and there was still some fall color left.

That night we ate in an Italian Restaurant Joanina.

 John had eaten there a few times before.  We started off with an appetizer, Calamari Fritti—fried calamari with a spicy tomato sauce. The calamari was tender and tasty. John ordered Fusilli con Carciofi e Gamberi (Spiral pasta with Artichokes and Shrimp). I was all set to order that too until the waitress told us the daily specials. I couldn’t resist the Fettucine with Shrimp and Asparagus. To top it off, we split a few desserts between us—apple crumble, and pumpkin tiramisu. Everything was deliziosissima!

The next day was Thanksgiving. We relaxed in the family room and watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Millions lined the parade route and extra trains were running into the city to handle the crowds. As Mom aptly pointed out, we had the best view and it was warm, right there on the couches in their family room.

We watched the dog show also and enjoyed guessing which canine would win Best in Show. Mom was feeling tired from the chemo. I was surprised that she had been so energetic the two days before.

Mom and Jane had bought all the Thanksgiving food beforehand, keeping it simple. Jane cooked the turkey and microwaved premade mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes. I took care of the stuffing. We worked together on the gravy. I whipped up heavy cream to top the pumpkin pie from Costco. Roy and I licked the beaters. Someone magically set the table. Everything came together like clockwork. Just like everyone across America, we were thankful for our blessings, and stuffed ourselves to prove it.

John, Laura and Roy at Sunken Meadow Park
thankful for sunglasses.

The next day, Friday, Jane drove us out to Sunken Meadow Park in Smithtown which was near where she used to live. It was another bright sunny day, such a contrast to Washington’s gloom at this time of year. We walked along the boardwalk and looked out across the water toward Connecticut.

John, Jane and Roy Stark--two of them really were lifeguards
although they weren't officially on duty.

On our way back to Huntington, we spotted two bald eagles! One was flying over Fort Salonga and landed in the woods. The second one was soaring over the water of Mill Pond close to the Vanderbilt Estate. We often see bald eagles in Washington, but in New York they are a rare sight.

Later that day, we went back to Northport, ten minutes away. That’s where The John W. Engeman Theater is. You can see Broadway plays there that are performed by Broadway actors who are bussed out to Long Island. Lucky us! Roy had bought tickets for all of us to see a matinee of Annie! 

The talent was amazing! Lynn Andrews, who played Miss Hannigan the Director of the Orphanage stole the show, but the entire cast was top notch, including Moon, the mutt who played Sandy. He was adopted from a shelter and a very confident dog.

Mom was not feeling up to going out, so she and Dad stayed home. That was a smart move. There were a lot of kids at the play since it was a matinee. This is the time of year when lots of people have colds. The last thing she needs is to be sick while going through chemo.

After Annie, Roy, Jane, John, and I went to John’s top restaurant pick: Bistro Cassis.

We thought it was French, but found out that it is Belgian. John had also talked about this restaurant after coming home from his New York trips. His favorite dish there is Magret de Canard au Cassis which is sliced duck breast, and duck leg with a mushroom confit gratin, fresh raspberries, and Cassis sauce. Jane agrees that their duck is the best so she also ordered that. Roy loves the Bouillabaisse, which is only served on Fridays, so we were there on the right night. I ordered (and devoured) the Onglet de Boeuf Bordelaise: Grilled hanger steak in a Bordeaux wine demi-glaze, with sauteed spinach, and pommes (potatoes) lyonnaise. It was a sacrifice, but I managed to savor some Crème Brulee for dessert.

Back at the house, we stayed up late into the night enjoying everyone’s company.

John D, Laura, Sally, and John C Stark

 
The limo picked us up dark and early the next morning at 4:15am to catch our flight back home. It had been a short, but very sweet visit. 

Laura Keolanui Stark is unpacked, enjoying her pets, and getting ready for Christmas. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.