Thirty-three years ago, I lived in Richmond, on Marshall Street, with three roommates. Back then, everything was fun. As I’m getting older, though, my definition of fun is shrinking.
This past fall, some family and I took a short vacation to Williamsburg. The weather was miserable–we were stuck in the hotel rooms. I have two friends in the area, Brad from Harrisonburg and Eric from Richmond. It had been a long time since I’d seen either of them. Just having dinner at a nice restaurant, or hanging out in the Econolodge–that was a lot of fun.
What I have could be called basic basic cable: the major networks, C-Span, and a bunch of channels that show sitcoms from the eighties. I get YouTube on the wi-fi via my Blu-ray player. I watch the Democracy Now! podcast. The morning headlines come pow! pow! one after the other. You really have to be on the ball to catch it all. Sometimes, I try to listen to the meditation music, but there are too many commercials.
When I had real cable, the twenty-four hour news channels were right next to each other. There were times that I’d be flipping through the channels and hear something intriguing on FOX. I generally disagree with the angle FOX News approaches current events–but I like to get information from different sources. I’m smart enough to see through the bias.
My mornings suck. The big three networks ( NBC, CBS, ABC) have only about five minutes of news at the top of each hour. After that, it’s all silly and useless. There are two local channels with morning news programs. I get better information from them than any of the networks. It’s the fifteen minutes of weather every half-hour that I dislike. Oh, and the idiotic banter is just excruciating.
Fast forward to 5:00 in the evening. There is an hour of BBC news. The first half-hour is called The Context. They focus on British and International goings on. Then it’s BBC World News America. Sometimes, I’ll watch part of the PBS Newshour. I get a couple of PBS stations. One shows the Newshour at 6:00 and the other at 7:00.
The big three bring their contributions to the world of American news at 6:30. All three of them suck. NBC dumbs things down too much. It’s insulting. CBS was cool until they started introducing banter into the broadcast. Banter! “The last time I was on a plane, blah blah blah…what was it like when you were last on a plane…?” Disgusting. So, I’m stuck with ABC. All they do is tease. “Someone you hardly know of has died today. We’ll tell you who later in the broadcast.” It’s a half-hour. I’m going to watch the whole thing! Is David Muir handsome? He seems a bit creepy.
I’ll usually top off the day with Inside Edition at 7:30. It’s a light take on the day. They show news that other outlets don’t have time for. What did they do with the rubble from the demolished East Wing? They put it in a public golf course for topping with dirt and grass. Inside Edition doesn’t have a political bent–they just sensationalize stories that they think will attract the biggest audience.
Studies have shown that Democrats watch more television than Republicans. That’s where your liberal media bias comes from. It’s all about ratings, all about money.
The big networks have a moment of levity at the end of each broadcast. It’s one or the other. A bunch of high school students pool their finances to buy the janitor a new car. Or, a young student is surprised by a parent coming back from war. They are so happy and excited! I wonder how that makes the children who have lost loved ones in the war feel.
American news is sinister and crooked. They harp on the dangerous things that are going on, so that stupid people are scared to leave their homes, and they sit around and watch more television. I’ve been an infomaniac, a news junkie, for several decades. The negativity in the news doesn’t bother me. I’ve become desensitized. I’m used to it.
My first performance as a musician was playing bass in high school. We did “Johnny B. Goode” and “Louie Louie” after the senior play. The girls were actually screaming. It was exhilarating.
My bass solo on “Louie Louie” was absolutely inspired. It caught the eye of the Ackerman brothers, who were looking for a bass player. I joined Glass of Milk. We played a lot of pop metal covers. We practically had a residency at the Appomattox skating rink. The grade school crowd loved us.
It was a different scene when I tried to put together a solo act. I had ten songs and a makeshift public address system. I had the owner of the coffee house and one employee for an audience. After the show, the owner and I sat down and she told me how off key my singing was.
My second attempt as a solo act was open mic night at the Little Grill in Harrisonburg. I played three songs. I did okay. One guy in the audience seemed to appreciate my interpretation of the Pink Floyd classic, “Pigs (Three Different Ones).”
Back in Appomattox, there is a coffee house on Main Street, Baine’s Books & Coffee. They have open mic night on Thursdays. I only played one song, the Pink Floyd one. I rehearsed and rehearsed until I had it down. The song went over well, the applause was genuine. One woman complained that just one song was a tease.
The last time I performed in front of an audience was as a part of a duo at Baine’s. We played two songs with only about fifteen minutes of rehearsal. It was just awful. We got some pity applause. I left as soon as my guitar was packed.
PARENTS: Instill in your children the necessity of brushing and flossing their teeth twice each day. Mouthwash is recommended, but optional. Genetically, Brandt teeth are good and strong. One dentist told me that the only way I could have problems is by “near total neglect.” It never got that bad, but I could have done better.
It began with an injury, in sixth grade. I was bicycling to school, and there was a small piece of asphalt ahead of me. I thought I could jump it, but I hit it and was knocked off my bike. My upper front tooth got chipped. The dentist put on a filling. It lasted many years, until one day I was stripping wire with my teeth, and oops.
They called it TennCare–a state-run health insurance program. It was free for anyone. When it came out, employers cut the health benefits of their employees. TennCare only covered the least expensive doctors that they could. I got fillings at a few dentists, but they just kept falling out. I walked around with the chipped tooth for several years.
I went to the Free Clinic in Lynchburg. The student did an excellent job. The filling lasted thirteen years. After that, I walked around with the chipped tooth for many more years. Having scraped together enough dough to see a real dentist, I was told that the tooth couldn’t be fixed for some reason.
I bought a cheap car that had all kinds of issues. It needed to be driven for a half-hour most evenings so the battery would be charged enough to start the car in the morning. When I would go on these excursions, I would treat myself to a blizzard from Dairy Queen. I was partial to the Snickers. Have you ever had a Snickers bar that was refrigerated? They get really hard. So hard you could chip your teeth.
It’s like talking to someone with a pierced septum…your attention is drawn to it so you can’t look at anything else. It was almost better to have most of my front teeth broken than to have just one space to attract all of the attention.
A brother took me to VCU Dental, in Richmond–about two hours east of here. They uttered the dreaded D word. Yes, I needed dentures. No! I am barely into my fifties! My insurance company approved the procedure at Affordable Dentures, located in a strip mall in Lynchburg.
There are three steps: extract all of the teeth, get fitted for dentures, install the dentures. There may be some adjustments made after that. Affordable Dentures had no pamphlet, no website to go to for information. Searching for medical advice on the internet is getting seven different answers from five different websites. I called the office about a dozen times with questions. It turned out that the optimal time to get dentures fitted is six months after the extractions. So, I’ll have no teeth until January.
The extraction experience was the worst three hours of my life. They didn’t knock me out, they just gave me multiple injections of numbing agent. (There’s a reason my insurance works with Affordable Dentures.) In the room, it was just the surgeon and her assistant. I question the competence of both. For the longest time, I felt that the only pain I actually enjoy is when a dentist sticks the needle into the roof of my mouth. That notion has been expelled. Once she pierced the skin, she moved the needle around…a lot. Christ, it was painful. Some of my front teeth were fused to the jawbone, so they needed to cut them out. Maybe an hour into the procedure, they were having trouble with a tooth on my upper left. It was a struggle. They broke it in half just to get it out. The sound of a tooth cracking will be with me forever. My hand gripped the armrest and my leg was visibly shaking. When they pulled the tooth, it was the most pain I had ever experienced. I couldn’t have imagined that a human being could feel so much pain. I am not the same person I was before the procedure.
Other than the hydrocodone, the healing was intolerable. The area around the tooth in question was swollen for a week. It was close enough to my brain that I could feel the pressure affecting my thinking. I sent out some odd e-mails. My diet was restricted to food that doesn’t need to be chewed. Did you know that teeth keep saliva from getting on your lips? The hardest part is brushing my gums…it always brings up memories of having teeth.
It could be argued that all of this is vanity. My teeth were fully functional before the ordeal. But, they hindered my ability to interact in social situations. An empty mouth is much easier to look at than a bunch of broken teeth. The nicest thing is that I am no longer ashamed to talk to people.
The first time I saw it, I was driving home from the mall. It was so out of character with the surrounding energy that it seemed a mirage. The LU in the logo stands for Liberty University, a private religious college in Lynchburg, Virginia.
The Falwell organization took a mountain, one of God’s most beautiful creations, and turned it into a billboard. What kind of precedent does that set? Golden Arches on a Mountain? The Peaks of Budweiser? Mount Ozempic? Tesla Ridge?
If I was a multi-billionaire, I would buy the two mountains to the right of the logo. I would put a giant CI on one and FER on the next.
How much do mountains cost, anyway? It was always known as Candler’s Mountain. The Falwell organization bought it and changed the name to Liberty Mountain. Recently, the Candler family has put together a petition to remove the logo. That sounds nice, but they want to replace it with a cross. NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! (Talk about wearing your religion on your sleeve.) I’m sure they have the legal right to do that, but come on. Have some respect! Not everyone who lives in or visits Lynchburg is a radical Protestant.
Maybe I’ll start my own petition to have the logo changed to a portrait of Alfred E. Neuman. That would be the best of all possible worlds.
“Anyone who wears their religion on their sleeve is not to be trusted.”
Jon Grayson Radio Personality
Everybody knows that the words “Separation of Church and State” are not in the Constitution. But the concept clearly is. This beautiful 45-word sentence explains it all:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Judges order people to go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is an extremely religious organization. Federal money supports the Salvation Army. The Salivation Army can hire and fire people on the basis of whether or not they go to church.
The city of Lynchburg lives in the shadow of the Falwell organization. Literally. Near Liberty University, there is a mountain bearing the image of LU–in a huge circle. They took a mountain, one of God’s most beautiful creations, and turned it into of an advertisement, for their business. You can’t tell me that Liberty University doesn’t turn a profit.
They have a big auditorium that public high schools use for graduation ceremonies. I don’t know how much money changes hands. When I went to my niece’s high school graduation, there was a sign hanging in the auditorium that said, “Christ: God’s only way to Heaven.” There were children there, what if one of them saw that?
If Trump leaves office, we must keep Vance in power until he selects a Vice President! The Speaker of the House is second in line to the Presidency. Mike Johnson is a dangerously insane human being.
When he first took power, he said that, “If you want to know my agenda, just look in the Bible.” After that, he showed no visible signs that his religious beliefs were influencing his decisions. He seemed like a calm and intelligent person–no nonsense, strictly business.
Yet, in Johnson’s mind, Christianity has been the established religion of the United States since its inception: “The birth of our great nation was inspired by the bold declaration that our individual, God-given liberties should be preserved against government intrusion,” he says on his official website.
What about the liberties of transgender people? Trump and his clones just love to trample on those. No one in the military had a problem. Whether or not parents give their teenagers puberty blocking drugs is an exceedingly difficult and personal decision. The rights of parents should be kept free from government intrusion. The government should keep its nose out of everybody’s business.
Johnson likes to mock and belittle those who don’t think that America is the greatest nation the world has ever known. He sure does love to shove his system of beliefs down the throats of anyone who might disagree with him. Mike Johnson is an intolerant fool. He didn’t drink the kool-aid…he mixed it.
I was puttying raw wood in one room while they were spraying the final coat in the next. For some time, house painting was my only marketable skill. I don’t remember much about the crew I worked with. One time, we were on a break outside, and they were making a bunch of vulgar gay jokes to see if I’d get angry. I did, on behalf of the gay people I knew. The supervisor, a white guy of unkempt appearance, Emmett, was obviously an idiot.
It was the mid-nineties–things were different. There was no Wi-Fi, no DVDs, cable television was in its infancy, the internet was a joke. Many movies were only available on videotape–you had to go to a video store to rent them. There was a string of snuff videos–Faces of Death was the most popular.
ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings showed a public execution. It was in some savage nation in South Asia. The video took place in the corner of a sports stadium. There were five men, on their knees, blindfolded, hands tied behind their backs. There was a pow! and the men slumped forward. Just to be sure, someone walked behind them with a pistol and shot them individually–in the back of their heads. Their crime: being suspected gang members.
When I brought it up at lunch the next day. Emmett said, “We’d be a lot better off if we did that over here.” I didn’t last too long on that job. The day started before sunlight. I was getting tired of having dried paint all over my hands while waiting in line at the bank to cash my meager paycheck. They kept me working late on Halloween.
The Taliban was in control of Afghanistan. They gave Al-Qaeda, the international terrorist organization, a safe base of operations. That was where the plans for the attack on September 11, 2001 were formulated.
President Bush’s reaction to 9/11 was swift and furious. The invasion phase of the Afghanistan war was engineered by General Tommy Franks–one of the great military tacticians of our time. With all of their might, after years of struggle, the British couldn’t conquer Afghanistan, the Soviet Union couldn’t conquer Afghanistan. In two weeks of ground combat with a proxy army, the United States toppled the ruling faction. We freed the people of Afghanistan from the clutches of the Taliban. (We ended up giving it all back in 2021.) Al-Qaeda moved into the shadows.
Being a brilliant strategist was intertwined with overseeing a massacre on the ground. In the first phase of the Afghanistan invasion, we bombed the Taliban’s military infrastructure. There was scant regard for innocent life. An estimate of more than 2,000 Afghanistan civilians were killed in that operation. The Arab news station, Al-Jazzera, covered the devastation in detail. American news outlets hardly mentioned the carnage–that would have been “unpatriotic.”
With a population of 2.1 million and only 141 square miles, the Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated regions of the world. The coastline is just 25 miles long. In the surrounding State of Isreal, there are 9.8 million residents.
The bombardment and ground assault on the dreary day of October 7, 2023 took 1,200 innocent Israeli lives. An estimated 50,000 Palestinians have been killed since then. Getting drafted into an enemy army is a crime punishable by death. President Bush and Prime Minister Netanyahu have blood on their hands.
The people at the top of the Israel Defense Forces and the Hamas military are war criminals. To use humans as shields in hospitals is a war crime. Bombing hospitals is a war crime. Netanyahu won’t let food and medicine get to the sick and starving people of Gaza. If Hamas are the good guys, why are they still holding the hostages?
Is it really anti-Semitic to dislike the Netanyahu regime? The people of Israel have protested the choices that their government has made. The Palestinian people have held anti-Hamas rallies–most have been met with violence.
Although there are dozens of victims of any bombing raid in any nation, the pain of losing a loved one is as devastating as the death of anyone, anywhere, in any family.
United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson was assassinated outside of a New York City hotel on December 4, 2024. The story was big news. If the suspect, Luigi Mangione, had killed a homeless person, no one would have known or cared. He certainly wouldn’t be facing the death penalty.
There was a security camera at the entrance to the hotel. Mangione could be seen firing a handgun at Thompson. When he walked away, private security cameras captured glimpses of his movements in real time. Starbucks had a camera trained on the cashier’s station. All of this was very quickly pieced together by law enforcement.
You can’t walk down the sidewalk in the suburbs without being seen by doorbell cameras. Every convenience store has a security camera. Every bank, every pharmacy, every supermarket, every department store, even traffic lights. If they can use the ubiquitous surveillance devices to follow the movements of a suspected criminal, they can follow anyone, for any reason.
If you’re planning on going missing or being a person of interest, be sure to clear your browsing history. That’s public information. There is a lot of your personal data that are fair game for law enforcement agencies and corporate news outlets. When you do just about anything on your computer–including making a purchase at Amazon–you are being tracked. Facebook keeps track of the posts you stop scrolling on, and they record how much time you spend looking at each post. Be careful what you search for–someone else might find it.
In some respects, things have been turned upside down these past several years. It’s like Big Brother has a kid sister. A lot of people carry telephones with built in cameras. Citizens now keep an eye on the actions of the police. There have been murders by rogue cops caught on cellphone cameras. Many police officers wear body cameras, but I’ll bet that most precincts have access to someone who is skilled at manipulating video images. Enforcement agencies can take as long as they like to release their footage.
It all comes down to the reality of the situation. The technology exists for someone to watch you through your webcam without your knowledge. It really does. To have a piece of electrical tape over your laptop camera–is that prudence or is it paranoia?
The electric bike Mangione took had a GPS tracker.
My belief is that life begins at conception. Half of Americans disagree. I am in no position to impose my system of values on anybody. I believe that abortion up to the point of viability should be safe, legal, and accessible.
Some people want to ban contraception, too. That makes for an awful lot of babies put up for adoption. I’m sure that the vast majority of them will go into nice religious homes where they will be turned into a new generation of Bible thumpers.
The year began in Virginia and ended in Tennessee. My friend Brian, who was born there, summed it up: Harrisonburg is a rest stop on the road of life, it’s a nice place to stop and take a leak, but you’ve got to move on. 1996 was a time of upheaval in my life. In September, I moved to Nashville. Before I moved, I spent a week there to find an apartment. I spent more time hitting on a friend’s girlfriend than looking for a place to live.
It was the year of a Presidential election, Bill Clinton won. The Macarena captured the hearts of a whole generation. The Olympics came to Atlanta, someone set off a bomb. The Beatles put out that horrible song. I Should be Shot was released as a limited edition cassette. Two of my nephews were born in 1996.
It seems that in the mid 1990’s, digital, multitrack, hard drive recording came on line. R.E.M. called their 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi. It’s the last album with Bill Berry. It took a few listens before I could start to understand it. It’s a throwback to the early albums where you can’t make out half of the lyrics.
Leave • R.E.M.
Okay. The album is called Nine Objects of Desire, but there are twelve songs. What gives? I recently heard a few songs in a vehicle with a prominent subwoofer. Amazing. My introduction to this album was “Caramel” on a mix CD. I thought it was about a woman contemplating infidelity; but, apparently, it’s about having a crush on a friend. I have my ideas of what “Thin Man” is about.
Thin Man • Suzanne Vega
Robin and I saw David Byrne perform in 1994 and on the Feelings tour in 1996. At the first show, we were a couple. At the second show, she was using me to make her boyfriend jealous. Hell, I didn’t mind. (I saw Lyle Lovett and Michael Bolton under the same pretense.)
At both performances, we stood right at the front of the stage, in the same spot. Both times, my gaze was trained on his eyes. Every time he looked in my direction, there I was…glaring at him. We made a special connection, but I later came to the conclusion that it was very rude of me to do that.
Burnt by the Sun • David Byrne
All this Useless Beauty has some of Elvis Costello’s most pretentious lyrics. That’s why I like it. It was produced by Geoff Emerick—the engineer for the Beatles. He skillfully made use of the revolution in recording technology. The sonic landscape is almost as interesting as the songwriting. This nugget from the title track, “The calendar fades almost all barricades to a pale compromise,” hits a little too close to home.
At the Other End of the Telescope • Elvis Costello and the Attractions
If pressed, I would have to say that Cocteau Twins are my favorite band. Elizabeth Fraser has the voice of an angel and a very clever way of crafting lyrics. Robin Guthrie’s effects processing is as beautiful as his guitar playing. 1996’s Milk & Kisses turned out to be their last. This song is like a tall glass of ice water on a hot summer afternoon.
Calfskin Smack • Cocteau Twins
I know that I’m giving too much free advertising to major label artists. I imagine that most punks would consider it a sin to listen to an album that is as colorful as a kaleidoscope if kaleidoscopes were made of sound. I enjoy music by popular artists, but I still believe in much of the punk rock ideology. I wouldn’t be the person I am without it.
I did a lot of temp work in Nashville, some of my fellow temps were failed musicians who were “between gigs.” A theme running through their chatter was how difficult it is to play with feeling; as if that’s some ultimate goal to aspire to. It’s easy: Play the guitar like you’re mad at it. Pretend the guitar just kicked your dog.
They were pathetic, each wanted to show that he knew more about the industry—like a fourteen-year-old kid who desperately wants everyone to think he’s had sex. A bunch of us were hanging out and I mentioned to one guy that I have an acoustic/electric guitar. He said, “That’s a contradiction of terms.” No one stood up, no one explained it to him. I could’ve said, “If you put a pickup on an acoustic guitar, it becomes an acoustic/electric. Dummy.”
One guy was cool, though. I was bragging about my 1967 Ludwig Jazz kit with a 22” K-series ride. I fully admitted that I was a terrible drummer—I couldn’t even keep a steady beat. But, he asked me to audition anyway. He played bass and there was a guitar player. What Rob didn’t tell me is that the guitarist was his ten-year-old son, Robbie. Rob just wanted his son to have experience playing with a drummer (and to play drums when I wasn’t there). At least I can tell people that I was in a band when I was in Music City.
Rob, who was a good deal older than me, was another failed musician. He saw Robbie as a shot at redemption. The kid had skills, but anyone can sound good playing over 12-bar blues. America doesn’t need another blues guitar genius. I made Robbie a tape called Cool Guitar.
The musical ensemble didn’t last long, but Rob and I maintained our friendship. Whenever I was at the job, we would get together for lunch. We had a good rapport, and genuinely enjoyed each other’s company.
I was into the free-form improvisation scene. No rules. No regard for tempo or key. Just creativity and instincts. It’s not for recording and trying to sell to anyone, it exists strictly for the people in the room at that time. An audience who goes along with it is cool, but it’s just about as much fun as two guys with cheap guitars, cheap amps, and distortion pedals in a parent’s living room can have. It’s raw, unbridled passion.
Dissonance is your friend. Making feedback is fun. In the five years I was there, I participated in zero free-form rock out jam sessions. The closest thing to improvisation in Nashville is when someone farts.
Conceptual Piece #1 (Multitracked @ The Recording Zone)
Dustin and my friends in Harrisonburg respected me as a songwriter. I followed Dustin to Nashville, under the pretense of recording my music in a friend’s studio. We had made serious headway on a couple of songs, but Dustin moved back to Virginia. I tried recording with my new friends in the Nashville crowd, but I couldn’t make much progress.
1996 was a year of great upheaval in my life. Before I moved to Nashville, I spent a week there to find an apartment. My time was not managed well. I smoked too much pot. I kept fucking with the mini-blinds.
Living in the little crud hole in East Nashville for five years, I wrote a lot of songs. The discipline to learn and perform the songs was elusive, unfortunately. My friend Clay—who grew up with a father in the music business—had to sit through my horrible renditions of songs that I thought were pretty cool compositions.
There were no pretentions of getting discovered and getting a recording contract. In fact, the inner punk hated the thought. I wanted to circumvent the music industry—to make a name for myself by making my own cassettes and relying on college radio for promotion.
Clay had told me several times that he didn’t want to record my music, but I kept trying to push the idea. I never got over Dustin leaving. Too much time was wasted in Clay’s family studio. I was never prepared, assuming that the magic of the studio would make everything come out groovy and happening.
One time at a social get together, my friend Tony played a song he had written. When he was done, Clay said that it sounded commercial. I was waiting for Tony to punch him in the face. Apparently, that’s not an insult in Music City.
My Dad liked to travel. He and I took two vacations down the East Coast several years ago. I was sleep deprived, so I didn’t drive much. I wish I had done more driving with all the trouble we had finding the hotel in Atlanta (after Dad had been on the road for seven hours already).
My friend Clay was living just outside of Atlanta at the time. We had known each other from Nashville. Sometimes in conversation, I would bring up things my Dad said. Clay respected my Dad’s ability to say things concisely and profoundly. When Clay came to the hotel, it meant a lot for him to meet my Dad. I think it meant a lot to Dad, too.
On both trips, Dad was very accommodating. I wanted to go to the top of the St. Augustine Lighthouse, but there was no way Dad could climb the stairs. He paid, but about three-quarters of the way up, I got such dizziness that I went down. The whole time, I was thinking that they should have a room on the ground floor for people to stretch their legs. I wanted to give Dad his money back since I didn’t make it to the top. Of course, he wouldn’t have of it. (I just saw on television this week that the St. Augustine Lighthouse is supposed to be super haunted.)
My favorite city was Charleston. The place had a peaceful vibe. We walked around the riverfront park on a foggy night. We didn’t make it to Fort Sumter on the first trip, but we did the second time. It’s where the Civil War began. For some reason, I just had to tell the tour guide that I lived in Appomattox.
Mom & Dad took a lot of weekend vacations and day trips. I tagged along to visit the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia. It was the neatest excursion. You could scan the radio dial and get nothing but hiss. There was an old dish telescope, a museum piece, next to the Visitor Center. There was a film and a short presentation before the tour. SETI was only mentioned briefly.
There were seven telescopes on the site. They were the proudest of the big one, the one called GBT. The surface of the dish was over two acres. It was the largest moveable object on land in the world. It was an awesome sight.
In order for the telescopes to do their job, there had to be no frequency interference of any kind. No radio signals, no television signals, no cellular signals… There was a profound tranquility about the observatory grounds. It was a sense of calm unlike anything I’ve felt since the trip to St. John’s that we took when I was twelve.
On a mild Wednesday evening in August of 1970, I was born. My first home was a ranch house with a full basement in Greely, Colorado. I was the youngest of six. My only sister had three older brothers and two younger ones. Although we moved to Turlock, California just as I started kindergarten, I have many memories of life in Greeley.
I remember playing alone in the yard, trying to catch grasshoppers. I was fascinated by grasshoppers. With all of these ultra-modern playthings kids have today, are children still fascinated by grasshoppers?
The three older brothers set a world’s record for playing Monopoly underground. There was a huge hole in the backyard, covered with boards and canvas. Mike, the oldest, spearheaded the feat. Some of the neighborhood kids participated; they played for a hundred hours straight. It was a big deal. Newspapers around the country mentioned it, they were on the local television. In some Monopoly boxes, there’s a listing of world records, and the brothers are mentioned. I remember being in the cave briefly.
Of course, I wanted to set some kind of record myself. We had a swing set, so I wanted to set a record for the longest time swinging. My sister, Dianne, helped, timing me and letting me have a five minute break every hour. I swung for five hours, which is pretty good for a five-year-old. Dianne made an official-looking certificate, I still have it.
I remember having to stand on the picnic table while my brothers fought off a scary snake. One time I stuck my bare foot in the spokes of the moving bike I was riding as a passenger. I remember my uncle Tim giving me a dog and letting me ride in his semi. Finally being able to reach a doorknob was a big deal.
Ballooning must have been a popular sport in Colorado. I remember seeing them in the skies. One time, my Mom took Dianne, my closest brother, Stephen, and me to a tethered balloon ride in the parking lot of a strip mall. I saw the flames and it looked like it was really loud, so I started crying and didn’t go. As an infant, I had ear problems. They said I would cry in pain all the time. I’d be sitting around, playing with toys, perfectly calm, then suddenly start bawling.
These early days of my childhood were in the day when there were less than a half-dozen television channels. I remember one show called Jot—it was about a circle with arms and legs who talked about religious stuff. Then, there was Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings, about a boy who would draw things on his magic chalkboard and they would become real. I would get excited every time it came on. It was very imaginative.
But the cartoon that impressed me the most—I was four or five—was a Hanna-Barbera show, either The Flintstones or Augie Doggie. I don’t remember the storyline, but there was a carnation that somehow became alive. He wore a baseball cap and carried a book. He was named Carney. I found it the most fascinating thing.
I adopted the flower as my alter-ego. I didn’t have an imaginary friend, I was my imaginary friend. When I had my red Lil Slugger baseball cap on and a book under my arm, everyone knew that I was Carney. I was to be treated as Carney. If someone called me Dave, I would point to the hat.
My Mom would ask me if I (Carney) would like to stay for dinner. I would say that she’d have to call my (Carney’s) Mom and see if it was all right. Mom would pretend to call Carney’s house and ask his mother if he could stay for dinner. Everyone played along. I really thought I had everyone fooled.
Thanks to Stephen for finding the picture and a link to the full cartoon. It was Augie Doggie. All these years, I thought that Carney stood for Carnation, but it stands for Carnivorous.
Seeing the cartoon again made me remember why I was so struck by the character. Since I was the youngest, everyone else was in school. Carney was a bad flower, but he became good and started going to school. It was a tale of redemption.
was very accommodating. I wanted to go to the top of the St. Augustine Lighthouse, but there was no way Dad could climb the stairs. He paid, but about three-quarters of the way up, I got such dizziness that I went down. The whole time, I was thinking that they should have a room on the ground floor for people to stretch their legs. I wanted to give Dad his money back since I didn’t make it to the top. Of course, he wouldn’t have of it. (I just saw on television this week that the St. Augustine Lighthouse is supposed to be super haunted.)
dust exchange 