My niece hooking a bass on her father’s farm yesterday. Tonight’s dinner!
Tag Archives: family
Family matters, stadium edition
My wife, sister and brother in-law ready for action. Go Vols!
If time does not exist, why do I write as if I pretend it does?
Jogging in my neighbourhood is an adventure encountering wild nocturnal animals.
Last night, an armadillo literally scurried under me, going perpendicular to my path as I was in mid-running stride, its claws clickety-clacking on the asphalt pavement — the scene triggers a funny phrase in my thoughts: macadam, I’m Mac, Adam, and I’m having a Big Mac attack.
Tonight it was a juvenile raccoon I scared up a tree.
I’ve almost run over a possum more than once.
Tonight, a young woman walking her dog in the darkness almost ran over me, the dog’s bark scaring me out of my shoes and sending me light on my feet at a fast jogging pace away from woman, leash and territorially protective canine companion.
“Territorially” is not the best adverb in that last sentence is it? I’ve gotten sloppy in my writing lately, haven’t I, giving too much weight to the thoughts behind the written words than to the grammatical deconstructionismalarianisms.
Interjecting an exclamation! Yes I am! Declarative statement! Maybe?
In any case, it’s nice to relax my thought patterns, if not my core (head, torso and arms) just yet.
In a few hours, it will be the day of the 27th wedding anniversary of me and my first wife.
Yes, that’s right, I’m not counting the girlfriends who’ve filled my dreams with fancy holidays on the Riviera (that’s the 1969 Buick Riviera rusting in the backyard — you knew that, though, didn’t you?).
Ahh…deja vu all over again, deja vu all over again…we’re sorry that we didn’t have time to include Matt Damon in this sketch. However, we have time to plug a few holes in the plots of films, including any good Bollywood movie that puts the beautiful love interest and well-timed dancing scenes ahead of a logical storyline.
A shoutout to Bill Neiland, president of Haul Couture; Rainy, Dream, Ferdie and kitchen at Thai Garden (Rainy, my dear, we’ve got to take you on a spontaneous weekend getaway with whomever you want to make the trip the most fun!); John Carroll’s new self checkout configuration at Walmart; Mapco; the Iafrate construction crew and their state trooper support; Peyton Powell and his new job at Volvo equipment rental; the Toyota repair shop, which is having fun quickly fixing all the small items that keep breaking on our 2013 Avalon; anyone I’ve met lately, such as Amber at Rebath, whom I haven’t named.
Even though two Thai teas usually keep me awake, tonight I’m tired enough to sleep, my conscious conscience cleared of old thoughts and ready to tackle a new project at the light of day tomorrow.
Mars needs my attention!
Can’t turn my brain off this morning
Maybe this will give me temporary reprieve so I can focus on a boring business plan:
I see now why the happy, dancing boy in me died Monday night — he was told that just having fun wasn’t enough; he had to be more aware of his dance partner, more adultlike, taking responsibility because he was just not that good of a leader in a lead/follow dance style — talk about a mood killer. It so deflated my ego that I just couldn’t stand being on the dance floor last night, especially after having a complete stranger, who hadn’t danced in six months, tell me, “Oh, you must be a beginner.” Yeah? Well, thanks for the confidence booster. Go tell your friends because our dance instructors have reminded us that girls talk and tell each other who the terrible dancers are. My reputation is sealed. In reality, I’ll never be that guy in my dreams who dances suavely with women. I’ll go home now and let you find someone else to bring you back up to speed. I don’t need this shit! I remember now why I asked my wife to marry me — because she was never a game player, having never played the field, so she was a safe bet that she wouldn’t be comparing me to other guys because we knew each other more intimately than anyone else, having been penpals since we were twelve, me having told her more about myself than I had to other girls and she never once saying anything negative — no need to pretend because we knew neither one of us was athletically talented or gifted dancers. Am I just chasing my tail? Is it so obvious to others that I don’t need anything from them in return for their giving me their life stories to write about? How many women have offered me sex/drugs/friendship in exchange for a poem, short story or novel where their personalities were fictionalised and then realised that their virtual portrait of them was more than sufficient to keep me going, sex/drugs/friendship too complicated for my simple needs?
Whew! Thoughts of self are finally tiring out this morning.
The thought that keeps coming back to me when I’m away from the blog
I keep having this thought but forget to write about it:
My wife sees me in terms of having a job so that we can have health insurance and a financially-secure retirement.
Therefore, I have long assumed, reinforced by society at large, that is how everyone else must perceive me. After all, my father often said that he was proud of my accomplishments, having gone farther than he had in business but at the same time disappointed I hadn’t gone farther in educational degrees than he had (and not having joined the Masonic organisation), confusing me that his love of me seemed dependent on external achievements.
What if, instead, people perceive me the same way I perceive myself, as a person who modestly recreates his thoughts/observations in stories, comics, cartoon videos, satirical blog entries and such?
What if they actually like me for who I am, regardless of financial/business/educational accolades?
Why do I have to perpetuate self-hatred to feel that I have inadequately met the perceived needs of my wife and father?
Does it take leaving my wife behind in order for me to reach self-actualisation, putting aside the perceived requirements of my subculture of monogamous marriage for life?
I’m not the only one who has asked himself/herself that question.
The answers, though somewhat common, are never the same.
Now, maybe I can relax my thoughts and focus on creating a way to give away my creations in exchange for investment/labour credits from others.
Never giving up hope
In this moment, I recall the story of the children in an orphanage of wartorn Yugoslavia, before war broke up provinces into countries.
One boy had lived in a crib for the first few years of his life and no one taught him a language.
He had his own logical babble that included a few words he had picked up from overworked caregivers.
He had a broken arm, they said, because he beat on the crib walls to get any kind of attention he could, unceasingly, never giving up hope that someone would pay attention to him, having broken his arm before and seeing it gave him temporary attention.
They also said he was unadoptable because he was so far along in his formative years he was unlikely to appear and act normal enough to appeal to a young couple looking to raise a child of their own.
By now, that child is an adult, if he is still alive.
Does he still have hope?
What does he do?
Did he ever learn a useful communication system such as a formal, common language with which he can express himself to others?
If not, what goes through his thoughts?
What is his physical/emotional support system?
Does he understand the concept of having a reason to live?
Keep anyone, any living thing, in a cage long enough and normality is such a skewed condition compared to the rest of the world that making comparisons is unuseful.
How am I like that boy? What walls hold me in but also provide a protection against my own naive actions in the bigger world? What do I perceive as normal that is far from normal to most of the rest of our species or to large subcultures or even to the local, smaller subcultures around me?
Morning meditation time is over. It’s after 8 a.m. Time to work on my business plan, such that it is.
What is a hug worth?
I almost started this blog entry with an apology to readers for delving too much into thoughts and not enough into actions lately but only because I’m looking at a set of stamps entitled “MUSCLE CARS: AMERICA ON THE MOVE,” which invites me to jump behind the steering wheel and burn rubber.
A song jumped into my thoughts this afternoon: “I Heard It On The Grapevine.” What a doozy!
I have a business plan to complete tomorrow and a video to record later this week as my Kickstarter campaign nears its launch date. Not sure which parts to include as part of a robot construction package. Also, should I have a combined campaign or launch a separate project on PledgeMusic?
My mechatronic children are going to miss their new playmates, I can tell you — a desktop lamp has its shade pulled down in sadness, for instance.
But that’s okay. Change is good.
With only 13401 days to go, I’ve got some significant fundraising to promote.
I can no longer sit on the fence and watch the world rush past me at this crossroads of life.
I admit that sitting here is scarier than taking action, action which takes up my energy and reduces me idle thoughts.
That’s okay, too. Variety is good.
I can slip in and out of the colloquial without noticing.
What I’ll discover is the difference between a person who hugs politely, a person who hugs for comfort and a person who doesn’t hug at all.
Just like the fact that land wars are declared in order to test new technology and deplete the stock of old technology.
For whom are the lyrics of a song written? What undertones and undercurrents are designed into the melody?
I know if I want the brass ring, it’s not going to jump into my hand, no matter how far outstretched it may be, then I better make the grab while I can.
The person who can jump in and tell the story with me the quickest — that’s what I’m talking about.
A true model citizen.
What are you looking for in the long run — a single person to be your one and only or a plethora, a cornucopia of tastes?
I hope to make everyone I meet a better person than before, whatever better may mean in the moment.
How many of us can keep putting ourselves out there and give and give and give without end? How do we recycle energy to keep recharged?
What defines us? Our vocation? Our social network? Our possessions? Our family?
When you’re talking alone with someone, is your conversation any different than when someone else is in the room?
The years of chronic pain in the tensed muscles of my shoulders hunched over in anticipation of being beaten by my father are slowly dissipating. I no longer have to fear his passive-aggressive love, never sure if a hug was coming or a smack in the face, physical and/or verbal.
Hugging someone without fear is a tremendous feeling. So is dancing with someone without fear while letting my emotional state and set of thoughts rest in my fingertips, palms, forearm, biceps, shoulders, neck and back.
The passive-aggressive relationship with my father is partially tied into the relationship between my wife and me and it is damn hard work to overcome old habits tied to responding to passive-aggressive people as a chameleon personality.
Maybe I should summarise this blog in a single phrase: dancing is mental AND physical therapy.
Abi, as our dance instructor, is like my father — I’m never sure from moment to moment if she’s going to praise or criticize me. Last night, when I saw a deep-seated fear briefly flash in Jenn’s eyes, I realised that the old fears of my father were showing on my face and in my reactions to Abi, and wanted to run as fast and as far away from the dance studio as my legs and lungs could take me but I was attached to Jenn, who herself seemed to have withdrawn a little.
It was a revealing moment for me, if not for her, showing me why dancing with her was so much different when only my wife was watching us than when Abi and my wife were watching.
Enough of thought set reconfiguration, although it is fun to write about what goes through my thoughts in these personally enlightening moments to complete the circle of the mental/physical therapy.
Time for action, assisting my wife, Abi and Jenn get whatever it is out of me, this humble set of states of energy, that makes them better than they were before, maybe even happier — some of our goals are aligned but not every single one of them, as it should be. Hopefully, I’ll be better and happier, too. I sure plan to be!
How the house burned down
“What story, Mom?”
“Well, Amish pirates are not known for subtlety. They’d rather kill you and turn you into fertiliser than negotiate with you.”
“But we’re not like that, are we?”
“Shadowgrass, let me tell you the quick version of what happened when one of your great-great-uncle’s cousin’s boy’s father’s cousin’s nephew’s cousin’s uncle’s father’s boy’s cousin’s uncle burned the house down. It started one day when the two of them were clearing a field…”
“How big was the wasp?”
“Bigger than the farmhouse.”
“Bigger than our Martian habitat module?!”
“Yes.”
“What did they do?”
Bai popped into their thought trail. “Hey, guys! I’m back!”
“Hi, Bai. How did it go?”
“Great. But boy, am I mentally wrung out. Alek advanced me to the next level of dancing. I’ll tell you something funny. He said, ‘You know the way a guy keeps pestering you to dance with him and you aren’t interested? He keeps asking and asking until you are giving him the look that says ‘Get away from me!'” I told him, yeah, I’ve made that look. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘stop giving me that look. Act like you want to dance with me. Flirt with me!’ Me! As if I don’t know how to flirt.”
Guin and Shadowgrass laughed with Bai.
“Hey, can you believe Stephane only drank water last week? And he’s accusing me of finally growing up!”
“When are you coming over to our colony?”
“I don’t know, Guin. Depends on my schedule. I’m booked for the next two marsweeks.
“Okay, I’ll see you when you get here.”
“Sure thing.”
Guin turned to Shadowgrass. “Where was I?”
“Jersey and the Frenchman were about to battle the great, big, gigantanormasaurus Wasp.”
“That’s right. But it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. You’ve got work to do.”
“Ah, Mom. I thought you said that you and Dad brought your electromechanical design wizardry to Mars so no one would have to work again.”
“We did. But then we found that we liked to share time with our creations. Nothing like getting your hands into the soil yourself.”
“Must be the Amish pirate in you, eh, Mom?”
“Well… I don’t know…”
“Stabbing giant worms with your sabre! Slashing through deadly grass blades!”
“That’s right, son. You can imagine what all we faced on Earth and why we wanted to start over here. Just make sure you get plenty of nightmares letting your imagination run too wild. And remember to tell us about them tomorrow.”
“Mom, you’re being facetious, aren’t you?”
“Am I?” She smiled at her little genius and scrunched her nose. “Maybe just a little bit.”
The Amish Pirate Clan
Shadowgrass scratched the middle of his back using one of his new appendages.
“Mom, tell me about our family.”
“Well, son, we’re descended from a secret branch of the Amish — the Amish Pirate Clan.”
“Really? That’s sounds cool.”
“Let me tell you a story about them…”
God’s School of Medicine — “Change for a change”
I walk this planet as if I’m a visitor from outer space, surrounded by the nicest people who treat me as if I’m one of them so either I am or I am not. We certainly seem to be from the same universe and share almost all of the same symbol sets (i.e., memories of similar social/mass media training).
I as this set of states of energy exchange energy states with other people in the form of body movements such as voiced symbol sets, facial expressions, torso/limb placement and electrochemical/heat interaction via handshakes, hugs and kisses.
Also via this blog.
When a feeling of familiarity seems to pull out of my core being, I cannot distinguish the difference between whether I am meeting someone for the first time, neither one of us having heard of or encountered the other, or whether we have heard through hearsay, second opinion, reputation or written/spoken fact about the other.
This afternoon, my wife and I attended a local “home improvement” fall home & garden show in the south exhibit hall at the Von Braun [Civic] Center.
We met a lot of the exhibitors and engaged in both humorous and informative conversations, starting with a guy who joked I must be the father of one of his fellow exhibitors and ending with the guys who plan to look at our roof for much-needed repair work.
In between were numerous insights and observations.
Toward the end of our tour of the show, we stopped at the Alabama Cooperative Extension System booth which advertised and sold home radon testing kits.
The person we met and talked with most was a woman named Patricia “Pastor Doc Pat” W. Smith.
Pat looked at my wife and me as if she knew who we were. She felt something special about us that went beyond the need for a radon test kit.
If I didn’t know better, I would say that she had read my blog and knew something about me or had heard from someone who had read my blog; that or the fact I live my life the same way I write my blog so that I am truly the multifaceted crystal ball that takes light in, reflects/refracts it back in new patterns but all in accordance with who I am through-and-through.
She told us the following story about her life that she wants to share with the world, being a “retired” pastor of the AME Christian denomination and a PhD in cell biology:
- Born in 1944 and raised in Jackson, Tennessee
- Her father, a stockboy at a Kroger-type grocery store, sent all five of his kids to college, including Patricia
- Patricia was sent by bus by her father to attend Knoxville College in 1962
- Patricia graduated in 1967 and went to work at Oak Ridge National Labs testing the effects of chemicals on rodents, including the famous test that proved the white sweetener in the pink packages is carcinogenic and states so.
- While she worked in Oak Ridge, she lived in an efficiency apartment in one of the old barracks where the original Oak Ridge nuclear bomb development employees lived.
- Patricia often processed film slides in a darkroom where her boss, a Japanese man, would sneak in and scare her so she decided she couldn’t stay in that job, leaving in 1969 to get her master’s degree.
- I can’t remember but she said she either got her master’s degree at Virginia Tech, where she stayed at Fox Ridge Apartment, or she got her PhD there.
- Anyway, she moved to Florence in 1971 and worked for TVA, studying the effect of the hot nuclear plant effluent water on local wildlife, including a salamander.
- She later attended seminary school and became an AME pastor, preaching for 17-1/2 years.
- Her son was born in Blacksburg, Virginia, the first black/African-American baby born in the county hospital in over 25 years; he lives in Atlanta and is CEO of some aviation group associated with an Atlanta airport.
- Her adopted son, from Cameroon, who still calls her Pastor Doc Mama, graduated from the University of North Alabama, lives in California and works in the computer industry.
- Her daughter is married to a computer animator, also in California.
- Patricia is working with her adopted son to launch a website dedicated to roving ministry she calls God’s School of Medicine, started in 1994, the website slated to go public next month. The ministry is basically a place where people get to tell their life stories, sharing how they overcame adversity to get where they are so those who are in a dark place in their lives can see no matter how bad you’ve got it, you’ve got hope that someone like you has made it.
- As part of her ministry, Patricia is going to share her own life story, where God told her simply “Change for a change.” What does that mean? Well, if you give a twenty-dollar bill for a three-dollar purchase, you roll the seventeen dollars you received as change into the receipt and put it into a container — bucket, jar, box, whatever. You keep accumulating that change until you’re ready for change. Get it? She can tell you more about it on her website.
- Meanwhile, she misses her church ministry. A bishop told her that she has put enough effort into God’s School of Medicine that God may be giving her the message it’s time to go back to serving a church; in fact, the bishop has three churches, at least one in Walker County, that need her more than she knows.
Until tonight, I didn’t even know someone like Patricia existed, a seventy-year young woman whose father was a humble produce stocker at a grocery store, a black man in the upper South of the United States of America, put his daughter through college, who majored in cytology and got a job at ORNL in 1967 as an African-American research associate, going on to get her master’s degree and then her PhD.
Amazingly, her story almost parallels that of my father, whose father was an illiterate day labourer and grandfather a tin smith for the railroad, making sure my father stayed focused on completing his college degree and going to greater social heights than them. My mother’s story is similar, graduated as valedictorian and got her master’s degree as daughter of a factory worker/farmer with a sixth-grade education. The story of two women and one man, two white and one black/African-American.
Patricia asked for our prayers as she launches her website, twitter feed, and PayPal donation tithe system, meeting with the board of directors as they finalise plans to lease a building to house their God’s School of Ministry in all legal respects to “do as the Romans do” here on Earth, and then, after the website is live and the ministry growing, going back to preach in Walker County.
She told us there’s one message she wants to get out to everyone she knows, including the man who lives down the county road from her outside Florence, Alabama, a prominent Caucasian farmer in the community — he asked for her healing for his blood sickness (leukemia?) and she gave him some verses of the Bible to repeat as medicine, thanking Jesus for taking care of any side effects of the prescribed medication he takes three or four times a day:
No matter who you are or how old you are, DO SOMETHING! Don’t just sit there, feeling hopeless. She’s living proof that no matter where you come from, you have hope to go somewhere else, if you just choose to do something, anything, about it, just as she has and she continues to do at almost 70 years of age, come next year. And by doing something, you make changes that influence other people to get out of their hopelessness, changing themselves and so on.
treetrunkdings 