I wish I had more stories for some of the nicknames I've come up with. I've tried to make the nickname fit the person, just the right amount of snark or contempt or whatever to give the reader an idea of what that person was like--I'm too lazy to flesh things out all the time and I like the mental picture that pops up with the proper nickname.
I came up with some really good ones--like Sergeant Allstate, the insurance salesman by day, sergeant for 1 weekend a month, the cheap and kind of slimy salesman--or Farmboy-san for one of the blackbelts back in my karate days; he really did have a farm, and the whole country-boy thing, but without being your Larry the Cable Guy redneck. But those are pretty much one-story guys. I didn't spend a lot of time around either of them. It's a shame--those nicknames took a while to work out (Farmboy-san only occurred to me this morning!).
Then there are Pocahontas/Piglet (first ex), Number Two (second ex), Scumbag (haven't written much about him, aside from the "Saving Whitney" post a few years ago), Hank (the insane stepbrother) and the Old Man (stepfather), some of whom are regular topics.
Lots of snark. It seems at first glance that I don't have a lot of happy stories. But I intend them to be at least partly funny, rather than just a collection of angry rants.
Showing posts with label Pocahontas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pocahontas. Show all posts
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Saturday, April 10, 2010
April 8--Two Bad Days
Updated Nov 23 25.
I wasn't even alive for the first one. His name was John Garner. He would have been my grandfather.
On April 8, 1965, John Garner killed himself with a 12-gauge shotgun.
This is open to speculation, since all the people who'd know what really happened are all dead. My adoptive father told me in 2017 that word had it John was shot by my grandmother. If he was abusive or violent the way Alzheimer's folks can be...understandable. And it changes this entire part of the post.
I don't know much about him. I know John was full-blood Cherokee, small in stature. I know he was a blacksmith who made and repaired anything a farmer would need. There's a length of fence still standing, decades after he built it, along a highway north of Castleberry, AL. I've got a knife he made. But I have no memories of him.
I don't know much about him. I know John was full-blood Cherokee, small in stature. I know he was a blacksmith who made and repaired anything a farmer would need. There's a length of fence still standing, decades after he built it, along a highway north of Castleberry, AL. I've got a knife he made. But I have no memories of him.
Correction: John was, in fact, lily-white from both sides of his family. The "Cherokee" thing was family folklore-we're also supposed to believe John's father James was Geronimo's kid. He wasn't--and Geronimo wasn't Cherokee. I wonder what other bullshit I was told.
I know he wasn't one to start a fight, but he'd end it. I was told about a day when he was working in his shop; a few white guys came up to start some trouble. He gave it back in spades--and two of them went to the hospital. That's the kind of man I only wish I could have been. Someone with a backbone, one who wouldn't just back down. I never learned how to fight.
I've wondered about him for much of my life, wondered what it would have been like to have a grandfather, wondered what hurt him so badly that he would kill himself, wondered what made him so selfish that he would deprive me of a father figure, something I never really had with my stepfather.
I wonder how much different my life would have been if he'd been around and showed me how to make the emotional tools I'd need later in life, but still don't really have.
I know he wasn't one to start a fight, but he'd end it. I was told about a day when he was working in his shop; a few white guys came up to start some trouble. He gave it back in spades--and two of them went to the hospital. That's the kind of man I only wish I could have been. Someone with a backbone, one who wouldn't just back down. I never learned how to fight.
I've wondered about him for much of my life, wondered what it would have been like to have a grandfather, wondered what hurt him so badly that he would kill himself, wondered what made him so selfish that he would deprive me of a father figure, something I never really had with my stepfather.
I wonder how much different my life would have been if he'd been around and showed me how to make the emotional tools I'd need later in life, but still don't really have.
He had Alzheimer's. I wonder how much of him was left by 1965. How much would be gone by September 1967?
April 8, 1995 wrecked me. She doesn't have a name here, other than Pocahontas...or Piglet, depending on my mood. She was my first love; I fell hard for her the night we met at a Halloween party. I'd never had a woman flirt with me before, let alone find me interesting, attractive. She wanted to spend time with me. I was always the loner, the lonely, and she was intoxicating. I didn't know anything about relationships, didn't know what to do or say. The only thing that mattered to me was that I finally had someone of my own, the one thing I'd ever wanted.
We lived 200 miles apart; out of just over 5 months, we were actually together, face to face, for less than 2 weeks. There were letters and long-distance phone calls, but they can't compare to curling up in bed and reveling in that other person's breathing while she sleeps, or waking up to feel her tracing the lines of your face and hearing her whispering, "All mine." The first kiss, clumsy and uncertain, growing in confidence and enthusiasm. Still feeling her pressed against me hours after parting the first time. Hearing her call me the "love of my life."
April 8th is the day I got The Letter and The Call. This guy she'd dated in high school was back in town; she'd been out on a couple of dates with him in the past few days and now had a decision to make. I was too stupid to just say "good-bye" and hang up. No, I sat there listening to her babble about Mr. Perfect and how much money he made, and his great car, and how the sun shined out of his ass, and I suddenly understood the meaning of "on the outside looking in." It was a complete surprise to me--but I later learned that she'd been yapping to everyone around her for weeks about Mr. Perfect--even before the last time we were together. Her farking DOG knew shit was coming down. But the one person who really needed to know was the last to know.
When I finally hung up, I just sat there in my room, numb. I hardly ate or slept for three days. For more than three years afterward, I tried being "just friends," just more of that stuff I didn't know not to do (more of those "emotional tools"). Once I'd gotten enough of that, I sent an email telling her to either come back or stay away from me. That was the first smart thing I did, I think. Haven't seen or heard from her since, and I'm good with that.
I wonder how things would have gone if I'd had a grandfather.
April 8, 1995 wrecked me. She doesn't have a name here, other than Pocahontas...or Piglet, depending on my mood. She was my first love; I fell hard for her the night we met at a Halloween party. I'd never had a woman flirt with me before, let alone find me interesting, attractive. She wanted to spend time with me. I was always the loner, the lonely, and she was intoxicating. I didn't know anything about relationships, didn't know what to do or say. The only thing that mattered to me was that I finally had someone of my own, the one thing I'd ever wanted.
We lived 200 miles apart; out of just over 5 months, we were actually together, face to face, for less than 2 weeks. There were letters and long-distance phone calls, but they can't compare to curling up in bed and reveling in that other person's breathing while she sleeps, or waking up to feel her tracing the lines of your face and hearing her whispering, "All mine." The first kiss, clumsy and uncertain, growing in confidence and enthusiasm. Still feeling her pressed against me hours after parting the first time. Hearing her call me the "love of my life."
April 8th is the day I got The Letter and The Call. This guy she'd dated in high school was back in town; she'd been out on a couple of dates with him in the past few days and now had a decision to make. I was too stupid to just say "good-bye" and hang up. No, I sat there listening to her babble about Mr. Perfect and how much money he made, and his great car, and how the sun shined out of his ass, and I suddenly understood the meaning of "on the outside looking in." It was a complete surprise to me--but I later learned that she'd been yapping to everyone around her for weeks about Mr. Perfect--even before the last time we were together. Her farking DOG knew shit was coming down. But the one person who really needed to know was the last to know.
When I finally hung up, I just sat there in my room, numb. I hardly ate or slept for three days. For more than three years afterward, I tried being "just friends," just more of that stuff I didn't know not to do (more of those "emotional tools"). Once I'd gotten enough of that, I sent an email telling her to either come back or stay away from me. That was the first smart thing I did, I think. Haven't seen or heard from her since, and I'm good with that.
I wonder how things would have gone if I'd had a grandfather.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Why I Hate Country, 1: Pocahontas
I've hardly made it a secret that I seriously dislike country 'music'; I've been trying to get a post together to codify my reasoning, but today I realized that there's the one big reason and a few smaller ones.
Where I work, there are two radios, both tuned to the same horrendous country station, both turned up so that there's no escape from Carrie Underpants, Travis Trite, or the hideous nasal yowlings of the Sugarland Beast unless one goes outside (which I get to do for most of the day!). But they're not the big reason.
Let's call her "Pocahontas." She was my first girlfriend, my first love...my first a lot of things. We met at a Halloween party in 1994 and quickly got into a long-distance relationship: me in Pensacola, she in Tallahassee, barely 200 miles away. Lots of letters, a few breathless phone calls (the first one cost me about a hundred bucks...after that we kept them short), and a total of two weeks in actual physical proximity, spread out over five and a half months. I didn't care. She was everything I'd ever dreamed of or wanted, and all that.
I didn't know enough to keep a hand on the brakes, never knew what being "in over my head" really meant, and was unprepared for what was coming.
She's not "the one who got away." She's the one who walked away, right into the arms of Mr. Perfect, her on-and-off-and-on-and-off high-school sweetheart who conveniently returned to town, fresh from a Moron--er, Mormon--soul-saving mission.
I got The Letter and The Phone Call in April of 1995. I didn't have enough sense to just make a clean break--"good bye, don't call." Nope. I bought into the "still be friends" horseshit and proceeded to make myself miserable and near-suicidal for another two years. She's going to get tired of him and come back...she's not REALLY going to marry him...she dumped him! but who's this other guy?...now she's mad at both of them....
I finally got some backbone and told her to either come back or stay away. Well, it was an email, but for me that's pretty direct.
So where does that noxious country racket come into this?
Think about it: the wailing pedal steel, the crying-in-your-beer love songs, the burning-your-ex's-pictures break-up songs, the freaking mood it sets just puts me right back into that time, whether I want to be there or not. That one at the link is one I heard a lot in 1995. Bad, bad year.
I don't want to be reminded of her or Number Two all the time. I've finally reached a point--after more than a decade--where neither of them occupies my thoughts the way they used to. Yeah, every now and then I'll pop a name into Google to see if something shows up, or make a note for a Blog topic, or whatever, but those events are under my own control.
Where I work, there are two radios, both tuned to the same horrendous country station, both turned up so that there's no escape from Carrie Underpants, Travis Trite, or the hideous nasal yowlings of the Sugarland Beast unless one goes outside (which I get to do for most of the day!). But they're not the big reason.
Let's call her "Pocahontas." She was my first girlfriend, my first love...my first a lot of things. We met at a Halloween party in 1994 and quickly got into a long-distance relationship: me in Pensacola, she in Tallahassee, barely 200 miles away. Lots of letters, a few breathless phone calls (the first one cost me about a hundred bucks...after that we kept them short), and a total of two weeks in actual physical proximity, spread out over five and a half months. I didn't care. She was everything I'd ever dreamed of or wanted, and all that.
I didn't know enough to keep a hand on the brakes, never knew what being "in over my head" really meant, and was unprepared for what was coming.
She's not "the one who got away." She's the one who walked away, right into the arms of Mr. Perfect, her on-and-off-and-on-and-off high-school sweetheart who conveniently returned to town, fresh from a Moron--er, Mormon--soul-saving mission.
I got The Letter and The Phone Call in April of 1995. I didn't have enough sense to just make a clean break--"good bye, don't call." Nope. I bought into the "still be friends" horseshit and proceeded to make myself miserable and near-suicidal for another two years. She's going to get tired of him and come back...she's not REALLY going to marry him...she dumped him! but who's this other guy?...now she's mad at both of them....
I finally got some backbone and told her to either come back or stay away. Well, it was an email, but for me that's pretty direct.
So where does that noxious country racket come into this?
Think about it: the wailing pedal steel, the crying-in-your-beer love songs, the burning-your-ex's-pictures break-up songs, the freaking mood it sets just puts me right back into that time, whether I want to be there or not. That one at the link is one I heard a lot in 1995. Bad, bad year.
I don't want to be reminded of her or Number Two all the time. I've finally reached a point--after more than a decade--where neither of them occupies my thoughts the way they used to. Yeah, every now and then I'll pop a name into Google to see if something shows up, or make a note for a Blog topic, or whatever, but those events are under my own control.
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