Back in the Saddle Again... 2) Catching Up

  So now, we roll ahead to 2017 and my long-unseen Dad #1. He would come over from 45 minutes away and we'd drive around town, looking at places he hadn't seen in decades...there was a Winn-Dixie here...our family owned and operated this dairy...climbed that tree in the 1940s. Drove past my grandparents' house; he died in 1977, she in 2000.

  I did some house math at one point and learned that we'd lived 9 blocks from them for a few months. In our present house, had I known of them, I could have spent some time with my grandfather before his end and two whole decades with my grandmother.

  "Out of sight, out of mind" doesn't really help, there.

  Past some of our former homes...this shopping center used to be a pecan orchard...so-and-so family owned everything north of thius road (and so-and-so-road is named for them)...he arrested Black folks in this neighborhood, hookers in that one...in one visit, I met a step-sister I couldn't remember. We went to most of the local cemetaries so he could visit old friends and relatives, more people I didn't know anymore, if I ever did. As we wound up the ride, he'd head for the local scrap recycler to offload a bunch of beer cans--and he'd split the takings with me. From there, we hit lunch at Po'Folks, every single time.

  Being around him was just like at the various schools; I was the New Kid again, outside. Even more so, since it looks like most of the family on his grandmother's side are right-wing fundies, orange-boy supporters. They all go to the same local megachurch. Outside more for the family stuff, not being the token liberal in most social groups. I'm used to that.

  Hell, both my exes are/were conservative--and so was the one woman at a former job who showed some interest in me. I kept things friendly, since there's no way I'm getting stuck with another wingnut. Apparently that's all there are, hereabouts. Single is much quieter. Peaceful.

  Father #1 was like that--scump supporter, at least. Not particularly fundie. Definitely racist, though. At one of those Po'Folks lunches, he did the look-around white folks do when they're going to say something racist: "I'm just glad they didn't elect that"--look around--"n***er," when we were discussing the recent gubernatorial elections that put a wannabe nazi into power. Funny how he was a cop, but he's okay with mobsters in power.

  Lost touch with him when Covid came around, after January 2020. Learned a few months ago that he died nearly a year ago. I didn't know him well enough with the handful of visits, a few hours at a time, to miss him. "Out of sight, out of mind" strikes again.

Back in the Saddle Again... 1) Catching Up.

   Some cobwebs in here, but those will clean up easy.

  So...when I left off, I was about to meet my long-estranged adoptive father.

  

What I know:

  My mother married him for the first of FOUR times in April 1967; they adopted me in September.

  Last divorce was April 1973; she bailed that last time with me and my sister, and I never saw him again until 2017. I never saw ANY of his side of the family--both grandparents, whatever extended family...all gone. She stripped all the photo albums and memories--even my name. I'd been named for Richard--a "Junior"--and nicknamed "Little Charlie." Bleah.

  Knowing as little as I do about Richard, I can guess he was an asshole of some sort. Mom wasn't exactly Princess Peaches, herself. But he must have done something to drive her to strip him out of everything, right down to my freaking name. I remember taking several days to choose what I wanted it to be--and I distinctly remember wanting to be "Keven," because I was seven and they would have the visual rhyme. My dumbass sister said I couldn't because she didn't like the "misspelling."

  No idea how I ended up with "Jody." Fifty years on, I still don't like it. But I picked it.

  Sure as hell not going to revert to freaking Charlie.

  So Mom remarried, now to Husband #4, two weeks after that last divorce. Apprently this one took and her 6 previous weddings/divorces collected dust. They stayed together till death did they part. Tons and tons of pictures--but never in those old photo albums.

  Dad #2--"The Old Man"--became "New Dad," for a while. I can't say I knew any different or even thought much about my previous life, since I get very "out of sight, out of mind" very quickly. An email correspondent goes dark...I might be months or years along before I remember and think to go looking. That's actually helped me in the past--and may even be an adaptation I made to adjust to this new life.

  We had quite the migratory lifestyle, we three families. By the time of that last divorce, we left Richard at house #5. Five houses in 6 years. I began First Grade in House #6, an apartment in West Palm Beach. I walked to school.

  The house I own today--inherited--was #14. We moved here the day after Christmas: I started the second half of Fourth Grade in a completely new town, new school, new kid. I walked to school.

  NINE. Nine houses in three and a half years--just think of all those friends left behind. "Out of sight, out of mind" becomes a blessing. I don't know what the deal was. Maybe the two of them were running scams, just packed up and bailed i there was a whiff untoward. The Old Man had a criminal past. Funny that Mom left a cop for him. hahahahahaha!

Part 2 posting...soon.

Signal Transmitted, Message Received...

Things that are weird:
 --Meeting the first man you called "dad" for the first time in 44 years.

--Learning that your mother up and fucked off to Palm Beach with her boyfriend in 1972, taking the kids and whatever she could carry, while that man--her husband--was attending training in Georgia for Church's Chicken.
...and 2 weeks to the day after the divorce was final, she married Boyfriend.

--learning that she screwed him out of $10,000 by typing her own name into a deed for 40 acres of land deeded by his parents to him.

--learning that you've got a plot of several relatives in the cemetery down the street. One of them is his grandmother. I have a picture of her and my mother, with an infant me in mom's lap. She died the year after I was born.

Turns out my mother was a conniving bitch who sanitized everything pre-1972 out of our lives and cut my adoptive father's parents off.

This isn't really a surprise--well, the conniving part wasn't. She had a hell of a reputation in local Creek Indian  circles. Maybe I'll try to find someone willing to talk dirt up in Atmore. Bad blood with the Poarch Creek folks, something about her and some legal paperwork she did for them.


==

So. Yeah. He came over from Crestview yesterday and we sat and talked for a couple of hours or so. I showed him pictures and gave him a couple of me around the age he last saw me. I learned that he was a cop from the late 50s till 1995 (aside from those 2 years with Church's Chicken). Drove community transportation for another 21 years.

We have a lot of catching up to do.

Message in a Bottle...

Mailed off a card to my...father.

Man, that sounds weird. I've spent most of the last 44 years with an entirely different man in that role. I considered the Old Man my step-father, especially during the times I was on the outs with him over his bigotry.

BUT...I never really thought of Mr. Emery as my real father, either, probably because I barely remembered him. I couldn't tell you what he looked like back in the early 70s.

One of my earliest memories is sitting on his lap and watching "Felix the Cat" on TV.

Him giving me a sip of his beer. I seem to remember puking it back on him.

Toys. There was one day--birthday? Christmas?--when I was sitting on the floor playing with one of the big G.I. Joe guys...I remember SSP/SST racers and a boxed Cox P-40 Warhawk. I don't know if these were gifts or maybe attempted bribes from one angry parent trying to lure my affections away from the other.
My mother married and divorced this guy twice.

Two weeks to the day after the second divorce, she married the Old Man. Husband number four. She was with him longer than the previous three together, so there's that.

I remember crouching in the bushes at the front of that one house, though, holding onto that toy plane still in its box. There was a small white car, I think a 60s BMW with small round taillights.

Couldn't say when that was, other than more than 44 years ago.


Kept the note plain, simple, enough to fill one leaf of a blank greeting card and part of the next. Contact info. The rest is up to him: I don't have a map for the rest of this hike.

[photo by Liana Joseph]

What do you say to a father you haven't seen in 44 years?

I was adopted at birth; I never met either of my birth parents...but this isn't about them.

This is about my adoptive mother's 3rd husband. When I was born, the two of them adopted me. I was named for him: Charles Richard Emery, jr. --actually a third, since he's named for HIS father.

I was a Charles until sometime after April 12, 1973, when they divorced. I was about 5-1/2 and only vaguely remember him.

Two weeks later, mom married for the 4th time, to the man I called "Dad" but really thought of as a stepfather. He adopted me in 1974, my birth certificate was changed, and my mother got me to pick a new name.

She scrubbed every bit of Richard out of her life--no photos, no letters, his name, probably even common contacts, family...everything. He wasn't even 40 when we left. Now he's 81, married (to a Diana...Charles and Diana, hahahahaha!), and might even have 4 daughters.

I've known where Richard lives for a couple of years; when I started tracing out family stuff, I looked for him online. A few days ago, I deepened that search and decided to write to him.

 What do I call him?

What the hell do I SAY to him?

"Hi, Dad, long time no see, how's tricks?"

I'm hashing it out...but talk about your uncharted territory.

Women & Blacks & Hank!, oh my...

Every once in awhile I wonder how Hank! is doing without my stepfather around to pull his nuts out of the fire. Has he learned to take responsibility for himself? Or has he found someone else to protect him from the consequences of his actions?

Back in the late '70s, Hank! was busted for shoplifting. He was caught with socks in his back pocket.

Socks. He stole socks?!

Well, I'm one to mock...I got busted stealing a freaking dollar penlight. Without batteries.

The store manager called the cops and the Old Man, who went to the store and did a little song and dance--not the first, not the last--to get his boy off the hook. Can't have him going to jail or having a record or having to pay for his crime.

Maybe somewhere there's a list. Just for the sake of blogging, I wish I'd made up a scorecard, but I stayed away from Hank! as much as possible. Guy's a dick. He went from being a shoplifting dick to a drinking dick to a drunk-driving dick to a paranoid psychotic drunk-driving dick who walked along the right-of-way in front of his mother's house holding either a shotgun or a rifle. Screamed at passers-by to get off his street. People out for a walk would cross the street before passing that house.

The neighborhood adored him.

Then--early '90s--he became a drunk-driving dick who had a car wreck that landed him in jail. There were injuries. He was facing 30 days in jail. Actual consequences loomed in his future!

...and step-pops pulled some Fred Astaire magic, that old song and dance, and Hank! ended up with 6 months' house arrest instead. In our house.

If I didn't like Hank!, my mother loathed and feared him, especially after he pushed her into a wall because she was in his way. The Old Man took Hank!'s shotgun and rifle away, so Hank! wandered around the yard with a sledgehammer instead. I hid it, so he toted a jack handle instead.

The neighborhood--different neighborhood--adored him, especially with his racist screaming at the black family next door and his more mundane screaming at the white folks.

His own mother stopped letting him stay with her, so he bounced from our house to his siter's to his son's and back, never actually welcome, only endured.

I learned something the day the old man danced to get Hank! house arrest instead of jail.

I learned that "women and n*ggers" were responsible for Hank!'s plight.

The Old Man came home from the court hearing ranting that "one day I'm going to make it my business to get even with all the women and n*ggers!"

Amazing!

The past few weeks, I've amused myself wondering what the mechanism for this vast conspiracy against poor, much-maligned Hank! might be, and which group, for example, bears responsibility for which problems in Hank!'s life.

Was it the women, the blacks, or both who forced Hank! to drink?

Which group made him drive? Was it women who engineered the traffic "accident" that brought down this mighty Titan? Black people who conspired to get him arrested yet again?

Thunderstorm kills the TV? WOMEN!

Sportsball team loses the game? BLACKS! GAWDAMMIT!



I don't really have an ending for this post, other than to say I'm glad I don't share blood with him. I can't get too smug about that, though, since I did a little digging into my birth family and found one habitual offender who could well be the Hank! of that family. Felony battery, burglary, criminal mischief, larceny, prison time, five different mug shots since 2003. Makes Hank! look like an amateur.

Pic of the Day: The Garner Girls

This was only my second funeral. I sat out several before these. I said my goodbyes in quiet. But it didn't seem right to sit out those of my stepfather and my mother.

There's not really much for me, as far as the services go, especially the religious aspects. It's not like I'm sitting and smirking like the fundies' stereotypical atheist, barely restraining myself from jumping up and interrupting the preaching with smug superiority. I save that for here. Tremble before me, for I am mighty and stuff.

Actually, I'm just bored, tired, and concentrating more on keeping myself from nodding off. The preachers at both services followed a general structure of quoting the banalities that We The Family came up with at a previous meeting, meager summaries of something so complex as 82 years of life. From there, a few Bible selections, a couple of poems. None of us spoke at either funeral.

In both cases, however, the preachers did all the talking for us, and related personal stories of their own that didn't really fit. In both cases, they summarized a parent's decades of life to a minute or so of quoted material before making the service about themselves, their own beliefs, their own agendas.

The preacher at my stepfather's funeral was a fire-and-brimstone fellow who regaled us with tales of reborn dead, beloved family members who will one day rise again when That Day comes, the one preachers predict but don't really believe in. My zombie stepfather, my grandmother, a pair of aunts, my grandfather--and, now, apparently, my mother will be made whole and all that. This service had it all--somber organ music piped in over speakers, a couple playing a duet of a Hank Williams song and a hymn, admonitions to get right with the proper version of god. There were easily 40 people. I didn't recognize many of them. Might have been from the pastor's church. I think my stepfather went there a few times.

A long service. It might have only been 40 minutes, but these things can stretch to eternity fairly quickly. I imagine my stepfather was snoring. I nodded off a couple of times, myself.

There were no conflicts with his side of the family. Crazy Hank! didn't do anything crazy, his screechy accusation-slinging sister kept her pie hole shut, and all the relations who usually ignored my mother and I at "family" gatherings (hahaha) ignored us.

Then came the pall-bearing. I can't remember who or how many aside from Hank! and I. The mortal remains were transferred into a hearse, then a mess of us followed it to the gravesite. There was another service here, a shortened version of the one we'd just been through a few hours before. No singing, no organ. Shorter is sweeter. Long drive home from there.

Today's service was much less involved. There were about a dozen of us, and that's really sad considering all the people who Mom worked with over the years. Sixty years as a paralegal, mostly in real estate; she worked on some legal matters for the Poarch Creek tribe in Atmore, Alabama and for the Perdido Bay Creek tribe in Pensacola. Only one of the lawyers and his daughter showed up. No one from either tribe has so much as peeped. And, of course, nothing from the stepfamily.

The usual summary by the preacher, a few paragraphs that didn't tell anyone about her, not really. No mention of her being a wizard with a sewing machine and serger.

Nothing about her cooking, how she made cream cheese pound cakes right up until she couldn't remember how anymore, or her amazing rice and gravy. What about the wooden spoon I wrapped in aluminum foil one Thanksgiving, as a prize. She was proud of that silly spoon and kept it on display next to the kitchen window.

What about her life in 1950s Castleberry, Alabama, where she faced racism for being Creek and Cherokee? She was made to use the back door of most houses where she did peoples' hair. People called her "little black girl." It was good to see her bringing her heritage out and wearing it proudly in the last 20 years. I wish the Perdido and Atmore tribes had shown up to give her a better ceremony.

This preacher seemed to be rushing it. We still had the piped-in organ (which sounded like we were trapped in a Whitney Houston song), but no duets, no zombie relatives, no fire and brimstone. No fire, really: this guy was a mechanic in a funeral assembly line, thirty minutes and on to the next. A little preaching, a few Bible quotes, a few bits of filler about himself...well, actually, two thirds of the thing seemed to be more about him. Before he dies, he really ought to record himself at several of these quickie funerals and just have the preacher preaching for him play it back, since he's already got the patter. It'd save some time. His might only take 20 minutes.

No pall-bearing, no following the casket up to Castleberry.

By height and by age: their mother and the three sisters.

This will be the first time they've all been together since 1991--and the first time poor John Garner has had all four of them in one place since 1965. Tremble!

Pic of the Day: Eyes That Shine, 1931-2013

We just got the call from the Hospice folks. She's gone.
There's no way I want to remember her the way she was the last few weeks, so here's a shot from the mid-90s, when she was active in the local Muscogee Creek community. Chief Bobby Johns Bearheart  named her "Eyes That Shine."

She made the jacket herself, if I remember right. She used to do presentations at schools, college classrooms, anywhere she could tell her stories. She certainly earned her name. Her eyes never shone brighter and she was never happier than when she was interacting with students or visitors full of questions.

She had to put it on the back burner to care for my stepfather as he wasted away from Alzheimer's, only to suffer the same fate.

She was a steely-eyed badass, a force of nature, and a damn fine woman who had one hell of a good  ride even with bumpy roads.

[Edit: She was born in 1931, not '32...fixed.]

The Last of the 'Garner Girls'

It's all over, now, but for the waiting.

Early last year, my mother had a stroke that seemed to open the way for Alzheimer's to wreak its havoc upon her mind. She had been having memory problems and other symptoms of dementia, but until then it had been manageable.

She was trying to cut up one of the quilts her mother had made by hand, decades before. She was trying to eat crossword puzzles. She forgot to turn the stove off after trying to make coffee--in an empty pot.

She was convinced someone was trying to steal her car and would go outside several times a night to catch them.

She was convinced that my nephew was poisoning her.

She's never looked so old as she does now, at nearly 83. Dealing with her husband's Alzheimer's took a massive toll on her. She'd already lost her two sisters and her father to it. My stepfather lost his mother to it.

Mom gradually improved after last year's stroke, moving from the hospital to a nursing home that smelled of paint and disinfectant. Every visit was painful. Her memory was shot, so we were on a constant loop of "Where am I?" and "When can I go home?" and anything else that occurred to her.

Several weeks later, she was showing improvement and moved to an apartment-like retirement home. In October, her doctors decided that she was well enough to come back home. Or maybe it was an insurance thing.

Mom was still prone to paranoia about her car, still convinced my nephew was up to no good, but she was manageable right up until early September. I don't know if it was another stroke (if it was, it wasn't a big one). She was combative. When she was taken to the ER, the nurses had to sedate her and put big foam mitts on her hands to keep her from pulling IV's and other tubes out. She kept trying to eat the blood oxygen sensor on her finger. And once again, every conversation was a series of repetitions.

Doctors asked why she'd been allowed to go back home (good question) and had her moved to a home set up for Alzheimer's care.

Less than two weeks later, she fell trying to get out of bed and broke her left femur in several places (where the HELL were the staff people who were supposed to be watching her?). She had to wait more than 24 hours before a surgery slot opened. The doc put a rod in her thigh from hip to knee. Now Mom faced several weeks of rehab.

Now, though, all that is past. A week ago she was rushed to the ER with a massive infection. Her white blood count was something like 64,000 instead of 4,000 or whatever the norm is. At first, the ER docs were talking liver cancer or leukemia, but tests came back for clostridium difficile, courtesy of that effing nursing home. They put out a warning to call in the family. Her organs were shutting down and the infection was everywhere, including her brain.

We okayed surgery to try to stem the infection; her colon was removed. But Mom didn't want heroic measures. No machines, no tubes. Do Not Resuscitate. We agreed that this should be the one big attempt to save her.

The last time I saw her lucid--as lucid as she's been these last few weeks--we couldn't touch her. Every visitor had to wash up, put on a paper gown and gloves, and wash again on leaving. She didn't want us to leave her. The next morning--surgery day--she had been intubated and sedated. She never regained full consciousness afterward. She would react to people in her room, but never gave a sign of recognition. That was Friday.

The docs had Mom's feeding tube removed this morning. Now she's just on morphine and antibiotics and saline. There's been no improvement. Could be a few hours, maybe a day. For what it's worth, I'd rather it be this way, a reasonably peaceful ending, denying the Alzheimer's its long, drawn-out destruction.

My stepfather used to tease Mom about her mother and sisters. Those "Garner Girls" were always a handful, he'd say, but never spitefully. They're all buried together. The last of them will be with them soon.

25th High School Reunion Looms...

Looms subjectively, really; I went to the 20th in 2006 and found it too much like high school was in 1986: the popular folks...and me.

I was one of several in the under-popular group who banded together in geekdom; Instead of a "Members Only" jacket, I had the K-Mart equivalent, in black. Good jacket, and I didn't care whether the brand was right.

I was the kid who found a seat in the lunch room, whipped out whatever book I was reading at the time, and read it while I ate. I still tend to do that, with some of the same books.

I was the kid who drew plans for "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" starships when I should have been doing drafting exercises. Failed that class, but I still do technical drawings. Forts. Lots of straight lines.

I wanted to be a musician. I brought a cheap Casio keyboard to class and amazed a few people by playing the main keyboard line from "Axel F"--but that's about all I ever did with that thing. Never wrote a note of my own. I'm a much better guitar or bass player than I ever was with keys.

At that 20th Reunion, I ended up sitting at a table and wishing for a damn book. The same popular people grouped together, just like old times.

There was Mr. Football Captain, still short, less hair, more gut. I wondered if he still had the throwing arm and aim that let him chuck a cat liver across the Anatomy & Physiology classroom and under the door without an extra bounce. That throw was a thing of beauty even for a football-hater like me.

There's Ms. Friend's-Ex-Girlfriend. I joined him on long-ass bike rides in the dark of Friday or Saturday nights so he could whisper boyfriend stuff to her through her bedroom window, or so they could make out in a family car in the garage. I sat under a bush with the bikes, wishing for a damn book. And a light. I made some of those rides back home alone. These days, I'll drive along Scenic Highway and think we were batshit crazy. There still aren't many street lights along that road. She's married, he's divorced.

Then there's Dulcinea. I've been trying to think of a nickname for this vision of beauty, this object of desire, from the first days of this blog. I was reminded of my write-up of Peter David's "Vendetta." I went hunting in Googleville and found this at the Wikipedia link:

In the Spanish of the time, Dulcinea means something akin to an overly elegant "sweetness". In this way, Dulcinea is an entirely fictional person for whom Quixote relentlessly fights. To this day, a reference to someone as one's "Dulcinea" implies hopeless devotion and love for her, and particularly unrequited love.

Ouch.

I was totally hung up on this girl. She was totally un-hung-up on me. I went through high school tilting at that windmill. Embarrassing, now, and while I'd like to apologize to her for all of that, there's no way in hell I'm going to, oh, use the Reunion email with everyone's name, address, phone number and email address to, for example, email her to apologize. I don't think she or Mr. Dulcinea would appreciate it--and I swore off windmill-tilting years ago.

But there she was. She looked damn good. I sat at my table and wished for a damn book.

I eventually moved to a couch near the door, wishing I had my sixty bucks back. That's a bit spendy for a few hours of returning to high school.

Farewell, Neighbor...

No, he's not dead. The hospital's got some rules about a woman sleeping in a room with two men. Ever since I came in, Jones' wife or one of his daughters has been sleeping in the bedside recliner.

Apparently this creates a moral dilemma for the administration folks. As long as Jones and his wife or daughter are alone in a room, there's no problem. But add one other guy and HOLY CRAP there's gonna be misbehavin'.

The staffers pondered the matter, then moved him to a private room where he can sleep with his wife OR his daughter. Really, they could have moved me, since he was here first and I was the intruder.

I don't understand the thinking or rationalization behind this rule, but it's not my hospital.

10:30pm: Some staffers bundled him up and moved him half a hospital away to fix a nonexistent matter. The room is nice and quiet, but that just doesn't seem right.

10:35pm: I'm getting a new neighbor. They didn't even let Jones' bed get cold.


I forgot to mention that this room has TWO crucifi, one under each TV. Wonder if there's a message there?

Piglet, Scumbag, and Mr. Perfect

I first wrote about Piglet back in April--that first love/first breakup that wrecked me for years.

December 3 will mark 16 years since our first weekend alone. Hard to believe it's been that long. I can still hear "Mystic Rhythms" by Rush playing on her stereo as I was pulling into the driveway.

I don't remember nearly as much of the phone call from April of 1995, when she babbled about my replacement, Mr. Perfect, the good little Mormon missionary ex-boyfriend who came back to her. Money, flashy car, and all the other stuff she claimed didn't really matter. Funny how that's all she talked about. Mr. Perfect was an angel--good job, good religion, all the things I apparently lacked.

But things didn't stay perfect; they were engaged in August, but then in March of 1996 another of her ex-boyfriends came back: the one I've named Scumbag. He was the opposite of Mr. Perfect, the Bad Boy women claim to dislike. She dumped Mr. Perfect--the love of her life, just like I was!--for Scumbag (who dumped his own fiancee' for her). Then she'd get pissed off at Scumbag and go running back to Mr. Perfect, then get bored and run back to Scumbag. I got to hear about the play-by-play because of that stupid "let's be friends" crap I was doing. By the time I wised up and booted her in late '97, I had lost count of how many times she went back and forth...let alone how many OTHER guys she'd gone to in the meantime. I sometimes wonder whether she's stopped with the pinball act, but finding out would mean having to look her up. That's okay.

This whole thing with the three of them and me is a freaking real-life soap opera! The best I can do to try to describe all the twists and turns is with a timeline:

October 29, 1994: I meet Pocahontas (she gets named Piglet later) at a Halloween party in Tallahassee. We talk, she flirts, but doesn't mention that she's engaged. I get her address, we write back & forth, but she doesn't mention her fiance' for a while. By late November, we're a long-distance item and she's dumped her fiance. I wonder how many times this has happened?

December 3: First weekend alone at her parents' house.
December __: Xmas party at her parents' house.

March 27, 1995: She casually mentions that an ex-boyfriend of hers has popped up, but don't worry, nothing will come of it! Yeah. I'm dumb enough to believe that, but everyone else and her dog all know it's about to hit the fan.

April 1, 1995: she goes out to a movie with Mr. Perfect.
April 8: The Phone Call, when she pretends that she's got a big decision to make, but it's obvious who she'll dump. I've never been through this before, so I think the "let's be friends" thing will really work.

August 12, 1995: I move to Tallahassee. People think I'm going there to try to win her back, but I hardly ever SEE her. Looking back, I'm not willing to give her any credit for my decision.

August 20 or so: she's engaged to Mr. Perfect. I already knew it was coming.

January, 1996: I meet a guy at work who seems pretty cool...then I find out that he dated/was obsessed with Pocahontas during high school--to the point of camping out in her front yard after she dumped him. By late February, I'm renting out his living room (my previous roommate was making things unpleasant).

March, '96: Scumbag earns his name by going sniffing after Pocahontas. He dumps his fiancee'. Within a few weeks, she tries to kill herself. Everyone blames me. Pocahontas earns her replacement name: Piglet. She dumps Mr. Perfect for Scumbag.

Over the next few months, the only constant is Piglet-as-pinball...a Navy guy, some Air Force guy, I think someone from Special Forces. Several others, and the original two. I don't know what I did to keep myself from being one of her "go-to" ex-boyfriends, but I'm glad it never worked out like that, given what I learned about her as "just a friend."

The last I saw of her in late 1997, Piglet had finally settled down with Scumbag. Then Scumbag went to prison, but that's another story.

Karate, Exercise, and Me

I've been thinking about my karate days, 'way back in the early 1990's, and how that missing grandfather of mine might have made a difference in the outcome.

I've never been into the regular athletic stuff. What I remember of the softball, soccer and touch football games of middle school in the early '80s is being the last kid picked. I was typically passed off to the other team--"Eh, you can have him." I was used to being the kid no one wanted; I didn't want to be there, either. PE was more punishment than pleasure.

I'd stand way out in left field, ignoring the game, wishing I had a book, wishing the class would END already. Every now and then a batter would lob the ball out into my real estate and I'd mosey over to its general area, pick it up, and throw it toward whomever was waving the hardest, not really caring whether the ball got that far or not. Payback for picking me last. Should have been nicer to me.

Once I got up to bat, though, I put everything I had into hitting the ball--but not to help the team. I just wanted to hit something.

Soccer was fun that way, too. Last one picked, put with the other outcaste kids at the goal, ignoring the game and just hanging out. Every now and again, the ball comes our way and I run all-out to intercept it. Then I'd kick it as hard as I could downfield, not bothering to aim for any of the arm-waving jerks. It was fun to watch both teams suddenly reverse course and go barreling after the ball. Payback for picking me last, etc. Soccer for the passive-aggressive!

Fast-forward to college in the early '90s. I fell in love with Shotokan karate from the first class in 1990. It was exercise that didn't feel like exercise, wasn't boring even for being repetitive, and was individual instead of a team thing. I kept my enthusiasm going for years, never in a hurry to get that black belt, because I was having so much fun in the moment.

I wasn't a prodigy, some reborn Bruce Lee. There were plenty of techniques to learn and some of them came easily. There were some--especially roundhouse and spinning rear kicks--that I couldn't seem to "get" no matter how hard I worked at them and it aggravated the hell out of me. I'm a perfectionist about the damndest things.

Apparently some of the higher-rank folks misinterpreted my enjoyment as arrogance. I didn't know it at the time, but they thought I had an attitude, that I was acting above my rank, wouldn't listen, and stuff like that. That's not how it really was, but I can see how people would think that of a socially-inept kid (25 is still a kid). I tried to explain that I was frustrated with those kicks, or that my left ankle didn't have quite the same range of motion as my right.

It all came to a head--and an end--in 1992. It was a good class and we were working on spinning rear thrust kicks. I was utterly failing, spinning too far or not getting my kicking leg up, juggling a thousand little things in my mind, trying to get it right this time and getting more and more aggravated.

Sensei stopped the class and called for a circle so he could demonstrate the kick with one of the black-belts. I must have muttered something, because the guy I was partnered with (both of us green-belts) asked what was wrong. I told him I was frustrated. No big conversation. But across the circle, one of the black belts--Farmboy-san--saw me talking. A breach of etiquette. After the class was over, Farmboy-san pulled me aside, stood me at "attention," and bitched me out: "If you ever do that again I'll kick your ass!"

All in that moment, it wasn't fun anymore. I gradually stopped going. Within 3 weeks, I was done with it.

I've looked at my journal for that month. I can't relate to the 20-something kid I was then, furious and scared, freaking out over being yelled at by someone with no real authority. It looks like I was back in middle school, ranting about one of the bullies.

I wish I'd at least given him some of his own--a simple, calm "You can try" in reply, or maybe just one of those Looks Clint Eastwood used to be known for. I don't doubt that my grandfather would have grinned his shit-eating-grin and fed Farmboy-san his belt.

I don't particularly believe in karma, but I learned that within a year of all that crap, Farmboy-san slipped on a ladder while doing some roof work and damaged his knee. No karate for him, at least for a few years.

Every once in a while I'll pull out my karate notebook and folders to see how much I still remember, what I can still do. I've got a few books on Japanese language, some on the culture, a crapload of martial-arts movies and anime. But right now, I can't do most of the karate stuff: ever since that aortic dissection hit me, I've been warned to avoid any stress or strain, or anything that might raise my blood pressure, which has stayed in the 160 to 180 range while the doc tinkers with my meds. I finally got it down to 141 over something in the last week. In the four months since I left the hospital, I've regained only a little of the muscle tone I lost in both legs; a short walk or shorter bike ride is about the most I can do, but it occurs to me that I can work on the basic karate stances as low-impact therapy, if I can get my knees to handle it.

All I have left is two sets of karate pajamas and my green belt that are more than slightly smallish, fading memories of the things I learned, and a slogan I thought up back when it was fun: "Two years of karate, and all I can do is get my ass kicked in Japanese!" The karate class didn't make fighters out of anyone. We weren't learning self-defense. It was Art Karate, or Tournament Karate, aerobics, exercise, form over function.

Even so, it was fun. I miss that most of all.

Another Crisis!!

I was sitting at the computer, barely listening to the hustle and bustle of "Trauma: Life in the ER" on TV, when I heard my sister running into the bathroom, crying hysterically. Then she headed for the kitchen, making so much noise I was sure the house was on fire, or Mom fell over dead. Eventually, she got enough of a breath to wail, "I'm sorry!! I didn't mean to!!!!"

Seriously, I hear this from her almost constantly. Rain on your wedding day? "I'm sorry!" Bad day at work? "I'm sorry!!" She apologizes for things she has nothing to do with.

She doesn't freaking let you know she's taken your mother to the emergency room, but calls in hysterics to tell you to walk her goddamn dog?

No apology for that, no.

This has been going on for a bit over 20 years. She's in her 50s, now, but up until her mid-30's she was independent, self-sufficient. I don't know what happened, but she broke. By the later '80s she was on the phone to Mom at least 3 times a day for crisis management. If no one answered the phone (she was living in Georgia, south of Atlanta), she would let the damn thing ring until someone picked up--either that or go for 15 minutes, hang up for a few, then have another go. It never occurred to her that the parents were still at work at one in the afternoon. It never occurred to her that I was unplugging the phone, either. Hard to study.

It's really hard to be sympathetic. She's got several health problems--diabetic, significantly overweight, bipolar...every few months she crashes in some way and has to go to the Emergency Room, gets put into mental care for a few days, then comes out "cured." She tosses out all the junk food and soft drinks she's not supposed to be having, loads up on diet stuff. Within a month, she's sneaking junk food and soft drinks (right on schedule, this happened in mid-August; she's already broken the "diet"). It won't be long before she's buying and consuming Coke by the case. She just stops trying.

Now she's living with me and Mom; at first, she was helping to take care of the Old Man before he died. The upside is that the damn phone doesn't ring all day. The bad news is that she's here, so there's no delay when she has another crisis. She's stuck inside that head of hers, and everything in the universe is in orbit around her.

I'm not the sympathetic ear in the house. I'm not going to play along. That dog-walking stunt isn't anything new. She did the panicky-hysterical "It's important!! Call me as soon as you get this!!!!!!" shit while I was in a movie a few months ago. She left two messages on my phone, and when I didn't call back she called my friend (sitting right there in the theater next to me) to tell him to tell me to call home.

She wanted a Whataburger.

She was recently diagnosed as bipolar, the same thing that affected my less-favorite ex, "Number Two." I don't know if this is in addition to whatever's causing her panic attacks, but they're all working together to make her someone I just don't want to be around--and we can thank her and Number Two for that.

Back to the present. She's wailing hysterically, and I can only make out "car" and "door" and "purse." She dropped her purse near the car? Wail, wail, "IM SORRRYYYYYY!!!!!" and by now I'm just telling her to settle down, get a grip, take a breath. Honestly, by this point I don't even care what the "crisis" is. I just want her to shut up.

She left her freaking purse at the store, and they had called to say it was there. That's all.

Geetar Hank!

So while Hank was on his 6-month house arrest (briefly explained here), he decided to learn to play guitar.

It's my fault. I was teaching myself to play, learning Rush songs and those of lesser bands.


Hank didn't have anything else to do. Couldn't go out, couldn't drink. I bet that hurt, given that it's been the bedrock of his existence for much of his life. So he got himself an acoustic and a chord book and started watching MTV because that's where the rock stars go. He was gonna be one, you know, because that's where the money and girls are and because he had music in his soul, like Hendrix and Van Halen.

But first...he had no music background. I had to teach him the basic strum pattern everyone seems to learn first. For the rest of his house/jail time, that one pattern is all I heard. Since he couldn't read music, he played the chord book, so I'd hear him strum an F Major barre chord (first fret)....then there was a long pause while he rearranged his fingers to play an F Major barre chord (8th fret)....another pause...another F chord (minor, diminished, augmented, whatever)...pause...chord...all night long. He never seemed to get any better.

Keep in mind that a chord book's not a music book, it's an aid that shows the different fingerings for a variety of chords. A basic book will show you hundreds. I've got one that claims 5,000! Ask any guitar probie what it's like trying to remember just the basic "beginner" chord forms, then imagine Hank just going page by page through his book, making noise instead of music.

I wonder if he ever got better.

Emergency!! PANIC NOW!!

I'm about the calmest person I know. I'm not sure how that worked out, given my family, with the bullying father figure, his insane son, a mother who is on medication that makes Swiss cheese of her short-term memory...and this sister of mine.

She's prone to panic attacks. I don't know if that's what makes the Universe a big circle with her at the center, but simple things just pass her by.

You know. SIMPLE things like maybe waking me up last week to tell me that she's taking Mom to the Emergency Room. Never occurred to her. I don't need to know stuff like that.

So I'm asleep, they're at the hospital, and my nephew calls long distance at 2:30 in the afternoon to relay a message from his mother to call her at the hospital (but not which one)...because she doesn't have my cell number.

I call. Her phone's turned off. And I don't know which hospital.

Into the kitchen. Answering machine tells me there are four new messages. Two of them are from her, panicky-sounding, call-me-as-soon-as-you-get-this!!!!! style, a few minutes apart. She actually thought to mention which hospital and room it was.

Phone book, ringy-dingy, automated system...press one, hold, hello? A live one! Room 11, please. Just a moment, hold, hello? Another live one, room 11 please. Just a moment, hold...and finally, my sister.

She mentions that Mom's getting a CAT scan, blah blah...and quickly gets to the vitally important emergency that required all this drama:

She wants me to take her fucking dog out. That's all.

Shotgun Hank!

I know I've never written about "Hank," my crazy stepbrother. He's the natural-born son of my stepfather and he is, as I mentioned, batshit crazy.
Hank's always been an aggressive ass and a bully. The apple didn't fall far from the tree, there, but since he spent most of his time at his mother's house instead of ours my life was a lot simpler.

I'm not sure when he started getting crazy, but I know he did it to himself by boozing heavily, driving drunk, and demolishing cars. He took a few head injuries in the late '80s and early '90s. As I understand it, the head trauma triggered some changes in his brain that led to him being diagnosed as paranoid psychotic.
One of the drunken car wrecks led to him being placed on 6 months' house arrest. In our house. Thanks, Dad (step-pops talked the judge into that instead of 30 days in jail--he never seemed to let the bastard face the consequences of his actions, but he'd whip the shit out of me for relatively minor stuff).
Hank took to muttering to himself--"goddamnmotherfuckindrinkinproblem" was a favorite--and pacing around the yard like Jason Voorhees working as a mall-cop. He carried a sledge hammer around for a few weeks, always leaving it at the back door when he came back inside. I decided that it needed to disappear so he wouldn't hurt anyone, and I'm still pretty smug about how I did it.
As I was heading into the house from a coffee run, I grabbed the thing, hoping to sneak it into my room before he came outside--and damned if he didn't pick that moment to open the back door. I'm holding the sledge in my left hand by the end of the handle (he always leaned it head-down against the house by the door) and quickly moved it so it was hidden along my left leg. He came out to my right, never even seeing the hammer, and I moved it around to the front of my leg, walked into the house, and closed the door. Scared the crap out of me. I don't know if he ever figured it out, or whether he blamed the neighbors.

He started carrying a jack handle, instead. Oh, well.

When his house-arrest was finally over, he went back to live with his mother. Instead of the jack handle, he started toting a 12-gauge shotgun or a rifle, pacing along the property line and shouting at passers-by to get off his street. Yes, they were loaded. Step-pops finally got some backbone (it always took him a while to man up and deal with Hank) and took the guns away from him. The rifle went to Hank's son. The shotgun came to our house, where the Old Man kept it in his closet. Yes, it was loaded.

In the next 10 years or so, Hank would cycle between living at his mother's house, living at ours, and staying with his son or sister out in Mississippi. By the late '90s, his mother was so terrified of him that he ended up with us when he was in town. In 2006, when the Old Man had the stroke that brought his Alzheimer's into full play, Hank had to go.

I was picked to clear the guns out of our house, since no one really knew what the Old Man would be like when the Alzheimer's took over. It was a good idea, as it happens, since he freaked out over mirrors and photos of people and was convinced that my mother was an impostor.

I found the shotgun in his closet. Yes, it was loaded. Safety fucking OFF. That's scary enough, but the ammo it had in it was a couple of triple-ought buckshot shells and two one-ounce deer slugs. That's what Hank had been toting around.

It's a wonder no one ever got killed.

April 8--Two Bad Days

  Updated Nov 23 25.

April 8th marked two events with devastating impact on my life.

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.

  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.

  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.

The End.

We got The Call around 7:45 this morning.

Service and burial are set for Tuesday. He'll be in a plot close to my grandmother's (his mother-in-law) just outside Castleberry, AL.

"Not expected to live through the night."

The Old Man is in a coma. His breathing was labored earlier, but I don't know what amount of consciousness there was.

I hope that if there was suffering, and awareness of same, that the end comes soon. It is an evil thing for a mind to endure--and it's the one thing I'm really afraid of.