This Old House

It's funny the things we get attached to...

I guess that requires some explanation on my part. My grandmother this week closed on the selling of her house and farm. I knew the move was coming. No one has lived in the old place since last November. My grandmother had gotten to the shape that the family didn't feel comfortable with her living alone so far out in the country anymore and I was engaged and would be moving out soon myself. So my grandmother bought a little house in town and began the process of selling the farm.

The farm that I'd lived at for the last 13 years. The farm that I'd visited on a regular basis since birth. Actually, the home my mom and dad brought me back to after I was born.

I'd never meant to make it my home for 13 years. I moved there out of high school because it offered free rent and was close to my college. I always assumed when I graduated, I'd move on. But then my grandfather got the first of his 4 bouts of cancer. Suddenly radiation, chemo, and sickness were as much a part of my life as books and teachers. My grandmother doesn't drive so having someone else in the home to do doctor's trips, grocery runs, etc. made my staying necessary.

A few years later, when it looked like my granddad had beaten back cancer one more time, I looked into moving again. But I didn't, and then my granddad took another turn for the worse. This time it was dementia (which we later discovered, too late, was also cancer. Of the brain this time) and I couldn't bring myself to leave.

So I waited and, as expected, the cancer finally took my grandfather and with it any thoughts of moving away. My grandmother has always had someone there and, as mentioned before, couldn't drive. So again I stayed on, trying to allow my grandmother to live out her last days in the house that her husband had built 50 years before.

But it wasn't meant to happen. I had obligations and, surprisingly to a lifelong confirmed bachelor like myself, a relationship that looked a lot like it was going to end up being a marriage. I couldn't stay there with her anymore and her being alone in that old house 10 miles from the nearest hospital kept me up nights. It kept her up nights too and so we began the unthinkable. Moving my grandmother into town where she would have neighbors to keep an eye on her, easier access to emergency services, and more ability for family to stop in while passing through town.

She took it pretty well. Better than I expected actually. Better than me...

A couple of months ago, my fiance and I went out to load the last few boxes of things from my room and I felt a pang then. Nothing major, just a little twinge of regret for something that will never be again.

But planning a wedding and a honeymoon, getting my grandmother settled and making her as happy as possible, and trying to unpack myself into not only a new house but a new city (and a new person to share it all with) made me forget that pang.

Until this week, when my grandmother called me and told me the sale had closed. My uncle, through a power of attorney, had signed the papers that day. I guess my grandmother couldn't bring herself to do it.

Someone else owned my grandfather's farm. Someone else owned my grandmother's house. Someone else was going to sleep in the bedroom that had been my sanctuary, where I studied long nights in college, where I wrote all my columns, where I buried myself as a small child when I wanted to write stories about Godzilla or heroic dogs (I was a Jack London nut as a kid) or detective stories where myself and my friends solved mysteries like the Hardy Boys or the Three Investigators. Someone else was going to cook their dinner in the kitchen that my grandmother fed my mother in, and myself after. Someone else was going to spend Christmas in the house where most of my good Christmas memories lived. Someone else's name was on the deed of the land that my grandfather had bought for $25,000 over 50 years ago. Someone else. Someone I didn't even know...

That wasn't a twinge.... That was a snap.

So yeah, it's funny what you remember. I could tell you stories about my adventures with my grandfather trying to rid our garden of a particularly persistent terrapin, stories about my grandmother's fried chicken and how people came from all over the community to get it, stories about a million characters in a million tales all acted out by a kid in his grandparents' front yard. I could tell you about all that, but the truth is, none of that causes the snap.

It's that damned house...

Somehow, a bunch of brick, mortar, and wood has come to be the omnibus symbol for all those things. The umbrella under which all those things reside.

The umbrella that is no longer here.

I've heard a million country songs about people getting their hearts broken over alcohol, cheating, dogs, and women. But no one ever writes about getting his heart snapped in two by a house.

Until now...

-Gryph

"Ain't gonna need this house no longer
Ain't gonna need this house no more
Ain't got time to fix the shingles
Ain't got time to sweep the floor
Ain't got time to oil the hinges
Or to mend no window panes
Ain't gonna need this house no longer
I'm getting ready to meet the saints."
-Traditional Spiritual

NP: Brian Setzer Orchestra "Rock This Town"

Man's Best Friend?

I'm a video game fanatic. I spend waaay more money than anyone should making sure my computer will play the bleeding edge of graphical video games. So it was with great interest last week that I read all the news coming from the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3. E3 is mecca for video game lovers. All the big developers bring out demos of their super-secret under development titles and give the public brief glimpses of the future of gaming.

So what was the big talk of E3 this year? The newest World War II shooter? The latest batch of multiplayer online games? The next big idea from super-developers like Sid Meier or Peter Molyneaux? The next chapter in the seemingly unending series of Sims sequels? Nope...

This year, the big talk was about Nintendogs.

In the fine (?) tradition of Tomigotchi and Neopets, Nintendo comes with a way to own a dog without any of the fun.

Is this really needed? Don't get me wrong. I'm a dog lover. Anyone who knows me knows that when I list the most important female in my life, I need a 1a and 1b. My wife Joan and my dog Sasha. Sasha's been there for me through the good times, the lonely times, and all times in between. I was more nervous about bringing Joan home to meet Sasha than I ever was about bringing her home to meet my mom.

But somehow, this just doesn't fill the void. An electronic dog can't stand at the door, tail wagging, to greet you when you come home. Well, I suppose it could, if you positioned your TV next to the door and left the program running all day. But then you'd be a sad, pitiful person and under other circumstances I'd suggest you buy a dog... I suppose since the Nintendo DS is portable you technically could take your dog out to the park for a walk, but again, it's not really the same thing.

But, I suppose I understand the appeal. When I got married I had to leave Sasha behind at my grandmother's house, a victim of the "no pets allowed" rule that infests most rental properties nowadays. A group of people so greedy that they can't eat the cost of a steam cleaner rental (or be bothered to take it out of a pet deposit) that they keep people from what I believe is one of their fundamental needs. Most apartments come furnished with a refrigerator to meet your need for food, a stove to meet your need to cook it, a shower to meet your need to be clean. But they not only ignore, but effectively squash another basic human need. Man has been palling around with dogs almost since there was man. It's just nice in a world of conditions and grey areas to know you have something out there who loves you unconditionally, who won't take your bad moods personally, who will always be there with a wagging tail and a friendly bark to let you know that it's all ok.

So yeah, I guess Nintendogs tries to fill that void. How successfully, I don't know. I don't think I'll be investing in a Nintendo DS anytime soon just so I can have a virtual relationship with a virtual pet. It's too much like having an imaginary friend. Until I can afford a house of my own, I suppose I'll have to live with my weekly visits to my grandmother's house where Sasha anxiously awaits me and gets waaay too excited when I show up.

It's nice to know you've always got a friend. Real life or electronic, I guess the premise is all the same. Just keep a steady supply of AA's handy. Wouldn't want VirtuaFido to wink out...

-Gryph

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principle difference between dog and man."
-Mark Twain

NP: Johnny Cash "Rusty Cage"

A Long Time Ago in a Childhood Far, Far, Away...

May 19 is the day...

For those of you who never watch TV, browse department stores, or for some other reason live under a rock sufficiently remote to not be blitzed by the media hype, May 19 is the day George Lucas releases the final movie in his Star Wars saga.

I'm apprehensive, but hopeful. The previous two movies in this new series have been somewhat disappointing, yielding brief glimpses of the high adventure of the original series (the pod race, Yoda's lightsaber duel), but for the most part, the majority of Star Wars lovers have been disappointed.

Part of that is the filter of years. Most of us were younger then, in some cases like mine as young as 5, and 28 years of life have made us more jaded, less filled with wonder, and harder to wrap up in that blanket of belief suspension needed to truly enjoy a movie like this. Part of it, admittedly, is just George Lucas not capturing the magic of the original trilogy.

I'm hopeful for a couple of reasons. One, I've heard some great reviews from advance screenings (director Kevin Smith, whose opinions I respect greatly, thinks it's the second coming of Empire Strikes Back). Two, it marks the return of Darth Vader.

For millions of children of the late seventies and early eighties, Darth Vader was the coolest thing ever. The menacing black costume, the brook-no-failure attitude, that swooshy breathing, and most importantly the voice of Jame Earl Jones, which seems to come from a place so deep that you don't figure anything good can come from it.

But mainly, I'm hopeful because it's my last chance to capture that feeling again. The feeling of a 5 year old boy sitting next to his dad, being swallowed up by the theater seats which seemed so big then (funny since now I often complain they're too small), munching popcorn and preparing to experience his first movie. What a way to begin. If the seats seem huge to a 5 year old boy, imagine the feeling when the opening scene of Star Wars comes on and that tiny little Rebel Blockade Runner shoots past the camera followed by a massive Star Destroyer that seemed to go on and on and on for eternity. I still think it's the greatest opening shot in motion picture history. I can't even begin to tell you the effect that had on me, other than to say that my dvd collection is twice as big as most folks and I have a B.S. in Mass Communications. That movie turned me into a junkie and I've been chasing that fix ever since.

On top of that, I tie the Star Wars trilogy into other memories. By the time Star Wars came out, my mom and dad were recently divorced and my dad took me to Star Wars as one of our weekend visits. I missed him terribly and his being there for that moment was something I'll never forget. Over the years, he moved around a lot, following a string of jobs that took him to states too far flung to make regular visits unrealistic. But he always made a point to come home when a Star Wars movie would come out. Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi became as much father-son reunions as they did movie experiences. I would write stories about the characters, often previously acted out using my Star Wars and GI Joe toys, and mail them to him in whatever state he currently lived in. He'd read them and write me back, sometimes suggesting new adventures for Luke and Leia and Han and Darth Vader.

You know, when I sat down to write this, I intended to commemorate the end of a movie series that meant so much to me and maybe throw a memory or two of my dad in. Looking back on what I've written now, I would actually say that the Star Wars trilogy was probably the major lynchpin of our relationship when I was young. I'm just now at this moment realizing that virtually all of my memories of my dad from age five until about fifteen involve Star Wars in some way. Watching the movies in the theater, writing stories, telling him about my play sessions with my Star Wars toys, getting together when I got the newly released trilogy on VHS to have a marathon viewing session. All of it.

I don't know whether to be happy or sad about that... Part of me feels like your relationship with the person who gave you life ought to be deeper and more weighty than some fluffy space opera. But part of me doesn't care. In my current career as a social worker I see and read about kids every day who never knew their father, as well as some who would be a lot better of if they never had. So even though I didn't get to spend as much time with him as I'd have liked as a kid and even though most of that time is based around a series of movies, I'll take it. I'm fortunate enough to know that a lot of kids would envy me it.

So... May 19. I'll be there, not expecting but hoping.

Wonder what my dad's doing next weekend?

Until then,

Gryph

"I find your lack of faith disturbing"
-Darth Vader, while choking an underling

NP: "I Spoke as a Child" by Todd Snider

Life Among the Slightly Older Natives

I knew I was done for when she mailed me the URL...

Kelly, that is, also known as Darth Kel to anyone who has ever had her as an editor and felt a verbal, but very real, version of the Darth Vader Force Choke.

Missed deadlines are not an option...

I expected her, as soon as she told me she'd begun blogging, to begin persistently asking me to resurrect the old moldy corpse of Life Among the Natives.

Life Among the Natives (LAN), for the pretty much all of you out there who don't know, ran between 1999-2000 as a humour/commentary column in a "online newspaper" called tullahoma.net. My friend and former college newspaper editor, the aforementioned Darth Kel, was entertainment editor for the paper and was apparently desperate enough for column inches to ask me to write for her. I agreed and every Wednesday for 58 weeks, LAN made its regularly scheduled appearance to virtually no fanfare whatever.

It was tough meeting those weekly deadlines, knowing that Darth Kel was waiting for me to hurry up and write something so she could turn it into something readable and publish it for my tens and tens of fans. But I had a ball. I have never before nor since been so prolific. When Kel left T-net in 2000, I went with her. I knew this process was always a team and Kelly was the only person I felt comfortable letting edit something as personal as LAN had become.

From time to time, Kelly has e-mailed me, wondering if I was writing (the answer, mostly not) and if I ever considered bringing LAN back. Before, I could always plead having no venue to publish, all the time knowing that my real fear was getting back to it and finding I'd lost the little bit of talent I had. What if, when I opened up wordpad, nothing came to my mind and flowed through my hands to fill up those vast empty pages? What then? But with T-Net out and no ready place to publish, I had my excuse.

Then came the bloggers...

At first I thought I was safe. Darth Kel, despite being one of the two smartest people I know, has never really the fastest to catch up with technology. In '94 when I was telling her of the wonders of these things called BBS, she was looking at me like I was a loon. In '95 when I excitedly told her about getting Internet access, she again seemed uninterested. So I figured with blogging just taking off fairly recently, I figured it would be a couple of years before Darth Kel discovered blogging.

It wasn't.

A few months ago she e-mailed me and told me that she'd started a blog. Good news. Kelly has always been the better writer of the two of us, though she usually prefers to edit and will never admit it in a million years. At that time, she made one mention of bringing LAN back. Here we go, I thought...

She never brought it up again.

So why, I wondered, did the person who pestered me to bring back this old dead column when I had no ready place to publish it decide to suddenly stop so close to her percieved goal?

Once again, the force is strong in Darth Kel. She knows me too well. She had sewn the seed, and kept it fed and watered through my frequent visits to her own blog. She knew all she had to do was throw all that empty space out there for me and I'd eventually be honor bound to attempt to fill it. I'm still a writer, even if the old muscles haven't been flexed in a long time.

So here I am... Filling the empty space. I can't promise LAN will become a weekly column like it was in its heyday. I'm going to try to keep it up regularly but a whole heap of "real life" has come and sat on me since 2000.

So come back again sometime, or as we say here in the deep south "ya'll come when you can stay longer." I'll fill the empty space if you'll provide me with the excuse to do it.

Until then,

Gryph

"In the end, everything is a gag"
-Charles Chaplin
NP: John Prine: Fair and Square