Category: General

I wasn’t sure what to write about today. I have an idea for a post but it requires research and whatnot, so I saved that one as a draft. This one is just going to be a simple list for now. I’m going to answer the question, what was happening the year I was born? What’s changed?

1964 was a leap year, apparently. That doesn’t really affect me, though, because I was born in December; no extra days for me until 1968.

I was born on a Monday. According to Wikipedia, no important world events happened on the 28th day of December, 1964. The day before that, the Cleveland Browns defeated the Baltimore Colts by a score of 27-0. Two days later, the UN established the UN Conference on Trade and Development. OK, those are boring.

The month I was born, the second James Bond film, Goldfinger, was released in the US. Oregon, my home state, was experiencing one of the most destructive floods of its history. The Steel Bridge’s lower deck was submerged by the Willamette River, and the waterfalls in Oregon City were apparently not a waterfall at all.

On the radio, the #1 song in the US was “I Feel Fine” by The Beatles, which had beaten out “Come See About Me” by The Supremes the week before. On TV, were shows like “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” and “No Time for Sergeants” on ABC, “The Andy Griffith Show” and The Lucy Show” on CBS, and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “The Andy Williams Show” on NBC.

I had several more paragraphs here, but an accidental swipe on my trackpad wiped it all out, and I’m too tired and sad now to re-create it. Maybe tomorrow.

Since my 50th birthday is approaching, I’ve been thinking about milestones in my life. The events or decisions where life changed for me. I wonder how many I can think of and name?

My earliest memory is clearly my first conscious milestone. While there are events important to me that took place before my earliest memory, like being born, my older sisters’ births, or my parents meeting, the first thing I can remember must have been the start of my conscious, continuous existence, right?

Unfortunately, I can’t think of when my first memory actually occurred. And since memories are made in the same area of the brain as imaginary thoughts, I can’t be sure it even happened at all.

The memory is of me, standing near a swing set, in a fenced in yard. The swing set looms high above me, and the fence is taller than I am. I’m wearing a warm, comfortable, blue corduroy hooded coat. It’s cold out, gray skies, windy, and mom is approaching me. I believe, since I’ve talked about this with my parents in the past, that the memory is from when we lived in Seattle or the Seattle area briefly, and I must have been very young, 1 or 2 maybe.

That narrows it down to 1965-1966, I suppose.

I vaguely remember, later, the family moving to Kalama, Washington, and into an apartment building near downtown Kalama. That’s the first place that I thought of as “home”, and that I can remember the interior of.

I have a lot of memories from that home, but they’re discontinuous. That’s where mom found me, around age 3, reading the Sunday comics to my year-older sister, and not just looking at the pictures. In my experience, I’ve always been able to read; I learned how to do it at such an early age it just feels like something I was born doing. If I was 3 years old, then those memories take place in 1968 (since my birthday is so late in the year).

I also remember watching the Apollo astronauts launching on television in that living room in Kalama. I don’t know if it was Apollo 11, though, the first manned landing on the moon, which happened between 16 July and 24 July 1969, or one of the earlier non-landing missions, which started in 1968. My memory is that I was watching a manned mission, though, because I remember telling my mom that I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up; what could be more natural than a kid named Moon, going to the moon?

The apartment was below street level on one side, and I remember windows placed up high looking in to the kitchen area. One October, as we were bringing in groceries from a trip to the store, mom pointed up at the window and me and my sister were shocked to see a skeleton in that window. I’m sure it was a kid in a costume, or dad playing a prank. It shocked me but didn’t really scare me, at least as I remember it now, 45+ years later.

I could probably draw a map of that apartment now, although I have no way of knowing if it would be accurate or not. I can find it on Google Maps, however, and its satellite images tell me that the apartment building is still there. It’s an L-shaped building, with a shared patio inside the angle of the L, and from the patio there is a stairway that leads down to an alley, and from there to the main street of Kalama, right next to the Post Office.

Hopefully dad or my sister will pop up here and fill in the details and dates of when we lived here, and correct my unreliable memory, or maybe confirm it. It felt like a brief time; soon after, we moved further away from downtown Kalama (which is tiny, even today) into a fourplex that felt like it was out in the country, and Google Maps tells me is 4.2 miles from the Kalama Post Office, or an 8 minute drive.

But those memories are for a different post.

In exactly 30 days I will be celebrating my 50th birthday. That’s a lot of birthdays.

In 1989, I turned 25 years old. Half my life ago.

In 1989, I was working at a near-minimum wage job, in a shopping mall, selling games. The store was, in fact, called Endgames, which was supposed to be a Samuel Beckett reference, one I’ve never bothered to look up. Minimum wage in Oregon back then was $3.35 an hour. According to my annual Social Security letter, for calendar year 1989 I earned $11,391. Assuming a full-time job, that means I worked for around $5.47 an hour. Considering how lazy I was, I doubt that I worked any overtime at all.

With that money I paid for my car, a nutmeg brown Porsche 924, ate a lot of fast food, and bought comic books and gaming stuff. Maybe some clothes now and then. I still lived with my parents (I wouldn’t move out until the following year, into an apartment I would share with two high school friends, Andy and Rod). I had no steady girlfriend and went on, maybe, one or two dates with women I met at the mall. I had no ambitions at all. I just wanted to keep working at the games store, playing D&D, watching TV, and eating delicious food that was terrible for me.

As I look back, I think I took the idea of not having any ambition to undreamt of levels. The entire concept of dreaming of doing something else didn’t even cross my mind. It feels alien to me now, just thinking about it. I had a vague sense that my mom, dad, my sister, all of them were frustrated with me, but for what I had no idea. My friends all seemed to accept me as I was. But if you’d asked me what the future would hold for me, I would have just shrugged and changed the subject, or talked vaguely of having more money at some unspecified point, without any real sense of what I could be doing to reach it.

If someone had suggested I go to school and get a degree, it felt like an unreachable goal to me. The money I made flowed through my hands like water and I rarely had anything left from one paycheck to the next. School costs money, and I was working 40 hours a week already; if I took time off to go to school, how would I earn the money I needed?

I was ignorant, and I think, now, that I was ashamed enough of being ignorant that I didn’t ask any questions that might have cured my ignorance, or even led in that direction.

I had a whole lot of failure ahead of me before I would ever learn to plan ahead.

Compiling paperwork for my lawyer is something I never, ever, ever imagined I would say.

This headache is probably because I haven’t put any caffeine into me, and not the outcome of the two delicious Jubelales I drank last night (thanks, Ken!).

I only realized I hadn’t turned on the heat when I noticed my phone is overheating. It’s the warmest thing in the apartment.

My apologies. Been working hard at my day job, plus caught a cold. More stories are coming. Just need a little rest.

Thanks for reading!

Pulled from my files. Has my writing changed in 14 years? Comment if you can tell the difference.

It had been a long night, lots of work done, boxes packed and moved and labeled. Chester pulled his jacket a little closer, and pulled the collar up against his neck; although it was spring, the wind tonight lacked warmth. It was late, and Chester had had to walk home since his car was stolen two weeks ago. He walked the length of the long park that lay between the warehouse where he worked and his home sweet home, his humble abode, the four walls between which he called his “space”.

The grass, freshly mowed, looked greyish under the starlight, except where it was yellowed from the sodium-colored lamps along the pathway. Chester passed the playground, not looking up at the huddled shapes of teenagers brooding over some imagined slight. He walked swiftly past the smell of the public restrooms.

But he stopped by the pond. It was still and silent, deep and blue-black, unnaturally still considering the wind that sapped the heat from Chester tonight. The groves of trees stood watch over the water’s dark surface, swaying together, now apart, seeming like the kids Chester had seen on the field moments before. Chester shivvered, tired from his work and the late hour, and imagined that the lake went down forever, an endless shaft of water sunk through the Earth.

Chester had never learned to swim. He had a fascination with it, wondering what it would be like to frolic and glide through it, but his fear had kept him from it. It called to him, but he was afraid to answer it.

When he reached home, and his bed, he dreamt of fighting a huge winged snake.

*****

After another two weeks of time-and-a-half, Chester’s boss allowed as how the workload had eased off enough for Chester to take some time off. Chester hadn’t taken a vacation in nearly two years, and wasn’t sure what to do. But he remembered that night two weeks before, standing before the pond, shaking with cold and also with fear, and he decided that he would try to improve himself by learning to swim. The water’s call to him was stronger than his fear of it. He hoped.

Down at the local YMCA, there was a sign-up sheet for swimming lessons. Chester approached the board, and realized that he had not brought a pen. He turned around, looking for an office or someone official looking to request one.

“Excuse me… you look lost. Can I help you?”

Chester turned and faced a slender beauty. Her hair was soft, wavy, and so dark it was almost blue. Her eyes were a startling shade of green, and they were set in a face that was almost elfin. She had a smile, and she held a clipboard. A pen was tucked behind her left ear.

“Oh, right, I was just going to… uh….” Chester waved vaguely at the sign-up board. “I want to swim. Or, to be able to swim. Swimming lessons.”

“Excellent! I can handle that for you. I’m the instructor! Well, one of them, anyway.” She pulled the pen from behind her ear and paused with it in the air over her clipboard. “Name?”

“My name is Chester. Chester Hogan. I do hope, that is, I’m looking for a beginner’s class.”

“Fair enough… I can sign you up for the class that begins on Tuesday evening, at 7 pm, or the Wednesday afternoon class at 1:30. Which would you prefer?”

“Tomorrow evening should be fine. Where do I pay?”

“That’s my class!” She scribbed on the sheet. “Oh, you can pay in the office.” She tore a sheet off her clipboard. “Just take this over there.” She pointed over to a door marked ‘OFFICE’. She smiled again, hugged the clipboard to her chest, and bounced on her feet. “See you there!”

Chester had to borrow a pen to sign the check.

That afternoon, he made a chicken salad sandwich and ate it in the park, looking out at the pond. A flock of ducks were swimming, diving, and taking off from its waters, and he envied the ease with which they played in it. Of course, on dry land, a duck seemed out of place, like a man wearing shoes that were too tight. Chester felt that a duck was his complete opposite. The thought saddened him.

I made it to two weeks! Huzzah! How do you like me so far?

Tonight’s story brought to you via the TV Tropes Story Generator. See if you can guess which ones.

Lael Winterberg liked to hit the gym in the early afternoon. She avoided the lunch rush and the post-work rush. Things were nice and quiet. Not too many people around, plenty of machines available. Treadmill, stairclimber, bicycles, weights, you name it.

The gym wasn’t huge but it was very convenient; just a few blocks from her apartment. She had few excuses not to go, and she wanted to get her money’s worth if she was paying for it.

A little brick building that used to be real estate offices or something, across the street from one of the neighborhood’s ubiquitous antique stores. She arrived, already mostly dressed for the workout, carrying a bag with a towel and her running shoes, and pulled the door.

Which was locked, strangely. Was something wrong? The lights were on inside but Lael couldn’t see anyone inside.

She found her gym keycard in the bottom of the bag and swiped it on the sensor; a click from the door told her it worked. She went inside. No one behind the reception desk but that wasn’t unusual. This place was nearly automated, but there was usually someone around for questions or assistance or even cleaning up.

“Hello?”

No one in the workout area, no one in the yoga room. No one in the women’s locker room. She was half-tempted to knock on the door of the men’s locker room just for that sense of completion, but… “Now you’re just being silly. And apparently talking to yourself.”

She got out of her hoody and put on her running shoes, stashing the unused clothes in the bag, grabbed a towel and went up to the treadmill. A few quick button presses and she started off at a nice easy pace. But she couldn’t get a rhythm going; she kept looking around, expecting someone to jump out at her or at least startle her.

Aha! Music! She paused the treadmill and put in her earbuds, slipped her phone into the armband and put it on, got some good fast pop songs going, then started again, easy pace, one two one two one two one two.

And jumped when, in the pause between songs, she thought she’d heard someone else’s voice say “Keep going.” She stumbled but managed to keep upright, not falling down and being flung off the treadmill. Since the machine faced the plate glass window, she could use it as a mirror now that the clouds were rolling in outside and it got a bit darker outside than in.

There was no one with her in that room that she could see.

She pushed the treadmill speed up.

Clearly she needed a distraction. Wear herself out. Outrun her stress and concerns.

She caught a rhythm now that she was pushing harder. One song blended into the next and her arms and legs and heart and lungs all worked together. She felt… human. A human animal, a biological machine tuned for exactly this. Biomechanically, tall or short, thin or wide, nearly all humans were the end result of hundreds of thousands of years of refinement of precisely these sets of motions. Bred to run, at least until the last couple thousand years or so. Something derailed your species, you became distracted from your goal, learning about agriculture and staying in one place too long, getting fat on grains instead of tracking down roots and preying on game.

What the…? YOUR species? Lael wondered where that had come from. Shaking her head to clear it, she ran.

As she did, it became meditative. She imagined running on the beach, on the hard packed sand right along where the waves came in, feet digging in and sliding just a bit, causing her calves and thighs to work just that much harder, but more satisfying for it.

She imagined running along a dirt road in the country, trees and fields and rusty barbed wire fences and lazy stinky cows and old barns. But no cars or trucks, no other people, no farmers or pedestrians, no one but her.

She imagined running along a trail up in the hills, lungs heaving and legs and feet straining but still she runs, up and over tree roots and under branches and along streams, solitary but not lonely. Run, Lael, run.

She imagined running in crunchy snow, the flakes melting instantly on her warm face, her breath visible in the chill but her movement making more than enough warmth to keep her going. Keep her running.

And as she imagined it, she kept running.

She may never stop. It’s important she doesn’t stop.

I’m thinking of doing a weekly reading of my (or yours? via a poll?) favorite Daily Story Project post.

Would you like that?

I noticed today that I had skipped #9 last week; yup, went straight from #8 to #10. So just to complete the series and get it back on track, this is #9, even though I wrote it tonight. Enjoy.

“Well it’s a beautiful day for… it. For, for this.” Karl said, as he and Woodrow walked up the hill from where they parked the car. The hill faced a green valley, and there were enough clouds in the sky to give it some texture, but plenty of blue sky showed through. Karl was tall, with a full head of black hair, wearing a dark t-shirt with no logo or pocket, jeans, and well-worn leather shoes.

Embedded in the ground, though, in a regular grid, were stone markers, nearly all of them flat marble flush with the ground, with names and dates and epigraphs and aphorisms engraved on them. A graveyard.

Woodrow was careful to walk so that he avoided stepping on the graves. He carried a handful of cheap flowers. He was wearing a button shirt, a vest, slacks and Chuck Taylors, and he stood a head shorter than Karl. “I suppose. It’s her birthday. I would have come no matter the weather.” He stopped moving. “It would have been better if it had been raining, I guess. More… cinematic.”

“Sure. But if she’s up there and she’s glad we’re here–” Karl walked behind his friend but he only avoided stepping on the headstones; he walked in more straight lines. He stopped next to the shorter man.

“She’s not.” Karl’s voice was flat and final.

“Well, right, but if she was… never mind. You never let me win that one.”

“What’s to win? Eternity in boring paradise? God, we haven’t argued that in years.”

“We haven’t. But this place is a good place to do it, don’t you think?” Karl’s voice was gentle and almost under the sound of the wind.

They both started walking again, Woodrow in the lead, both of them looking down at the headstones.

“Unfair. This place gives you an unfair advantage, Karl.”

“Wait, what? If there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s that people die. The only argument is what happens afterwards.”

“Not the only argument. But… Right. Atheist or Christian or, I don’t know, Nordist or Cthulhuist, we all die.”

“Maybe not the Cthulhuist, though. They might be tormented until the heat death of the universe, on our earthly plane.”

“Blasphemer.” Woodrow chuckled, then stopped.

Karl regarded his friend. “It seems strange that you’re the one who’s superstitious here.”

“I’m not superstitious! I’m… I’m respectful. Fuck you.” Woodrow looked south, his left. They were only about halfway toward the crest of the hill. To the south there was a line of trees and they could see that there was a wide open expanse where no gravestones were set. “I think she’s this way. We should have got the map.”

“I thought you’ve been here before?”

Woodrow stopped short, turned to face Karl, his jaw dropped. “You’ve never been up here? Oh my god, Karl! She’s been dead for four years! You’ve never visited her?”

“First, I don’t know why you’re shocked. Second, this isn’t her; the part of her that’s her is in a better place than this, and I think she visits me all the time. Again, this seems weird coming from the atheist, this, this, judgement.”

Woodrow’s face, his cheeks, were red, but he didn’t answer for a while. Karl let him think.

“You’re right. I’m freaked out. And I’m nervous about being here, with, with you. When she died, you and I weren’t.” He scratched his arm, looked down. “We weren’t on the best of terms.”

“Do you think she cares about that now? She’s probably happy we’re friends again! It was stupid, fighting like that.” Karl stepped closer to his friend, put his hand on the shorter man’s shoulder. “Hey. I’m glad we’re still friends.”

Woodrow didn’t look up right away. “It was stupid. She had a big heart. She was special to, to both of us.” He looked up at his friend. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “You motherfucker, you made me cry first.” He hugged his friend, who returned it with vigor. When they parted, they were both crying, but also smiling.

Woodrow punched his friend on the shoulder. “Goddammit, Karl, we should have hugged OVER HER GRAVE. You can’t do anything right.” He turned and walked towards the line of trees. “I’m pretty sure she’s over here! We still need to find her.”

Karl followed his friend. “I think we already did.”