Thanksgiving - biggest damn turkey ever (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

So, this year, takayla, CR, and I are going to someone else's house for Thanksgiving, which is the first time we have done this since her mom died over 10 years ago. It's Anya and Brian's house, where we'll be met by her parents and Brian's mom. It will be a mixture of German and Korean, I think. I am very much looking forward to this.

I have blogged before about my rotten childhood, and how I hated Thanksgiving because it was one of those few times a year my parents and I ate together, and my father usually teased me until I cried, and sometimes my mother was tipsy. Those days are long gone, and only a kind of unhappy memory at this point that has healed over trauma and begun to bore me. Towards the end, I used to have the meal at Kate's house, and then my first Thanksgiving after my mother died was at the FanTek house, which was all shades of awesome.

I'd love to regale you with some fantastic tale of science fiction about that dinner. Like maybe how the turkey was covered with Christmas lights, the stuffing had a sarlacc in it, we had Klingon qagh as a side dish, and we cut the turkey with a lightsaber. But it wasn't all that science-fictiony, really. It was a fairly normal pot luck affair on the huge table that we normally folded and printed "The Castle" on. The only sci-fi we had was the normal decor of the FanTek house.

Living at the house in November of 1987 were Bruce, Cheryl, Liska, Debbie, and myself. We invited Bruce's family over, and I think there were some other people, but I forget who, but I recall the total being around 8-12 people. Bruce has a nephew named Jamie who was 13 at the time, I think. "He likes to put ketchup on everything," he said. Bruce was prone to hyperbole about other people's actions, so I didn't pay that much attention to it. When we got the food, Bruce got Jamie his own bottle of ketchup.

The turkey was a story in itself. A few months previously, we were shopping for food at the Shopper's Food Warehouse on Rt 1, when some guy at a table asked us if we wanted to pre-order a turkey and save a lot of money, plus they came fresh from some farm and were not frozen ever. Bruce talked to the guy, and it seemed legit, so he asked, "How big do they go?" The guy didn't know. "Twenty pounds?" Bruce asked. "Sure," the guy said. Bruce looked at me, and spoke out some math about the number of guests and how much we expected them to eat, and arrived at 30 pounds somehow. "Can we order a 30 pound turkey?" he asked. The guy seemed a little skeptical, but said, "give it a try. You only pay by the pound when you pick it up, so if it's only 25, you only pay for 25 pounds." So Bruce put down:

35 pounds.

I laughed. "That's a big turkey," Bruce said. I don't think we expected to get over 25 pounds. Our plan originally was to cook two turkeys, have one main turkey on the table, and a plate of stuff cut from the less presentable turkey.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, we got a postcard that said our turkey would be available 2 days before thanksgiving, and it would not be frozen, so bring a cooler. On the card, it had some check boxes next to the weights in steps of 5. Ours was checked "other." We also got a call from SFW when it arrived. "Your 35 pound turkey is here." Liska had answered the phone, and said, "You mean 25 pound." "No, ma'am, 35."

Bruce and then picked up what was the largest damn turkey I had ever seen. "Wow!" he said, "It's really 35 pounds!" It didn't fit in the cooler we brought. We had to move shelves around in the fridge. That's when Liska, in shock, asked, "You think it will even fit in the oven?"

It did fit in the oven, barely, but did NOT fit a roasting pan. We had to take two disposable foil roasting pans and sort of fold-stitch them together. None of our cookbooks had instructions on how to cook a turkey of this size, they all pretty much ended at 25 pounds. Liska and Bruce were in charge of the cooking, and using their vast experience and chemical know-how, they figured out how to cook it fairly well. They also had extra time since they planned on cooking two turkeys anyway.

The turkey came out juicy. The meat practically fell off the bone. Nothing was under or overcooked. Both Liska and Bruce are accomplished masters of the kitchen, and this was no less than an achievement on their part.

And Bruce was right, Jamie *did* put ketchup on pretty much everything on his plate. Including the stuffing and yams. Posted in: childhood , fantek , thanksgiving , turkey

I have to get this out of my head (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I was reading on this board about people who talk in their sleep, and it reminded me of many times my mother would do this during her various stages of drinking. I was never sure if it was the booze or sleep or lack of one of the other, but she used to have huge disjointed conversations with me. The worst was when she woke up at, say, 7pm on a Saturday and think it was 7am on a school day. Sometimes there was no convincing her I wasn't going to school, and she'd get ANGRY. But her conversations were both responsive and incoherent. For instance:

Mom: [sing song, like you do with small children] Greeeeeeegoreeeee... time to get uuuup...
Me: I am up.
Mom: Time to go to schooool....
Me: No it's not, it's 7pm on a Saturday.
Mom: No it's noooottt...
Me: Yes, it is. It's dark outside.
Mom: [pause] No.
Me: yes--
Mom: No. NO! You better... go and then go to see... you better go, Mister!
Me: It's night time. On a weekend!
Mom: Awwww... don't tell me... you... if you don't go. You will GET.... NO! No go and then I'll... you'll see! It won't!
Me: [says nothing]
Mom: ANSWER ME!
Me: Answer what?
Mom: You need... I'll tell your father and you'll see what I can go, and then you won't know what... you don't want that!
Me: Don't want what?
Mom: Yeah! That's what I thought... you get your coat!
Me: It's Saturday. There IS NO SCHOOL! Go back to bed!
Mom: You can't tell... the school won't get ANY and you'll be punished. PUNISHED! Don't be silllyyy..... Get any? No!
Me: Get any what?

And so on. Not answering her caused her to scream and come downstairs to yell at me, which would have been bad if she passed out ON the stairs. When she passed out, there was no moving her. You just kind of walked around her, or hoped you could wake her up enough to help you drag her to bed. Usually, though, she would abruptly end her nonsense conversation and go to bed on her own. Later, she would not recall the conversation at all.

This would be bad when my father was there, because he'd be furious and sometimes took it out on me (usually by yelling at me for a while about how if I got good grades, she wouldn't need to drink). I rarely brought friends over after the age of 12, it was simply too unpredictable.

Sadly, as a teen, I brought my friends over during trick or treating. wombat1138 and eeedge might remember that night when my mother didn't know who we were, and counted just the four of us (including Kate) three times... eeedge stopped her at 12.

I think about this every Halloween. :( Posted in: childhood , mother

Another childhood memory that bugs me (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

So, one of the things I started doing early on was counsel younger kids. In 6th grade, I was part of a program to help 1st graders in learning how to read. One of these exercises we did was a "creative writing" class that was merged with my 6th grade class because my teacher thought it was a good idea for extra credit. A few students joined me and the other "peer counselors" for getting a bunch of 1st graders to write a story.

Early on, I knew the value of a creative work to its writer. Thus, when I got assigned "Travis," I sat with him for about half a day, helping him write. Travis was obsessed with the Hulk. I didn't read comics much, but I knew who the Hulk was and what he was famous for. So I helped Travis with his story about the Hulk. I knew he was only about 6, so the while the story was simple, the only editing I did was to flesh out the sentences. The story went something like:

One day the Hulk was angry. He got so angry, that he punched down a building. Then he punched a giant dinosaur. Then he punched himself to the moon. Te got very lonely on the moon, so he punched himself back to earth. Then he ate cake. Then end.

I forgot the actual text, but that's the gist of the style. Typical first male grader, whom I remember was obsessed with the Hulk's ability to punch. I recall the ending about cake was kind of funny in a nonsensical way, like how Monty Python would end a skit. We had a good laugh about that when I explained how humor worked, so we kept it in after a few other suggestions, among which involved toilets (again, a boy). I thought we did a good job, and Travis provided illustrations. In general, we had a really good time, and later on Travis would still wave and talk to me even when I was 18, walking home from a D&D; game.

But our story was not well received. The first indication something was going wrong were the other stories. There was one girl who had a story like this:

When I was a younger woman, I would wile away the days of my youth in a field of daisies. Father was ever so strict, but I always managed to find more time outside on the moors than I spent inside with my studies.

It was a fine spring day when I realized that my horse could communicate with me. Her long mane would gently flow in the late afternoon breeze and as I rode her bareback, I felt I could carouse her simple thoughts and understand the equine nature of philosophy as it applied to my life which would prove to be so far much longer than hers. Oh, to have those days again!

Okay, it probably wasn't THAT sophisticated, but that's how it felt. My first thought was, "That's not how a first grader would write! Obviously, the bored little girl behind her had a story about a talking horse, and you managed to pad it out to three pages of that fluff." I recall even to this day the elements of, "Why would a 6 year old reminisce about her youth?" and how many stories from girls were about horses.

The next story was more of the same. And all the little kids looked really bored because they had to sit through 10-15 minute stories that were obviously not their own. I wondered just how much of it they wrote, and I felt like they had been gypped. Sadly, when mine came up, it was all of a minute, with pictures, and followed by silence. Luckily, Travis was too into his story being read to get subtle clues like awkward silence.

I got a C.

The reasoning that was given to me was that I had not "spent a lot of time helping him," (come on, 3 hours is a LONG time for a 6 year old's attention span), using already invented characters was a cheap shortcut, and how the story was rather immature. I had the rebuttal, "I was told the assignment was to help him write a story, not take his plot and write my own." I was told that it was not the spirit of the writing exercise; it was a writing exercise for me.

"Then why was it extra credit for volunteering?" I asked. "I was the one who brought the program to you, this is what our group always did."

Silence. I got upgraded to a C+ for my efforts, with a hinted warning that it was just extra credit anyway.

"Aw, heck," as my friend Neal would say at the time.

I don't know why this still bothers me. But I feel I still did the right thing, because Travis had a great time and stayed friendly to me until I left McLean some 6 years later. I don't know whatever happened to him, but if anyone who grew up ion McLean knew a Travis who lived on Southridge near Great Falls, I'd like to know. He'd be about 33 now. Posted in: childhood , writing

Kindergarten (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

So, this random memory wafted by my head, and won't leave. I assume this lesson is for me or one of my readers, perhaps both, and I won't know until I write it down. Doing the whims of the spirits, so to speak.

So, my Kindergarten teachers were Mrs. Wood, an older lady, and Mrs. Charlwood, a younger assistant teacher who had the same birth date as mine. Both were very kind people. The way Kindergarten worked back then was based on the fact they didn't think young kids could take a full school day, so we had AM and PM Kindergarten (they still do that here, do they do that where you are?). I went to the AM one.

We had small round tables assigned to us for various grouping purposes. Mine was furthest from the windows. Our claim to fame came during the winter months when our PE teacher, a guy named Mr. Hendron, had a "balloon blowing" game of some kind. They'd put a balloon over your table, and everyone at the table had to blow and blow to keep it in the air and over the table with a straw. Years later, I would reflect that this was a good way to keep the kids sedate: it made you dizzy as hell to keep blowing through a straw. Our table won over all the other tables, and we got a sticker that said, "Best Balloon Blowers: AM Kindergarten."

The bastards at the PM Kindergarten peeled it off. Or rather, tried to. They peeled most of it off, and our whole table was really upset about it. To this DAY this memory sticks in my head.

I kind of imagined that whomever sat at our table in PM Kindergarten did not win the balloon blowing game, and in anger and resentment, tried to peel off the sticker.

So, SCREW YOU, LEWINSVILLE PM KINDERGARTEN CLASS! :) Posted in: childhood

McLean folks: I ran into a few people (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Well, I ran into ONE person.

Mary Thorpe, now under a married name, was in the local Red Robin. She's got two kids, aged 3 and 7... I think. The most amazing part of this is she's lived a few block from me for the last 4 years. She told me she spoke to Donnalee's mother a while ago, and Donnalee is not doing so well, so I will have to break down and call her. I have her current address and number, but my life got really complicated a few years ago, and I couldn't follow up on the lead. I have to be a decent person and call her.

Also, Stina MacLamore contacted me on Facebook. She's practicing LAW in Miami, of all places. Speaking fluent Spanish helps her, but she's not reading sci fi anymore! Dude. Well, she's married to a handsome Cuban man, so who cares about SF! Hah.

Man, just a few years ago, I barely knew what happened anyone from the old school. Now, I am finding all kinds of folks. The Lewinsville Reunion may happen after all. Posted in: childhood , mclean , school

It's Mark's fault (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

The Christian religions have the Devil, but what do us neo-pagan-whatevers have? The DMV and Post Office? No. I will start an anti-hero. A nemesis. And it is based on a real event.

Okay, if anything has anything go wrong in their life, blame Mark.

Mark came to us in 1986. I was with friends in a central square in my high school, when from on yonder, Mark came unto us and said:

"That's it! Everything is my fault!"

I peered at this vision, and blinked in wonder. What did Mark just say? He was ranting like a madman, seized and tormented by demons or something. Truly, this was a moment to remember.

"What?" wombat1138 said.

"EVERYTHING THAT GOES WRONG IS MY FAULT!" said Mark.

"Everything?" I asked. Surely, Mark, that is dramatic.

"Even when it rains?" Kate asked.

"EVERYTHING!!" Mark ranted. Surely he was touched by something. "EVERYTHING THAT GOES WRONG WITH YOUR LIFE IS ALWAYS MY FAULT! OR ANYONE'S LIFE!!!" I swore I heard a choir of angels. This was truly a moment worthy of an Oracle at Delphi.

"How convenient!" Kate exclaimed, who was always the brighter one in our group.

Thus, the Scour of Mark was born in the Satanic Cult of the Smiley Face. Whenever anything bad happened, we blamed Mark. He said everything, and anything bad that happened especially, was his fault. He would insist this for days until finally we relented to the wisdom of the voices that spoke though him. Later, weeks later, we would come down from his vision, and proclaim he was having a bad day at the time, and to stop blaming him for everything.

But we knew better! He had been taken over by a divine prophesy, and given us a scapegoat! When a hotel comes down on you for having too many people at a convention in your room, Mark is to blame! When your parents grounded you for something your older sister did, Mark made them do it! Mark re-elected Reagan! Mark gave me strep throat! Mark even spoils honey!

Mark is a good name to be at fault. It denotes "target." Later on, the wisdom of a nemesis became more apparent when one cannot control the series of events in their life, and need a temporary resting place of angst until you regain control.

Sadly, the downside of this, is if you actually know someone named "Mark." They may think you are blaming them, and not the Scour of Mark, and was proclaimed in McLean in 1986. This is why I cannot bring the Scour of Mark to the local anime community*. The Scour of Mark presents a similar problem to those named Adolph after 1939.

Perhaps I need to think of a better name.

---
(*... sorry, deepthink) Posted in: childhood

Some odd notes (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

While I was basking in the sense of relief I passed the LPI 101, someone on a private LJ talked about problems she's been having with her father's previous abuse. I guess one of the things I have to deal with, although much less so lately, is my own father's abuse. Part of this healing is tracking him down, even though he doesn't really want to be found. But, ironically, he's got such a list of people who are mad at him, they find ME out.

Think about that for second. People, often people he hasn't seen or worked with for 20 years or more, take time from their day to complain about him. That's a pretty lasting impression to make on a person. In some cases, they are really pissed off.

I got an e-mail a few months ago from someone my dad worked with at SRI (Stanford Research Institute) back in the 1970s. Like many e-mails I get of this nature, it starts off with the usual, "I debated sending you this mail, but I read some of the things you had to say about your father, and you may find this info to be of some use." Many people feel a sense of guilt, which is then followed by a wave of pent-up anger. A lot of these people are older than I am, and we're talking in their 60s or 70s.

I already had been contacted some years ago by fellow alumni of Stanford, where my father got his PhD. None of them said anything I hadn't heard before. But this guy had some fairly detailed comments about my father's work at Stanford, including a copy of his thesis, "Cost-effective Processor Design with an Application to Fast Fourier Transform Computers." It's as boring as it sounds; my father is a very poor writer. This man also said he remembered me as a very small child, wandering around the computer labs. He said that I had an "implicit fascination with how things worked" and everyone agreed that I would someday be working with computers.

Funny. You know, everyone knew about my future with computers but me until 1995.

I barely remember those days as a kid. I must have been 4 or 5. I don't remember who I met, I only remember huge stacks of punch cards, paper tape, large machines with spinning tape reels, men with long hair and glasses, and some kind of huge metal green printer thing. Only sparse images and a sense of wonder and nervousness of being told not to touch anything. Later years, my afther worked in offices, and was surrounded by nervous employees. All I remember about those rare visits was the hot cocoa was free.

Most of these letters end the same way, too. "I am sorry you suffered as a child, your father was a brilliant man, but we didn't understand how he married such a wonderful woman, and I am glad you took the traits of your mother," and so on. Some feel regret and pity my mother was an alcoholic, but it's reassuring, in a dark sort of way, that they also understand why. Some offer advice to suck it up and move on (but in more friendly terms).

So as this private LJ spoke about things she remembered about her father, I wonder if in the future she'll be told the same things. If people will come to her and say, "I knew your dad, and he was an asshole. Thank goodness you turned out like your mother." If any legacy her father left her, any talent and skills, will be delayed because she identifies them with her memories of him. Only to end up in the same industry.

My advice to her would be, "Go with the flow. Talent doesn't fall far from the parent tree, but that doesn't mean you have to grow up the same way. You have another chance." Posted in: childhood , father

Lego Minifig turns 30 (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Article here

Yesterday, I reflected on the Lego minifig and my first encounter with the little guy in the late 1970s.

I had a friend Andy Oman who was the first one to have the set with a minifig. It was some kind of rocket lancher set, with two astronauts: a white one and a red one. Later on, he'd get more sets, including the Galaxy Explorer. I begged my mother for the rocket launcher set, and eventually, she gave in.

I recall mulling over the minifig and looking at the construction between my fingers. So miniature, so perfect. Everything fit in every way. Before, there were only two kinds of "Lego people." There was some kind of 2-part blocky guy. He had the Lego head and hat ability we still know today, but there was no face. The torso looked like he had his hands in his pocket and the rest looked like he/she was wearing a tight skirt that went all the way down to the feet. In fact, it kind of disturbing looked like someone wrapped up in a latex fetish body suit. The other kind of "people" were these heads with faces about the size of a Dum-Dum lollipop. They also had large hats/wigs you could snap on. The head fit into a 2x2 brick that also had an assembly for the arms. Arms were a snake-like with as many joints as you had pieces. The body was whatever you build from normal bricks.

Both lego people types were kind of lame. But the mini-fig was awesome. And 30 years later, the only thing they have changed is faces with expressions, printed hair, and beards. Plus more torso types. The skeleton was a nice addition.

But as a kid, I was hooked on the space sets. I built this one array that was a "space gas station." It was on top of a metal supply shelf I had in my room. It had two levels. The top shelf was the landing pad. It rad rockets, ships, and generic factory like facilities. It even had a diner. The shelf below that was "underground" where a small town was. Here people would mill about without the use of space suits. It had shops, restaurants, hotels, and housing. I collected a LOT of minifigs. I must have had over 40 of them by the time I was 12. They were always in little scenes where they would be doing something. Sometimes, I had a dark streak, and I recall one "scene" was an auto accident with dismembered limbs and some red modeling claw for guts, blood, and organs.

This made friends jealous, and quickly I began to realize that my Lego men were disappearing. I was so anal about them, knew each and every one I had. So when 2-3 of them disappeared right after a friend visited, I quickly put two and two together. I only caught two people, whom I will call "R" and "A" because, well, records are sealed at 18, right? ;)

"R" was REAL stupid about it . He used my Lego men in a diorama project at school. He denied it at first, but I told him I wrote my name on the foot on each Lego guy, and did he mind if I checked? He fell for my bluff, and gave me more Lego men than he actually stole (I didn't tell him). Then he tried to back out with the lie that he didn't steal from *ME*, but from "A," who was "stealing them from everybody." I mean, I knew A had taken some, but he denied it. Then A was confronted with R's evidence. A had recently been burned badly when he stole a bunch of cap guns from a toy store and got caught when he was giving them out to all the kids on his block. Sadly, A was not as anal about his toys' care, and so I got some of my men back melted with small magnifying glass holes. This actually ended our friendship (which was shaky anyway because of other stuff he was doing).

Ah... sixth grade politics.

At some point, I got hold of an unspecified "European toy catalog." This had Lego sets that were not sold in the US at the time. This had castle sets, plus some Lego knockoffs someone was selling that had dragons and tanks (I forgot, but I think this was way before Megablocks). There was no order form or address, and my mother had to tell me the sad news she was not having anything shipped overseas because that was way too expensive. I was DEEP in some kind of avarice and was totally pissed off. Nowadays, I get things from the Internet with such ease. I wish I could buy a ton of minifigs from Bricklink and send them back in time to myself with a note, "Sorry your parents suck, hope this helps ease the pain a little. And tell A[censored] he can't come to your house anymore." Posted in: childhood , lego , minifig

A window into my childhood (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Kids of the 1970s probably remember the Dinky toys. I used to get some of these models from Sullivan's Toy Store in Tyson's Corner back in the 1970s. I played with them until they broke, which seemed to be quicker for those with plastic parts and slower with those who had all metal ones. I had this catalog for a long time, and sometimes I'd read it, envious of the models I didn't have, but my friend Andy and Pat did.

http://www.zeigermann.com/toys/Dinky_1974/dinky_1974.html Posted in: childhood , dinky

CR! Rock on! (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

No longer a high school go-gaggu-wa

Ray Romano has this bit where his mother tells him to complete college. When he asks why, she says, "So you can say you're a college graduate." You mean I can't say that now? "I am a college gajjeet! A ko-kakka go-gaggu-wa! Dammit! Three credits and I could have had it!"

So CR, after 18 years of moderate childhood angst, has made it my education level. I mean, yeah, I also got scattered college credits, but they don't count. He is a full graduate of Chantilly High School, even though he had to finish it in the summer.

His graduation ceremony was modest and he was among about 20 graduates from 5 nearby schools in his summer program, and maybe 1 of 3 born in this country. Some kids were graduating early, there's a 15 year old in his group; she's going to be a college student before she learns how to drive (her biggest complaint). Another had to leave the country to be by his dying mother, but came back, and was graduating at age 20. He actually gave the student-based inspirational speech, and even though his English was pretty bad, his story was heart-wrenching and very, very well composed and written. The whole thing was maybe an hour long, indoors, and I was happy to see so many graduates had HUGE families that came to see them. In front of us was a very sweet Hispanic family, and one of the Islamic students had maybe 20-30 people cheering for her. Even the neglected kids seemed to have friends who showed up and cheered for them. "GO BRITTANY!!! WOOOOOO!" "TYLER! YEAH!!! HOO HOO HOO HOO!" CR was one of 6 or 7 graduating from his school, and he graduated with an old childhood friend from Bailey's, the magnet elementary school he went to from grades 1-5.

Contrast that to the McLean ceremony I had in 1987, which was slated to be six hours long, had two famous guest speakers (I think Senator Chuck Robb, and Desmond Tutu's daughter), several local guest speakers, a few student speeches, and over 340 students to go through. It was held outdoors, in a hot and muggy summer day, during the *height* of the 17-year cicada season. So in addition to being hot, bored, and covered with thumb-sized insects, the combined apathy of the graduating class and the growing unrest in the bleachers of parents forced the students to END the graduation early. Anya said when she graduated in 1995, it was about the same, except it was down to four hours, and no cicadas. While takayla didn't mention hers, she agreed this was MUCH better than what CR's class had a few months earlier: 3500 parents and students at the Patriot Center, where tickets were like $70/person, I think. Yikes!

We did have to pay, however. The $188 we paid for this one included me, takayla, and Anya, if you combine the "senior dues" he had to pay last year (they never collected for this year... oh they ASKED for it, but never collected), and $128 extortion fees on "owed equipment," counting a $108 "advanced graphic" calculator CR never owned (he never took advanced math courses), but someone said he did, and they wouldn't let him graduate unless he paid (and we couldn't complain because "the woman" who handles these affairs was "on a cruise for the next two weeks"). On the check I sent them, in the comments section it says, "Bribe money" and on the back where you sign the check, I wrote, "By cashing this check, Fairfax County agrees that this was paid under duress, and completely illegal." I know they never look, I did this with other "mysterious fees" the schools have charged us in the last 13 years, including his junior year "senior dues" and various other untraceable "equipment charges." I learned this trick back in the days of bill collectors who had a juicy habit of "forgetting" you paid them.

But it's over. He has his diploma in a purple leather binder, and on Saturday, takes entrance exams for college. The current plan is 2 years of NOVA (which is no shabby college, let me tell you, one of the best Community Colleges in the nation), and then onto a graduate college (one of several in Northern Virginia are being considered, I'd love to get him into VA Tech if we can afford it). His current idea is to become a TEACHER for small children which is AWESOME and I think he'd be a great teacher.

Congratulations CR! I am so proud of you, and I love you very, very, very much!

In other news, aksident, whom wanted to be with us, and we wanted her as well, could not attend because she was doing volleyball tryouts at her school. Good thing, because she not only MADE THE TEAM but was ONE OF ONLY TWO FRESHMEN picked for the JV team! Usually they only pick Juniors and Sophomores if they are lucky. But she's always been skilled and competetive, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her at the 2012 Olympics. Posted in: aksident , childhood , cr , graduation , mclean

In Search Of... happy memories (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

So, last night, I was on some web site where someone was making fun of Leonard Nemoy as being an "unlikely Hollywood star that makes Fred Gwynne look sexy," and they dropped the name of the show, "In Search Of..."

I used to LOVE that show.

And I forgot about this moment until Glark mentioned it on his Twitter feed about how most investigative monster hunt/alien sighting shows end with a maddening, "... but you'll have to decide for yourself." I agree with him on this point, because it made me stop watching these shows. "Then why the hell did I sit here for an hour then and watch your damn program?"

But this is not really a rant, but a rarity in my journal, a happy childhood memory.

It doesn't start off nice. There were many weekends I spent "alone" in my house because my father was on a business trip and my mother was drunk and passed out. One didn't happen because of the other, in my opinion, since both happened with enough frequency to make them overlap a few times a year by chance. The time that these highlights happened was from about age 9 to 12. I liked the time alone, because I felt I could be myself, and I got tired of my room all the time. Plus, I had the run of the house. Wheeee!

I would get up early on a Saturday morning. Normally, I got up late because when my parents were around, I felt I had nothing to look forward to in a day if I didn't have school. Even if I was up until o-dark-thirty the night and morning before, I'd get up early at watch cartoons. I wasn't allowed to watch TV as a kid, except a few sanctioned PBS shows, and only when I wasn't in trouble. But when I had the house to myself? Awesome... I'd crawl out of bed, check on my mother, and if she was passed out in bed, I was in the free and clear. Sometimes she'd be passed out on the floor or on the toilet, and I'd have to get her to the bed if I could get her awake at all. But most of the time she was on the bed, snoring away.

I'd go to the kitchen and see what food we had. Most of the time, we had an acceptable variety, and since my mother taught me how to cook when she was sober, I could make do with an odd assortment of ingredients. Like even at age 10, I could cook a steak, roast a chicken, make sauces, and so on. But usually I'd choose something easy, like frying my own hamburgers or a TV dinner of some kind (if I was lucky, my mother wasn't into frozen foods much). If there was cereal, I'd eat that, too. We didn't have a microwave, but we did have a toaster oven, so I'd often make toasted things. My favorite was a toasted PB&J;, although it made a mess if the jelly dripped.

I'd turn on the TV in the kitchen, and flip around to the various shows. We didn't have a TV guide or anything, so at each half hour interval, I'd check and see what else was on. Generally, there were 4-5 channels with kid's cartoons in the DC area in the late 70s. You had channels 4, 7, and 9 which were the major networks of NBC, ABC, and CBS, respectively. Then you had local channels, 5 and 20 on the UHF dial. PBS was 26. On good days, you could also get channels 22 and 45 from Baltimore, which were PBS and a local Baltimore station. 5 and 45 later got bought out by FOX when it wanted networks. The "good cartoons" were on the major networks, and the local ones had older shows like Warner Brother and MGM cartoons, along with syndicated old shows like "The Little Rascals." The local channels gave up on cartoons fairly early, usually around 10-11am, and started showing various older, low-budget movies. The cartoons on the older networks ended around noon or so, usually when "Soul Train" started.

I'd watch a bad movie or two, usually on channel 20, which would then show some older serial cop programs like "Beretta" and "The Rockford Files." Then it would show, "In Search Of," which I'd watch religiously. In the later years, channel 20 would show "Kung Fu Theater," which probably saved my life since before that, I'd go down to DC to watch kung fu movies. I loved kung fu movies. I still do, in fact! I love watching some terrible flick from Hong Kong with grainy wow and flutter music and terrible subtitles. The gorier... the more DISTURBING gorier... the better. Regular, over-rehearsed fight scenes were okay, but I always liked the one way some guy would die and go, "Daaaaag!" I recall one guy died when someone stuck half a hornet's nest on his face, and pushed him over a cliff. Then he fell on some spiked fence and got torn in half.

I didn't just sit at our kitchen table and watch, though. Sometimes I did homework, but often I'd drag up my big collection of Legos and build stuff while watching. The sun might have been shining through the window, but I was constructing weird Rube Goldeberg machines with rubber bands, gears, and wheels.

The evening would bring about some scattered TV programs. The best was when Love Boat came on and then Fantasy Island. I would usually end the evening with Saturday Night Live or Benny Hill, checking on my mother every once in a while. Sometimes she'd get up and wander around the house, lost like a deer in a parking lot. My job was to make sure she didn't bump into anything, fall down the stairs, or pass out somewhere other than bed. But most of the time, she'd be snoring away.

Sometimes the weekend would extend into Sunday, but the TV was pretty awful on Sunday. When you're a kid, "Sunday morning" was dead for TV, and the TV didn't really pick up until the evening. I guess there was sports, but I hated sports, so.I had to find something to do. In the earlier days, I'd go down to DC and wander about. If it was Saturday, I'd take the 24T bus from West Moreland to Ballston Metro, but if it was Sunday, only the 23A bus to Crystal City was running near me, and so I'd have to walk about a mile down to Chain Bridge road to pick that one up. That one also went to Tyson's Corner, so I'd go there sometimes. I never had much money, so often I'd have some extra cash from some odd chore, or I'd... [gulp] rummage through my mother's purse. Yeah, I stole from her purse sometimes, but I "justified" it by taking only what I thought I'd need, and only sparingly, and usually no bills larger than a 5. Back then, bus fare was only about 35 cents, and Metro was like $1.60 round trip. A day in DC, with movie ticket, would have only cost about $6-8.

I guess I should have wandered around lonely and feeling sorry for myself, but in reality, I didn't. I actually enjoyed the "alone time." At age 10, you don't want your parents hassling you, and both parents fully knew I took the bus down to DC. It didn't bother them at all, since both grew up in Chicago. It's funjny, when CR was 10, I wouldn't have so much as allowed him to think that was okay, so I am not sure if it was parental neglect or things were different back then. Probably a little of both.

In DC, I used to go to the Zoo a lot. Museums, too. I also went down to some of the places where they showed cheap movies and the only staff at the theater was some old guy who didn't care if you were 10 and wanted to see an "R" film or not. In fact, that's why I saw a lot of the "Hong Kong Fooey" because they weren't rated anything, even though in reality they should have gotten an R rating for the extreme violence and gore.

I did have some friends to hang around; I wasn't a total social pariah. There was Neal in 6th grade, and before that, sometimes I'd hang around Pat, Andy, Kyle, Richard, and Carrie. Maybe FJ and Jean. But because my father insisted on spending so many weekends on his damn boat, I didn't really get to connect more than be that peripheral friend that hung around a few times a year (except for Neal that last year).

But those are happy memories, anyway. I don't really go down to wander around DC much these days. It's a shame I know more about Baltimore than I do DC. Posted in: childhood

CR's last few days as a teenager (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I guess you could call 18 and 19 "teens," if those "barely legal" sites are to be believed, but in my mind, being a teenager is 13 - 17, and then you are legally an adult. apeyanne tells me that the brain stops growing at 25 or so, which explains the behavior of me an my friends in Prune Bran. Haw.

But this post isn't about how I am throwing away his sailor suit and huge striped lollipop, but some good news in the fact he got a job again! He used to work at Five Below for a week, but they he got real sick last year. They said he could come back whenever, but then the entire chain started to go down the tubes. So now my son will work for a giant multi-national corporation as a barista!

And you can probably guess where. Rhymes with war bucks.

So if you are in Greenbriar some weekday evenings, come stop by and see CR in his first adult job.

I am very proud of him. Posted in: childhood , cr

On friends (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Old Prune Bran Alumni badmagic has a post about How do normal people make friends? which has spurned some debate. I suggest you take a look. But then I asked, "How did I make friends?"

In clusters.

As a kid, I had a few friends which thinned out for a while. At first, I hung around a group of mostly girls, like Denise, Allison, shuttergal, Meredith, and Jennifer. Then when girls thought boys were icky, I hung around Mike, Jean, Andy, Kyle, and FJ. I had one "best friend," who was Neal, but he moved away in 6th grade.

In the early, early years, my poor mother couldn't understand why I wasn't the popular kid. She was the popular kid in her school. Not the "snobby Heathers" popular, but like everyone got along with her, she was in so many school photos, had lots of friends, and so on. She would invite all the kids from my class to various parties, I guess in hopes to make me popular, but that didn't work out as well as she hoped. Even in high school, she worried that most of my friends were girls, and I *know* there was some bedroom talk between my mom and dad whether I was gay. Theater? Hangs around girls? Doesn't play sports? Loves musicals? Yeah, I had all the signs. Sadly, though, I got the hots for girls and considered men "hairy and icky." Personally, I don't know how you girls stand them. But I digress. My mother had kind of resigned that she had a gay son, I think, who had no sex life I was willing to talk about.

In junior high, I hung out with two neighbors, John and Jennifer (brother and sister), but I must have been a disturbing kid because they dropped contact with me pretty much as a teenager, and to this day, attempts to stir up some mature friendship bonding has resulted in a cold shoulder at best. I hung out with some community theater folks, gaming nerds (like stevonwolf, Fred, and Nicole), but apart from a few moments of hanging out, not much friendship actually occured. Junior high was pretty depressing, and I think the lowest point in my entire life. At least Neal kept me sane, all the way from El Paso, via cassette tape letters back and forth.

In high school, I got some badly-needed therapy, and first struck up some friends in the goth/punk community, before abuptly leaving that for a "peer-managed" group of misfits (yes, the county assigned me friends based on the fact that loners scared them). But I was in theater, and some of those people were in the sci-fi club. In my sophomore year, I started to make *real* friends, the first since Neal, and I am friends with most of them to this day. While I had different sets of friends, the best were Kate, Jason, Mark, wombat1138, and eeedge, who were a core gaming group as well as people I could just hang out with.

But as badmagic postulated, how does one move to a new area and make friends? I did that when I graduated high school. I was alone, and needed a place to live. That's when FanTek became like a surrogate family. Bruce, Cheryl, Liska, sasqatch, Debbie, and a variety of Daves. Then I got married, but stayed in fandom, where I met friend after friend. I can't tell you how many I have now, but my LJ list is not just a collection of random people who likied my blog. More than half of them I have hung out with in the last 20 years, sometimes for long periods of time (as in years), and many of them are deep, good friends I'd gladly risk my life for. I now have several groups of friends. Online groups, old convention fogies, childhood friends, user group friends, and some assorted stubs.

But... say I get sick of America, and move to Sweden? While that is unlikely, that presents some challenges. Even though most people speak English as a second langauge there, there would still be a language and cultural barrier. But this is a skill my mother was famous for: making friends and social connections in foreign countries she has just arrived in. I must have it in my blood.

First, I'd seek the alternative community. There is an SCA in Sweden (I met some at an Iron Forge museum), I know there's a thriving sci-fi community in Stockholm, so assuming I am in a major city center, I'd target those communities first. Look for computer club notices and Linux user groups. The Internet would make this so easy. At first, I'd make friends with a lot of people I'd probably lose within a year. Not by choice, but that's the reality of it. Maybe I made some mistakes culturally, or maybe we just didn't click after the first few times hanging out. A few I might have to avoid once I realized they were crazy or personally broken in a bad way, but that would only be a few people. But out of a few dozen people I tried, I think one or two would "stick." Then I'd build from there.

If I moved to, say, Lincoln, Nebraska, I'd do the same thing. Or Pittsburgh. Or Salt Lake City, Miami, or Phoenix. Internationally? Tokyo, London, Paris, or Hong Kong I would find a way. Hell, maybe even Beruit. As long as I wasn't in some podunk rural town with no Internet, I would do well. Ad even if and up in Singlegoatistan near the Chinese border where the town only has one phone and two bicycles, eventually, I would do well. It might just take a while. I think I might have to shift around some hobbies... though.

"Wild camel tipping? Tonight? Sure... I'll get my pole." Posted in: childhood , cons , conventions , friends

Ad perpetuam rei memoriam (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

So, when I was a kid, I wanted to learn Latin. I knew it was a former "defacto" language (to later be replaced by French, then English) international language of science in Europe until the 17th century, as indicated by class, order, and phylum. It was the root of the Romance languages, and learning Latin was the key to learning French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian. Besides, speaking Latin seemed cool and edgy.

But alas, no, my parents said I must learn Spanish. My school offered Spanish, Latin, German, French, Italian, Russian, and Japanese, but my parents said all of those were dead or dying languages, and determined that Spanish was the best route as far as usability. They turned out to be right, but I still wish they would have allowed me to take Latin.

My friend Neal took Latin, and sometime he described "declensions," which were noun cases, like verb conjugation, but it seemed so weird and foreign. I deduced on my own, and Neal later confirmed this, that with nouns being classified as such, the order of the words in a sentence became less important and used instead as emphasis. Many times I tried to find the root words of various things, but found I confused Greek and Latin constantly.

While I was in New Orleans, I picked up a Latin textbook from the 1960s. Last night I read through the first few pages, and found that all my years for trying to decode Latin roots made a few basic paragraphs completely transparent. I was stunned how many workds I could pick out or guess their meaning. I think most of my readers would also have an easier time of it than some poor 12 year old who never played D&D;, wanted to be a paleontologist, or thought "dead languages" were "pretty damn cool."

For instance, take this phrase: Canis meus id comedit.

You probably could guess "canis" means dog, like in the word "canine." "Meus" sounds like "me." The words "id comedit" are a little harder. I know "comer" means "to eat" in Spanish, and you see it in words about food and eading like, "comestibles" means "edible things" as in food. So you'd think "Something to do with a dog eating something." "Id" sounds like "it," so if you were told, "this is a phrase used as an excuse by children," "My dog ate it," becomes very clear.

This is why Latin kicks ass. Later on, you can sound really snobby at all the legal affairs, because law uses a TON of latin phrases: habeas corpus, pro bono, bona fide, de facto.... Posted in: childhood , languages , latin

Apology to Alissa (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I was not an angel as a child. Sometimes, when I think of my abuse, I have to pause and think about the abuse I unfairly doled back to others at random moments.

When I was about... 10 or 11 or so, there was this girl named Alissa Gawlik who shared a bus stop with me. She was a year younger than me, and somehow she got promoted to being patrol at our bus stop, much to my displeasure at the time. I used to called her "Piss on Garlic" in my head, because making fun of people's names was a popular form of insult to me back then. Her sister was named Yola, which was just too good to pass up the obvious Star Wars pun in the days when "Empire Strikes Back" was THE movie of the decade, and damn anyone who dared call it, "Star Wars II." But that's a different topic. I never knew what ethnicity those names had, but they looked like normal WASPs that soaked the McLean neighborhoods, flowing among the assorted Jewish and Catholic kids.

I can't even remember why I didn't like Alissa. I have this vague memory I thought she was snotty and arrogant, possibly on a power trip. I have no idea if this was true or not, due to my age at the time, and how emotionally unstable I was. But I recently thought of her while discussing something else, and I have to confess a very mean thing I did to her.

Alissa made me mad one day. Like, angrier than I normally was at her. My sketchy memory tells me that she punished me for a minor infraction, and it had something to do with favoring her "friends" over me. I put "friends" in quotes for later referral in this tale of shame. When she was done with me, she turned away from me, and engaged in general "girl talk" where my seething eyes saw someone who was petty and stupid. Her back was towards me, and between her and I were the springtime buds of a dogwood tree that encroached into the sidewalk corner that made our bus stop.

Alissa had really long hair. Like, unusually long hair down to her butt. I am not sure what made me think of this, but I took small ribbon-like strands of her long hair, and tied each ribbon to a bud on the tree. I recall her hair felt really smooth, like the kind of smooth professional hair products give you, but I didn't know those existed at the time. Because her hair was so long, and she didn't move much while engaging in idle gossip, I managed to tie almost a dozen strands to the tree. She looked like a lopsided maypole. Her "friends," as well as everyone on the bus stop, saw me doing this, too. A few giggled, including one of the girls Alissa was talking to. Nobody said a word.

Then the bus arrived.

While this is a letter of apology, the point must be made that the peak comedic moment of this event, the moments that made it all worth it to my adolescent brain, was when she moved forward to line us all up. There was a step forward, and then her head jerked back with a sound that was out of a cartoon, and could probably be spelled, "Gluck!" But sadly, I had not gaged her reaction beyond the moment, and the comedy quickly turned tragic when she panicked, and... got tangled in the tree. I mean, not really. No one had to cut her out, but the bus driver had to get out and assist poor Alissa, a victim of my ill-conceived revenge prank.

I never apologized to her. I mean, everyone KNEW that I did it, and despite the ill-conceived escape plan of sitting at the back of the bus, word quickly got out that I was the arboreal and cosmetic assault upon Alissa's locks. But the bus driver made it sound like she didn't know, shouting at everyone that it wasn't funny while looking back at us from her wide rear-view mirror. Poor Alissa was crying, and I countered my guilt with some hastily-piled hill of mental rocks made up of all the things I could think of her deserving. But my face was burning, and I regretted my actions as the familiar boiling sensation in my stomach roared... a sensation that years later would lead to my ulcer.

I got to school, and nobody said anything. Had I gotten away with it? Since she wasn't in my class that year, quickly the incident was forgotten. Until about 2 hours into class when I was called out by a teacher named Mr. Dowden.

Mr. Dowden was a sixth grade teacher whom I didn't care for. He was one of those manly men who "rewarded " his class with a Friday game of football if the weather was nice. To me, "football" was anything but rewarding. Football to me was like a punishment, and I used to watch his class outside on those Fridays they played, wondering if he knew those frail blue bloods that peppered McLean kids were not having a good time. The skinny Asian girl who played the violin flouncing about in her confused femininity, years away from her already delayed puberty, looking as if someone released a cat into a box of Styrofoam peanuts. The genteel boy from Manchester, an old world Brit out of his element, trying desperately to run as far from where the ball as possible because he knew that if the ball got close to him, the burly Brazilian kid, who already had facial hair, would run him down like a bulldozer over a watermelon. Mr. Downden was also famous for having a "fort" in his classroom, where one could go and read. He may not have been nearly as bad as my memory paints him, and in fact, I know many who spoke of him with great fondness.

But he was also the head of the patrols. And this day, he was very angry. Justifiably so, of course, because I can't imagine him just taking this event in stride. But he did something that, had it occurred in today's day and age, would have been considered grounds for dismissal. I knew this would end badly because he took me behind a set of stairs.

First, to his credit, he asked me if it was true. Then he asked what happened. He didn't start out calm, and he really started losing control of his temper as I explained, obviously trying not to laugh, the events that unfolded. I remember I kept thinking how angry I was that I was snickering, because I didn't want to. I wasn't so stupid I was being cocky about it, but I am sure it came across that way.

"Let me tell you something," he said, and grabbed my shoulder with one hand in a firm grip. "If you EVER do something like that again, to one of MY patrols..." and his other arm cocked back with a fist.

This is when I knew what was coming. Having been hit by my own father and countless bullies, this scene was as familiar as a well-worn glove. Time slowed down. Already I planned to take the punch to the face and let my neck act as a shock absorber while I used the momentum to carry myself backwards. This would spring my chest back, where I'd pitch to the floor in such a way, I'd slide away from the assailant, and have a good roll to stand up and a run to get away. It wasn't a flawless system, especially if another kid was pinning me down while I got wailed upon, but it was all I knew, and worked enough times for there to be an inner monologue detailing the instructions like I was readying my ship for launch. I closed my eyes, timing the punch to take so many fractions of a second, and wondering if he would strike my lower jaw, cheek, or eye.

But the hit never came. Instead he said, "I will punch your lights out. You'll see more stars than the star spangled banner." I paused. My adrenaline for taking the punch and rolling was now stopped abruptly, and for a few seconds I still wondered if he was doing this to catch me off guard to hit me when I went, "Phew!" But he never did.

And STILL I could not help snickering. I now know this was a nervous reaction, but I was cursing myself inside for not being able to stop. But he let me go. And time sped back to its normal speed.

I don't think he would have actually hit me. These days, I am pretty sure of it. As I write this, there's a part of me that respects how much he protected his patrols. I am sure he saw me as this plump, skittish kid, probably slightly crazy, who had bullied a younger girl. One of HIS younger girls. I think that would have been an accurate assessment of me, "the Larson boy." Despite how I felt about Alissa's "power trip," which may have totally been my imagination, what I did was wrong.

It occurred to me that Alissa would have been about the same age as Scarlet is now. I still feel pretty bad about this, and not because of Mr. Dowden's actions, but just how petty and cruel this was. And I don't think I ever acknowledged this with Alissa. I recall we pretty much avoided each other after that, and I was burning with guilt that I couldn't stop giggling about it for a long time.

I don't know where she is nowadays. I last saw her in the halls of our high school, but we never crossed paths. She became as anonymous as most other classmates a year below mine. I don't even know if she remembers the incident, because I was only one of several who were mean to her in elementary school. I recall things got better with her social life in junior high. And she cut her hair short.

So I am sorry, Alissa. That was a mean thing for me to do.

Your former grammar school classmate,

Grig (aka Gregory or "that Larson boy") Posted in: alissa , childhood

What is this, an International Blog? (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Mira...

Cuando yo aprendí el español, de tres años de español en la escuela secundaria para ser exactos, no sabía yo que lo esté usando para sobornar a los trabajadores hispanos no cavar hasta mi casa.

Me acordé de algo que mi mamá le hizo a los trabajadores obtener la basura para recoger la basura en nuestra nave en lugar de la acera: ella sobornó con cerveza. Nuestra cerveza había ido "skunk", por lo que sobornó con una botella de "Parrot Bay" ron.

Creo que funcionó. A pesar de que sólo habla un poco de Inglés, y yo sólo habla un poco de español escuela secundaria. Creo que se llegó a un acuerdo.

Perdóname, mi español es terrible, y en parte proporcionados por Google. Me carnicería de otra hermosa lengua. Posted in: bribes , childhood , gas , spanish , utilities

Mean Mrs. Green (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I need to post something, but nothing of interest happened to me. So I will post about a teacher I once knew, Mrs. Green.

Mrs. Green was kind of short, maybe at 5'2"; my memory is a little sketchy, but I recall her being my height later on, when I was 5'2" from 4th grade until 9th (another rant for another day). She had a round helmet of gray hair, which gave her a kind of figure like a squat boom microphone. Her skin was the consistency of a balloon skin that had been inflated too long. In addition to her polyester pants suit, she sported a cloud of rogue under each eye like some troll/china-doll hybrid. She was not a bad person, probably. She just didn't take any guff from anyone, even if you didn't mean to give her guff in the first place.

When I came from Palo Alto to McLean, I had already done a year of Kindergarten. But Virginia put their wee tykes a year later than those nut jobs in California, so I was put in Kindergarten again which my parents said just wouldn't do. My mother fought hard and long to put me in 1st grade, and eventually won out. But sadly, the year was already half over, and so the day I reported to Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Charlwood's classroom at Lewinsville Elementary, I was told to report to the classroom across the hall.

Mean Mrs. Green. All the kids knew about her. I thought was in trouble, because, well, she was one of the more present personalities on the playground, and famous for being a total bitch. Now, in retrospect, I cannot find a single memory where she did anything to anyone other than general yelling and maybe absconding with a toy or kickball. I would like to regale this blog with great tales of unfairness and treachery, but I simply cannot lie. However, her reputation was enough to cause a single young white haired lad from the west coast to almost wet himself in fear.

When I got to the class, I was told I was late, and to sit down. That's about all I remember; being in trouble just for showing up. And for a week, I endured whatever teachings she doled out. I'd like to claim she said or did something so horrific, I blocked it out, but all I know is that there was this event where I collapsed to the ground in what was first assumed to be an epileptic fit.

There was a principal, I think his name was Mr. Koreda or something, who showed up to assess the situation. I was later told I was curled up in the corner of the classroom, knees over my face, shaking uncontrollably and speaking in tongues. I have no memory of this. I was also told that someone on site figured out was not having a seizure, but a nervous breakdown. I don't know if my parents were called or what, but I think they found out eventually, because I was put back in Kindergarten the next day, and that was the end of having Mean Mrs. Green as a teacher.

Knowing how skittish I was, I have always assumed that she probably didn't do anything SO horrible, but probably after a week of her, I just snapped. Having a few nervous breakdowns since then, with similar symptoms, I am sure this actually happened. My father was furious with me, the school, and my mother for just "allowing this to happen." But we were not allowed to speak of it, and that was that.

Years went by, and I avoided that woman like the plague. I forgot who ended up being my first grade teacher, I think it was a Mrs. Shanis, who I recall was very young and pleasant. Then had Mrs. Knott, Mrs. Kusmuck (who also had a mean reputation, but apparently something nice happened to her over the summer, and she was always nice to my class and every one thereafter), Mrs. Showalter, Mrs. Estes (who was replaced by a horrible Mrs. Cordell halfway through the year), and the best teacher, Mrs. Ray (the one who taught me to write) for 6th grade.

When I became an A/V nerd in 4th grade, I recall one of our frequent calls came from Mrs. Green. Apparently, she was a minor technophobe, and refused to touch "modern gadgets" like film projectors, record players, and filmstrips. I didn't have to do her classroom until 6th grade, but it was an simple job.

You'd get paged over the intercom, and if the teacher could let you go, you went to the library, picked up and signed out the equipment, and went to the classroom that needed setup. Almost all of the teachers that needed help were older women, but sometimes it was a younger teacher who just didn't have time, and all you had to do was set up. Mrs. Green not only needed setup, but you had to run the entire film for her. So being paged for Mrs. Green would be a 40 minute job or longer, depending on the film. Most of the time, she wouldn't even be in the room during the film. She'd see you come in, and walk out as you started to assemble things. But before she left, she'd look at her class and go:

"If I hear any of you maggots FUCKING get out of LINE, I will find you, and beat your parents in front of you and make you watch them DIE! Then I will scoop out your eyeballs and step on them until they pop! The last thing you will see is the lips of your dying mother asking, "Why?" You mess with the bull, my friends, you get the HORNS! Got it? This audio visual specialist is YOUR NEW GOD! And I will SACRIFICE YOUR SOUL to him when I rip out your hot beating heart with MY TEETH? COMPRENDE???"

Or something that sounded like that, it was hard to hear her while cowered under some kid's chair.

;-) Posted in: a , childhood , teachers , v

Two things I never remember, and cannot teach (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I don't remember when I learned to read or swim. To me, my whole life I have been able to.

My mother told me that I was reading at age 2. I am not sure I believe that, but she swore by it, since she was a housewife who pretty much dedicated her whole life to raising a family she strove so hard to have. I don't recall a time where I could not read. The closest thing I can get to this feeling is when I am in a foreign country, and the signs are in a language I cannot understand. For me, this was Finland, because the scant few hours I was in that country, NOTHING I read made sense. At least in Sweden, there's a Saxon-ish language construct, but in Finnish, "yes/no" is "Kyllä/ei," that is totally weird. At least any negativity should start with the letter "n," but not Finland. So I recall actually being disoriented by signs which seemed like incomprehensible gibberish, and strange disorienting panic set in, like I had gone mad. I wonder if that's the way it's like for the illiterate.

Swimming is another thing I always recall knowing how to do, although my parents pretty much didn't believe me for a long time. In fact, one of my great childhood stigmas was a stupid life jacket I had to wear in and around marinas. A safety orange vest of shame and mockery that separated myself from other kids like a football helmet and a set of arm crutches. I mean, yes, on a boat it's a law now, but I had to wear it on land. WTF? Anyway, they said I'd be allowed to have it off if I passed some Red Cross certification. And I kept failing. Why? because I couldn't dive. Turns out I had scoliosis, which explains why I cannot bend over very well, but my father had this opinion all medical maladies were in my head. Finally, a Red Cross instructor, impressed that I could do "unlimited laps and water treading" as far as he was concerned, passed me, stating correct diving posture was pretty superfluous to water safety. He even bypassed "Basic Swimming" certification to "Advanced" and said if I could fix the diving thing, I'd be a shoo-in for a lifeguard. Sadly, I tried to "show up" my parents with a smarmy, "Seee??? Told you!!!" and that didn't go over very well.

Sadly, when it came to teaching my son how to read or swim, failed miserably. Those skills are so innate, I think they are programmed into my hippocampus (this is a medical in-joke). Turns out CR was dyslexic and ADHD, so when I read to him, he'd get overstimulated and run around the room like a crazed orangutan. And the swimming thing was particularly traumatic because he'd grip onto everything his small fingers could curl around, including my eyeballs once as FanTek medical may recall, to avoid being let go in a pool. It took an older kid to teach him, and I don't know how Josh managed that.

How'd you learn how to read and swim? Posted in: childhood , reading , swimming

You don't hate kids, you hate rude people (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I wanted to share this with you guys, because for some reason, the voices that guide me told me to post this. :-P

I like kids. I do. I love children aged 6-11 especially, because they seem to encapsulate the best and worst of what I like about the human race before they learn to keep that secret. I didn't used to like children. No. I think part of it was I was an only child, an AWKWARD child, and once when babysitting, a psychotic 8-year old stabbed me with a boning knife. On purpose. I was determined by age 18 I'd never have kids. Then I had one anyway, and I feel I am better for the experience. I love CR! :D

I approached much of child rearing like I approached "the real world." Kids, like the real world, are not out to get you. They just don't care. There's a vast difference there. The real world doesn't give a flip about you either, but that also means it doesn't hate you. So life and children come as you take it, and there's no real lesson book, so you can wing most of it with some common sense and sympathy. Treat life and children how you like to be treated, and things should work out... for the most part...

But the reason I posted this was an epiphany I had with a friend about a year ago. She is under the mistaken impression she doesn't like children. But when she told me why, I realized, "Oh... wait... you don't hate CHILDREN, you hate RUDE people, and that's understandable." I mean, if she said she hated short bipeds with knowledge deficits and legume anorexia, then maybe, yeah, she'd hate kids. But she described horrible acting children who, in my experience, are the vast minority. The same goes for adults, and I have seen quite a few rude adults who act like spoiled children. But, like adults, for every rude child out there, there's like 20 quiet and polite kids whom you do not notice because they are quiet and polite.

I know. I worked in retail for 9 years, and I counted. I sold children's furniture for three years, for God's sake.

In this case, this person I gave advice to is kind and a decent friend, and I have seen her with many kids, where she's usually having fun with them because in many ways, she speaks their language. We both agree she should not have kids, but that doesn't mean she can't enjoy the company of other people's kids... providing they are polite.

Many people, and a disproportionate amount of fandom I might add, don't like children. Many have all sorts of terrible advice of what to do with kids when they act rude. Most involve a vague description of violence that shows they think, on some level, Warner Brothers cartoons were moral lessons. "I'd smack, 'em!" I often hear very creative descriptions on what to do with rude children, almost exclusively given by people who haven't had children. Some of them are proud of it, like they have to prove something. "I don't plan to have kids," they say, as if someone else will be taking care of them in their old age. Some are just lazy, and some are crying sour grapes because they can't even get a date, much less breed. But thankfully, those people are a minority, too.

Kids who act out rudely on a regular basis do so because the people in charge of them don't plan well. Either they expect this behavior to be fixed by someone else, or they are too lazy to care. Often kids were a result of being too lazy to plan birth control. Here are some mistakes I see that lead to bad behavior in public:

They think the kid has a long attention span. By the very nature of how kids learn, time is far slower for them than an adult. Remember when 50 minutes was sooooo looooong for class to end when you were in elementary school? Now what's 50 minutes to you? So asking some kid hopped up on the desire to explore and learn to sit still for 20 minutes and do nothing is preposterous. It's like asking an adult to sit still and do nothing interesting for several hours. That's just mean.

They ignore the child. Kids always want attention. Negative and positive attention are the same thing to a kid who doesn't get either. Or only gets negative. I have seen some fannish people with terribly neglected kids. We all have those stories at conventions, especially after a decade or so. Most fannish parents who have decent children either don't bring them, because they know they'd get bored, or include them as part of their fannish community with a close, watchful eye to make sure they don't get into trouble. But a few bring their kids, and then don't pay attention to them. Or control their every move...! Controlling your kids too tightly is a form of negative attention. Your attention becomes a blur of bland commands with little relevance, so they seek positive reinforcement elsewhere. Like in a gang.

They treat kids like a separate part of the family. I see too many people treat their kids like, "My spouse and I, and then there's the kids." Not, "My family consists of 4 people with different, but important, needs." There's no "unit," just, "we're suffering through kids now... man, I can't wait until they move out." Like how people would deal with winter. "It will get better once it's over."

Anyway, there's my 2% of a universal credit voucher. Posted in: childhood , kids , rearing

Home Aquarium (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

You wouldn't know it now, but I used to be quite the aquarium buff. I had up to 4 tanks once, and mainly had tropical fish until a huge tank of them were unfairly killed by my father as a punishment. After that, I stayed with cold freshwater.

At my height of aquarium hobby, I used to got to this place called "Home Aquarium," where their motto was simply, "Get a wet pet." Never before or since did I ever go to such a ... colorful... place as this. It was in a rather obscure corner of a shopping center on the edge of "Little Vietnam" in Falls Church next to a Jiffy Lube. The front was pretty bland. But once you stepped behind the dirty, humidity-fogged windows... you saw...

... a really bland interior. I mean, this place was no frills down to the bare cement walls and floor. The multitude of aluminum metal racks that held up identical 10 gallon tanks were filled with all manner of aquatic beasts. As most happily swam, crept, or lurked around in mostly unlabeled tanks, the views of the fish were unobscured by complications like castles, fake coral, gravel, plants, or any sort of decor whatsoever. Those who have filled an empty tank know the prism effect makes the clear bottom a mirror, and shelves of these tanks looked like giant crystal cubes filled with dark shapes swimming above a layer of drifting fishy poo.

In one corner of this vast communist-era cement minimalism was a bright blue fish pond. It looked like a large version of a child's swimming pool, complete with a bright blue waterfall backdrop. The ragged and broken edges suggested it might have once been part of something larger, like a display in a children's park, perhaps stolen in the middle of the night. Water came from two sources: the top of the waterfall and a "fountain" in the middle. Both were powered by what looked like garden hoses sloppily spewing crystal clear water in chunky bursts. In the "pond" swam brightly colored koi of varying sizes: from as small at your thumb to as big as your forearm.

But dammit if every one of these fish were 100% healthy. No packs of ick-laden fish swimming amid a corpse or two. No ragged tails streaked with blood, or scales puffed out like an artichoke. To what did they owe their magnificent stamina? Was it the food? Not sure. Once, I saw a roach fall into a chiclid tank, and an Oscar the size of a dinner plate lazily turned around and swallowed it in one gulp. Good selection or care from the owners?

Doubtful on that last one. In fact, the two guys that worked there were the least likely fish enthusiasts behind a cardboard display of Tetramin you could meet at the counter. The main guy looked like he was in his 80s, and might look more at home manning a gas station in the middle of Nowhere, Pennsylvania. He wore flannel, jeans, and had a John Deere cap. His massively wrinkled face puckered in at two small eyes that faded into his skin like oily dots. His mouth was lined with an uneven picket row of tobacco-worn teeth where red gums barely clutched what was left of a supporting row. His silent partner dressed the same, but had more meat on his bones, and sported a heavy and oily black beard. Might have killed a guy. As early as last week. I never knew their names, so let's call them Frank and Ed.

Frank had next to no manners. His most common response to any questions was an angry stare amid silence. That was it. Like "How dare you bother me? I hate people!" Once in a while he'd bark back an answer like he was shouting at an empty field. He was always smoking, and sometimes he'd let his long cigarette ash tip into the koi pond or some tank he was servicing.

I recall once I bought koi (ornamental carp). Small koi. They were having a "catch your own koi for half off!" special, but gave you the common small green fish net you can get at the dollar store. The one with the green wire coat hanger for a handle? Yeah, I got 3 small koi, which was about all one could catch with that net. Oohh... half off... $3.50... Yeah, no way I would get the $500 ones that were solid muscle and probably had lobed fins and an apatite for some quick evolution on my ass. I asked him what they ate.

He stared at me.

"Like... regular goldfish food or--"

"NO!" he said like my stupidity had just trodden upon his corns with the weight of a 13-hand mule. Without moving his gaze from mine, he picked up a plastic canister, like one might get takeout egg drop soup in, burped the top off, and tossed the contents of pellets into the fish pond. What happened next was extraordinary.

The roar of the water erupted as an orgy of black, orange, gold, and white fish scrambled like piranha over one another until they were a squirming pile about a foot out of the water. Mouths gaped for morsels of koi pellets while their wild unblinking eyes slid among their brethren like a panicked horse during the Biblical Apocalypse. This writhing feeding frenzy lasted a scant few seconds before the food was gone, and the fish quickly dispersed, energetically swimming about and trying to find more morsels, but alas, only fishy poo remained.

Frank slammed down a filled plastic container of the pellets labeled with nothing more than a sticker with their "Home Aquarium: get a wet pet" tagline and a phone number. And that was his sales pitch.

Ed was usually sent to fetch fish out of a tank for you. If your hand got to close to him or the tank with pointing, say as in the motion to say, "That one! No, THAT one!" he'd slap it and stand up with an annoyed grunt, gazing at you until you got the hint. Then he would go back to getting the one HE wanted you to have in what must have been a blissful return to silence.

One day, I was gazing among some absolutely gorgeous dwarf gourami when exactly the wrong customer for this establishment came in with what looked like his son. The man was small, wore a sweater vest with a shirt and tie behind it, and hid behind his bushy red mustache and glasses as if to say, "I'm an adult, gosh darnit! Respect me!" His son looked about 7, and sported a crew cut and WASP docility that spoke of exactly one year of cub scouts and equestrian riding (sorry shuttergal, that WAS mean, I owe you some wine). They came to purchase one of those "new" (for the time) overhanging filters (now you can't even get corner filters without special orders).

At some point, there seemed to be this... "disagreement" between the mustached gentleman and Frank. Because this happened:

Man: So, son, you put in the filter cartridge like this--
Frank: [frustrated, grabs the filter, yanks the cartridge out, flips it the other way, jams it back in forcefully, and slides it back to the man]
Man: [pause] [disproving scowl peers above glasses] No, I believe the carbon side goes this way. [starts to reverse the insertion]
Frank: Bull- SHIT!!!? [takes the filter from customer, walks off like one might remove a sharp object from a toddler]
Man: Wh-- well! I shall never grace this establishment!
Frank: [doesn't say or do anything to indicate he notices the man is still there]
Man: [walks off, and probably finishes the day with a sub-par ham from Safeway's deli]

Another day, this occurred:

A man, wearing camouflage pants and combat boots comes in.

Man: Yeah, hey, you got any piranha?
Frank: NO. Piranha are illegal in this state.
Man: Yeah, well... I got some piranha, and--
Frank: Are you a dumbass? Piranha are illegal in this state.
Man: [pause] Okay, well, you got any food I can have?
Frank: I don't feed no illegal fish.
Man: [frustrated] You got any feeders here, or don't you?
Frank: [thumbs to feeder tank] Over there, by the gar! Jarhead...
Man: [sheepishly walks to feeder tank] I want--
Frank: ED! Give this man some FEEDERS! Get this, he's got PI-RANA! Damn, son.

Oh, yes... the gar.

In the three years I shopped at this place, there was a large 50 gallon tank in the back. In this tank was a gar, and while I never did figure out how big it was, it was big enough to wrap around the length tank at least once like the letter J. It was about 50% longer than the tank itself, and the main part was thicker than my leg. I never saw it attempt to swim or anything, and how could it? It just sat there and breathed like a slowly panting mastiff. It looked as if it started to thrash, it would have definitely torn the tank apart or at least flung the cheap plastic hood off the tank. I always wondered what it was doing there? Why didn't they get a bigger tank? Did they own it?

Or did it own them?

In my own fantasy world, I picture some cruel ichthian master, brooding in his tank, commanding the elderly pair to do his evil biddings. Perhaps he snatched these two old men from their fishing boat, and commanded their souls to go on land and open up an aquarium so it may spread its spawn into unsuspecting homes. Like some 1800 carnival show got out of hand and the freak exhibit ran the ringmasters. In those dreams, I also imagine ornate gold trimmed mahogany... everywhere!!!

One day, I went to that place, and saw to my dismay it was closed. It was replaced by a Mitsubishi car alarm shop. But no matter what might have been the story behind this most unlikely of shops, despite how brief their business was, and no matter how rudely they treated patrons, they had some of the hardiest, healthiest fish I ever bought in my life. Most fish lasted a year or more. Prices were dirt cheap, too. It was a shame to see it go, but something that fantastic couldn't have lasted.

I still wonder what happened to the gar. Posted in: aquarium , childhood , falls church , fish , pets

Some more more odd memoribila from Neal's mails (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I have found a treasure trove of some weird stuff Neal and I sent to one another in 6 years from 1981-1988. Yeah, he sent it to me years ago, but I just re-found it a few days ago. So far, some highlights:

- The pictures I posted on Flickr
- In an interview I held about "Do you remember Neal, years after he left?" shuttergal, labeled herself as a "D-F student," (I hope that means grades, not Dumb... something), and said of Neal, "He was weird, and read too much."
- Neal once translated Lucky Charms into Latin: "Cordes rosei, lunae flavae, stellae aureae, virides, y adamantes"
- There's a copy of "The Poet Laureate," Longfellow Middle School's newspaper, which contains the FIRST published comedy piece I had ever written and published. It also was the first time I had an editor change the meaning of something I had written. The joke was "Types of substitute teachers," and the edit was a disclaimer they wrote in that none of them ever taught at our school. I was pissed, as I had penned in (for Neal), "They MADE me write that!" Sadly, the article was NOT as funny as I had remembered.
- A copy of "This is Your Captain Speaking," a story I wrote, submitted, and got rejected twice. It was about a guy who got high on spoiled pancakes on an airline flight. This story marks two milestones: first time I used the pen name "Grig" and the first mention of "Punk Walrus," who was a minor character in a hallucinogenic fantasy. It was also not as funny as I remembered.
- Nancy's Calligraphic Button Catalog: Volume Six: "Attack of the 50 Foot Calligraphic Button Catalog"

Man, there's a treasure trove of my past in this. Posted in: childhood , letters , neal

Making up for Lost Childhoods: Trick or Treating (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

As a kid, my father didn't want to give out treats. He hated kids, and called them "moochers of bad parents." After 2-3 years of having out house egged and TP'd, my mother overruled this and that year we gave out Zebra fruit stripe gum, some of which I consumed while handing out candy, and I got in a lot of trouble. So then she thought, "Why give these kids candy?" and we gave out spider rings for the next 7 years. Plastic, cheap spider rings. Came in a bag of 200 and they were orange or black, and we never finished the original bag. Kids HATED us, but we only got egged one more year.

Needless to say, I wasn't allowed to go Trick or Treating. My mother made costumes and such for school, but I think I went out only once as a small kid. I was the guy they put by the door so *I* had to face the strange looks and cries of, "Aw, it's this house again, that's crummy!" and "spider rings again? What a gyp!"

As a teenager, I bemoaned this fact, and after hearing, "Oh, your house is the one that gives out the spider rings? Gaaah..." a few of us realized that as kids, we never got to go out. My reason was rather unique, but the other teens spent time overseas during those years. So a bunch of us decided we were going to go out as teenagers. And why not? A few of us were afraid someone would stop us, but we did it anyway in our Sophomore year.

The group I recall the best was eeedge, wombat1138, Kate, myself, Jason, and Mark. Kate, Jason, and Mark were overseas as kids, while eeedge and wombat1138 had parents most of us considered to be overbearing and too strict (sorry... especially your family, eeedge... probably we went overboard with that... sorry). Here are some things we discovered:

- Kate and eeedge's neighborhood gave the best candy
- Not one parent questioned us or mentioned how old we were. One or two have have given us a suspicious eye, but never withheld candy.
- As a teenager, you can cover a LOT of houses in shorter time and stay out later than kids with their stubby legs and dragging adults who just want to go home already!
- A pillowcase stuffed so full of candy that it will not close at the top weighs as much as a small child (or at least Kate's niece Emma).

The best memories I have of the time is pouring out our candy in a huge pile in Kate's bedroom, sorting and doling out the goods. Some of us liked the hard caramels, while others had braces or couldn't have nuts. In the end, we gave the candy we all didn't like to Kate's niece and nephew, Emma and TJ (who, shit, must be in their mid-late 20s now...). We did this every year until we graduated.

Bad memories included my mother handing out candy so blasted, she couldn't stand straight and kept losing count; "Lesh see... there.... are... 1... 2... 3... 4... ... 5... 6... 7... 10...?" ("No, mama, there's just four of us...") There was also a pickup truck full of jocks who were jumping out and stealing candy from kids. I saw one of them swarm a group of little kids and push down a soccer mom into a tree just to steal all the candy. What assholes. They also jumped me one year, but I managed to fend them off with a large walking stick I had with me.

Later on, when I was grown with a kid of my own, as a dare to myself, *I* went trick or treating with my son as a participant rather than a bored adult. And again, nobody seemed to question why I asked for candy (although, I had this speech about collecting for a child who was sick today - I never had to use it). I only did that once though, to prove a point to myself that no one really cares. I suggest you adults try it next year! :) Posted in: candy , childhood , halloween , trickortreating

SKATER DATER (1965 Skateboard movie) (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I recall this film being shown to me in elementary school in the 1970s. Right down to the Dolores Umbridge type woman who scattered pebbles to trip them up.

Man, skating barefoot does look like a better idea. Until you hit the pavement, I guess. Heh. Posted in: childhood , movie , school , sk8ter , skater

Curiouser and curiouser (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

My 20th high school reunion comes up in October, and already some odd things have started to happen. I got in touch with a late friend of mine's sister after an almost 10 year lapse of communication. We were talking about a period of my life that is best left quiet, if anything, to protect the other people involved. :D Seriously, some of them have asked me not to go on about it, like a friend's heroin addiction, and someone else who is a former senator's daughter who asked me to eliminate her real name from my blog (although we're still friends, and I respect her wish; it's a clearance thing). But while talking to this old pal from wayback, I was reminded of a detour we took one bored night around the main drag of Vienna.

When I was a kid, I knew somewhere near Vienna around here was a midget village. There was debate whether this place was populated BY midgets, or was named that for other reasons. I was only there once in the dark. I think it was across from some middle school off Cedar Lane in an area called "Wedderburn" (there was a farmer's market there until the recent development). I recall some unusual trees, small Spanish-style houses, and some dirt roads with some small mailboxes out front. It's hard to find any central source about this; the story was the Midget village was supposedly spawned when Ringling Brothers was headquartered in Bailey's Crossroads, but a lot of people say this was made up, or was only temporary. My memory of the property is filtered from age (I was like 12,13 at the time), and the Internet is full of conflicting stories.

But while researching this, I found this instead:

Lost counties, cities, and towns of Virginia Posted in: childhood , midgets , vienna , virginia , weird

Stop treating children like idiots... seriously. (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

This doesn't surprise me: Food Dudes superheroes not winning children over.

Charlie, Tom, Raz and Rocco are superheroes on a mission to save the world from General Junk, whose evil plan is to destroy the world by stealing all its fruit and vegetables. Luckily, these "Food Dudes" have superpowers that spring into action whenever they eat their greens. In completing their mission, the Food Dudes also hope to save the lives of millions of real children who risk early death from cancer, heart disease and diabetes because they refuse to eat fruit and vegetables.

Let's look at this realistically (from a small child's point of view):
- Candy, cookies, cakes, pies, and so on TASTE GOOD.
- Most vegetables and fruits, in comparison, DO NOT.
- Thus, seeing things like this make a conflict of interest. This conflict is never properly addressed.
- Since the film doesn't address the truth of the matter, kids quickly see these as lies.
- Since a LOT of parents lie to their kids, along with teachers, this just reinforces the fact.

I'd like to add that I also noticed that most of these heavy-handed moral stories are so preachy, their very nature makes them suspicious. They are delivered in the same tone a small child uses to convince a parent they are not lying when they are totally lying. Small children are completely aware of this form of deception, maybe more than most adults.

The story I always LOVE to tell involves my friend Neal in 4th grade. Neal was keen to guess a trick before anyone else. I attribute that to his parents. His father is the master of deadpan humor, quick to pull a joke on anyone. Anyone who grew up under his roof ended up a wise and skeptical person... maybe a bit cynical and sarcastic, too. Because of this, it was tough for another adult to fool him.

One day, our teacher Mrs. Scoggin came to us students, with a syrupy proposal:

"Hey, kids, how would YOU like a COMIC book, absolutely FREE, as a PRESENT?"

Sadly, the phrase was delivered in the same type of sugary and hushed tone that those cheesy "drug dealers" in those after school "Say No to Strangers with Candy" specials. Those from my generation remember those stereotypes: some white dude representing some "scary hippy," wearing a corduroy vest, bell bottoms with patches, and a wide floppy hat. Sometimes he had a scarf. They hid their shifty eyes with those oversized shades. I think it was the same actor for every damn film. This was not how drug dealers looked back then, if ever. But the people who made those films thought so, and so the teachers thought so. And in my own subconscious, anyone offering me anything with that tone of voice since then has (beneficially) raised alarms. I guess it didn't with other students, because they were going "Oh, oh, oh, yes, we want a free comic book!"

But not Neal.

He, too, smelt a rat, but he had far more guts than I did, and openly refused.

"Oh, but it's a comic book!" said the teacher, like Neal was refusing manna from God. "C'mon man, it's a *comic book*!" I recall one student saying, like Neal he was trying to snap Neal out of some evil trance, jeopardizing what was obviously an opportune lapse in teacher uncoolness. Neal refused again. Neal was under the opinion that it couldn't actually be a real, fun-to-read comic book; it was probably a thinly disguised workbook. He didn't say this, but this is what he was thinking, and refused to sign the paper.

When Neal refused again, I joined in. I said that we read above the comic book level, and cited I had been reading adult level novels for over two years now. I was quickly silenced with an angry look. The teacher wisely did not pursue this, but apparently ordered the books for us anyway. Weeks later, when Mrs. Scoggin passed them out and gave him one, Neal pointed out that he hadn't ordered one, and she casually said, "Oh, I ordered one for you." Mrs. Scoggin had given us a choice: whoever wanted one could sign the sheet. Why? That made no sense! If we signed, it meant we wanted a book, right? And he didn't, right? So the only logical course was not to sign, right? Neal just couldn't understand it. In his own words:

Now that's what pissed me off. Not that I had to work in the workbook -- if she had simply told us that we were going to have this workbook, I would have accepted it like any other assignment -- but the fact that the choice had all been a sham. If she was going to order one for everyone anyway, why give us a c choice? But I wasn't articulate enough to say that. Instead, I just said, "Aw, heck!" and got sent to the office. Dad got mad at me that night, and said the lesson I should learn was that when a teacher suggested doing something, very often it was not optional. But I still think that her offering the choice to us was either a poorly thought out plan, or an actual Machiavellian tactic to give us the illusion of choice. To give her the benefit of the doubt, I'll assume the former.

As you may have guessed by this point, it wasn't *really* a comic book, but a comic-book-esque thing done probably by the same artists for H.R. Puffinstuff. It was called "4-4-3-2 Mulligan Stew," and was a thinly veiled attempt to sweeten and dumb down the concept of nutrition for fourth graders.

"Oh, man, we were tricked!" clamored some kids. Yeah, you were. Beware of Teachers bearing comics, dumbass.

But Neal wasn't tricked. I wish there had been a better ending to this, but sadly, all of us, including Neal, had to do homework assignments on family nutrition that were about as fun as a visit to the dentist. I guess I would always remember Neal from this point on as not accepting crap, and being unconventional.

Posted in: childhood , children , neal , patronizing , school

Futuristic city (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

When I was in 7th grade, I had a biology teacher named Mr. Gladding. They say he was married with kids, but he just oozed homosexuality with a huge litany of stereotypes: soft passive voice, limp wrist, lilted voice, clear nail polish, and pastel sweaters. I don't say this because I didn't like him; he was a good guy, and a pretty good teacher. One of the tortuous things my parents did was an "assignment book," which Mr. Gladding refused to sign his initials. His full name? Frank Alan Gladding. I kid you not. But apart from that, we had a good repertoire, and while I agreed with almost everyone else he was SO gay, unlike the other kids, I didn't care. Mr. Gladding kept me interested in science, which given the state of mind I was in at the time, was pretty impressive on his part.

One of the lessons he had was "design a city of the future." Mine was an undersea city. I recall it's durability was due to a material that when pressure was applied unequally, it would become stronger due to an advanced crystalline structure. Thus, the city was under a dome of the material, which solved a lot of problems. The idea was partially mine, but also came from some short story sci-fi I had read once about domed cities and structural support of arches and eggs.

The project had a fatal flaw, however. When you have a class of 30 students who are expected to give a 5 minute presentation followed by 10 minutes of question and answers, not only does that take 2 weeks to complete (thus allowing more and more "unfair" slack time for those later in the alphabet), but it let those of us later in the alphabet to better prepare for some questions. My last name started with the letter "L" and so I had a week of listening to harder and harder questions that started with Mr. Gladding asking basic things like, "So where does the trash go?" to students who were allowed to ask really hard things like, "What to you do with the dead?" The first set of students were torn apart because they really were creative with the look of the project, but didn't study hard of more mundane practical matters, and I think got lower grades because they didn't add basic services like sewage and fire protection. Then the rest of us got better grades because we added those things in before our presentation came up. These futuristic cities went from Barbie's Dream Castle in the beginning to some serious plans by the time it came to me. I had it all, man. I had plumbing, sewage, waste disposal, fire, police, and everything that would later get me addicted to "Sim City." I was proud; I had thought of everything.

Then one kid asked, and his was the first question, "What would you do in a terrorist attack?"

Actually, he didn't phrase it that way, but he did say, "if the material is stronger on the outside where the pressure of the ocean keeps it strong, what happens if an explosion happens on the inside?" I said we kept everything at least half a mile away from the edge, with a nice park so people could look out of windows at the see floor. Nothing to explode there.

"So what if an evil guy puts a bomb in the park?"

I got a B- because of that question. That and my handwriting was crooked on the project poster, and I spelled two words wrong. But I was crushed. I kept thinking, "Why would anyone do that?" The sea would rush in and everyone, including the bomber, would die... oh, what if it was remote controlled? Or the bomber had an escape pod? I felt this rush of anger and unfairness that someone would ask such a question, as did many students when they got knocked down, I am sure. But everything unraveled at that one simple question.

When the threat comes from the inside, all the rules change.

Sometimes, when I am struck blindly in life by a new set of vulnerabilities, like 9/11 and other events, I think back to that classroom. Posted in: 11 , 9 , childhood , city , gladding , science , threat

Some more vivid memories. My House: Part 1 - My Room (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Recently, a trip down memory lane to my first concert brought up an interesting point by shuttergal's comment about how vivid some memories are. I thought about other vivid memories I have of specific events.

My room as a kid, for instance. I had many rooms until 1974, when I got the bedroom on the basement level of the house. It was the worst room in the house as far as location. To get to it, you had to go down stairs, hang left to make a U-turn past a storage closet and a bathroom, and mine was at the very end. It was below my mother's "den," which was kind of her home office, even though she "only" did housework and stuff (and there's nothing shameful about that). It was the smallest bedroom in the house (10 x 8 feet), which made sense when I was about 5, but not so much when I was 18. It was the lower left corner as you faced the house, and both windows were about 5 feet up the wall, narrow, and faced the ground outside. It was very much like a basement apartment. Sadly, a lot of foliage blocked the windows in the form of evergreen bushes that never got trimmed, so sunlight only reached a few od