Category: Nostalgia

Jumping In

I’m usually the only one up this early, but this morning I have company. Amazing Gracie The Wonderdog rose early to join me, and is now curled up beside me in “her” recliner for the first of several morning naps. A few moments ago, Number Two passed through on his way to work. He’s a lifeguard at the local YMCA and today he’s working the early shift.

He’s only been working there since the first of the year but has been putting in a lot of hours in an effort to help pay for a trip to Germany this summer. He looks the part–long and lanky, warm-up suit over the trunks, flip-flops (even though it’s in the 30s) and a whistle around his neck.… Read the rest

Going Negative

I just happened to turn my eyes in the right direction at just the right time–and there he was. My old high school friend Eric was on his way out the door of a Barnes & Noble in Roanoke, Virginia on Christmas Eve, but I managed to wave him down before he slipped away. We had not seen each other in about 8 years, and I thought that it might take him a few seconds to recognize me. But it actually only took him about two. He had the firm, well-practiced handshake of a politician, which he was–or, at least, had wanted to be.… Read the rest

Banes, Blessings and Broken Banister Knobs

alabama-theatre.jpgHave you ever seen the same thing a million times, but in a moment of great clarity, suddenly seen it in an entirely different way? If so, then you know how I felt last night as I road-tripped with Eyegal and some good friends to the beautifully restored Alabama Theatre in downtown Birmingham for a showing of the classic Christmas feel-good film, It’s a Wonderful Life.

A television rerun or a DVD don’t do the deed like the flashing neon sign, the gleaming, waxed floors and the gilded, cathedral-like trimmings of The Alabama. Throw in a Wurlitzer that rises like a wailing phantom from beneath the stage floor, audience sing-a-longs of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” and “Buffalo Gals” and a retro Disney cartoon for an appetizer, and you suddenly find yourself drifting back to the 1940s, a time when real gentlemen wore woolly, tweed suits and flashy fedoras down to the corner market, and ladies, in their form-flattering skirts and soft, feminine blouses, charmed passersby and flaunted their sizzling sexuality without shedding a single stitch of clothing.… Read the rest

Fire. At. Will.

JRB and I recently found ourselves in a discussion over the willingness of Alabama Coach Nick Saban to go for two points during the Vanderbilt game a couple weeks ago. He felt like St. Nick was “piling on” the points, and I felt that he wasn’t. One of the points I brought up was my memory of Alabama’s thrashing of the Virginia Tech Hokies when they came to Blacksburg in 1973. That final was 77-6 even after The Bear had gone through the entire 3rd string, the waterboys and a couple of tuba players.

As I pointed to JRB, 77-6 is something to complain about, not a measly 2-point conversion in a relatively low-scoring game in which your QB has had trouble finding his mark inside the Red Zone and simply needs the practice.… Read the rest

A Rush of Blood to the Head

I’m not talking about the Coldplay album–although it’s a good one. I’m talking about the rush of blood to the head that occurs anytime you take a good lick to your noggin’. For Garrison Keillor, a close encounter with a low-lying beam elicits the memory of his old battle-hardened, ex-Marine journalism professor at the University of Minnesota, Mr. Robert Lindsay. For me, it’s the memory of the understated brutality of my old, formaldehyde-soaked anatomy professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Dr. Steven Zehren.

For the most part, I sailed through an academically challenging public high school and Harding University without too much difficulty.… Read the rest

Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra

Eyegal rightly pointed out to me that I left a very important show off my list yesterday. “Why, we used to rock Number One Son (she didn’t actually call him that but used his real name instead) to sleep while watching Star Trek: The Next Generation!”

And that we did. In fact, I used to think that I called him Number One because of the old Charlie Chan movies, but on second thought, maybe it was because of Lt. Riker (Picard–“Make it so, Number One!”).

Our two favorite episodes:

  1. “The Inner Light.” The Enterprise is confronted with an alien space probe which shoots a nucleonic beam thingy at Picard, causing him to fall into a deep sleep.
… Read the rest

Totally Lost

It’s not often that Eyegal and I get hooked on a TV show. Usually, we’re much too busy in the evenings to become regulars at anything, but I can think of three times it’s happened in the past:

1) Thirtysomething. This was a show about angst-ridden yuppies in their 30s with young kids living in Philadelphia in the late 1980s. We watched this show during optometry school when we were poor twentysomethings who looked forward to the day when we would have enough money to be angst-ridden yuppies. It all looked so good at the time, but reality is rarely as good as the dream itself.… Read the rest

Each Moment Is, and Always Has Been, a Gift

I knew that drop off day last Thursday would be busy and unpredictable, so I took Number One Son out to lunch at Little Rosie’s on Wednesday to serve up a little fatherly wisdom along with some steak fajitas, chips and gaucomole on the side. So far so good: no apparent E. coli poisoning.

I started off by saying that if I were to tell him everything that I know that he needed to know as a college freshman starting out, that I would flat-out fry his brain. Instead, I promised to keep it simple.

First, I wanted him to know how I “backended” into my career as an optometrist, having never even thought about that profession during college, but instead seeking it out after my first choice of clinical psychology “didn’t work out.”… Read the rest

Dropping Off a Kid at College

We’re off to Tuscaloosa today to drop Number One off at Bama. That’s right, pull up to the curb, shove him and his stuff out the door, and then pedal to the metal baby!

I know, I know, it probably won’t be quite that simple. First off, you won’t be able to even find the curb for all the hundreds of cars ahead of you, and then there’s the small matter of getting the stuff up to his room. And do you think Eyegal is just going to plop all that junk in there without doing some “arranging?” I don’t think so.… Read the rest

Those Sunburn Blues

sun.jpgWith temperatures in the triple digits this week, I had a flashback to a scene from a few years ago when our family sought relief from those sunburn blues in the form of a jazz concert at Big Spring Park in Huntsville. Afterwards, the muse struck, and the result was a wee little essay (or is it a beatnik poem?) which was published in The Huntsville Times about a week later:

A simmering sun burns off the last of the July haze and slips beneath the rim of the Von Braun Center.

Over by the Big Spring, the Grissom High School Jazz Band tunes up for its upcoming European tour in front of a hometown crowd.

… Read the rest

I Spy the Eyeguy

A small minority of Fusioneers are apparently starting to clamor for an Eyeguy sighting. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why, but facts are facts.

I tried to give readers an idea of what I looked like here. I even dropped another not-so-subtle hint here (Quick! Somebody slather that boy’s head with Dippity Do!). But apparently even those weren’t enough.

Alright already. I’ve hesitated to post this because I really try hard not to rub it in. But remember, you asked for it.

Here I am.

… Read the rest

Archives

One of my favorite parts about visiting my Mom in Virginia is exploring the museum that is her house and searching among the archives and exhibits for long lost treasures.

Among the items that I’ve found (and rescued) in the past:

  • My collection of Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars (unfortunately, I couldn’t locate the Hot Wheels Supercharger Sprint Set)
  • My baseball and sports card collection (and it is a very good one if I have to say so myself)
  • My scrapbooks from elementary, junior high and high school which contain old class pictures and portraits, 4-H and church camp ribbons, newspaper clippings containing my super-amazing, jaw-dropping feats on the tennis courts and cross country trails (heh), my acceptance letter to Duke University and goofy letters from an old high school girlfriend which still hold the slightest hint of perfume.
… Read the rest

Traveling Mercies

First, the good news: The 1998 Toyota Sienna van with over 165,000 miles which I duct-taped together for the ride to Virginia survived the trip up and back.

And now the bad: The air conditioner did not.

In fact, the air conditioner went out about two hours into the trip on the way up. But thankfully, it was overcast and cool once we hit the mountains in east Tennessee, so it didn’t really matter. It even stayed relatively cool for July during our visit.

But the trip back yesterday evoked way too many memories of those hot retro rides from the 1960s–the choking exhaust fumes, the jarring sound of air brakes, the wet cling of the clothes, the rush of hot air through your hair and into your ears.… Read the rest