That Thankfulness Thing 2014 - Part Three Of Three (Thankfully)

First, there was 2012's That Thankfulness Thing. Then, because "quit while you're ahead" is nonsense, there was More Of That, in 2013.  Now, because a few weeks ago, I foolishly felt that something was missing from my growing list of Good Stuff, I've gone and done it again - in three bite-size parts, this time.

So.

By way of wrapping things up and putting a bow on them, here are the final ten (of thirty) things for which I am feeling especially thankful, at this time...

21.  Spam emails.  Job offers from moystTV (ew) and A8C73 E7f19359DE260a.  Other offers from [random letters, numbers, spaces, underscores, dashes, and other punctuation] - like "G.UC.C.I WATCHES AT CHEAP PRiCE," or "Sale: CANADIAN MEDICINE SHOP EXCLUSIVE MALL."  That last one was addressed to "Joe san."  ((bow))

22.  Covers, which here means the 18 different renditions of "Tomorrow Never Knows" currently residing on my old-school iPod - or maybe the 9 versions I have of "In The Year 2525."  As long as your mind's ears remain open, these things are wonders.

23.  Right Turn On Red.  Sadly, I remember when this was new.  Can you imagine having to sit there, watching no cars go by, unable to make your turn simply because of the color of the traffic light?  Horrors!  Bonus points for those who remember that, early on, the sign also said "After Stop."  Hahahaha... After WHAT??  That's priceless!

24.  Beth Greene.  I know she wasn't real.  I also know that she wasn't necessarily the best-acted (or even best-written) character on television, but I'll miss her, just the same.  She was part of the family - "her beauty and her innocence a credit to the South."  There's a hole in our hearts tonight, young lady.

25.  The martini.  It is truly an acquired taste, and I've acquired it.  Also, SO easy to make, but so hard to make well, but I'm gradually acquiring that skill, as well.

Bombay Sapphire, straight-up, twist, very cold.

26.  Particles.

27.  Movie Day.  [Maris] picks 'em, we both watch 'em.  Sometimes, there are drinking movies, like "A Million Ways To Die In The West," or "Phil The Alien."  Sometimes, chick flicks.  Loud blockbuster stuff.  Indy stuff.  Themes, like 80s night, or comic book adaptations, or spy night, or Mad Max day.  Even when it's bad, it's good.

28.  Self checkout.  Not really.  On the one hand, I adore being able to procure my Mexican Coke, Kickstart, and Funyons without interacting with another human.  On the other hand, I loathe the notion that I'm being conditioned to like doing the grocery store's work for them, and I don't like the stress induced by the slightest delay that results from any misstep on my part, or digital faux pas on the part of the hardware.  Yes, I know these aren't bananas.  I hit the wrong touch-screen button, and there's simply no explaining that to the machine...

29.  Wormholes.  The only way back, for [M] and me.  We will never give up our search.  We know you're here, somewhere, you portal through space and time...

Finally...

30.  Finishing.  I do it so rarely.  I start and I start and I start again, but to finish... What a rush that must be.  I'm thankful, dear reader(s), for the finishing of this year's thankfulness list.  Oh, and for this:

(it's technically not at all finished, but maybe - someday...)

So.  There it is.  For another year, at least.  I've got more.  Come with me...

This one, as they so often do, comes as an admittedly jury-rigged response to the Studio 30-Plus writing prompt.  This prompt, "Something Was Missing," belongs to the gifted Nonamedufus, and his post Never Had A Chance.  Check him out.  He may not have a name, but he writes.  Fun ensues.

1983

The favorite year.  Most people have one.  It usually occurs in one's late teens or early twenties, and involves some sort of coming-of-age event, like a first job, first love, first sexual encounter, first drug experimentation, first out-of-body experience, first murder, first space flight, first arrest and so on.  For some, it comes later, and centers around becoming a parent.  For a few, the favorite year comes late in life - retirement, grandchildren, enlightenment, transcendence.

I have a lot of favorite years, and I'd love to bore you with tales of 1978, 1988, 1996, and 2000 - but I won't.  Tonight, let's take a quick peek at 1983, because really, it was all downhill from there, in so many ways.

I was fifteen when the year began, and younger than my years, so my world was an amalgam of music, movies, video games, and a few TV shows... Oh, and my first job.

First, there was snow.  We don't get a lot of snow, in the DC area, but in February of '83, we got this:

Thirty Inches of White Sky-excrement

I know that by now, if you've read what I have to say about winter, you know that I am not a fan.  I hate snow - because I'm an adult, now.  In 1983, however, it was pure white fluffy frozen MAGIC.  Anyway...

Television.  I had outgrown "Little House On The Prairie," and "Automan" proved to be a giant lie - with trailers that deliberately made it look like "TRON," but a show that was beyond terrible.  I was too young to care about "Dynasty," and even at fifteen-going-on sixteen, I could not wait for "M*A*S*H" to just end, already.  Also, I really thought "Just Our Luck" and "Mr. Smith" had a chance, but they were dead on arrival.  But there were bright spots.  "Taxi" showed promise, "Cheers" was good, and "V" did not disappoint, but in early '83, we obtained our first VCR, and suddenly it was MOVIES that we wanted on our TV screen.

"Cujo" was, as almost all big-screen adaptations of Stephen King stories are, a gigantic disappointment, but "War Games," "Risky Business," "Flashdance," "Monty Python's The Meaning of Life," "The Outsiders," "Return of The Jedi," "Vacation," "Scarface," and -helLO- "A Christmas Story?"  It was not a bad year.  Not enough?  How about "Eddie and The Cruisers," "The House On Sorority Row," and "Krull?"  Yeah - top that, 1984.

Of course, at 15-16 years old, I couldn't help but be ruled by music.  Whether it was on the turntable of our first real component stereo system, on my first boom-box, or in the too-powerful headphones of my first-generation FM Walkman, it was one of the driving forces behind my adolescent psyche.

There's entirely too much music to even begin to attempt to think about doing justice to, here.  Rest assured, if Bowie said "Let's Dance," we danced.  If the Plimsouls were "A Million Miles Away," so were we.  When the Stray Cats were "Sexy and 17," and demanded that we "Rock This Town," we did.  Thomas Dolby couldn't find "One of Our Submarines," Kajagoogoo was "Too Shy," Peter Schilling hijacked "Major Tom," and Men At Work said it was all "Overkill," and we were all like, "I'll Tumble For Ya," it's just "The Politics of Dancing -" no, "Don't Change" "My Ever-changing Moods -" "Goodbye to You."

I'll be brief on the video games, too.  I mean, it's not like anyone remembers Congo Bongo, Tapper, Blaster, Mappy, or Gyruss, right?  Everyone's all about Pac Man, Ms. Pac Man, and Q*Bert, blah blah blah.  But does anyone want to join me in a rousing adventure in Mr. Do's Castle, or a round of Crossbow, or the Journey (as in, the band) video game travesty, disaster, and money-grab?  No.  You're all off playing Missile Command, or Centipede.  Harrumph.

Now, about that first job.  In the late summer of 1983, I graduated from delivering newspapers to making bad pizza, cleaning up after bad pizza-eaters, and entertaining bad pizza-eating children - at Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, in Rockville, Maryland.  Yes, they actually spelled "theatre" that way.  Anyway - click on that link, read that story, and you'll get a feel for why 1983 was special.

That's about it, really - although I would appreciate a little credit from you sports-haters, for not mentioning the Redskins' Superbowl victory or the Orioles' World Series victory.  You're welcome.

Anyway.  This post-a-day thing is already dragging a bit, but bear with me.  There's much for which we will be THANKFUL, as well as the highly-anticipated by no one TWO-HUNDREDTH POST!  I know!  The all-caps should arouse some excitement.  No?  That's okay.  Just don't leave me.  Yet.  

Please?

Lost In Translation With Bill and Scarlett -- And My Dad

I'm pretty sure my Dad knew what Bill Murray whispered to Scarlett Johansson at the end of the movie. I'm also acutely aware of the fact that he probably forgot it moments later.

I have the movie Lost In Translation on DVD, but can't watch it. I have the soundtrack CD, too, but when the music comes shuffling by on my iPod, I can't listen to it. Both are inexorably linked to a memory, and even after eight years, I'm just not sure I'm ready. And I'm not usually like that. I am a very nostalgic person. I don't just remember the past; I wallow in it - the good, the bad and the ugly. I can remember the song that was queued up on the tape in my car when Lisa#1 dumped me in March of 1986 in Carlisle, PA (it was Fishbone's "Party At Ground Zero"). I remember the song playing on WHFS when I left Lisa#2 in my rear-view mirror for the last time in May, 1989 (Romeo Void's "Never Say Never"). I have no problem listening to either of those songs, or any of a host of others that are linked to traumatic, sad, stressful or otherwise icky times.

Lost In Translation is different. It's not that I can't listen to the music, and it's not that I can't watch the movie. I don't want to. My memory of the day I took my father to see that movie is a sad one - or at least bittersweet - but I like it.

In October of '03 my dad was about to turn 75. He had retired from his beloved analyst job at CIA over a dozen years earlier and despite rebounding rather well from his 1995 stroke, he was by the early 2000's - well, fading. He certainly had dementia, and by 2003 we were sure he had begun a final disappearing act into the mists of Alzheimer's.

He was actually doing better than any of us could have hoped, at this stage. Apart from failing to get dressed and eat and take his pills without being reminded, he got through his days in one piece. I don't think he had any of those traumatic episodes of wandering off - except that one time in Rehoboth Beach, and I don't count that because it was a hot day in a strange location (okay, I count it a little bit).

Still, as my dad's short-term memory deteriorated, my mother - recently retired herself - managed an ever-expanding litany of nursing duties, and she needed a break. So there I was, taking my 75-year old father to the multiplex on a gray October Saturday. That's it. That's pretty much the story.

Okay, not really. I knew - feared, really - that this little excursion had a good chance of being my last constructive or remotely coherent one-on-one time with my father, so I was a little nervous. I gave him the option: "Lost..." or "School of Rock" or "Kill Bill Vol. 1," and he chose "Lost..." It was set in Japan. He had lived in Japan in the aftermath of World War II, while his father helped maintain order or whatever. Done - two, please!

His reactions to the movie, like his reactions to everything else, were muted. Tokyo looked nothing like the Tokyo he had known in the 1940s, but he knew enough Japanese that he could decipher some of the various loudspeaker announcements in the movie. "That's Japanese," he would whisper, more to himself than to me (he was already beginning to lose track of who was with him - mainly when it wasn't Mom).

He seemed to recognize the temples. "That looks like Kyoto" was repeated several times. He scoffed at the odd relationship between Murray's aging character and 20-year old Johansson's. He chuckled at the fish-out-of-water, tall-American-among-short-Japanese gags. He winced at the in-your-face strip club scene and its blaring hip-hop soundtrack. Great. Gratuitous Japanese nudity - he's gonna have a heart attack and die, right here and now. Mom will never forgive me.

Mostly, as he had for the past couple of years, he just sat there and smiled and took it all in. It was just stimuli. I know now that he was probably well aware of how much he couldn't remember, but as deeply pragmatic as he was, he oscillated between faking it and just going with the flow, living in the now. I never heard him complain about his memory loss. He just sort of kept going.

Driving him home, I was ten years old again, searching for ways to engage my father in conversation. I asked about the movie. He remembered we had seen one, but his vaguely, generically-positive assessment of the last couple of hours made it clear that he couldn't recall what we had seen. I asked about his time living in Japan, and his thoughts crystallized. He shared in vivid detail a memory of seeing the Ama pearl divers.

I asked what he thought about the Bush Administration's role in the outing of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, which at the time was widely believed to have been a deliberate punitive action by the President's inner circle - retribution for Mrs. Plame's ambassador-husband's public contradiction Bush's arguments for US military action in Iraq. I didn't then, nor do I now, know enough about that story to converse intelligently on the subject. I just wanted to get him talking. I was taken aback at the clarity and intensity of his response. I won't rehash it all here, because it's political, but despite not being fully aware of the identity of our nation's President, he had a keen sense of the fact that there was no "administration," but rather simply a collection of cronies, half of whom didn't know what their ol' buddy George had put them in charge of (see FEMA Director Brown). He didn't know their names, but he was dead-on. I didn't realize until well after his death in 2005 just how accurate, how incisive, his analysis had been.

I left him in Mom's capable hands that afternoon and headed home, with my notions of Alzheimer's and its effects completely scrambled. He could recall 55-year old scenes from Japan, but couldn't remember the last scene of the movie. He couldn't keep track of which of his offspring was with him (he kept calling me Andrew), but he had an accurate and scathing analysis of the political scandal of the day. I was at a loss. He seemed happy enough. He was much more comfortable once Mom got home, of course, but he had spent the entire afternoon with a look of slightly-confused wonder. Upon hearing what movie we had seen, Mom rolled her eyes. "He saw that with me last week."

This was one of the last times I was alone with my father for more than a few minutes, and certainly the last time I heard him speak coherently and with conviction. From time to time, I wish I had tried some other tack to get him talking, but it's cool. I saw that spark. I heard that professional analyst's voice one last time. His opinion of the issue is neither here nor there, now. He was there, with me, sharing his thoughts.

I'm sure some of it was lost in the translation, but that's okay. Alzheimer's or no Alzheimer's, he still had words to share. I only wish there could have been more.