A Fury of Memories

This week has been lurking in the shadows for a while now. I've seen it on the calendar. I've known it was coming, and I've been dreading it. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of my dad's death, followed ironically by Father's Day this Sunday. 

Truth be told, this past week was no bargain either. I have been living under a black cloud of sorts ever since my visit to SunTrust bank to close out my parent's checking account. The melancholy that has settled over me, combined with a very painful neck and an expiring air conditioner and furnace replacement bill has made for a bad week indeed. Yes, I know...poor, poor, pitiful me. There's nothing worse than reading a whiny blog, especially when it proceeds from someone who has been as formidably blessed as I have. 

Still, I miss him terribly. And this week I will find it difficult to say anything new on the subject. I will republish pieces I wrote a year ago when it was fresh, the one I wrote at 2am the morning after he died, the euology I gave at his funeral, and a story I wrote about about what it was like to be the 13 year old son of Emmett Dunnevant. 

This week I'll run the risk of boring you. Some of you might find yourselves annoyed by it all, and honestly, I wouldn't blame you if you did. I made the ridiculous statement in Dad's eulogy that I was "done with grief." In hindsight, that may have been the single most ignorant thing to ever come out of my mouth. I may have felt Iike I was done with grief, I know I hoped I was, but the truth is that grief wasn't done with me. Most of the time it leaves me alone. Weeks pass when I am free of it. But then I stumble upon a memory, and it storms back to life. 

My grief isn't about regret, there is no unfinished business, no words that should have been spoken. It's simply about sadness and loss, the finality of death. The problem is that he is forever gone, permanently removed from this realm. While my faith promises eternal life, it doesn't promise to bring my Dad back in time for dinner tonight. It doesn't promise to let me take him to a ballgame again. It doesn't allow me to tell him about the amazing year that Kaitlin had as a second year teacher in Columbia, South Carolina. It doesn't allow me to tell him about Patrick's adorable girlfriend. There is a vast, permanent chasm between him and me. I am learning how to live with it, and most of the time I manage very well. But not this week. The calendar has unleashed a fury of memories. 

Enduring My Biennial Beat Down

Well, at least it's over. I have endured the biennial beat down that is the Dunnevant Family Yardsale, that self-inflicted celebration of masochism masquerading as a family tradition. The 2015 edition featured 95 degree heat and stifling humidity. One might assume that such oppressive heat would have the effect of thinning the crowds. One would be wrong.

They came. In relentless, pulsing, sweating tides, they came. There they were at 7am as we were removing the giant green tarp from the great pile of knickknackery. By 9am their numbers could legitimately be categorized as teaming. At noon they were still there, picking through what remained despite the sight of a dozen Dunnevants packing up boxes and folding up tables. It was like some kid had kicked the top off an anthill in Mechanicsville and suddenly the ground was crawling with bargain hunters. And boy, were there ever some bargains.

My neck cooperated fully with events by barking at me all day long. It was so considerate of my two bulging disks to bark excessively loud every time I got out of the sunshine. No no, that would not do. If I wanted to get through this day it would have to be outside in the sun, the Saharan heat providing some degree of comfort. So, my job for the day would be to roam the crowd of shoppers goading them into buying stuff they didn't need or want. My technique combined false advertising claims with guilt shaming...

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to draw your attention to this table of men's and boy's apparel, by pointing out that several of these shirts were worn by Elvis himself!"

Hapless Customer: How much will you take for those three lawn mowers?

Me: Make me an offer.

Hapless Customer: Do they work?

Me: Absolutely not!

Hapless Customer: (appears crestfallen)

Me: Look Pal, you have any grandsons? You look like you have grandsons. Just look at those oversized wheels on those babies. You could take those and make that boy a go-cart that would make him the envy of the neighborhhood! You're part of the Greatest Generation, am I right? You guys are famous for tinkering with crap! Why, I bet you could break down one of those engines and have that baby purring like a kitten in no time!

Hapless Customer: Well, er....I

Me: Sure you can! Tell you what, for YOU...listen, give me twenty bucks and you can have all three of them, and I'll even help you load 'em in your truck!

                                                               .....later.....

Elderly female customer: Excuse me sir, but does this DVD player work?

Me: Does it work?! I have to say Ma'am it disturbs me greatly that you would accuse me of offering defective merchandise for sale. See that note attached that says, 'still works great'? Well, aside from the sketchy grammar, I can assure you that truer words were never spoken.

Elderly female customer: Yeah, well let's plug it in and see.

Me: Ahh yes, we have a Ronald Reagan customer on aisle 5!! Trust...but verify!

When all of the entrepreneurial dust had settled, this gaudy celebration of horse-trading had netted us over $900. 

God Bless America.

The Perils of Yard Sale Preparation

Last night Pam was going through the contents of a box she had retrieved from the attic, looking for items to sell at the upcoming Dunnevant Family Yard Sale. Inside she found a book entitled, "Deck the Hall, Family Memories & Activities." It was one of those Norman Rockwellian keepsake books into which you wrote down a record of special things you do at Christmas. Unfortunately, it was quickly overtaken by the blunt instrument of technology so notes from only three Christmas' past were registered...1991, 1993, and 1994, 1992 apparently being the Christmas that time forgot. What follows are a few sentences that caught our eye.

1993. Kaitlin was 6, Patrick 4. Here was our schedule:

Christmas Eve 4:00 pm Exchange gifts at Al & Cindy's

                       5:00 pm Dinner at Granny Til's

                       9:00 pm Christmas Eve service at Grove

Christmas Day 5:30 am Kaitlin wakes up.

                        6:00 am Opened presents with the kids

                        8:00 am Breakfast at home featuring eggs, banana bread,Apple cranberry casserole

                       11:30 am Drive out to Mom's ( the White's )

                        1:00 pm Lunch with present opening to follow

                        5:00 pm Drive to the Dunnevants in Chester for present opening and snack supper.

                                      All 18 family members spent the night and went to Enon Baptist church the 

                                      next morning, since it was Christmas Sunday.

We managed this with a four year old and a six year old. I don't remember any meltdowns. Perhaps there were some, but we were so exhausted those memories got permanently erased from our addled brains. Then there was this:

"Snow the Thursday before Christmas. Just a dusting, but I took the kids caroling through the neighborhood...Paula and Ron expecting a baby...Sean's first Christmas (had a fever)...Sharon separated from Tom...Kaitlin saw Santa and his sleigh in the sky on Christmas Eve...She was worried about whether she'd been good enough for Santa to come...Patrick wanted every toy he saw advertised."

At this point Pam was sitting in the hall at the top of the stairs crying her eyes out.

Stupid yard sale!

A Sad Day

Today I did something that I have been putting off for a long time. I drove over to SunTrust bank and closed out Mom and Dad's checking account.

I told my siblings that I was waiting to make sure there was nothing outstanding that needed to clear first, and that wasn't a complete lie...just not the whole truth. There hadn't been any activity in their account in nearly six months. No, I had been putting it off because, a part of me didn't want it to be finished. It was the last tangible connection I had to them.

Around four years ago, it was discovered that Dad had made some sort of error in his account that resulted in a rash of bounced checks. I remember being shocked when it happened because he was always so fastidious with his affairs, so conscientious and orderly. I was called in to find out what the problem was and soon after took over all of their finances from that point on. Dad had made a math error, then several others, and before he knew what had happened, he had a real mess on his hands. While trying to reconstruct what had happened, I discovered exactly when it started. His handwriting gave it away. Suddenly out of nowhere his fine, bold hand became an illegible scrawl, his checkbook an incomprehensible muddle. It took a while, but eventually I got it all straight, and I would spend the next four years paying their bills.

When it first happened I was dreading it. I have a hard enough time keeping all of the other checking accounts in my life organized, was I really ready for another? But something strange happened along the way. I began to actually enjoy it. A couple of times a month, I would drive out to their house and sit with them at the dining room table and pay bills. We would laugh and joke around. Dad seemed releaved to be out from under the responsibility. Sometimes Mom would get all up in the pictures about something and I would tease her about being a lunatic. Then she would fix me something to eat before I left. After Mom passed, I would pay bills every other week during one of the nights that Pam and I brought dinner to Dad. He was always so thankful, so grateful for every little thing I ever did for him.

It's almost been a year. Dad died on the 16th of June, 2014. It took me almost a year before running out of excuses for keeping his checking account open. For me it was the last piece of physical proof that they existed. And now it's gone, closed out, shut down. When I returned to my office I fed their remaining box of checks through the shredder.

I'll be ok. In a couple of days I'll have gotten over it. I'll realize that I have other proofs of their existence, namely, my brother and two sisters, and all of their children. Ryan, who looks just like Dad. Kaitlin, who has Mom's insanely thick hair. Patrick, whose innate sense of right and wrong, his hatred of anything unjust, was planted in his heart by the blood of his grandparents. There's evidence all around me, come to think of it. 

Now that I think about it, Mom and Dad always cared so much more for all of us than they ever did about what was in their checking account. 

It wasn't even close...

Operational Philosophy of Life #1

I have made an editorial decision here at The Tempest. From now on, I resolve to have nothing to say about any news item that concerns allegations of police brutality. It's not that I don't care about such stories, it's just that it doesn't matter.

Over the past couple of years it seems that there have been hundreds of incidents of policemen behaving badly. There emerges jumpy video that seem to catch the cops red handed in some excess. Then the brightest lights of the grevience industry show up, bullhorns in hand, to fan the flames. Soon a catchy slogan is born...Hands Up, Don't Shoot...Black Lives Matter. But then counter-factual evidence begins to emerge calling into question the initial rush to judgement. Mitigating factors contribute to a new narrative that seems to at least partially exonerate the police. But by that time, it's too late. The protests, sometimes violent have already begun and there's no turning back.

Then it's on. Liberals are out for blood, convinced that the police are no different that the Gestapo of Nazi Germany. Conservatives go all in with the police, decrying the soft on crime anarchy of the left. You look at Facebook after any of these incidents and you will see clearly drawn battle lines with no room for dissent. If you show any sympathy towards the protesters, or question the tactics of law enforcement, you will get hounded by the law and order crowd. If you show support for the cops, you'll be judged as just another priviledged, racist white guy who doesn't think that black lives matter.

So, I've decided not to go there ever again. Part of the reason I have made this decision is because of one of the operational philosophies of my life which is:

" With regards to any subject about which I develope a strong opinion, there is at least a 50/50 chance that I will eventually be proven wrong by events."

What follows is a partial list of just a few of the many things about which I have been proven very wrong during my life:

1. There is nothing of value above the Mason-Dixon Line.     Umm...Maine.

2. The Republican Party is the party of small government.

3. Lebron James is overrated.

4. Indian food is gross and you have to sit on pillows when you eat.

5. Walt Whitman was an over-hyped hack.

6. My son will never make it through college because he's so disorganized.

7. Jon Manchester isn't good enough for my daughter.

8. If I can just make $------- a year I'll be happy.

9. God is interested about my views on tax policy.

10. Eventually the Cubs will win a World Series.

So, with this formidable track record, I will exercise restraint with respect to writing opinion pieces about something as incompetently reported and evidence-free as domestic unrest.

Nothing-Speak

I have a language problem. I mean, other than my epic punctuation, spelling and grammar issues, not to mention my perpetual struggle to maintain tense agreement. No, what I mean by a language problem is the growing tendency among business leaders, politicians and ministers to use mountains of words towards the purpose of saying absolutely nothing.

Years ago I was at a company convention at some exotic locale having a fine dinner at an awards banquet. After dinner we were introduced to a guest speaker whose resume was filled with prestigious jobs in government. I had never heard of him, but he looked the part and seemed to have quite the pedigree. He walked to the podium to polite applause and then began speaking. It took about five minutes or so for everyone to realize that he was talking complete nonsense. It was all English, all complete sentences, but the words had no coherent meaning. Slowly, everyone began glancing sideways at each other with perplexed expressions. Suddenly, the entire house realized that he was a comedian. The laughs started coming fast and furious, mostly out of relief that we hadn't lost our minds.

I'm not sure that guy's act would work today. We wouldn't get the joke. We are so conditioned by nothing-speak we wouldn't even notice.

Listen to any politician on the stump and you will hear nothing but an insipid collection of poll-tested jargon and calculated buzzwords. "We face difficult challenges ahead, but the things that unite us are greater than the things that keep us apart." First of all...not true, secondly, that sentence is a blank canvas onto which the listener can paint any interpretation he wishes. Sort of like, "We are the change we have been waiting for." Really? What kind of change? Change from what to what? How long have we been waiting? Who exactly is "we?"

But it's not just politicians, businessmen do it too. Listen to any CEO give his quarterly report and you will hear what sounds like some foreign tongue. " Our revenue projections were negatively impacted by the synergistic effects of a global paradigm shift in the investment culture at major financial centers around the world." Translation? We had a crappy quarter.

Preachers, alas, are not immune from nothing speak. You want to sugar coat a hard sell to your congregation...you tell them that what you are about to say has been the result of a "journey of faith." If you want to cut off any potential opposition, all you have to say is that the thing has been "bathed in prayer" and that God "has been speaking clearly" at every stop along the way of the "journey." Who wants to object to something that has been the subject of such a long and arduous ordeal of faith? Have we been on such a journey? Then who are we to object?

In each example I have given, the politician, the businessman, and the preacher want to minimize opposition, downplay bad news or poor performance, with the added benefit of saying nothing of substance that might get them in trouble later. It's actually a pretty sweet linguistic trick. The problem is that America, the company's shareholders, and our churches are poorly served by this epidemic of empty words. Don't most of us want people to just tell the unvarnished truth? Isn't it exhausting to constantly have to read between the lines in life? Wouldn't all of our lives be less complicated if our leaders were more like George Patton and less like Dwight Eisenhower? 

Maybe leaders today believe that we the people can't handle the truth. Maybe they're right. If so, shame on us. Until we demand plain spoken truth, we will continue to get risk free nothing speak.

Thanks, Facebook.

Had lunch with an old friend yesterday. I hadn't seen him in years. We were close in college, two working class townies surrounded by a couple thousand rich kids from New Jersey, but our lives took off in different directions and we had drifted apart. But a few weeks ago we found each other on Facebook, that great cyber-detective of the Internet, and before long there we were having lunch at Joe's Inn.

He looked good, not very different from how I remembered him. We began to catch up over a fried chicken club sandwich and homemade potato salad. After twenty minutes or so he laughed, "This is great. Thirty-five years ago all we talked about was women. Now we spend lunch together talking about our surgeries!" Sad, but true.

We talked about our kids. His daughter had just given birth to his first grandchild. I was jealous. We talked about our successes and our failures. He had endured a difficult and acrimonious divorce, is there any other kind? He was just now rebuilding relationships with his kids, and coming out from under the financial devastation of the thing. Listening to his story, I couldn't help but feel grateful for my wife.

As we talked, it occurred to me that I can count on two hands the number of people on this Earth who I have a personal, thirty-five year history with. Generational friends are a rare thing anymore. We are so transient, so scattered, our attention spans so short. It's far easier to just lose the connection, to simply move on to the next thing in life. But when we do, we lose something valuable. We lose a life connection. We lose the things and the people who anchor us to the world. I'm getting to old for that, too old to neglect the old friends.

It was a great lunch. We promised to do it again soon and I believe we will. 

Thanks, Facebook.