Old friends long gone

OK, so I let three months slip by without a new post. Guilty as charged. But first up, I feel like I should chronicle some news, sort of get it out of the way. Hmm, where to start? Broke a tooth at work while eating a lunch that consisted of a turkey & cheese sandwich on wheat bread. The dentist, Dr. Hazelbaker (the only dentist I've ever had my entire life) said I'd most likely cracked the tooth days earlier and the tackiness of masticated sandwich simply pulled the fractured piece loose.

My mom's only brother, Uncle JR, died at age 64 in early October. I drove my sister, Kim, down to Paintsville, KY, for the funeral. This is the second sibling my mom's lost in the last few years and both younger and JR was her only brother. He was buried close to his sister and parents. I cleaned my grandmother's half of their shared headstone. My grandmother was a saint, the one grandparent I had whom I truly loved and knew loved me in return (I was the youngest of my generation of grandchildren). My grandfather was such an abusive bastard, I remember asking her one time years after he'd died how she'd been able to stay with him all those years. Her simple reply was to look at me, smile wistfully, and say, "Sweetie, some get good. Some get bad. I got bad." She'd years previously come to some level of co-existence with what life had doled out to her in the form of her husband, a man who cast a blight across multiple generations of his family. I stood on the side of that hill on a clear yet windy day and thought about how that was the fourth time I was there and how many more were to come, how my family is dwindling in size as time passes. I held my mother's hand as we walked off the hill and drove back to JR's house for the wake.

Turned 43 a few weeks ago. True to form, Melissa arranged a small party of friends to help celebrate my middle-aged-ness. Megan and her little friend from down the street, Kadie, sang happy birthday to me.

Found out this week--Monday morning--that my company was laying me off with the contract's end this Friday, giving me a wonderful four days to scramble and find employment with another company. It turned out well and I'm pretty much staying in the same work position, and the new company has better benefits and has given me a small salary increase (not to mention a $500 gift card as a small sign-on present).

On a happier front, Ian is doing great. We got our Christmas family portraits back today, which turned out really well (especially considering my face is in the picture). Ian has been staying within the 100% in both height and weight, with the doctor stating that he's likely to be well over 6' once fully grown. Which wouldn't surprise me, considering that at 5'11.5" tall I'm the runt of my father's side of the family.

With my penchant for dwelling too much in the past, it should come as no surprise that I recently discovered Classmates.com and went on an e-mailing rampage, writing to over a dozen former high school members from Shawnee's class of 1983. Most of the people I wrote to I also knew from Possum middle school and grew up with them in the same neighborhood. I found a profile of my first girlfriend, Peggy Wright, complete with a photo. This was the first time I saw Peggy since school ended. We went "steady" in the spring of 1979 for a few weeks before she kicked me to the nearest curb like so much spare boy-candy. Joking aside, seeing that picture really brought back memories that are almost thirty years old, a fact which itself alone was enough to make me feel rather old. But as I went through the list of registered classmates I wanted to write to I realized how much I fell off the proverbial face of the planet since I haven't seen or spoken with so many of them in the intervening years. And of course now wish I had kept more in touch with a number of them and I'm hoping to hear back from at least half.

As I wrote the above paragraph I debated whether or not I should post this picture of Peggy, but since it's already available on a public and heavily viewed website I don't imagine this little blog will generate any unwanted effects from its presence here. The picture looks like a high school senior year photo, which would put Peggy years older from when we were a couple during her 7th-grade year (I was in 8th grade). We met since we both stayed after school to assist with the track team. I forget what we were called and I lost the track team photo of the entire team years and years ago. I look at this picture and can so clearly remember how beautiful I thought she was as a young girl. Peggy also possessed a very outspoken disposition and a rather fiesty temperament, quick to engage anyone in a verbal joust on such then-current hot topics as women's lib and disco. I don't like talking about this because of how deep the emotional wounds reached, and probably still remain within the small boy every grown man carries inside to one degree or another, but Peggy truly was my first love in life. Why I don't know. I think she came along at the right time, when as a young boy of 14 years who received very little direct physical affection needed a focus upon to which pour out all his suppressed feelings and emotional needs. When Peggy broke up with me I was devastated and fell into a horribly deep depression that lasted throughout most of my high school years and the only person I ever told was my friend, Andrew. I kept all that hurt and loneliness bottled up inside for years and years, unable to communicate my feelings to anyone. So seeing Peggy for the first time in over 24 years, and close to how she looked back then, was quite a shock. I've heard it said that men never, ever forget their first love and for me that statement is absolutely true.






Melissa and I put up the Christmas tree this last weekend and decorated it with a little help from Megan, who is enormously excited about the impending holiday and Santa's expected visit to our house. She's been extolling the virtues of her good behavior to every ear she can bend to listen. She found a rather large, wrapped box in my walk-in closet and told me she hopes it's the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse she's been asking for. And it is, though of course I told her she'll have to wait until Christmas to find out.