Preserving the Past Part II; Christmas Photo Album from 1974

I've begun the nerve-wracking process of removing photos from my Grandmom's photo albums for scanning.  It's got me a little on edge.  The photos are stuck in there good.

Of the albums, what I've posted today has been my favorite so far.  It's so well commented out and reads more like a picture book than a photo album.  I don't know if it was my Grandmom who put it together, because a lot of this looks like my mother.  Including the hand drawn holly berry leaves at the top of page one.

We have some family movies from back during these days, but I haven't seen still pictures of this particular era in quite awhile.  And having the running commentary adds a new dimension to the whole thing.

What's interesting here is that I'm still just a normal guy.  No obsessive hobbies to awkwardly define my personality.  I'm a five year old who apparently loves Scooby-Doo, Star Trek, super-heroes, and Viewmaster.  But ultimately, just a five-year-old boy.

And I had long since forgotten all about that toy camping set.  The memories flooded back as soon as I saw it.

Thanks,
DCD

The Super Friends Poster

I'm out of my poster phase now. But in the 1990's and 2000's I obviously strongly felt that my comic sanctuary and work area should be covered wall-to-wall in super hero posters. Looking as much as possible like the inside of a comic book shop.

Now, in the new comic book sanctuary that we've recently built, I've only put up one poster. Lorie and I are both tired of little pin pricks all over the walls, and I'm being very picky about what gets displayed in the comic sanctuary. On one wall, my Aquaman fathead dominates the space. Given to me by pals Larry, Steve, and Scott for Christmas one year, the fathead is huge and the bright colors really pop on the deep brown walls of the room.





On the other side of the room, in the reading nook above the couch, we've mounted a poster frame. This is something that I can change out at will, choosing to display a new poster every month. So far, I've only ever kept one poster up. This one:


It only seems right. Showcasing the very basic elements of what started my lifelong passion with comics. A call back to my childhood and an era of comics that I'm still vastly in love with.

But there's another reason at play here. I had a similar poster as a kid. It was the only poster I had as a kid.

We moved a lot, as regular readers already know, and littering the walls with posters didn't really seem like a good idea. But when we lived in Texas, I remember eagerly ordering a Super Friends poster from the Scholastic Book club flyer passed out at school. I remember waiting an eternity for the poster to arrive, and I remember cutting out the picture of it from the Scholastic flyer and keeping it. I looked at that little picture quite a lot. And I remember putting the poster up on the wall when it finally arrived. I remember when we were packing up my toys and belongings for our next move. And I remember the poster getting torn when we took it down from the wall. I was crushed.

But see... memory is a tricky thing. And when I asked my mother to forward me a picture I knew she had of us reading a book under the poster, this is what she sent:


What? Several glaring inaccuracies spring up in the story I just told you.

First, that baby sitting in my lap is my baby sister Robyn. So this had to be in Plattsburgh, New York, 1978. Which means the poster didn't get ripped to the point of destruction in Texas as I had thought.

Second, there's more than one poster! See that! And that one over there! I remember those! I had completely forgotten those posters. Glorious remembrances of the 1970's versions of those characters. I would stare at those posters for quite awhile. They didn't make it past our next move, unless my mother can produce photographic evidence to prove me wrong.

Third, I'm wearing football pajamas. The Dallas Cowboys, if I'm not mistaken. This is the equivalent of Ashton constantly having to wear super hero pajamas growing up. If you had asked me yesterday if I had ever owned any football pajamas, I would have laughed at you and said "of course not". But here comes my mother... readjusting our expectations with photographic reality.

Fourth, my Mom is hot!

Fifth... that hair. What the heck? Holy Moley! I'm sporting the world's worst Prince Valiant cut. Was that punishment, Mom? What could I have done to earn such a badge of shame? Were we actively TRYING to make sure I was always identified as the weird kid? Was a crippling comic book obsession and loud love of Star Trek not enough to geek-ify me? Ugh.

My thirteen year old son, Ashton, thinks his hair cuts are terrible. Next time I'll arrange for an Air Force barber from the seventies to make this little masterpiece on top of his head.

Thanks,
DCD

How Moving Affected my Development

A few weeks back, I wrote a blog about moving and listed out the different places I've lived. Now, I've been living in the same house for over fifteen years and we're just moving into a house addition that we started six and a half years ago. Life is good.

My mother hit that blog and asked some questions. What did you use as an anchor? In each new environment did you have something that made it home? How did the transient lifestyle affect your development?

Actually, I think these questions say a lot about my mother. Think about that for a second. You've lived in a small town in North Carolina all your life and you've never really traveled that much. And then you marry into the Air Force and find yourself trying to establish a different building as a new 'home' every one to three years. That must have been tough for her. It was different for us kids, because we didn't really have the 'roots' that having a single childhood home can give a person. We never knew better.

But the questions are interesting. I do think it affected my development. I like for things to be in the proper place. No... you don't understand. I really really really like for them to be in the proper place. It's an obsession, really. When I bring something new into the house, I don't just set it on the kitchen table and leave it for some other time. I have to figure out at the VERY least which room it goes into. And when I visit someone, I have to carve out my 'place'. The chair I want to sit in and where my bag will go. I get nervous and uncomfortable if these decisions can't be made quickly. And I have to wonder if it's the OCD affecting me or if it has something to do with the 'transient lifestyle' of my childhood.

When I took my first job as a computer programmer, it was a huge leap for us. I had managed a Blockbuster Video and managed a temporary labor company, but this felt different. My first day as an actual professional. Well... they were not as ready for me as much as I was ready for them. They hadn't prepared a cube for me yet or gotten me a computer.

My new boss just asked me to leave my stuff in her office and help the Sys Admin move some furniture for the day. I was an internal mess. No place to be. No spot my own. No area to carve. I can't start building my own little systemic, OCD routines and processes if I don't even know where I'll be sitting. It was a very awkward first day to a brand new career.

That night... that very same night... my son was born. Three weeks early. TOTALLY leaving the plan in shambles. So my second day I called out. Not a stellar first week on the job for my good ol' brain and heart.

My anchors are just about what you would expect. Move as many times as you want, comics are sold everywhere. At least in the seventies they were. I do remember the frantic rush to figure out which channels were assigned to which TV stations at every new house. And the giddy joy that came with learning the local afternoon TV programming. The Archies and Popeye and Batman in New York. Starblazers, Spider-Man and Battle of the Planets in New Hampshire. People that lived here in Martinsburg all their lives always ask me about Ultraman and Speed Racer. Sorry, those shows didn't air in the areas where we lived. I never caught them.

I briefly touched on the marking of time in my moving blog. When you move every one to three years in your childhood, you begin to mark time based on what house you were living in when the event happened. Robyn was born when we lived in Plattsburgh, New York. My first Legion comic was in San Antonio, Texas. My first fist fight was in Fairfax, Virginia. My first pushing-on-the-playground incident was in Rochester, New Hampshire. First girlfriend was at summer camp at Hilltop, Pennsylvania.

Well, now that I've lived in the same house for fifteen years, I've seemed to lose the ability to mark time at all.

There were certain things I keep 'waiting' on with my oldest son. "When he's a teenager, I can expect this." - that sort of thing. He's thirteen! Teen-ager-dom has begun! When I turned thirteen, we had lived in twelve different houses. I keep waiting for some major 'thing' to happen that I can use to mark Ashton's next stage of development. As if the turning of birthdays wasn't enough. I have to keep logically comparing his development know to where I was at his age.

So yeah, the constant moving did affect my development, I think. And there's a part of me that keeps expecting a move again. But now that we've lived here for so long, made this house a home, stretched it out and then stretched into it, I just can't picture moving again for a very long time. If ever.


Thanks,
DCD

Clifton Horror Movie Nights

I’ve told you several times already about Matt Rusnak and his role in pulling a painfully nerdy Chuck out of the deep recesses of isolationism in the high school filled decade of the 1980’s. We’ve talked about music. We have yet to talk about the ideas of forming a tightly-knit group of friends, teenage male bonding, and the sense of belonging to a group larger than yourself. Those are topics I’d like to hit someday, as they are important aspects to anyone’s adolescent development. But today… I wanna talk about the horror movies of Clifton.

Today, I consider myself a legitimate fan of horror movies. But back then when I met Matt, not so much. They still gave me the heebie-jeebies back then. I remember clearly being nervous sitting in the theater next to my first real girlfriend to watch the Prince of Darkness. And I remember my friend and co-worker on the Burke Lake Maintenance crew telling me about this amazing new movie he saw called "Aliens" and how I really had to check it out. I did. My first R rated movie and horror movie that I ever saw alone. Snuck out without my Mom knowing what I was going to see. Movie scared the CRAP out of me.





I loved it.

One of the things that Matt did best was create an idyllic atmosphere for hanging out. His house was deep in the remote, woods-infested backwater of Clifton, VA. His house was old, maybe even turn of the century old. His parents were around, but not intrusive. His kitchen was warm and his TV room was perfect. Small TV, VCR, and comfortable chairs.

For my senior year of High School, this was my home for Friday nights. Matt's twin brother Ben made homemade pizza and extolled the virtues of his home darkroom and his photography passion. Matt had always gone to Errol's video before my arrival and almost always had a horror movie all picked out and ready to go. Good friends. Good eats. Great environment. The perfect 'safe' setting for male camaraderie at an age when usually the socialization was all about getting your hands on beer or drugs. We had no interest in that. We just wanted to watch a good movie, laugh our butts off, hopefully see some horror-movie boobs, and be together for a few hours. These memories of Clifton and those relationships will always hold up in my memory as the golden ideal.


Of course... there wasn't a girl in sight. And we ALL would've chucked it at the first hint of an actual girlfriend.

The problem with watching horror movies in Clifton on Friday nights, the main problem with being in Clifton at night at all, was the drive home. It was dark, with no street lights, and it was a long ways away from my home in Fairfax, VA.


I remember saying good night to Matt and Ben with smiles and laughter and turning around and letting the smile drop from my face like a ton of bricks when I realized I had to walk out to the car alone. Having just watched some gut wrenching, stress inducing, jump-fest of a horror movie. SURELY there would be some killer waiting for me in the back of my 1977 Vista Cruiser Station Wagon.


The worst of these nights was when Matt told me the Goat Man story for the first time. To my memory, he delivered it perfectly. I had never heard the story before and I'm not about to tell it to you now. I'll need a camp fire and a flashlight hovering under my jaw.

Matt topped off the legend of the Goat Man by telling me that the whole thing happened in Clifton, "some years ago". And that they had never found the killer. So I may have been grinny or I may have been gullible, I don't remember. But I do remember letting my mind race away from me and being TERRIFIED of the Goat Man on that long drive home from Clifton.


You know what's worse than driving home from dark-and-woodsy Clifton, VA late on a Friday night after an evening of entertaining horror? I'll tell you... it's sitting in your driveway back at home afraid to open the door of your nigh-impregnable Vista Cruiser Station Wagon. Absolutely sure that once you DO open that door, either the Goat Man will take you from above and rip you to pieces... or Matt and Ben will jump out from behind a nearby tree to scare you and laugh their butts off on what a frightened mess you are.

I have lots of regrets. I'm sure we all do. If I could, I would go back and re-live my entire college experience just so I could have the chance to actually get it right. BUT... but... those Clifton nights? With Matt and Bill and Jamie and Mike and Eric and Ricky and Mario.... those were perfect. I would go back and re-live those in a second. But not because I want to get it right. Because it was just perfect the first time around.

Thanks,
DCD

Six Million Dollar Adulthood

Last Friday, I wrote about the Six Million Dollar Man and my childhood memories of the TV show. I threw in some thoughts comparing the ideas of watching TV shows together as a family in the seventies and watching them separately today. I fretted and hemmed and hawed about what effect this 'in house cultural difference' would have on the kids. But I neglected to tell you that there are some shows that we watch together with the kids. With ALL the kids. For instance...

...we watch the Six Million Dollar Man.


I'm sure none of you regular readers of this blog are surprised by this plot twist. But yes, I did acquire the complete series and I did take the pains to load them up on the Apple TV. So that any episode is readily available with a couple clicks of the beautiful silvery remote.


The kids and I have been watching the show on and off for years. We started it when Lorie was working at Best Buy in the evenings and we were on our own. These days when we watch an episode, it's together as a family and under Lorie's extreme protest. During any given episode, she can be found to be playing Sims or Jurassic Park on her iPad mini.

The kids love the show, of course. Alex is six now, which as I mentioned before was my age during the show's original heyday. So there's some symmetry here. When we first started watching the show, all three kids would play bionics. With youngest Alex calling it 'bionic Steve' or 'the six dollar man'. They would run in slow motion in the yard or in the hallway and fight each other, sometimes arguing over who was 'Good Steve' and who was 'Bad Steve' and who was mind controlled and who wasn't and even which arm was bionic and which one was normal. I laughed at Katie's reasoning of being a female version of Colonel Steve Austin. I didn't tell her about Jamie Summers until it happened on the show itself. I preferred to keep it a secret and watch things unfold for them as they had for me thirty-some years earlier.


Needless to say, the introduction of Jamie Summers was a big hit. And then the revelation that she had her own show was even more exciting.

It's been sort of a joy for me. And I think this particular feeling at it's root is universal for fathers. The need to share something with your kids that meant so much to you when you were young. With something like Star Wars, which is probably the biggest case of "I gotta share with my kids", our culture gets in the way. There are current day movies and cartoons and playground experiences that can dilute the link between father and son when sharing those characters. Same with Batman or Star Trek. But with something like Six Million Dollar Man or even Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, or Flash Gordon the pickings are so slim for modern day interpretations that the experience can be a controlled link.

However, sometimes that can backfire.

Our latest viewing happened a few days ago. We watching an episode called 'Nightmare in the Sky'. The original air date was September 26th, 1976, and it was from season four of the show. It guest starred popular character actor Dana Elcar. It also guest starred Farrah Fawcett herself in her second appearance on the show playing the character of Major Kelly Wood. A fellow pilot and semi-love interest for Steve.

Alex watched intently.

Katie was confused. Who was this big-haired woman? What do you mean they were married in real life? What about Jamie? What about Jamie Summers? GET THIS WOMAN AWAY FROM STEVE!!


Ashton was... Ashton was very much a teenager for the whole thing. While years ago he very much enjoyed the show, today he kept making derogatory comments under his breath and unhelpful side slanders. He commented on the special effects and the outfits. He didn't like Steve's cheesy little season four mustache. He made sure we were clear that he would rather watch Eureka, which is a modern day show that we do enjoy together. And I made sure he was clear that if he kept running his mouth I would throw him outside.


He did enjoy Farrah, though. That much was obvious. Some things are eternal.

As I'm setting up my new comic book sanctuary, I have very few things with the Six Million Dollar Man on them. An old Christmas record. And one beat-up toy with missing pieces, no outfit and busted bionic working mechanism. But he's in his old spaceship/bionic monitoring station. I had that when I was a kid. And now I have it again as an adult. Proudly displayed under glass.


Thanks,
DCD

Six Million Dollar Childhood

One of my many loves is the Six Million Dollar Man. I have many strong memories and passions that carried over from childhood. The squinty, open shirt, wide-collared Lee Majors portrayal of Col. Steve Austin seems to be particularly strong with me as an adult. I think one of the reasons is that I went a good portion of my life without the show or any version of it. Unlike Star Trek. So it's almost as if I'm rediscovering the show as an adult. And rediscovering how fond I was of the show in the mid-1970's.


The show started in January of 1974 and lasted until Spring of 1978. Which means that part of the show's allure for me is it's pre-Robyn-ness. My baby sister Robyn was born in November of 1977 when we lived in Plattsburgh, New York. So it's not actually the fact of being without Robyn, but it's the idea that this was the proto-Dill family that loved the show. The early childhood stages of living in Texas, and not having an infant sister to contend with. We watched the show as a family. I do remember that. And ever time Steve Austin would climb into a plane my mother would check with my father for Air Force accuracy.

His answer fell into two ranges: "yep" and "nope".

I remember being jaw-droppingly stunned at Steve's fight with mechanized monster Bigfoot. I remember the horror of Maskatron, when that villain removed his face and revealed the circuitry underneath I was just as shocked as the rest of America. I remember the excitement of the Bionic Woman. I added Jamie Summers to my harem of imaginary wives, along with Daphne and Black Canary. I remember knowing who Farrah Fawcett was because she was married to Lee Majors and not because she was one of Charlie's Angels. We weren't allowed to watch that show.





In the heyday of the Six Million Dollar Man TV show, I was around six to seven years old. One of the things that strikes me is that I'm positive we watched this show together, as a family. It was a prime time show that my parents felt comfortable watching with a six-year-old. Can you think of any prime time shows today that you would watch with a kid that young? Certainly there may be some, but I can't think of any. Even our favorite sitcoms are too racy and deal with themes just too adult for us to sit down and enjoy with our youngest son Alex. And now my three kids have this set of shows that they watch and enjoy that I think are primarily made by Nickelodeon or Disney TV. "Good Luck Charlie", "Hannah Montanna", "Shake it Up", "Drake and Josh", and "Wizards of Waverly Place". I've seen a few episodes just so I can know what the kids are watching. But Lorie and I do not sit down and watch these shows with our kids as family time.

Our cultures are different. Between the enabling technology and the show content, our TV influences are completely different. Two or more separate sets of developmental culture in the same house. How will that effect us differently than the culture I experienced as a kid?

To my foggy childhood memory, EVERYONE was obsessed with the show back then. All my school friends, my family, and certainly the approved licensed merchandise makers. I didn't have the Six Million Dollar Man lunch box. But I DID have the Viewmaster reels and several records for my tiny toy record player. I remember clearly the evening when we went to the toy store to get me the Six Million Dollar Man action figure. I played with that thing CONSTANTLY. I had that figure before I had any of my super-hero or Star Trek Mego dolls. It was just Steve Austin and GI Joe.



The best thing about loving the Six Million Dollar Man wasn't the comics or the records or the action figures... it was by far the school yard play.

We had entire afternoons where everyone was bionic. Everyone was running in slow motion, wrestling off giant Northwestern Sasquatch space creatures, slow motion fist fights, slow motion fake jumps, slow motion 'looking far across the playground'. And the sound effects! Everyone was going 'Dah nuh nuh nuh nuh' under their breath when they weren't humming the theme song.

The only drawback to playing Steve Austin was that you couldn't incorporate the Wonder Woman twirl-change to go from being ordinary mortal to super-powered altruistic knight. Heaven help you if you were caught doing the WW spin-change on the playground.

It felt like a shared culture. It continues to feel like a shared culture. Mention the show to anyone over forty and you'll see the look of recognition light up their face. And when I slow-motion run past my bosses open office door going "Dah nuh nuh nuh nuh", the light chuckle lets me know she knows exactly what foolishness I'm up to.

Now if I could only lift this car with one arm...

Thanks,
DCD

Love it or List it

My wife Lorie doesn’t listen to radio shows from the 1940’s or watch TV shows from the 1970’s or read comic books from the 1960's or obsess on things like music spreadsheets and playlist orders. My wife does annoyingly practical things, like live in the present.

My wife works on the addition. Has for years. As far as I know, that’s what she does for fun now. Works on our house addition. Heaven only knows what she’ll do when we actually finish the thing. OH! And she watches HGTV. Lots and lots of HGTV.

One of the shows she watches on HGTV is “Love it or List it”. I think the show’s a reality show where one person tries to find a beleaguered home-owning couple a new home while the other person tries to show the home-owner what can be done with their existing home. At the end of the show the home-owner has to decide whether or not to “Love it or List it”.

MY problem is this: the kids. They’re so trained from birth to flock to a television set that’s on that it no longer matters what the show is actually about. So while Katie has the will to pull herself away from a show she has no interest in, neither Ashton nor Alex has shown this particular super power. They’ll sit in front of the TV for hours no matter what’s on.

I call the TV the ‘stupid-maker’. My Grandmother used to call it the “Idiot Box”.

The other day I was dutifully going through my nightly list of Daddy-follow-ups and caught my six-year-old son Alex sitting in front of the TV in a stupor. "Alex, time for shower!"

"AaaawwwaAAAAaaah!" He moaned.

"Get your pajamas, get your butt to the bathroom, and get naked!"

"Yes sir." He trudged off.

Fifteen minutes later Lorie paused her show to check on him while I worked with the older kids on other stuff. Just as she put a hand on the bathroom door, he barreled out. Half-dressed and pulling his pajama top on over his still-soaking head.

"Mommy! Mommy!" he cried out.

"Yes. Alex I'm right here." Lorie was startled. "What is it?"

"Did they love it or list it?"

...

Lorie stood there giggling. I stood there fuming. And Alex stood there dripping.

Definitely too much TV around here.

Thanks,
DCD

Shazam!

I often find myself making poorly-constructed jokes about fighting crime cross country in a Winnebago. More often than not, no one knows what I’m talking about and everyone just goes about their business as if I had said nothing. There are some comic book friends of mine that think I’m referencing the famous Green Lantern/Green Arrow road trip of the late sixties. (If you don’t get the reference, well... you’re just not happening.) However, if you read my meta-text closely, you’ll find I’m referencing something else entirely.


The reference is to the Saturday morning TV show Shazam, which ran from 1974 to 1977. It starred Michael Gray and his terrific hair as a young Billy Batson. In case you don’t know, Billy has a magic word. Billy can shout “Shazam” and instantly change into the super-hero Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel was played originally by Jackson Bostwick, and replaced unceremoniously by John Davey in 1975 because of Hollywood-crappyness. But most creepy of all, Billy traveled the country in his Winnebago with an older character named “Mentor”, played by Les Tremayne. Mentor? Mentor? I guess it was too difficult for the writers to come up with a better name.








It’s hard for me to explain just how important this TV show was to kid culture of the mid-seventies. I can tell you that as a six year old in the seventies, I noticed NONE of the show's flaws or shortcomings. We ran around on the playground playing Captain Marvel just as much as we played Six Million Dollar Man. (More on that to come)


It seems sort of odd for an American animation company to lock down the rights to a show and then make a live-action version geared towards Saturday morning kiddies. But it really wasn’t all that odd. Hollywood had been producing these sorts of things since the 1950’s and Space Patrol, among others. Just because cartoons were the bulk of Saturday morning in the seventies doesn’t mean there weren’t some live-action gems. Shazam and sister-show Isis were two of the biggest hits to come from Saturday morning live action programming.


I had the Underoos. I wore them to school. My shirt became out-of-place during wrestling lessons in gym and everyone saw I was wearing Shazam Underoos and started singing “Underoos are fun to wear”. It’s for this reason that I make sure my shirt never becomes untucked at work, lest my co-workers see what I have on underneath.


I used to think my love of the character Captain Marvel and everything that goes with him came from the giant treasury editions I had that reprinted a few of his adventures from the 1940’s. Santa put them in my stocking a couple years in a row and I clearly remember spending hours examining every glorious panel.


But as much as I love those old comics, it’s not where my love of the character Captain Marvel comes from. It’s this show. This cheaply made, perfectly executed, cheesy old seventies Saturday morning TV show. It’s the lightning thrill of watching Billy and his incredible hair tear out of the Winnebago, run into a field, and call out the magic word. Yes, it was just that simple. The essential elements of the Captain Marvel character captured more perfectly than they have been since the character's heyday in the 1940’s.

Boy sees trouble. Boy uses magic word (oftentimes with drama-inducing last minute timing). Boy changes to super-powered man.


The show recently became available on DVD in its entirety directly through Warner Bros. I bought it, of course. And I’ve been watching it with my six-year-old in the evenings when he comes home from school with no tallies for the day. Lorie sits nearby, playing games on her iPad mini and pretending not to watch and occasionally making derogatory comments about the show’s unpolished nature. But I don’t mind.


After the episode ends, I tackle Alex. We wrestle around on the couch and I restrain his arms. He struggles, and uses his best dramatic voice. “Just… .got… to… use… magic… word! (gasp)… (pause)…. SHAZAM!”

He explodes out of my grip and starts beating me on the chest.

I love it so.

Thanks,
DCD

Ashton at the Gym

My 13-year-old son Ashton has joined our gym.

Lorie and I have been going to the Wellness Center which is affiliated with the hospital she works at for almost a year now. Before that, we were going to Gold’s. We’re believers in regular exercise, and the kids have been exercising since each of them turned 4.

Ashton has been doing three sets of push-ups for me for nine years. Lately, he starts with one set of 25 knuckle push-ups, and his other two sets are flat hand at 30 push-ups.

I had been wrestling with when exactly he would be ready to exercise on his own or join a gym or perhaps start using weights. You hear different things about when they can start, but really it boils down to the person and their mindset. If they’re ready, they’ll be into it.

A couple of weeks ago Ashton started going past his Daddy-set goals for push-ups. One day his three sets were 30-35-40. The next exercise session he went 30-40-50. This infuriated his six-year-old brother, who considers the two of them to be in competition.

But once Ashton started showing a willingness to push himself, I knew he was beyond Daddy-regulation and ready to join the gym.

He signed up eagerly. He was actually a little excited about it. The personal trainers there assessed him, designed a routine for him, showed him how to use the electronic key, and turned him loose.

Last week was the first time we went to the gym when Ashton was there to work out on his own and not meet with a personal trainer. I split off from him and went about my normal routine; occasionally looking around to see where he was and if he was still doing okay. He was moving from treadmill to stationary bike to weights to rowing machine all on his own.

I finished my two sets of cardio and moved into the weight area. As I was moving from one machine to the next, I passed my son. That’s kind of an odd feeling. Anyway, he was at one machine struggling with how to adjust the seat. So I stopped to help him out.

I waited patiently for him to acknowledge my presence, which he did not.

I tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up, ear buds still in and iPod still blaring. I waited for him to pause his music and remove his ear buds, which he did not.

I motioned for him to ditch the ear buds. He did so reluctantly.

“What.” He grunted at me.

“Do you need a hand with that?” I asked.

“No.” He grunted at me.

“You sure?” I pressed.

“Yeah.” He grunted at me.

In case you’re not aware, I’m not really used to be talked to like this. Especially not by one of my own kids. But I want the gym thing to be a pleasant experience and I want to treat him like he’s a real person and all that crap.

I watched him spin the knob to adjust the seat. I suggested he pull instead of spin. He pulled and the seat dropped. He straightened and stared at me, waiting for me to leave.

“We good?” I asked.

“Yeah.” He grunted at me. Putting the ear buds back in.

So…. Yeah.

My 13-year-old son Ashton has joined our gym.

Have I mentioned he’s a teenager now?


Thanks,
DCD

Where I've lived

I've lived in Martinsburg, WV ever since I fell in love with my wife and chased her out here. I moved into the little house she was living in when we got married in October, 1997. Conventional math would say that I've lived here over fifteen years. Both in Martinsburg, WV and in the same tiny little house, now twice as big with a looming house addition that we've almost got complete.

This is a very odd feeling for me, to claim one place as 'home' for so many years. I grew up with a father in the Air Force, and our moves were many and constant.

When I was going to high school in Fairfax, VA, it was common to run into other kids with this problem. Military families peppered Fairfax and Robinson High School because of the suburbs proximity to Washington D.C. I always admired my friend Matt Rusnak for this reason, as he had lived in the same house in Clifton for years. Even to this day that awesome Clifton house has an attic full of Matt's childhood toys. I envy him that.

But all the friends I've made here in West Virginia are unfamiliar with this idea. For the most part, they've all lived in the area for their whole lives. There are some sharp differences between a childhood on the move and one with strong roots. Extended family is the most obvious. We had grandparents in North Carolina and Pennsylvania that we only got to see once or twice a year. Aunts, uncles, and cousins that were distant and rare rather than ever present and down the street. In fact, our somewhat close proximity to Lorie's parents are what's kept us from looking for jobs outside of the immediate area.

When you move around constantly for awhile, you begin to mark events and years by where you lived when that event happened. We lived in Texas when I was born, New York when my sister Robyn was born, we lived in Fairfax when I graduated high school and left the house in 1988. Things like that.

Living in the same house for fifteen years has skewed my senses because of this method of marking time. Have we really accomplished so much? Have we really lived in the same place so long? I seem to be losing time.

Recently, I asked my parents for a list of the places we lived. It was to help me put my thoughts and memories into context for myself when writing blogs. I got two very interesting pieces, one from each of them.

First, my mother sent me this picture:


It's my grandmother Lomax's old address book entries for my family. How frustrating this method must have been for keeping track of such things and how quaint the idea seems today. A couple of observations hit me, the first being that there are entries for all of us individually. The second is that they're crossed out. We probably drove the poor woman nuts with entries in her address book. If only she had a spreadsheet system or online database!

Second, my father collected the addresses of our many houses and sent me a list, broken down by the months/years we lived there. You can check that out below. It might be a little boring to you, but I find it another interesting time machine method to take me back. Not only that... but with this information I can Google Earth the addresses and become more familiar with the places I grew up. Houses, towns, and communities that I'll probably never see again.

Thanks,
DCD

Dec 68-Mar 70 801 Marcy Dr., #14, Big Spring, TX 79720

Mar 70-Jun 70 Jet Stream Trailer Court, Panama City, FL 32401

Jun 70-Nov 70 1102A Lincoln, Big Spring, TX 79720

Nov 70-Apr 71 2509 Siminole Drive, Big Spring, TX 79720

Apr 71-May 73 83A Ent (Base Housing), Big Spring, TX 79720

Jun 73-Sept 73 Lot 122, Briarcliff Mobile Home Park, Dalzell, SC 29040

Oct 73-Oct 75 8327 Glen Breeze, San Antonio, TX 78239

Oct 75-Jul 77 106 Wayne Drive, Universal City, TX 78239

Jul 77-Aug 78 6236C Maryland Road, Plattsburgh AFB, NY 12903

Aug 78-Jul 81 12 Silver Street, Rochester, NH 03867

Jul 81-Jun 82 4000 Llyde Lane, Montgomery, AL 36106

Jun 82-May 88 9803 Ward Court, Fairfax, VA 22032

May 88-Sept 89 10041 Deadwood Drive, Ellsworth AFB, SD 57706

Oct 89-May 90 43 Cusack Road, Hampton, NH 03842

Stacks of Comics

In my last blog post, I told you about Ashton's trouble with the car keys. It's part of a deeper mentality for not feeling the need to put things back where they belong. I've hit on a similar theme with Lorie and her iPhone troubles and you can check that out here.

It's a constant point of mental exasperation. Lorie and Ashton are constantly losing things or unable to find things. Katie and I stay fairly organized and don't have this problem. Alex is still just a six-year-old mass of chaos, but I think he's leaning in the Lorie/Ashton side of disorganization. It's slowly driving me crazy.

Getting Ashton to put things away and keep his room clean is an ongoing battle that I'm having difficulty understanding. It's like the kid can't really SEE things. He'll look at his hellaciously disorganized room and not be able to see what I see. He just doesn't hold the same importance in staying organized that I do.

The other night I had just gotten over a particularly bad bout of having the kids clean up their rooms and the living room. I was sitting on the couch watching TV with Lorie and my eyes fell on the entertainment center; where two Wii game boxes sit hastily discarded from earlier that day.

A small part of my soul just up and died as I sat staring at the Wii boxes.



Why am I the only one that can see these things? Why do I feel this way? Why does it bother me so much and what can I do about it? I believe right down to my toes that there is power, efficiency, and a good way of life in staying neat and organized. But why does it bother me so much when I see two Wii game boxes out of place?

My brain turned away from the TV show we were watching and ran down introspective lane looking for the cause.

I was in the Boy Scouts. I was a particularly bad Boy Scout and hated camping. So I hated disorganized campsites because it took longer to pack up and get out of there. No... that wasn't it. Didn't feel important enough to be a root cause.

Before I went digital, I had to carry around my reading material, usually a stack of comics, around with me everywhere. It was ponderous and heavy and inefficient and there was always the danger of losing the stacks of comics. As a result, I always made sure I knew where my bag was at all times. No... this isn't it. It feels more like symptom than cause.

We constantly moved in my childhood. My father was in the Air Force and we never stayed in one house more than a few years. We were also constantly leaving stuff behind, as the amount of belongings we could bring from house to house was limited. Not only that, but having your own space was kind of a premium. It was usually the first thing I worried about when we got to a new house.

This may have something to do with it. It feels closer to the mark than the Boy Scouts or my ever-present bag of reading material. But it's not quite the whole enchilada.

1979. I was ten. Our house in New Hampshire was three stories and a basement. Going up and down the stairs was a pain in the butt. So I would go up to my room and get some comics to read, then bring them downstairs to the living room to read there. Mom was constantly on me about keeping my toys and comics in my room. I... like Ashton... seemed hesitant to learn my lesson. One afternoon I cherry-picked the best and most loved comics out of my collection, a good solid stack twenty or thirty comics deep, and went down to the living room to read. I was negligent. I left the comics there and got distracted. Mom found them and by then she had enough. She took the comics and said they were gone for good.

I was devastated. Much more angry at myself then upset with my mother. How could I be so careless. My chest felt empty, like it does today when I realize a prized possession has been lost or broken.

A month or so later, when cleaning part of the basement, I found the stack of comics hidden on the floor behind a stack of boxes. She hadn't thrown them away after all. I asked her about them and she gave them back to me. I know that ever since then I've been very careful with my belongings.

Is that it? Is that the moment I learned this life lesson of the value of cleanliness and organization? (Would Ashton even notice if I took away the things he leaves out?)

As an adult, I never lose track of anything. I can be trusted to keep track of objects because I generally don't trust myself and constantly double and triple check. When we're out at the grocery store, I check the location of my keys, wallet, and iPhone constantly. To the casual observer it looks like a nervous habit. Touch the pocket, touch the other pocket, touch the shirt pocket, repeat. It's so ingrained on me that I became furious beyond believe when I thought I had lost my own car keys a few weeks back. Someone else had misplaced them and that wasn't my fault, sure. But it WAS my fault that it had been several hours before I noticed that they were gone. And I was livid with myself over it.

I get frustrated with the kids for not being able to learn the lesson of organization and taking care of their belongings. My concern is that these are tools that I know will serve them later in life. But with myself... I become mindlessly angry if I feel I've lost something.

Now, if you'll excuse me... I have to go help my wife. As I write this it's a few days before Christmas and she can't find a bag of presents that she bought. Sigh.

Thanks,
DCD

Broadcast Television

I would hate to start off any blog post with the phrase “when I was a kid”. But using this historical perspective as I’ve been doing I’ve ended up with two different viewpoints. The first one and the one I dwell on most is how something I’ve learned from history seems so foreign and different from me today. The second viewpoint is how much things are different today from when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, we were subject to the whims of the TV stations as far as when stuff would come on, how often we could watch the same programs, and how many commercials we had to sit through. Things are so drastically different today that the very thought must seem alien to our younger counterparts.

Recently Lorie and I hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house. My parents came over, as did hers. One of the things we wanted to do the night before Thanksgiving was watch a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving together. So we waited, and when 8 o’clock came around we tuned in CBS and sat around watching it, commercials and all, as if it were 1977 without the giant furniture-TV and it’s grainy, flickery picture.

I HAVE the cartoon. It’s right there… on the Apple TV. Without commercials and available any time we please. There’s no need to wait for a special time, and certainly no need to sit through all those needless commercials.

My kids have a wealth of viewing options available to them, as we’ve discussed before. And the methods in which they can view shows are many and varied. They are not constrained by day, time, programming and commercials. And if their show gets cancelled, they can always re-watch the older episodes at any time. Calling them “re-runs” is a misnomer.

In the fall of 1977, we had just moved to Platsburgh, New York, where my father had been stationed at the Air Force Base. While we were growing up, every time we moved one of our tasks in the new house was to re-familiarize with the TV. What channels tuned in what stations? And what did the local television stations have to offer that hadn’t been available at our last post. Our first day in Platsburgh I found an old sixties cartoon about Archie that I never knew existed! Stuff like that.

I found that the local station in Platsburgh, New York, offered a block of televisions shows right after school that was themed around super-heroes. They had a special commercial for it. It started off with Popeye, went to the Adventures of Superman with George Reeves, and ended with the Adam West Batman TV show.








I felt that it was my duty to start watching this block of TV. Even at age eight, when we ALL read comics, I was known as “THE” comic book guy. My obsessions started early and ran deep. And since that’s the way things were, it was my devout responsibility to watch these shows. Even if some of them were in black and white.

It was a tight squeeze with the bus schedule, but the first day that this new understanding about my TV watching destiny was in place, I got home around halfway through the Popeye cartoon. My mother was watching soaps or news or whatever on the main TV while puttering around doing her chores. So I shot upstairs to her bedroom, turned on the tiny black and white set that served as our second TV, and found my shows.

It worked for about forty-five minutes before my Mom noticed I was missing. All was quiet in the house, too quiet for me to actually be home and not be in trouble. My mother’s understanding was NOT that I would get home and lay around on my butt watching TV for hours. There were chores, homework, and active playing to consider. When she finally found me, if memory serves, I do believe voices were raised.

I was devastated at the thought that I couldn’t watch this block of programming. But for me, it was never about laying around on my butt watching TV. It was solidly about fulfilling my responsibility as a fan by becoming familiar with these shows! These shows that weren’t available to watch IN ANY OTHER WAY, AT ANY OTHER TIME, ON ANY OTHER STATION.

The idea is so foreign today that I feel the need to stress it. It’s not like I could watch my show during my allotted time for watching TV. It’s not like I could save the DVD for later. In 1977, being told that you can’t watch TV from 3 P.M. to 4 P.M. meant that you would NEVER see the George Reeves Superman show and the Adam West Batman show.

I got over it. My eight year old, 1977-formed concept of how TV works has been turned on its ear now that it’s 2012 and I’m twenty-four.

Today, when I call for a kid to do a chore and they’re watching TV, they hit pause. Even if what they’re watching is live TV. In fact, it pretty much doesn’t matter what method they’re using to watch any show. They hit pause. They run to me, get their instructions, do their chore, and head back to their show.

In the seventies, I don’t really remember being interrupted a lot when we actually sat down in front of the TV. Maybe I’m mis-remembering, but there could’ve been an unspoken understanding in our culture that you can’t hit pause on a TV show, so please just wait for a commercial.

I’m probably mis-remembering.

I DO remember calling a girl I liked in the eighties while she was watching the annual broadcast of Wizard of Oz. Remember that? Annual broadcast TV showings of Wizard of Oz, Ten Commandments, and Gone with the Wind? It was the only way to keep these classics in the public consciousness. Anyway, she explained to me calmly and clearly several times that this was her favorite movie ever and she looks forward to the broadcast all year. I never got the hint. Not until the next day. She was trying to politely get me off the phone so she could watch her show. She was completely unable to pause it, because that’s not how things worked back then. I STILL beat myself up over that.

I do remember our first beta recorder! Where we could record TV shows and play them back later. It was a miracle technology, and I filled up my first blank beta tape with re-runs of Super Friends. But what killed me about the whole process is when my mother taped all the Christmas specials. And my idiot sisters watched those specials well into February. That’s not how it’s supposed to work! You’re breaking the system! We’re not allowed to watch Christmas specials until the television networks decide it’s time!

I was thinking about benefits and drawbacks to these differing modes of viewing TV. And I don’t think there are any benefits to the way it used to be. You may have some strong nostalgic feelings for it, or miss the idea of the ‘annual’ broadcast of some old movie, and that’s all well and good and your right as a human being. But there’s no benefit in being at the mercy of antiquated tech for your entertainments and amusements.

Oh… unless sports. There’s sports. But who cares about that?

Thanks,
DCD