Another Person's Shared Memory #1

So I finished filling out the FAFSA.  For those of you who don't know what that is, it stands for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, and you need it if you think you're going to get any money at all for college.  Anyway, I can't say that word without thinking of Hudson and his mom and the meeting the two of them went to about funding for college.  The presenter kept going on and on about the importance of filling out the FAFSA.  He told me that his mom said, "If she says the word FAFSA one more time, I'm walking out."  Well, she did, and they did.  Hilarious.

It's not even my memory, but the memory of the telling makes me laugh every time I think of it.  FAFSA. 

The Day the Movies Changed

So, I'm downloading the Star Wars Theme for CVett to use for her one-act.  And the minute that music starts, I'm taken back, back, back to 1977, and sitting in a darkened movie theater that has long since been torn down.  I sit, anticipating a movie, that as a 17-year-old female, I've really heard very little about.  But I'm there.  What the heck.  A 25¢ box of popcorn and a box of milk duds.  A 100% real Coke (I didn't drink diet soda back then....).  The lights go down.  The music plays and the words role forward across the screen.  Then, literally, from behind my head, a small ship zips forward followed by an unbelievably massive imperial star destroyer--the roar of the ship coming from behind and all around, swallowing us up in intergalactic noise.  I actually looked up and behind to see where the ship was coming from.  It was just so...awesome.  Then the two robots:  "They'll be no escape for the princess this time...."  And really, the rest is history.

I need to put that theme song on my "Chris's Joy Music" CD.  It never fails to make me smile. 

A Different Year, Another Ice Storm

Years ago, at least ten years, when I was teaching, we woke up in the morning to find bad weather moving in.  But since IPS NEVER closed, my husband and I and our young son all went about our business, getting ready for school, and watched the front of plunging temperatures and freezing rain move from northwest to southeast across the center part of the state.  And then we watched as the schools closed almost as soon at the front touched them.  We waited, and watched.  Would ours be next?  Finally, too late to wait any longer, I got Charlie into the car and into his car seat and backed slowly out the driveway.  I had to make a stop to stick a letter in the mailbox.  I got out of the car and inched my way around it, holding on to what I could, moving towards the mailbox; but then I lost my footing, and would have slid completely UNDER the car, if I hadn't managed to grab on to the rear view mirror.  I could hear my phone ringing in the car.  I struggled back and managed to answer it before the caller hung up.  It was my husband shouting, "Come back!  Come back!  We closed!"  I laughed--"I haven't left yet.  I'm still at the mailbox!"  I got back in the car and pulled back into the driveway.  I'm sure the rest of the day was all fireplace and movies, a nice family day.  I just remember that pink front moving across the radar and the schools closing, and hoping against hope that ours would be next.  I think teachers like snow days better than the kids.

Seeing the Grand Canyon

I've been listening to a book on CD about the history of our National Park System--a book based on the documentary created by Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan.  It is fascinating and inspiring, and truly the concept to create and preserve lands in a National Park System is indeed "America's Best Idea".   Listening to the actualization and the ensuing struggle to set aside lands for public enjoyment has made me want to retrace my steps through the parks I have visited--Acadia, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Rocky Mountain National Park, Cape Cod National Seashore, Arches, Bryce--and...walk slower this second time through.  Ha.  You knew I was going to say that, didn't you?

And it has reminded me of my first view of the Grand Canyon:  "We had driven a long way over several days along Route #66, the Mother Road, dipping down into southern New Mexico and Arizona to get a taste of Roswell and the O-K Corral.  Once we had those touristy places under our belts, we headed north through the center of Arizona, bypassing Phoenix, Tuscon, Flagstaff, to get to Williams, AZ, the Gateway to the Grand Canyon.  Williams offered old-fashioned rail service to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, and being train aficionados, we decided that we would take the train, and then take a guided bus tour along the edge to some of the more well-known spots.  This we did, and the trip was...meh.  Nothing special.  I wouldn't pay that much to do it again. The landscape is unremarkable until you reach the canyon itself, but the entertainment on the train--some cowboy musicians and train robbers--made the rather slow trip enjoyable.  As we neared the station, we were told that we would have a relatively short amount of time to find sustenance, and then board our bus for the tour.  I had two hungry, but picky, eaters as my traveling companions and it was going to be up to me to locate a restaurant that served pickyboy food, get us fed, and back to the train station in, as my dad would say, short order, to catch the bus.   


I studied the map of the village where we would disembark.  We agreed that I would scout ahead as rapidly as I could, while they walked along the main thoroughfare at a 'younger and slower' pace.  When I'd located a place to eat, I'd meet them coming back and guide them to the restaurant.


It went as planned.  I hustled off that train and raced to the top of a hill where the main walkway was.  And suddenly there it was; the Grand Canyon.  I literally gasped to see it all spread out before me, millions of years of erosion, the work of water, ice and wind.  And tears came into my eyes.  I have seen a lot of gorgeous scenic places in this great country from coast to coast, but that first view of the majesty of the Grand Canyon will stay with me forever.  No painting, photo or television documentary that I'd ever seen did it the justice it deserved.  The Grand Canyon.


I hurried on, bucking the crowd, stealing glance to the meaning of the word awesomeness on my right, and found the reasonably-priced hamburgers and french fries I was looking for.  We ate; we took the tour; and rode the rails back to Williams.  We then drove back up to explore on our own the next day and the next.  I got plenty of opportunity to look at it, to gaze, to take pale and sorry photographs of my own.  But I will always remember that first, breathtaking vision of the Is-What-It-Is Canyon--the Grand Canyon.  Put it on your bucket list.  Now."

New Year's Day on West Wiley

My parents, being part of the Bluffton jet-set (or at least, my perception of it), usually went to a New Year's Eve party, leaving us with a babysitter:  Marcia, Inez, Mrs. Hutchinson, Mrs. Scaffa.  It was always a treat to wake up on New Year's Day and find their party hats and noise makers on the kitchen table or in the living room or elsewhere.  One year, my mom came home with a little glittery tiara adorned with blue confetti-like tissue-papery trim.  It was very delicate and feminine, unlike the boxy metallic gold soldier hat that was my dad's.  I'm sure my parents appreciated being awakened much earlier than planned with the attractive nuisance that were the noise makers they'd left downstairs, along with the hats. 


I also remember that, once we got up, we headed over to my grandparents' house on West South Street to watch the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl.  They had a color TV.  We didn't.  Amazing, huh?  This would have been pre-70s.  Mid-60s probably.  A New Year memory.

Written and Remembered

I'm 51 now.  I feel old.  I am old.  My brain feels cloudy.   Very clear on some things; not so clear on others.  I love telling stories of my adventures, recent and past, and it bothers me when I repeat myself.  So I'm worried that I'm starting to forget stuff.  Stuff I don't want to forget.  Hence this blog.  Here, the insignificant, and maybe the significant will be remembered.  Written and remembered.