“I’m afraid, Ray, that you’re going to need a hip replacement.” The doctor pointed to the scan on the screen in the well-appointed office whose shiny white walls made it look like it belonged in a Star Trek episode, except for the natural light that poured in from the skylight. He sat in a high-backed Herman Miller chair. He gestured with a laser pointer mounted in the left index finger of his metal hand. “You have worn down the joint here, here, and here. Looks like osteoarthritis. Ordinarily we’d see this in someone who was carrying too much weight in their belly for too long, but well, you’ve been carrying another kind, haven’t you?”
Raymond Light looked at the screen and shook his head. “What kind of recovery time are we looking at, Doc?”
“With Argonian technology and ultraviolet healing rays, still at least six weeks.”
“Blast! I can’t afford to be out of action that long. Aren’t there any shortcuts we can take?”
“Oh, sure, there’s Zurn genetic therapy and cloning, but with the wild card effect, there’s a ten percent chance you could sprout a lizard tail.”
Ray stood up, painfully, and walked across to the doctor, trying to conceal his limp just out of habit. “All right, Doc, schedule it for as soon as possible. I need to get this done with as quickly as I can.”
“In the meantime,” the doctor warned, “try to take it easy, eh?”
“You know me, Doc.”
“Yes, that’s why I said it. Oh, and Ray? Happy birthday.”
Ray shook hands with Dr. Improbable and nodded toward the skylight above. The doctor pressed a stud on his Improbability Gauntlet, and the skylight slid open with a near-silent whir.
“I’ll see you soon.” Ray adjusted his leather jacket, fastening it over his white jumpsuit, lowered the aquamarine translucent goggles over his eyes, and launched himself into the sky in a blaze of swirling blue, green, and violet light, which all but vanished against the bright blue sky.
“If not sooner,” the doctor said to himself.
Raymond Light, better known as Borealis, hovered for a moment above the Chicago office, took in the beauty of the skyline, then started climbing while he plotted a course home, following the Lake Michigan shoreline. He transferred the navigation into his heads-up display and did a weather check. It was a nice, clear day all the way home to Traverse City Michigan. It was a bit chilly at seven thousand feet, an altitude that avoided most migrating birds, so he redirected some of his internal energies into life support, crafted a minor multicolored bullet-shaped force field to project in front of him, and put the rest of his considerable power into flight. He accelerated slowly as he hugged the shoreline, passing over Hammond Indiana, then Gary, then Michigan City, but once he crossed the Michigan border and passed Benton Harbor, he poured it on. His force field and ear caps protected him from the sonic boom as he accelerated north, past Mach 1. At this speed, he’d be home in about half an hour. There was no rush.
I shouldn’t need a hip replacement. I’m still young. I’m only—59? That can’t be right, Borealis thought, as he made a minor course adjustment over Holland. That would mean that I’ve been doing this for—41 years? How is that possible?
Ray’s thoughts turned back to the day when he, as a high school senior, first became imbued with power from mysterious charged particles during a particularly strong solar storm.
December 28, 1982
Young Ray Light was on his way back home from the State Theater in Traverse City on a date with his girlfriend, Karen. They had gone to see Tootsie. They were on Christmas break from school, and Ray was thinking about finding a place for them to park. The night sky was filled with the shimmering curtains of the Northern Lights. They held hands as they watched the rare spectacle. They’d been dating off and on for two years and were finally in a place where both felt comfortable. When an oncoming car drifted into their lane, Ray turned the wheel as slowly as he could to avoid it while maintaining control of the car.
The car just missed them, and Ray tried to navigate his way back to his lane, when he hit a patch of ice. The 1974 Chevy Nova with its 350cc engine, started sliding wildly. He overcorrected and caused it to fishtail once, twice, three times. On the third time, the car skidded sideways down into a ditch, sending a wall of snow flying over the windows, then coming to a sudden halt. Ray checked on his girlfriend to make sure she was all right. Karen was shaken up but nodded that she was okay. Ray opened the driver’s side door to get out. His shoe immediately filled with snow, as they were in pretty deep, about 100 feet from the road. He cleared the driver’s side of snow with the shovel he kept in the trunk and found that one tire had been taken off the rim, and the other one was completely flat. He had Karen get behind the wheel, while he pushed the car, and couldn’t get it to budge. They tried rocking it back and forth, but it was to no avail. He had no choice but to change the tire that was off the rim.
He retrieved the jack from the trunk and found the most stable spot he could. He got the car just high enough off the ground to get the back wheel off. As he replaced it with the spare tire, he tried to torque the lug nuts back on with the lug wrench. His hands were freezing. Just as he was pulling the last one on, the jack began to sink into the ground and the tire came down on his foot. He could feel his foot sinking into the hard-packed snow, but then it stopped, pinned against something hard: the frozen ground. The weight of the car continued to bear down on him. Only the air in the tire was preventing his foot from breaking. He realized that he was only moments from having his foot crushed, and in a colossal effort to free himself, he grabbed the car under the wheel well and lifted for all he was worth. It was no good.
Just then, Ray was bathed in shower of green, blue and violet light from the sky, and inexplicably, he hefted the entire rear end of the car into the air to the level of his chest. He could hear the metal of the frame straining. Karen screamed from the driver’s side door. Ray moved his foot to one side and slowly set the car down again. As he stepped back, he saw his reflection in the Nova’s rear window. He was glowing with the colors of the Aurora Borealis.
Karen was terrified. “Ray! Ray, what’s happened to you?” she screamed.
Ray looked confused. “I have no idea, Babe.” He examined his hands, which weren’t cold anymore. He could see light shimmering under the surface of his skin, like a veiled kaleidoscope. “But it doesn’t hurt!” Then an idea came to mind. “Put it in neutral. I want to see something.”
Karen shifted the car into neutral, as much out of fear as curiosity. Ray walked around to the back of the battered old Nova, curled his arms under the rear bumper and lifted. The back end of the car rose right out of the hole that the rear wheel had spun into the snow and dirt, and Ray moved it almost effortlessly, like a wheelbarrow. “Steer toward the side of the road!”
She guided the car toward where they had skidded off, and step by step, Ray’s entire body began to glow, and he nearly carried the car out of the field. And in just a few seconds, it came to rest on the shoulder. Ray tapped on the car’s roof twice. “I’ll be right back!”
Ray walked back to retrieve the tire he had replaced, and behind him, he heard the revving of the 350 engine and gravel crunching as Karen left him behind, running the Nova on a flat tire as fast as it would go. Ray ran back across the short distance to where the car had been and stood on the side of the road in disbelief. She’d left him there in sub-freezing temperatures without so much as a coat.
“AAAAHHhhh!” Ray roared in frustration, hurling the ruined tire like a giant discus. His arm glowed brightly again as he heard the rush of air passing over the surface of the speeding tire as it left his hand, far faster than any baseball he’d ever pitched. The tire sailed off into the darkness over a patch of 20-meter fir trees at the edge of the field. “Why? Why would you leave me here?” He couldn’t believe she had just abandoned him.
Extra-normal people had existed in the world since at least 1938, but Northern Michigan had not exactly been an epicenter for that population. In places like New York, Charm City, Crescent City, they had a presence. But Traverse City? Never. There would be an occasional incident and it would be front page news, but none of the heroes ever stuck around.
Ray started walking toward his hometown, which was about sixteen kilometers away. Though he didn’t have his coat, he wasn’t cold. The strange, colorful energy was still surging through him, coursing through his limbs and torso, but he didn’t feel any ill effects. Just the opposite, really. He felt strong, powerful. And most importantly right now, warm. He imagined that Karen was on her way to her house. If he made it there, he would take his car back. He’d have to figure out how to get another tire on it. The sidewall of the flat tire would be destroyed in just a few miles, the way she was driving.
As he walked, Ray thought, Well, clearly I have some kind of weird powers.I’m really strong and I can stay warm. Wonder what else I can do? I have nothing to lose by testing it out while I walk. It’s about a two-hour walk from here. Unless—what superpower does everyone fantasize about? Ray paused on the side of the road for a moment, held his arms out to his sides, and rose into the air. His entire body gave off a radiant glow as he rose higher and higher. He had felt this once before, as a child playing around with magnets. This was definitely like holding two magnets with the same pole next to one another. They repelled each other just as he was repelling against the magnetic field of the Earth itself.
At about seven meters, he decided he’d better experiment a bit first. He maneuvered over the piled snow on the side of the road in case the power failed. He leaned forward and began moving along the snowbank. The shimmering energy trailed behind him, cascading in undulating curtains of purple, green, blue, and pink. He felt no signs of weakening, so he tried changing directions, over the open field. It was child’s play! The only problem he was having was seeing through the colorful effect. He was flying along an unlit roadway, the Aurora providing most of the light in the night sky. The wind was doing a number on his vision as well, making his eyes water. How did the famous flying heroes deal with this? He had some snowmobile goggles at home. If he could make it back, he would try those out.
If I stick to the main road, he thought, I should be all right. There will be occasional lights I can use to navigate. And the reflective road signs should react to this glow. I wonder if I can make it even brighter.
Ray concentrated for a moment on making the aura brighter, brighter, and brighter still, and for just a moment, he glowed like a multicolored star. Then he dropped like a stone out of the sky, hitting the ground with a cloud of white powder. The snowbank broke his fall, but the impact still knocked the wind out of him. He’d felt like this before on the football field, so he knew not to panic, and to let the breath come back to him in its good time. Good thing I stayed over the snowbanks, he thought, as he remained aglow. He began to shiver in the snowbank. It was suddenly freezing. Ray concentrated on bringing the glow down, and as he did so, he began to rise into the air again, and he felt warm once more. So, I’m strong, I can levitate, produce light, and stay warm. That’s a good start! But it appears I can only do so much at once. Ray focused on two things, keeping warm and levitating, and took a couple of slow laps around the field. Success! He took off in the direction of Karen’s house. Crossing the Manistee River was just a little terrifying. Ray didn’t want to think about what would happen if he fell into the near-freezing waters, heat field or not. He approached the shore slowly and tried hovering over the water to see if it reacted differently to his electromagnetic push. It did not. He then surmised that he was pushing against the electromagnetic field of the planet itself, not just the ground. Ray wasn’t a physicist by any stretch of the imagination, but he understood basic science pretty well. He made his way over the river in safety, and accelerated. He could fly!
When I was in fourth grade in the fall of 1974, we lived just outside of Hastings, Michigan. It was the longest stretch of attending a single elementary school that I ever had. I had started second grade at Northeastern Elementary, and did all of third grade there, and had just started fourth grade in the same place, despite moving out of town, which would have placed me in a different school. This required me to do an unusual transfer of buses, but my mom wanted me to have that stability.
I have told the tale to my students many times of the time I was hit by a school bus. They often wonder at the hyperbole of it. It certainly sounds more devastating than it was. When I got off the school bus one rainy afternoon, I noticed that my boots (galoshes, really) were unbuckled, and if my stepfather saw them like that, I would get “the stick.” So, I bent over to buckle them up as the bus rounded the corner to make a left turn, the back end swung around and hit me squarely in the rear end, knocking me to ground, carrying on its merry way. I lay there for a minute, splayed flat on the ground, unhurt, and after a moment I realized what a tale I now had to tell. I’d been hit by a bus! I started laughing maniacally.
I started with a funny story to soften this one. It was around this same time that my brother accidentally shut my finger in the car door. Now, you have to realize that at this time, most American-made car doors weighed about the same as an entire compact car does now. When you closed those doors, they made a satisfying “clunk” sound. That sound was drowned out by my yelling when my brother, who was only four years old, caught my pinky finger in the door. We got it back open quickly, but my little finger was a mess. There was a big old blood blister under the nail, and it throbbed.
Over time, my fingernail got infected. My finger was swollen and discolored. By the next weekend, it was looking very ugly, and the nail had started to come away from the skin. My stepfather decided he knew what to do about it. So, on a Sunday evening, he took me over to the sink, held my hand under cold running water, and pulled my fingernail off with a pair of pliers. I probably don’t have to describe the incredible pain I suffered, but it wasn’t enough to make me pass out. I’ve never passed out from pain. I’ve come close once or twice, but I’ve never passed out. I did scream, though. I never screamed as loudly as I did that day in my life. It was the most painful thing I’d ever experienced to that point. As I held paper towels over my finger to staunch the bleeding, I noticed that the quicker picker-upper was filling with blood. Like a lot of blood. We were applying direct pressure like all the first aid directions told us to, but it wasn’t stopping. It was finally decided that Steve would take me to the emergency room before I passed out from blood loss; or worse. He was mad at me because he was trying to avoid taking me to the doctor in the first place and now he was going to have to pay for an emergency room visit. At least he had his priorities straight.
Sitting in the emergency room, I was fascinated to see that they had a color television set up so that people could be occupied while they waited. The television show, Apple’s Way was on. I liked that show, but hardly had a chance to watch it because Steve didn’t like it. It was by the creator of The Waltons, another show he didn’t like. When we were finally called back, the doctor was able to stop the bleeding, and chastised Steve for waiting so long to bring me in. At this time, he and my mother were not married, and he was not my legal guardian, at all. The doctor said that the infection was pretty bad, and that some drastic measures would have to be taken to get it all out. Twice a day, I had to soak my finger in hot water with Epsom salts and then cover the spot where the nail had been with a raw potato for an hour to draw out the pus. This had to be done for a week. As you might imagine, this hurt quite a bit, but by this time, I was no stranger to pain. I did this every morning before school, and when I came home in the afternoon.
The upside of this event was the science experiment that my friends and I got to participate in, as every day we got to watch the progress of my fingernail growing back. When I came to school each morning, I would peel back the bandaid and we’d all check to see how it was going. It took about four months for the whole thing to grow back. All I cared about is that it would be back in time for baseball season, because my left hand was my glove hand. Fortunately, it worked. It stung a little, but baseball took a lot of my pain away back then. It still does.
Every few years, events in my life come to a head and a paradigm shift occurs. I take a step away from social media, gather my thoughts, and take a new start at life. Today, it happens again.
I’m going back to teaching full-time. I interviewed for an open math position yesterday, and it’s mine. Most likely, I’ll start next week.
The author, doing what he does best
No, Hell hasn’t frozen over, but this is something I need to do for my family. My wife wants to retire so she can start collecting the pension she’s been owed for the past two years. She’s not done teaching either, and will try to get her job back after being separated from the school corporation for 30 days. It’s not well known that in Indiana, due to the teacher shortage, you can teach full-time while still collecting your pension. But there’s no guarantee that she’d get her old job back, and someone in our family needs to carry health insurance for us in case that doesn’t work out. And that’s me.
I’ve enjoyed my retirement time, goofing off every day while making far more than I’m worth as a substitute teacher. But last fall when I got COVID, I lost $1400 in salary by missing only four days of work. It occurred to us, what if I’m hospitalized? What if I get really sick? Then my non-pension income just vanishes. Magi is eligible for early Social Security, so in the same circumstance, she could have two incomes. But mine would be limited to my pension, which doesn’t cover the bills. If I teach four more years, while Sera is in school, I’ll be 63 and therefore eligible for early Social Security as well.
But the truth is, I’m also a bit bored. I banged out a 60,000-word novel in November during NaNoWriMo. My writing partner and I have spent two months editing it and rewriting parts, and the parts that need the least editing and rewriting are the parts where the male lead teaches. “Write what you know,” they always say. I know how to teach. It’s what I spent 31 years doing in the classroom, and I truthfully miss it. I’ve been tutoring online right along, and the kids I’ve substituted for have come to me for math help frequently. The other day I subbed for a math teacher, and the kids were solving linear equations by substitution. Despite the teacher leaving a video of instruction on how to do it, I explained it better in person and helped a great many of them with the assignment. It’s a wonderful feeling; one of the best.
This change in perspective is also fueled by the idea that I’m only 59. Normal retirement age (for full Social Security) is 67. Early retirement has made me feel older than I actually am. This may be my childhood trauma talking, but I don’t feel like I deserve to be retired yet.
With our daughter headed to Purdue in the fall and her nightly absence due to the advent of Robotics competition season, the reality of empty nest syndrome hit us like the proverbial ton of bricks. What are we going to do? Where are we going to live? Do we need a two-story, four-bedroom house for two old people? So, we’re making plans to pile up as much money as we can while renovating our 24-year-old house so we can head south for the winter, so to speak. And looking around the house at the sheer amount of stuff that doesn’t need to travel with us is daunting.
And after dabbling in running roleplaying games and restoring old Mego action figures, I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up, and I want to be a writer. I’m a natural storyteller (as anyone who knows me will tell you) and I’d like to spend my golden years doing that. So, my goals for the next four years are set. I’ll take stock then and figure out what comes after.
My wife and I were both sick for the entirety of winter recess. We were sick on day one with whatever respiratory nonsense is going around and we continued to cough all the way through the end. Finally, yesterday, we decided to get out of the house and treat ourselves. We got a room at the Hotel Elkhart, the newly renovated nine-story building in downtown Elkhart, and I asked for a room on the highest available floor, a king-size suite, complete with a separate room with a couch and chair. We went out to dinner at 523 Tap & Grill, one of our normal favorite places to eat. They’ve recently made some changes to the menu that I didn’t care for, and the ribeye steak that they used to offer with a coffee rub, now has a Za’atar rub. I don’t care for Middle Eastern food, so I asked if it could be done another way. To my utter surprise, I was able to get a steak seasoned simply with Lawry’s Seasoned Salt and pepper. It was delicious. Magi had a clam chowder that was one of the best I’d ever tasted. After dinner, we stopped across the street at Vanilla Bean Creamery for some take out ice cream to bring back to the room. We sat in the spacious living room area, sharing a pint of dark chocolate, and just reminisced about our first Christmas together, 25 years ago.
I wrote a novel back in November, and I’ve been editing it with a friend’s help, rewriting much of it. I’ve never written a romance before, and the main character in this novel is similar to how I was at age 32, before I met Magi. One of the things it has brought to my attention is just how much Magi has changed my life. The character in the book has no love for theater, has a very unsophisticated palate, and would never have even considered spending seven dollars for a pint of ice cream. I’ve traveled, well, the world, or at least some of it, in my life with her. Thirty-two-year-old me had flown exactly once, to Arizona, to visit family. I spent that Christmas with her in New Orleans, and since marrying Magi, I’ve been to San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Utah, Nebraska, Montana, Wyoming, Hawai’i, Atlanta, New York, Key West, and even China.
We talked about our daughter, and how she has changed our lives, and how we’ve watched her grow so much. We really just spent hours counting our blessings. We also talked about retirement, and what things could look like for us now that she’s a month away from being eligible to collect Social Security. So many possibilities are up in the air right now, we need to talk to a financial advisor to really put it into concrete terms.
Perhaps the most incredible part of the staycation came this morning at Relish Café & Confections, the breakfast and lunch restaurant in the Hotel Elkhart. Our breakfasts, including dark mochas for each of us, were just truly out of this world.
New Yorker Sunrise: Chive and potato waffles topped with smoked salmon, arugula, avacado, pickled red onion, capers, pico, and chimichurriChicken, Smoke, and Waffles: Chive and potato waffles topped with southern fried rosemary chicken, smoked sausage, and chipotle syrup
While we were sitting there, Magi spotted Elkhart’s mayor, Rod Roberson. We smiled at him and he came over to the table. I had worked with Mayor Roberson’s wife, Regina, for years at Pierre Moran Middle School, and I knew him from before that while I was a basketball coach. He thanked us both for our many years of service to the city of Elkhart, and I have to tell you, when the mayor thanks you, it feels pretty darned good. Then our server asked me if I had been a math teacher, and sure enough, she was one of my former students, which guarantees a 100% tip on the bill. I love seeing my kids out in the world.
Every once in a while, we just have to get out of the house. We have to get away from the dog, the cats, and the distractions of everyday life. We don’t have to get away from Sera, because she’s hardly ever home! Looks like we’re ready to start the second semester with a fresh outlook.
This machine, The Great Hot Air Popper, is one of the finest ever devised by humankind. Note, I write is, not was. How do I make such a claim? Because even though I got it in 1978, it still works!
When my dad bought this KMart blue light special, it was an outrageous $9.99. Little did we know, however, that it would see me through decades. My dad was out of work for about six months in the winter of 1978-79, and we didn’t have a lot of extra money. So, in the evenings, we ate popcorn. Lots and lots of popcorn. Even then, half a cup of popping corn cost practically nothing, and all you had to do was melt a little butter in the butter tray, add some salt, and you had a reasonably healthy snack for literally pennies. Now, in those days, I liked to experiment and think outside the box with my food. So, when my dad had me put Lawry’s seasoned salt on my popcorn, I thought, why not? It is simply the best, takes less salt to make big flavor, and it’s still my preferred way to eat it.
That Christmas, we had a small tree, and no decorations to put on it. We had a needle, thread, and popcorn, though. We strung popcorn on that tiny tree, and I fed my dog Ladybug about 100 pieces of popcorn as well.
When I went away to college, the Great Hot Air Popper came with me. My dorm room was a popular place in the evening, because cooking appliances were not allowed in the dorm, yet somehow, my roommate knew how to block smells from leaving the doorway, and popcorn was to be enjoyed by many a poor college student who only had to bring an empty bowl.
In November, I wrote a novel. I don’t think it was a very good novel, but I wrote 60,000 words in a month nonetheless. I just started writing for no reason at all, and then within five days, I realized that it was NaNoWriMo, and thought that I might as well keep going at a pace that would allow me to finish by the end of the month. I had 50,000 words down by November 22. I’m working with a partner to revise and edit it now, and it’s turning into a decent one, I think. We’ll have to see when it’s all done.
I used to read a lot. I mean a LOT. I haven’t done so in several years, because I’ve been so busy with other creative endeavors, like Solution Squad. But when I was a kid, our school library had to bend its own rule about checking out books just so I could take enough home to keep me occupied over weekends. It’s funny to think that I wasn’t allowed to read superhero comics at home, but I could read any novel I wanted from my mom’s books or the library. I was reading far ahead of my grade level, and I was often inspired to read novels upon which movies and TV shows were based, especially if I hadn’t seen a movie.
My favorite show in the 1970s was clearly The Six Million Dollar Man. And my grandma bought me the novel on which it was based, called Cyborg. Yes, like the Teen Titan, but written a full eight years before the character appeared in DC Comics Presents #26. I read the first two Cyborg novels back to back, and they were not intended for kids. Steve Austin was a killer, and even came equipped with a cyanide dart gun in his bionic finger. I remember reading The Love Bug, Island at the Top of the World (the original novel, not a novelization), The World’s Greatest Athlete, The Hardy Boys, and a ton more.
One year for Christmas, my stepfather’s mother gave me two hardcover novels as gifts, Huckleberry Finn, and Treasure Island. I didn’t care so much for Treasure Island but Huckbleberry Finn was a great escape from having to spend Christmas away from my own family.
My grandma bought my brother a book for Christmas that I know I loved more than he did. It was Doc Savage: The Sargasso Ogre. This was my first exposure to The Man of Bronze, and I read the whole thing to my brother, who was only four at the time.
When I got a little older, I read Logan’s Run, which would make a nearly unrecognizable movie if they used more of the novel than the 1976 film did. I read anything I could get my hands on, science fiction, westerns, Reader’s Digest Condensed novels, even books that we had picked up from the local flea market, nearly sight unseen.
I remember one particular novel, Brandywine’s War, which was sort of like M*A*S*H for the Vietnam War. Imagine learning about gonorrhea from a novel when you’re 13. I bought The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight by Jimmy Breslin from a garage sale for a dime, the same way I bought all the original James Bond paperbacks. I was always on the lookout for something new to read. I lived in the country, with no cable, no internet, and barely any radio.
I read the novelization of Star Wars months before I finally had the chance to see the movie. Same with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Alien (years before I saw the movie), and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. I enjoyed the novelizations because before the advent of video recording, it was the only way to revisit the movies and I could run the visuals, sound effects, and scores in my head as I read the words.
Then there was the fluke. Superman The Movie was released 45 years ago this month, and the same day the movie came out, there was a tie-in novel–that had nothing to do with the movie other than featuring the origin of Superman. This was a surprise, especially since there was a section in the middle with photos from the movie. Superman: Last Son of Krypton was written by a Superman comic writer with whom I was very familiar, Elliot S! Maggin. He had written some of my favorite Superman (and Justice League of America) comics. This was different than a movie novelization, though. There’s no way that many of the scenes within the book could have been filmed with the technology of the day. Superman taking all of ten seconds to disable a squad of twelve hang gliding armed bandits using nearly his entire array of super powers? It was just as thrilling to read it in prose as it would have been to see it on the big screen. And I could imagine Curt Swan drawing it, or better yet (to me), Neal Adams. This was the first time I had read a novel with an actual superhero in it, and I loved it. I read it three times that year.
I’ve met Elliot, and talked to him a couple of times, explaining how much I loved this novel and the follow-up, Miracle Monday, when they came out. I’m kind of inspired now to write my own superhero prose novel. I hope my efforts compare!
Twenty-five years ago this month, my then-long distance girlfriend took me out to dinner in New Orleans. We had only met face-to-face one other time, two months before when I traveled to visit her. We had by this time spent an entire year talking on the telephone, exchanging emails, sending packages with our favorite books, music, and video. Yes, the Internet was still very young. But during that winter recess, at that dinner, I truly fell in love with her.
We had gone Christmas shopping already, and had exchanged gifts. I only had a few days left before I had to go back home to Indiana. Magi wanted to take me to her favorite Chinese restaurant, and who was I to say no to that? As we stood by the host stand at Five Happiness, waiting to be seated, she reached into her jacket pocket and got a strange look on her face. I said, “What’s wrong?” She pulled from her pocket a small envelope. She had forgotten to give me one last gift. I told her she had already spent too much on me, but she put it in my hand anyway.
In it was a gift subscription to Comics Buyer’s Guide, a weekly trade newspaper that used to be published back in those days. Now, I had mentioned to her, in passing, maybe in March, that I had let my subscription run out and that I really missed it. No, I mean it. I mentioned it once. In passing. Months before. And from out of her pocket, she pulls one of the greatest gifts I have ever received.
She listened to me.
Magi listened to me and made note of what I had said, and months later, gave me something that I missed. That was when I knew it was love. If had had any doubts before that, they were instantly erased.
The following is republished from my old blog on this date in 2017.
What is it about this time of year that gets me now? Is it that everyone concerned (except my brother) is gone now? I think it must be. My dad, my mom, my sister, my grandparents…all gone. Everyone I spent holidays with as a kid, except my brother (who doesn’t remember much of it), is dead.
That’s a lonely thought. But the wonders and the joy and the smells of the holiday are hardwired into my brain. It’s colorful Oz compared to the dreary black and white days of Kansas in the every day nightmare of my childhood. Spending time with the people who loved me most for a glorious week, as opposed to being beaten, belittled, and berated every day. There was nothing better. I know for a fact that if I had not had those respites to look forward to, I wouldn’t have made it out alive. Even now, I weep with joy at the happy memories.
My grandma baking batch after batch of cookies. Ice cream with chocolate syrup and peanut butter as a treat every night. Endless coloring books and comics and silly putty and drawing paper and colored pencils. Sleeping on the hide-a-bed in the living room. Trips to Cadillac and Traverse City, visiting the best bookstores in northern Michigan, and knowing that I’ll be able to choose something new to take back and read in peace without being tortured for reading “those damn comic books” again. An oversized treasury comic bought for the extravagant sum of $1.00, hearing my grandpa chuckle, saying, “A dollar for a funny book? Jesus Christ, Ma,” but knowing that he didn’t care.
Riding snowmobiles for endless hours and warming up by the woodstove and drinking hot chocolate. Egg nog that I helped make from the time I was able to reach the counter while stepping on a stool, with freshly ground nutmeg. Chocolate milk with dinner; the decadence! Getting our action figures out and playing to our hearts’ content while my dad and grandparents sat around the table drinking coffee.
I remember every gift no matter how small. My dad’s tradition was to give us Lifesavers storybooks and McDonald’s gift certificates. The reason behind the gift certificates is so terrible: My mother and stepfather wouldn’t let us eat very much at McDonald’s so in order to allow Jeff and me to order what we wanted, he gave us gift certificates. It didn’t work out. They just used them to order the usual and kept them. Yes, I know, even my holiday stories have darkness to them. Welcome to my world. But don’t think for a moment that the thought wasn’t appreciated. It most certainly was. We knew we were loved, if only for a while.
As I put this last paragraph down, I’m already crying at the thought of leaving each year. And not just tears rolling down my cheeks. We’re talking the ugly cry. My grandpa would slip us each a dollar and kiss us goodbye. He wasn’t exactly an affectionate man, but there was no doubt of his love. One of his favorite things in the world were cordial cherries and I made sure he got a box of them from me every single year. I think it was his favorite gift. By the time we got to the back door of the mud room, we were begging to stay. “Don’t make us go back. Please! We’ll be good.” And my grandma would hold us close, and whisper, “I know you would. You’ll be back soon, I promise. I love you.” And she would have to leave the room before we saw her cry as well. Then my dad would hug us. I knew he didn’t want to let us go. And with hindsight, I can’t imagine the guilt he must have felt for causing this disruption not just for us, but for his own parents who didn’t get to see us except for twice a year. It was not ideal. But in my darkest hours lying in bed at night back with my mother, I know we were loved for a short time every Christmas. That’s why I’ll always celebrate regardless of religion. It wasn’t about Jesus or God for me. I got beatings in the name of God.
It was about family. It was about home. It was about love. And it was about hope.
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. In case you were wondering why I haven’t been posting here this month, I have been hyperfocused on completing a novel. The goal of NaNoWriMo is just to get it out. Just write. And write I have. I have written 30,000 words in 14 days. With a goal of 2,000 words a day, I am a day ahead of schedule. With luck and determination, I will have a 60,000 word novel draft done by the end of the month.
I can then take my time to revise, edit, rewrite, and everything else necessary. But for now, I am just plain pounding the keyboard, trying to churn it all out.
What’s it about? Nothing you would ever expect from me. My wife calls it an adult contemporary novel. In fact, it will be published under a pen name. I’ll pitch it, but I can self-publish if I need to. I have extra ISBNs left over from working on Solution Squad, and I already know how IngramSpark works.
So, I’m taking a month off from my blog. I’m taking a month off from my Mego figures. And I’m going to put a big check mark on my bucket list at the end of November.
The actual milestone date was a couple of days ago, but as usual, our family circumstances dictate that we dance around actual dates when we celebrate.
Twenty-five years ago this weekend, I stepped off an airplane at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. I was wearing a lavender long-sleeved shirt, a decision that I immediately regretted as I stepped through the exit of the plane. The air was heavy and thick, and strangely warm. I started sweating immediately, but not just because of the heat. I was going to meet the love of my life.
We met online the year before, both of us playing a Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) game called Terris. We were using America On Line to disappear into a fantasy world that bore little resemblance to our own. I was playing a soceror named Antrim. She was playing a shaman named Serafina. Being of low level, we found groups of like abilities and stuck together. Serafina and Antrim were both in the Wizard’s Guild, and while my character threw massive fireballs and wrought havoc with monsters, Serafina was a healer and kept the party alive. The problem with using magic in that word was that it required a lot of rest to recover spell points, the fuel that made us go. To enhance our recovery rates, we would often find ourselves sitting around in the Glade of Spiritual Healing, outside of the main city of Devardec. And there, we would chat–sometimes in-character, and sometimes out-of-character. OOC conversations were often held in “tells,” telepathic communication that the general public wouldn’t hear. It was there that Serafina’s player, who at first didn’t even want to tell me her real first name, and I talked about what we did for a living. She was interested in making a career change, and wanted to know about teaching, which I had revealed as my profession. And that’s how our friendship began, innocuously, sitting around playing a computer game across the country from one another.
As time went on, I spent a lot of time playing Terris. I couldn’t afford to do anything else. My then-wife was doing her student teaching 90 miles away, staying with her parents. She only came home some weekends. That should have been a clue right there that something was wrong with our marriage. We went through marriage counseling, but she quit within a few sessions. It seemed that she wasn’t really motivated to try to save the relationship. I started a new job, still teaching, but somewhere else, while my then-wife did her own thing. It was on my birthday that year, that the final straw broke. My not-so-loving wife decided not to even be home on my birthday and she left early to go Christmas shopping with her mother instead, staying a few days at her parents’ house. I was devastated. I went into Terris to see if Magi was playing, and asked if I could call her. I’d never spoken to her on the phone before. It didn’t seem like it would be appropriate since I was married. But that night, I cried my heart out to her and she consoled me as best she could. It was clear to everyone, especially me, that my marriage was over.
Almost a year later, Magi and I were still good friends, but thought that maybe we could be more. We talked on the phone almost every day and saw each other through personal and professional crises. We exchanged favorite books and movies. I had a long weekend for fall break, and we decided that I should fly to her to meet her face-to-face. When I saw her smiling face looking at me in the airport greeting line, any doubt was washed away. We went to Copeland’s for dinner (I had shrimp creole for the very first time), and we held hands and talked for hours. We were just so thrilled to be in each other’s company. We talked late into the night, and the next morning (I slept on the couch; I was still technically married) I made her my favorite Big Boy Mexican Fiesta Omelet for breakfast. Honestly, I think that’s what made her love me. I make a pretty good omelet.
She took me around New Orleans, sharing with me the best of her city. I loved it. It’s still my favorite city in the world. From Cafe Du Monde to French Market to the Riverwalk, every new sight and smell made me happy. She’d had me read A Confederacy of Dunces, so naturally, I had to eat a Lucky Dog. I ate a muffaletta for the very first time. We visited art stores, including one that had animation cels, which thrilled me. She packed as much as she could into a short trip. And it was made just that much more special because she was the one showing me around. While Magi was at work one day, another friend of ours from the Terris game came over from Bourg to keep me company. We went on a ghost tour of the French Quarter, and were allowed to see the recessed apartments that hide in the middle of the store blocks, behind gated doors. And we all went to dinner afterward. I felt so happy to be surrounded by people who clearly cared about me, especially Magi.
The weekend passed too quickly. Even when Magi was at work, I hung out at her store. I just couldn’t see her enough. By the time I had to return home on Monday, I was having second thoughts about even getting back on the plane. It was like a scene from a movie. We sat in her car, in the rain, and just felt our hearts tearing apart. We were both in tears. She took a ring from her index finger and put it on my pinky. I could smell her perfume, and asked what the name of it was. Spellbound. Of course it was. I got on the plane and returned back to Indiana. I couldn’t even call it home. Because for me, from that day on, my home was wherever she was.
A week after I returned, I walked around in a daze. I went to the grocery store, which also had a perfume counter. I asked if they had Spellbound, and had them spray some on a piece of paper I had with me. I just walked around the store, trying to imagine her by my side. I went to our Borders store, and sat there with a cup of good coffee, thinking of her being at her Borders store in Metairie, where she worked, and where I spent a lot of my time while I was visiting. I knew life would never be the same.
