Papa

"Your grandmother and I lived in a watchtower the first summer we were married, you know. I got a job in Washington state in forest protection to live up there and watch for fires. We didn't have any electricity or running water and our bathroom was a outhouse. There was a cold stream about a quarter mile from our tower and that's where we kept our food, in a wooden box you just put in the water and weighed down with rocks. We kept our butter and milk and soda pop in there."

I sat silently, hanging on to every word. I love his voice, I love his stories. So many times I have sat and listened to him tell the same story. Sometimes he would ask if I had heard the story he was telling before, most of the time I had, but he will never know that, I just want to hear it again, I just want to hear him tell it at least one more time.

"One time your Nanny went to the stream to go get us some soda pop. She was just a little way off when she saw tire tracks leading right up to where our box was. Well she started running and when she got there she found that all the food had been stolen right out of it. She just laid right down there and cried, remember she was just 17."

He laughed and his eyes crinkled at the memory, of the first summer with my grandma as newlyweds.

"I only got to go to town twice that first summer. I remember the first time I went all I wanted was a barber haircut and an ice cream. So the first thing I did when I got to town was get that ice cream."

"Remember your Papa was only 19 at the time," Mom chimed in.

"Yep, I surely was," Papa went quiet, lost in thought and memory.

I sat and watched him, he looked so much older than even just a few days ago when I had seen him last. I guess the stress of the past few weeks on top of sleepless nights due to worry had caught up with him. It broke my heart. This was my Papa, he was supposed to live forever.

"I made your grandma a bathing suit that year, out of a terry cloth towel. Well, she and I both made it together."

"What did you do? Wrap it around like a diaper?" Mom asked.

Papa laughed, "No, I actually made a bikini!"

We all started laughing. My grandparents are two of the happiest married people I have ever known.

"One night we were walking back up the mountain from a friends house after dinner. It gets cold, even in the summer, on the mountain at night, and it was a half mile walk back to the tower. Your grandma was wearing shorts and she started to get cold. I was wearing blue jeans with my .22 revolver on a gun belt. I stopped on took off my blue jeans and gave them to your grandma to wear. I put my gun belt back on over my underwear and told her, 'I feel naked without my gun.'"

Art

I remember wanting to be an artist when I was younger. I would draw and doodle all day long, making little pictures with their little characters who always led interesting and exciting lives.
I wanted to draw the world for people; paint a landscape you felt like you were apart of. I wanted to sketch something meaningful, a response to what was going on in my world.
I wanted to make a picture of the world the way I saw it, pointing out the beauties of the little things. The glossy beetle in the garden, the way the clouds cast their shadows, paying attention to the often overlooked things.
I wanted to be an artist, but I was not gifted in the visual arts.

I grew up and could not paint what I so often envisioned in my mind. The sketches I would work so hard on fell short of the goal. It didn't take long before I stopped doodling all together.
I can't paint the world with oils and brushes. I can't sketch the pictures in my mind.

But I have words. I can still let you glimpse the way I see the world. The written word can be used in so many ways. I can still fulfill everything I wanted to with my sketchings and drawings. In a way, I think I will be more satisfied using my dictionary and thesaurus than I would be with charcoal and canvases. I can be ambiguous, thought provoking, or I can be bold, and blatant. I can still accomplish what I wanted to.

I am the artist who cannot draw a straight line.

Getting up out of the chair was the hardest, but her hear sang despite it.

A quick kiss on his forehead and she was out of the room, while he was still enthralled with Resident Evil 5. Opening the fridge she gathered up the little purchases they made earlier that day. Within a few minutes the kitchen was filled with the sounds and smell of her cooking.

"Mmmm, I smell something delicious!" A form emerges from the dim lit room. It adds to the creepiness. "Should I go back in there and stay until you are done?" A quick smile and nod and back into the lair he went.

The table cloth was rumpled, the candles were half burned out to begin with, but that didn't matter.
The bread finally done and table set, just for two, and dinner was ready.
Hands were folded, blessings and thanks given, and the meal was enjoyed. Plates were put away, a plate of hot cookies and icy cold glasses of milk were set.

And the two were happy. For that evening, stresses and cares were set aside.

Goodbye came. The door was locked and the curtain pulled aside waiting for that one last gesture before the vanishing. Two steps and he was on the ground, another half step and full and he turned, blew a kiss, and went out of sight.

And still her heart sang.

"Will you?"

It was quiet, very quiet. The kind of quiet that only follows a heavy snow.
We had walked the woods in the morning, feeling like we were in Narnia.

The rest of the day was spent watching Heroes, napping, and playing "hidden object" games on the computer.
It was quiet,
it was amazing.

The sun went down and the stars came out, the clouds having vacated their place in the sky hours before.

We pulled on our snow gear, one mitten was missing, I guess it decided the woods were much more fun than my hands. The mitten was switched between hands many times during the walk.

The field had been undisturbed, the snow sparkled under the crescent moon's light.
"I'll tell you a story if you promise not to tell anyone."

"I promise."

We continued to walk, heading into the woods, following the deer tracks, stopping ever so often to look at the stars, and see our breath in the air.

"Wow, you know how long I have been waiting for this? I've been waiting years for a night like this, to go out in the snow and look at the stars. Because when I was younger I couldn't go out at night to look at the stars, and then when I got older there wasn't any snow."

"Yeah, you have been waiting your whole life for this night."

He got to one knee, I could barely see him in the darkness.

"Meg, will you marry me?

I said yes.

This week I have truly realized that a "break" is just about the raddest invention to have ever been implemented in the educational system.
I have departed from my previous 10 years of homeschool idealism to now understand to the full extent just how wonderful a nice break can be. (I used to abhor breaks... what else was I to do all day but tend to my books?)

I have also entered into a new relationship. It's very "on again, off again" at the moment but I am starting to see sparks of a real potential, the life long kind. Now, there are still many things we have to work out, a lot of issues to work out, one of them being a slight language barrier (to my encouragement we speak at least some kind of form of English.) but as far as I'm concerned I'm very much committed to making this work.
It's safe to say that I am in love.This, my friends, is my new passion.

I <3 you knitting.

One day I strive to be at the skill level represented in that picture, with my glowing hands raised upwards to the sky while standing in the middle of a bamboo forest admiring what I, Meg, have created with my two... glowing hands!
I want not just to knit socks, but also steering wheel covers and tissue box warmers, the kinds of things people actually use!
I shall create a legacy that will last beyond measures of time as I knit bullet proof vests for those who fight for our freedom and as the needles clack together to span the gaps between nations and forge a new peace that only the warm comfort of wool and steel (not steel wool mind you, that's very abrasive) can provide and clothe millions (or at the very least a gerbil) all in the name of knitting! It shall be done!

Well... at least if I never succeed in all that, I will have gained a nice hat and funky leg warmers.

"If you'll be my bodyguard, I can call you Betty"...

Last night was fun.
Last night I got to cut keys.

I hadn't cut a key in forever, the tiny portable key cutter was a far cry from the machines I grew up around at Papa's shop in Georgia. The sound of the little one just didn't compare with the bigger, older-than-I-am models at his shop. Sure it still kicked up its fair share of brass dust, but it was finer, more dust like than the needle sharp shavings of Pop's. I'm still sure I might have a shaving or two still lodged deep somewhere in my body haha maybe it will work it's way out one of these days.
As I was driving today to get ice I thought a lot about that locksmith shop and just how much I loved that place.
I remember the excitement of my first day of being allowed to go to work with Papa. Lying in bed all night waiting for the alarm to go off in all of my 7 year old excitement. I didn't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time, continuously turning over to look at the clock to make sure I didn't miss the alarm. It felt like forever until the Atlanta morning traffic report quietly crackled to life on the ancient clock/radio finally signaling the start of the big day.
It was 5:30am.
Out of bed I flew, already dressed in the mini-uniform Nan had ordered for me; my name embroidered in red on the blue background of the jersey-knit t-shirt with the name of the shop, Security Lock and Safe on the other side. I quickly tucked the little tails of the shirt in and buckled my belt ("No untucked shirts in my shop! Don't want to look like a bunch of monkeys could do our job!" Papa said. Monkeys were the basis of intelligence at the shop. Richard liked to joke that the combined IQ went through the roof when I walked into the shop, this was after he started acknowledging my existence, which came about 3 years after he started working there. I used to enjoy pulling the seniority card on him, because I had been working there longer than he had.)
It was cold when Papa and I walked to the van. The ancient grey behemoth roared to life as Pop started it. We called it the "Stealth" van. Since it was the exact make and model of most vans seen creeping up on unsuspecting victims in terrorist movies. One time we had to go on a call to re-key a couple of trailers at a church and as we sat in the van the wind was blowing so hard it rocked the entire thing. The stuff precariously stacked on racks jingled and clinked threateningly.
The shop was huge to a 7 year old, not so much now to a 19 year old but still filled with all sorts of interesting things. The wall in the "showroom" of the shop, just behind the counter was filled from top to bottom with all different keys, mostly foreign keys for window locks, some doors, and a lot of auto keys. Under the counter was lined with buckets of the most common keys; Schlage, Kwikset, and the like, almost all of them for doors. There was a small section, though, for cylindar keys for padlocks and such; I never got to see many of those cut but the few times I did I thought it was pretty cool.
There was something about the smell of that place, of dust not quite settled and a musky taint to the air only years of hard labor and grime will make. Walking around in that place with anything less than steel-toed boots on your feet was unthinkable, your feet would become pincushions, filled with all sorts of metal shavings. Beside the bench in the back was a huge bucket that we filled with the odd pins that got lost, then found, or dropped and the size forgotten or the shavings from the machines and all sorts of odds and ends. Once the bucket is full Papa Joe would take it to some magical place to sell it and give the money to his grandkids.
The kitchenette in the back was nothing short of terrifying. Actually, it still is. Sometimes I wonder about the sanitary conditions of that little backroom with its ancient microwave that probably will be the cause of some form of cancer I probably will contract. I don't even want to go into the sandwich toaster thingy that once took up residence there. Scary, scary stuff. In all the 12 years I have been going to that shop there is still one place I have never set foot... and that is the back bathroom/broom closet. I don't know what it is about it, but it's scared me enough to the point that I would leave the trashbag at the end of the night in front of its door and quietly ask Papa to get the trash from that one bathroom.
I have no immediate plans of ever visiting that one room.
The bench in the back was the only place I was allowed to be for the longest time. I was not to come to the front of the store while costumers were in the shop, "That's because I don't want a lot of my costumers knowing that a 8 year old is re-keying the entrance to their homes," Papa explained laughing the unique, wheezy, breathy laugh of his, one of the best sounds in the world. The finsihe daily crossword lays on top of another ancient radio that rasps out Rush Limbaugh throughout the work day ("The only radio show worth listening to and very educational. As long as you are here you might as well be learning something so just listen to him." Oddly enough, even Rush's voice brings a sense of comfort because of all those days of listening to him at the shop, even though I had no idea what he ever talks about...).
The Coke machine, since removed from the shop to my dismay, was also a monument visited often to reap the bounties of Sprite and YooHoo. You had to shove the quarters in *just right* to get them in all the way. I still shove my coins in machines the same way I shoved them into that ancient machine.
The "Oval Office" was Nanny's domain. Apparently the comment I made one day about everything in Nan's office being oval just like the President's stuck (it was true, she had an oval pencil holder and clock and other little knick knacks of the same shape) and Papa and Richard also dubbed her van "Air Force One" and when she was seen soaring into the parking lot we would warn each other, "The Eagle has landed!" which, of course, was code for, "Quick! Hide the donuts and look like we have a full brain between us!"

Driving home in the evening after a long day I still find myself turning on Paul Simon (You Can Call Me Al or Boy in the Bubble or Graceland) or the Eagles (Hotel California... I mean seriously, did they even make any other songs?!), and thinking about all the days and long nights spent working at that small shop in Marietta. Whether re-keying door knobs or helping hold of foot after foot of receipt paper from the week while we calculated our gains or losses.
And at the end of every night Papa would go to the cash register and take out $8 and hand it to me for a hard day's work. He taught me the value of a dollar and how satisfying it is to know that you worked hard for it (it was quite a shock to my system when I learned that most starting wages are $6+ and not the $1/hr I was used to!)
I miss that place. I can't wait until I can go there again.

This is the Political season after all...

*This is a totally sarcastic post but it will give you some idea about how much I am hating politics right now. Mom, thank you for not making me do debate or Teenpact now*

Hi my name is Megan,
And I am SICK of this election.


**This message brought to you by the people for Gary Busey for President. Because we would rather loose our minds than hear: Obama, McCain, Palin, or Joe the Plumber one more time.**