The Best Halloween Ever...

This was promising to be the best Halloween Jimmy had ever experienced. Already, he had more than half a bag of candy from just one side of the street; way better than last year. After inspecting his haul, he closed the pillow case bag stolen from his own bed and made his way back down the other side of the dark country side street, pulling the Spiderman mask back down over his face, he approached the next house.

His mother had told him repeatedly that she felt he was too old for trick-or-treating but, at age fifteen, he knew that there was still enough kid in him to get away with getting the free candy. After it's all done, I'll go home and watch my tape of G.I. Joe I recorded earlier (on betamax) while I eat most of this.

The wind whipped up a bit in the chilly evening air and stung his face behind the flimsy, ill-fitting mask. Newly-fallen leaves crunched under his feet in the grass as he didn't bother to walk up and down the driveways. Quicker to get done if I cut through the yards. He squeezed past some smaller children to the next illuminated doorstep to claim his next tiny prize. Doing his best to keep his changing voice as childlike as he could, he said the requisite “trick or treat” and claimed his single Reese's peanut butter cup.

As he neared the other end of the single road, he saw something was different. This year, there was something going on at the long, wooded driveway that led back to a distant, large, older house. He had seen some of the older neighborhood guys and some of their friends milling about there for the last few weeks, never quite caring what they were doing. Those weirdos were always doing geeky crap.

As he got nearer, he could see a small sign sticking up with a black light shining on it. He was too far away to read it yet, but he also noticed a long-haired guy standing next to it, beckoning to people. What are these idiots doing now? Probably something to do with their Dungeons and Dragons or something.

After a few more candy stops, he was close enough to read the sign. Scrawled in fluorescent marker, the cardboard sign read “The Haunted Hollow” and a long-haired zombie stood next to it, inviting people to risk the haunted woods to claim their desired treats. Well, I have to admit that's kinda cool.

I gotta check this out. Probably pretty lame, but what the heck?

As the zombie pointed down the darkened driveway, he could see some lights here and there amongst the trees and could hear the occasional startled scream in the darkness. His curiosity piqued, he made his way into the darkness, the loose dirt and gravel crunching under his feet.

Just a few feet in to the right, he saw a figure illuminated that seemed to be hanging... more like crucified on a large tree. With a smirk, he stepped forward and noticed that it seemed to be a decently-put-together dummy dressed as a werewolf. He was kind of amused at how they actually had a light on it. He had to take a moment to look. Was it a dummy? It kind of looked like a person in a costume, but the longer he stared at it, it never moved. Convinced that it was just a good piece of artwork, he started back up the gravel.

Almost directly across the narrow lane, there was a small illuminated clearing revealing what appeared to be a disturbed grave. As he stepped toward it for a better look, he noticed a half-buried face and hands sticking out of the fresh dirt. The face was frozen in an eternal scream of death and stared blankly from the newly-disturbed resting place that the tombstone revealed to be the (not quite) final resting place of the undead serial killer Jason Voorhees. Despite himself, Jimmy had to admit that it looked pretty cool. Still, that would not stop him from coming back later tonight and trashing it. That would fit in nicely with his plans of smashing all the neighborhood pumpk.....

THUMP! AARGH!

Jimmy was startled and jumped a bit as he spun around to see the not-quite-inanimate werewolf land on the road behind him with a growl. Alright, you got me, he thought, maybe this isn't gonna suck after all. He grinned a bit under his mask as the werewolf turned and disappeared into the darkness. The illuminated tree that he had leapt from was empty except for the wooden supports that it had been standing on. Where's that guy going?

Jimmy turned and glanced back at the zombie by the sign and noticed that no other trick-or-treaters were in sight yet and the long-haired figure just seemed to stare at him. Turning his gaze back up the road, he could see no sign of anyone ahead either, except for what appeared to be a dimly-lit table with a jack-o-lantern on it and some shadowy figures behind it. A fuzzy hint of what he thought could be heavy-metal music could be heard coming from an area ahead that was flashing like lightning. What have these guys built here? He tugged at part of his three-year-old, way-too-tight costume as he was sure the air was getting chillier. For just a brief second, he felt kind of alone.

He pressed forward, a bit more slowly, into a darkened area silhouetted by the dancing strobe light from up ahead. The music was getting a bit clearer and louder and he tried to decipher who the band playing might be. As he approached, he could see bits and pieces of a figure doing something in an overgrown thicket where the flashing light and music were coming from. He could only make out choppy movements of something in the staccato illumination. Wow, these guys have really....

Jimmy actually yelped a bit as a large, dirty figure leapt out from behind some thick brush wearing the all-too-familiar hockey mask from Friday the 13^th. Jason Voorhees stood in the road, blocking his path and wielding a large butcher knife. This guy was pretty large and stood motionless in the darkness. In the flickering light, Jimmy was a bit creeped despite himself. This guy is still just standing here looking at me. He should have moved or done something by now. Maybe I'll try to walk around him.

He was relieved when he stepped around Jason and the killer's only response was to slowly and silently spin around to watch him. As he neared the music and strobe light area, he glanced behind him. Jason was still silently staring at him from the same position. I know that's just a guy in a costume, but he's just a bit eerie just standing there like that. It's definitely getting colder out here.

Jimmy eased forward and could now make out a figure moving like an old movie in the strobing light. He was sitting in a half-sphere made of brush and was chopping at something with a hatchet in time to the now-blaring crescendo of metal music coming from somewhere just behind him. Jimmy turned around to look back down the road, and Jason was gone.

Now THAT is cool, Jimmy thought as he watched the large, barrel-chested, longer-haired maniac driving his little axe into a large stump full of body parts, each blow spraying blood on his stained, butchers' apron. The man grinned maniacally at him from his cocoon of steady lightning and started head-banging to the music... an effect that looked pretty cool in the strobe ligh....

BLAM! BANG! AAAAHHHHH!

Jimmy jumped again as he whirled around to see two crazed soldiers in full battle gear leap from behind an earthen-walled trench, firing their guns rapid-fire at him. Startled, Jimmy backpedaled away from the previously-unseen infantrymen as they charged across the road and into the darkness past the big butcher's thicket. There had better be some good candy after all this, he thought, that's three times they've actually got me.

He was near to the table now. It must be over. He could see two figures; one seated at the table and one standing just to his left behind it. The standing one appeared to be older and Jimmy could see a satisfied expression on his face in the jack-o-lantern candle light. On the table was a large bowl half-full of candy with a rather normal-looking guy in a hat sitting at it.

Jimmy jumped again, despite himself, as a female scream rang out behind him. He grinned under his mask as he realized that the werewolf had just claimed another unwitting“victim.” Okay, these guys did a pretty decent job on this thing, but I'm still gonna trash it later. As he approached the table, he could hear the rustling of leaves in the distance as the werewolf ran off somewhere again.

The guy at the table gave him his allotment of sugary goodness and he turned to walk back down the driveway. “No...this way,” the man said in a gruff voice revealing vampire fangs and pointing a gnarled stick in the direction of a rope-lined pathway into the woods. Okay, I guess they want me to cut directly to the neighbor's house. That's cool. Makes it easier on me.

Just at the beginning of the path, Jimmy noticed something that actually made him chuckle. There was an upended BMX bicycle where some unfortunate “rider” had hit a tree at high speed. The unfortunate cyclist had his arms outstretched around the tree and only a large stain of blood remained where his head once was. Unable to contain himself, he lifted his mask and gave the men at the table his approval for the comic bike accident. That whole thing was pretty cool, he thought.

He wound his way down the short path and could see the illuminated porch light of the neighbors' house just ahead. He pulled his mask back down and was setting himself in for his next childlike performance when the werewolf leapt out of a pile of leaves at the end of the trail and the world went black...

...but only because the neighbor's porch light switched off due to trick-or-treat hours now being over. Jimmy went home with his sack of sweets.

Ok, so that was my highly-stylized account of what I think it was probably like to go up Todd's driveway that Halloween night back in 1985. We all hoped that would be the effect on people and we all hoped it would be memorable. For all of us, it still resonates to this day.

Back in that time of Rubik's Cubes, checkered Van's sneakers, and the ever-present A-Team reruns, I was a junior in high-school (yes, I am old). I wasn't even able to drive at that time (my grades weren't good enough for Mom to allow me to take the tests... probably because I spent my time building Halloween attractions instead of studying), but Dave was.

Dave and his twin-brother Will were two of my closest friends from high school. Our senses of humor meshed perfectly (but mostly not with the rest of the world, which we unleashed it on as often as possible), as we were (and still apparently are) pretty demented when it comes down to it.

As for sharing with the world, we had done so frequently and theatrically on many occasions. We would sometimes stage horrific bicycle accidents in our yards (performing all the stunts ourselves) as cars passed, behave strangely in shopping malls for comedic effect, and nearly getting ourselves (or more to the point, me... but that's another story for another day) arrested for “inciting a panic” in front of an old Best Products store around Christmas time. Who knew the old professional wrestling moves looked that convincing to a gas-station employee in the distance?

I lived (and do again) on a rural street at the southernmost end of our medium-sized suburb. Toward one end of the road lived a younger fellow named Todd. His home was set back from the street nestled behind about an eighth of a mile of wooded, gavel driveway. The ages of the kids in our neighborhood varied and I was a bit older than most, but Todd was only a few years younger and we got along quite well. His sense of humor was also similar to mine and he became fast friends with Will and Dave once they had met.

To look at him, Todd seemed to fit the 80's stereotype of the “heavy-metal” kid. He had long, straight, dark hair and constantly wore his faded jean jacket. Frequently, Iron Maiden could be heard blaring from whatever “boom box” that would be near. We were the kids who hid out in the vast array of wooded areas around our street and smoked cigarettes, terrified of being caught by parents. Sometimes, we would get together with the guys that lived over on the next road, disappear deep into the woods a little further away, and drink little kings around fires. Have I set up the 80's rural teen scene enough for everyone to follow along?

Right around Todd's age were the other guys we would party with. Tommy and Jerry were cousins who happened to live together, and Jack lived a further road away but often we would hang out, smoke, and listen to the heavy-metal. I even bought myself a jean jacket to try and fit in with this younger crowd.

During school, however, I hung out a lot with Will and Dave. They were a grade above me and more fit into the “preppy” or “academic” stereotypes. Behind the scenes, though, they were simply demented in what they thought was funny and I seemed to fit in well with that. Once Dave got his drivers' license, the two worlds met and everyone seemed to get along, despite the rigid 80s roles were were expected to fit into (again, see “The Breakfast Club” for reference material for what it was like to be a teen in that decade).

Halloween 1984 found Todd and I attempting to have some fun during trick-or-treat. To the best of my memory, I think I dressed up as a dummy and laid on the side of the driveway scaring people while Todd handed out candy from a strap lawn chair about a quarter of the way up the drive. It goes without saying that it was lackluster at best. We kept saying how cool it would be to set up something better next year. Normally, those plans would have been long forgotten in twelve months.

However, planting some seeds with Will and Dave at school, the idea germinated for a year and lofty plans were made. It took some amount of creativity to plan out just exactly what we could get away with doing with the zero amount of money we had to throw at this thing. Countless hours were spent going through my dad's barn, trying to find “props” for our production.

Memory fails me on where we got the idea, but several prop faces were created by pressing aluminum foil over our faces and then carefully covering the foil with paper mache. Then, we would paint them with model-car paints and felt-tip markers. The best of which came from Todd, who did the wide-mouth death grimace face that we placed, half-buried in Jason's grave. I used the same technique to make myself a pretty good replica of Jason's hockey mask by freeze-framing one of the movies and copying all the details with paint and marker. In that respect, mine was far better looking than the plain hockey masks that they sold in the stores. Cleverly, I grabbed one of Mom's old nylon stockings (with her permission) and put it over my head, bank-robber style and cut the part of the face out that would be hidden by the mask. I could breathe better but still looked kind of decomposed and inhuman (more so than I normally do). Accented with my jean jacket (zipped up for once), a pair of old and ratty jeans, boots and electricians' gloves, I made a pretty fair Jason Voorhees. Completing the ensemble was my famous rubber butcher knife. Famous because I had police looking for me in a local haunted house because I pulled it on Freddy Krueger. You would do the same.

We worked for at least a month and a half in Todd's driveway, suffering through his parents' lack of approval but letting us do it anyway. Every day after school, Dave and/or Dave and Will would come over to my house and we would meet up with Todd (and frequently the other guys) to set up. We cleared and moved pounds and pounds of brush to make the clearing for the grave and set up the wall of brambles I was to jump out from behind. Shovels and shovels of dirt were dug for Dave and Jack's bunker where they would be armed with countless red rings of caps for the toy guns. We constructed a semi-circle of brush for Tommy to sit within, and labored to move a very large tree stump into his area.

We strung hundreds of feet of extension cord (everything our parents had) from Todd's house to the various lamps and trouble-lights that we cannibalized to illuminate the various “events” we had been setting up. My parents had a strobe light that they allowed us to use, despite not quite understanding why we were putting in this much work on something stupid. They had, however, grown accustomed to my strange flights of fancy and just shook their heads. At least I was outside doing something instead of watching TV and getting fatter.

Jerry had shown us his werewolf costume and we were suitably impressed. While it didn't really make sense that a werewolf would be “crucified,” the costume was cool and he was willing to repeatedly leap off the wooden supports we nailed three feet off the ground to the large tree. His running off and giving one last scare at the end was sort of an afterthought. As I recall, we raked up his pile of leaves the afternoon before trick-or-treat.

Things were coming together nicely. We had managed to collect tons of McDonald's ketchup packets and came up with some body parts, including some other paper-mache faces, for Tommy's stump. In a move you could never get away with today, he used my dad's real hatchet to smack the ketchup packets. An effect that actually looked really cool in the strobe light. For that matter, you could not get away with the cap guns that Dave and Jack used either. They were gun-colored and had no safety-orange on them anywhere. I miss those days sometimes.

One effect that was planned for and, unfortunately, never came to pass was going to be the coolest visual effect that one could pull off with no money or resources: the “flying beerball ghost.” Back in the 80s, as some of you may recall, beer could be purchased in large, plastic spheres that were similar to small kegs and were tapped as such. They were called beerballs and they seemed quite popular. I had, sensibly, kept an empty one from one of my parents parties (always on the lookout for things to use as props in later escapades). We designed a system where we would put glowsticks inside the beerball, screw an eyelet into the top, put a white sheet over it, run fishing line over a high branch of a tree, and set up a second line to pull up and down. This was to be controlled by Will, who would be sitting at the candy table.

We found the perfect, thick, very high branch that jutted out over the driveway. We didn't realize how high this branch was until we tried to throw the roll of fishing line over it. None of us could lob anything that high. Scratching our heads, we had to come up with a new plan.

It was Todd, resplendent with a quite-sensible orange camouflage hunting hat which accented his normal denim attire quite well (I am, of course, laughing while I type this) that came up with the brilliant idea that he would climb the tree and run the line himself. I'm pretty sure the rest of us were unanimous that this was the worst idea ever. I'm not exaggerating that the branch was at least fifty to sixty feet above the gravel. Todd was not deterred and declared that he would now transform into “Cheetaman.” Apparently, the hat provided him with that super power.

Have you ever been sure...and I mean sure... not just concerned or nervous that your friend might get hurt? Not hurt... he was going to die! We stood, looking up at Todd and I clearly remember hearing Dave say “we're going to watch Todd die right here... today. There's no doubt in my mind.” I was completely in agreement, and my legs started shaking.

“ALL HAIL CHEETAMAN,” he was shouting down at us amid our pleading with him to get the hell back down out of the tree. The ghost gag was become less and less important to me.

“What the fuck is Atahualpa doing up there?!”, I heard Dave exclaim in a nervous voice, “Todd, you're going to DIE while we all watch!” It was around that time that we determined that the fishing line was not going to work at all as Todd tested and found that it wouldn't slide over the branch easily.

“I don't care about that damned ghost any more,” I yelled up at him, “just get the hell back down here! None of us want to see you splattered on the gravel!” Everyone else seemed to back me up on this so Atahualpa slowly climbed back down. Once he was low enough that the fall would likely not kill him, I finally looked away and found something constructive to do.

The weeks passed and we were finally ready. The Haunted Hollow was an immediate success. I know we had people passing through multiple times and everyone told us how cool it was. Even Todd's dad came out and hung out by the table with Will, smiling at what we had done. I guess he understood, at least for a little while, why we had put so much of ourselves into this labor of love.

Unfortunately, tired from the evening, we all went home and left most of our handiwork outside and some “Jimmys” in the neighborhood smashed our paper-mache faces and so they are lost forever. It was a bummer, but we all have the memories.

The street hasn't changed that much since then, but Todd and his family have all moved on. Cheetaman is now a doctor (but, hopefully still has the hat) and a new family has cut down tons of trees and landscaped the driveway, tearing out all our good hiding places. The years have ticked away but the recollections of some of the people involved have sparked my interest in chronicling this story for the ages. Remember, you're reading this on the internet... so it has to be true! I assure you that it is, to the best of my recollection and some of the involved parties can back me up on it.

I still hear the occasional story from neighbors of how we made that Halloween memorable for them and their (now grown) kids.

I would do it all again in a second. Does anyone have a long, wooded, gravel driveway that they need haunted?

The Dissipating Storm...

Nine months have now passed since Dad suddenly left us and the storm has started to peter out a bit.  The probate, lawyers, and general red tape has gotten eerily quiet.  About a month or so ago, Sarah and I made the snap (and perhaps irresponsible) decision on a quiet Saturday that we would begin living in my ancestral home that very night.  We grabbed all of our clothes and personal items (that hadn't already made their way over there), threw them in the car, and just decided to plant our flag at the new (old) place.  I had only recently found out that I could legally move in, thinking that probate proceedings forbade it.

This was surreal in so many ways.

First of all, how many people have that option?  "Honey, today I think we will simply start living at our new house... let's just go on a whim."  No giant moving day, no renting of the van, no begging of friends and purchasing beer and pizza (just help with the big stuff from the Hyer boys and their mom as the days went by), and no scrambling to set up the bed first so we can sleep when we finally collapse.  The house was ready for us (or at least fit for human consumption).  Sure, we hadn't quite finished redecorating or moving all of our stuff there, but it was certainly suitable for human occupation.  Also, it would be easier to work on the old house when all our stuff was out of it.

As I drove through the wheel ruts I had created on Chestnut Ridge Road from the endless trips back and forth between the houses with my Kia Sportage's cargo area packed full of clothes, I started to wonder how this would all feel.  The swirling storm of paperwork, lawyers, financial advisors, moving boxes, and planning had not afforded us any time to consider the emotional ramifications that this move was going to cause.  I was moving back home!  Sarah kept telling me how easy it would be for me, since I grew up there, and how difficult it was going to be for her to live in the place that she had only ever known as my parents' house.  Silently, I hoped she was right about the "going back home" part.  As we laid ourselves down to spend our first night here, a strange and unexpected feeling took over.  

This was not my childhood home.  It was completely alien and new.

At first, it had the ambiance of that decent hotel that one stays in on vacation.  Kind of more upscale than how we normally live; it was cozy yet exciting.  With the television quietly flickering in the corner, I felt the little nearly-indescribable tingle that I get every time I stay somewhere fun on a trip.  It was an exotic vacation destination and not the home I had lived in from 1981 until 1999.  Even though we had changed very little in the master bedroom and it still looked much the same as it had when I lived here previously, it was not familiar at all.

Sarah had been wrong.  I wasn't going back "home", I was going to a new and unfamiliar house.  I still can't understand why.  As I sit here typing this blog in the family room that I spent many many years in, it's not even a ghost of the family room that I played all those video games in while my mother begged for me to do something productive.  It is my family room that resides in my new house.  

Mine.

Which brings me to the next point:

Guilt.

I stand every so often in the sun room, which was only built in 2006 (a year before Mom died and not a part of the childhood home that I remember) , and briefly smile.  "This is my awesome, gorgeous room to hang out in.  I can do whatever I want with this space.  My sun room."  The twinge of new-homeowner excitement courses through me as I sit peacefully in the Amish-made double gliding wooden porch furniture that adorns the wall by the door.  I am absolutely high on the excitement of the new and more comfortable life that spans out ahead of me.  We could never afford a place like this on our salaries.  

Never... afford... a place like this...

How did it come to this?, I ask myself, deflated.  I have done nothing to earn this great home.  I rode out the declining health of my parents, greedily licking my chops waiting for them to die so I could have their stuff like the spoiled-brat only child that I am.  I am a horrible person for enjoying this inheritance as much as I am. 

These thoughts run through my head daily.  It's got to be that sun room.  My amateur-psychoanalysis of myself has revealed that it is the one room that was not there when I was living here as a young adult sponging off my folks.  It is the reminder that I have no Mom and Dad to run to when things get out of control.

And it shall, henceforth, be referred to as "The Guilt Room"

While I am enjoying working on, changing, and planning improvements to this place, I wonder if I am doing it for Sarah and me or am I afraid of besmirching my folks memory.  I keep the house and yard maintained as well as I can but I can't yet figure out if I'm doing it for me or them.  

As any spoiled brat, selfish child should do, I try to ignore these pangs of guilt as I watch my 47" flat screen sitting in my newly tailored "man cave."  I hide in my Playstation online shooting faceless people in mock war and push these adult feelings aside on some days.

The "Man Cave", because I can't find anything better to call it.  Yes, I'm typing this on that little netbook in the foreground.

Other days, I pour myself into working in the yard trying to hold back the aftereffects of the all-out monsoon season we have been suffering through for weeks.  Thanks to Eric, the riding lawnmower is working better than ever and I really enjoy cutting the grass... on Dad's lawnmower; the one I used to enjoy playing with when I cut his grass during his vacations.

My little lawn tractor...

"My" little lawn tractor...

I don't deserve that either.  But I love it.

Note that I have already gone to Walmart and bought a cupholder to slap on the side, guaranteeing my place in the lexicon of redneckery forever.

I mentioned the "ghosts" in an earlier blog.  This is not referring to anything paranormal or anything like that, but my folks' "spirits" still oversee everything I do.  I can hear my father shouting at me while I mow the yard that the deck is too low and I'm cutting too short.  I can hear Mom quietly not approving of the new chandelier that I have hung (with no prior experience and no instructions in the box,  I might add) in the dining room.  I hear them both griping at me for removing all of the brass/gold decorations from the front room and getting rid of the ostentatious hanging lamp that adorned the wall near the thermostat since I can remember.  I can sometimes feel Dad's dissaproval that I brought back home the old wine rack and put it back where it was for all those years after I took it to prevent him throwing it out after mom passed.  I can sense Mom not liking the fact that I am slowly getting rid of her grape motif in the kitchen and replacing it all with rooster paraphernalia (go ahead, make the obvious jokes about us loving the ____ ).

Yet The Picture now peeks out at me from beside the stereo with their glances seeming to be those of approval and not disappointment.  So is this all in my head?  Is this latent guilt at having inherited the last vestiges of my younger life?  This is what they wanted; the last will and testament said so clearly and distinctly.

I placed that picture there for a reason.  Though I probably should have placed it in a prominent place on a wall with a nice light shining on it as a shrine to those who have gone and left me this life, but it seems better to me to have them cozily looking over me in my "man cave" from a warm and comfortable spot beneath my DVD and Doctor Who collections.  It just seems right to have them there... I don't know why.

They seem comfortable there, and they have the best seat in the house for the poor-man's surround sound that  I have hooked the TV  into.

I find myself wondering if I am that spoiled brat only-child that I accuse myself of.  How many other people are in this position?  I am in a much better mood since I moved in... and I feel guilty about that.  Did I grieve enough? Mom's death in 2007 hit me like a ton of bricks and I spent weeks being a total mess.  For weeks, I was haunted by a vision of mom's hand pressing against a impenetrable pane of glass reaching out to me while she watched me do mundane things (thinking about that image still chokes me up a bit).  My healing process took many many months but I finally got there.

I don't feel like one night blubbering about how I didn't want to be the "big boy" while sitting in his chair was enough of a sendoff for Dad.  My rational mind says that, having lost one parent already, it made the second somehow "easier."  While it may sound psychologically sound, it is very cold.  The hard fact is that I really am in better spirits now that I have moved in here.  Is it the memories?  I hope so.... if not, I have to feel even more guilt about it.

Something that I have come to terms with is the disdain I had for my old house (thanks to Mechele for making me admit it).  Now there is a real idiotic thing to say.  That is my first purchased home... a major investment made by me and the wife.  The writer's cramp from signing all the papers still has not gone away.  Something one should be proud of.

I was proud of it and loved it... for about a year.

Then I lost my mother.

Let's set the wayback machine to the year 2005.  We were tired of the duplex life in Lakewood.  We felt it was time to return me to the 'burbs from whence I came.  I wanted out of the claustrophobic life of the urban landscape.  Also, Mom's declining health dictated that we should be geographically closer.  We had saved up some money and decided it was time to strike.

Mom and Dad were there every step of the way.  Mom and Sarah went around looking at houses (actually I think Mom did more looking on her own since she was retired) for weeks.  The hunt did not take long before we found our little slice of foreclosure heaven.

Nothing wrong with it.  A nice little chunk of suburbia.

It was going to be tight, but we thought we could afford it.  Sarah had some inheritance of her own coming and that money would make part of the down payment.  We were prepared to make a bid when Mom shocked us.

"I'm cashing in one of my life insurance policies.  I want to be around to watch you enjoy (and not enjoy) this adventure.  No point in you waiting until I'm dead to get this money; I want to watch (and laugh).  Now you have your down payment."  This was my mother at her normal, logical, businesslike self.

We bid, we negotiated, and finally got it.  We moved in on Thanksgiving weekend 2005.  All was good and right with the world.  I was now a homeowner and subject to all the "fun" that would afford me.  Mom was correct in that she got to enjoy how I would call Dad every time something went wrong.  She would always show up with him when he came to help me unclog a drain or try to fix the furnace and I will believe to my dying day that she did it so she could laugh at me, but in a loving way.

In February 2007, we had to take an emergency flight to Florida because her kidneys were failing.  She had gone down there to visit her brother and got very sick.  Her congestive heart failure was catching up with her several years past the time the doctors had told her she would be gone.  She beat the odds for quite a while and had gotten to celebrate her 40th wedding anniversary with Dad (how many of our generation will be able to hit that milestone?).

We came home without her and Dad was never the same again.  

I think I finally grew up at that point.  Dad was no longer the unflappable, unbeatable, grouchy overlord I had painted him as during my formidable years.  He was now a broken, lost soul looking for a direction to lean.  Now he had to look to me and my wife for comfort and stability, though he wouldn't have admitted it at the time.  I had to step up and be an adult and dispense sage-like advice from all of my knowledge of psychology (which he frequently ignored... as I knew he would).  

His first near-death trip to the hospital due to his COPD/pneumonia had him acting (understandably) like a child.  He was scared and (he felt) by himself and one afternoon found me sitting alone with him in his hospital room while he threw what could only be described as a "temper tantrum" because he just wanted to go home.  I tried for hours to calm him down and make him see the intelligence of staying where he could be helped for another few days.  All of the "grown-up" wisdom I had suddenly developed in the previous years was completely dismissed as he sulked, walking around in tight circles tethered to the countless tubes and wires he was attached to.

"I'm the father; you're the son, and I'm right.  You don't tell me."

"That's it, I'm calling Mechele and she isn't going to put up with your shit."  I waited for her to get there, and then I left frustrated, went home, and drank a rum-and-coke (admittedly that was a bad idea considering my family history of people escaping reality in such a way... but it was the one and only time I have ever done that), calling him for updates later from a safe distance.  Cowardly?  Yes, but I had reached the end of my rope that evening and would do him no help at all by staying.

So that was the first time I ever had to (try to) reverse the roles we were comfortable with.  The son had become the adult and I know he understood that I was right but stubbornly (no, not Paul!) refused to admit it.  Mechele and I still talk of that day (though Dad and I never spoke of it again) and kind of chuckle about it now.  It's just one piece of paper in the filing cabinet of our last few years with Dad.

By the time the lung cancer reared its ugly head, our relationship had matured a bit and he allowed us to help him with things.  He would come over for dinner occasionally and let Sarah put the lotion on his back to soothe the radiation burns he had gotten from treatment.  He was beating the cancer and had a new purpose in life.  He seemed happier and had started treating me like the adult I was.  It was different and magical and slightly disjointed.  I even talked him into not canceling the Labor Day get-together that has been a Manns family tradition all my life.  We fill the house with family from out of town and just laugh it up for the long weekend.  He was set to cancel it because of his illness, but a mid-summer visit from some of the family helped convince him that he needed it.  He had a ball that weekend.

Two weeks later, it happened.

All of this took place in the span of a few years... a few years in that little house that had spawned all this misery.  None of it would have happened if we hadn't bought this @#$%ing house.  If I hadn't grown up, I would still need them and they would still be here for me.

That stupid house.  Sure, it is decent and I have some good memories there, but I still irrationally blame it on all the horrible things that have happened since we bought it.  Maybe that's why I'm better here in the old ancestral place where very few tragedies have taken place.  This house is full of good memories and, thanks to facebook, I have recently reconnected with so many people from that happy past that I spent in this house.  I'm going backwards and I think I like it.

I understand now that I never grew up.  Maybe it's because I never had kids of my own?  Ah, it doesn't matter why... I just know that I am comfortable here despite the soul-crushing happenstance of recent years.  It's time to stop playing junior analyst to myself (a feat which is totally impossible anyway) and just ride it out.

The Labor Day gathering will take place this year if I have to use a gun (of which they have been warned that I own nowadays) to make people come for it.  We can all pretend that Dad is still here and they can make some of those "adult" decisions for me during that weekend, right?

Nope.  I have to step up and take over as "Head Grouch;" the mantle he carried for years.  I think I'm ready now since I recently attended the family reunion in West Virginia for the first time without him and had a surprisingly good time.  After all, it was the first time I got to visit Mom and Dad together (they are buried down there) since 07 and it was oddly comforting.

Dad would have said his flowers were better looking than Mom's.  She would have probably slapped him.

It really did hit home that I was the "big boy" now, and I was oddly comfortable with it.  While I still suffer the guilt that I have taken over there very lives in almost every respect, isn't that what they wanted me to do?  They always said so.  Dad flat out told me as much three weeks before he died.  He was going to sign over the house to me and take care of all that unpleasantness before he went to make it easier on me.  We thought we had a couple of years to do it, but we were all wrong.

But, as I said, the storm is dissipating now and life is settling down to what I will, someday, find normal.  I think I have simply not had time to properly grieve and maybe, just maybe, I will finish that process when everything is done and settled... who knows?  For now, I just keep mowing the lawn and gathering friends as often as I can in the "Casa de Manns"... now under new management.

Sorry Mom, but I like the new chandelier.  It stays.

Why I like this medieval stuff…

Let me preface this article by saying that there is a huge cast of characters involved in this tale. Space and brevity prevent me from mentioning them all. You know who you are and you all helped shape me into who I am today... so it's all your fault. Live with that on your conscience.

So many people that I have met later in my life have had a hard time imagining me as the quiet wallflower that I was in my youth. For their benefit, I present how it all came to be:

Like so many other nerds/geeks in this world, I was an awkward youth (hell, I’m still awkward at 41). I never really fit in to society, especially in school. I was the whipping boy throughout my school career. Very few of my classmates ever had kind things to say or do to me. When my parents used to give me the speech about “these are the best years of your life,” I called them liars and I turned out to be right.

When you spend every day wondering where the next attack will come from and being afraid to open your mouth because anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of savage mockery, it tends to destroy your will. I don’t know how it is nowadays, but in the 80s, there were only a few stereotypes that everyone needed to fit into (watch The Breakfast Club. It is spot-on accurate to the world of high school in the 80s). I, of course, fit into none of them. I was not smart enough to be a “brain,” not interested enough in drinking and drugs to be a true “burn-out,” not athletic, and certainly not popular. Although I did spend a good amount of time with the “burn-out” kids that lived around my neighborhood. They tend to not judge people.

The only goals I really had back in those days were to:

1. Disappear into the ranks of the “normal” kids
2. Someday find me a blind girl so I could make out in the hallway like everyone else
3. Graduate and get out of this literal hell-on-earth. I am really not exaggerating here. I hated my school career that much. I am not embellishing the daily attacks from the “cool kids” either. I really was savaged every day in some form or another.
   
   

   

   Yeah, it was about like that.

   
   
   
   

I moved to a new school in 7^th grade and, in my awkward youth, was entirely failing to make friends. I had managed to secure my own private lunch table (my radiance and charm must have helped a bit there) and was content to spend my time on this solitary island while dreamily watching the social goings on that I was destined to never be a part of.

I think it was just a couple of weeks into the school year during the early part of the day when I noticed another new kid who had apparently just transferred in. I remember thinking wow, he must hate this as much as I do. Still, he's probably more socially adjusted that I am and will climb the social ladder pretty quickly.

I was, of course, looking forward to my private lunch all morning. By the time lunch came around, I was quite famished (who am I kidding? I'm a fat kid; I've been famished since right after breakfast). Armed with my two dollars and a ravenous appetite, I stepped into the lunch line for my sustenance. I quietly waited, listening to the surrounding 7^th and 8^th grade conversations, until I got today's divided tray of barely-ingest-able slop. Moving back to my table, I saw with abject horror that my private dining island had been invaded.

There was the new kid (I could call him that because I had a couple of weeks seniority on him) sitting across from where I had made base camp at the end of the table. Well, he's new and I'm new so, at least, we have some common ground. I rolled up to the table and sat my tray down across from him.

“Normally, I sit here alone,” I said, “but since you're new and don't know any one, I guess you need to sit here too.”

“Eating hot dogs is hot. Barfing them up is not.”

Friend.

Throughout that year and the next. Mike (for that was his name) and I gathered a small group of fellow weird kids and polished up on the finer points of insanity. My longing to return to my old school system soon faded as I found my place amongst the socially inept.

In 9^th grade, we were given the option of getting all our physical education credits for high school by taking a complete year of gym as freshmen. Since I have always had the mentality of “get it over with as fast as possible,” I chose that option thinking ahead and preventing any worse destruction of my self-esteem in later years. The locker room savagery was bad enough as freshmen. It would only get worse as we got older. I still feel that it was the wisest road to take because maybe… just maybe… some of the girls would have forgotten the public announcement made by one of the football heroes about my physical attributes during the mandatory showering by the time we reached our senior year. Not that I needed any help understanding how physically unattractive I was back then (see earlier blog about Laws of Attraction), but that certainly destroyed any chances of any of the girls seeing past that and giving me a shot anyway. Now that I think about it, why was that football player looking? I never looked at him in the locker room. Hmm...

After all, he could have been a high school football star.  Just saying.

In our freshman year, we moved school buildings. 9^th grade had it's own building leased from a nearby community. This is when some of the catholic school kids joined the high school community and, because of this, I met Ogg (obviously not his real name, but most know him by it) Ogg was an immediate kindred spirit in that he seemed to not fit in either. We hit it off from the first moment and became fast friends. Little did I know from that one single meeting how much life was going to change.

Ogg was quite the weird kid. Weird in a different way than Mike was and that particular year I hadn't had any classes together with him. Ogg was much more open in his strangeness. He seemed to be unfazed by the ridicule of our classmates and seemed to counterattack by just becoming more disjointed. I enjoyed watching that and I even started to get a little disjointed myself. Ogg was genuinely funny (and he still is) and added much to make my hell-on-earth a bit entertaining.

He also introduced me to the nerdiest of all the nerdly things: Dungeons and Dragons.

Ironically, the building blocks of my social life.

Many nights were spent (after convincing parents to drive us to each others houses) playing this rather enjoyable game. Ogg was (and I'm sure still is) one of the greatest gamemasters of all time and, thus, I was to learn the art of great gaming from the Great One. Much to my delight, Mike was also a gamer and knew Ogg as well from other gaming escapades in their neighborhood (I lived on the other end of town). So, from high school forward, I had a group of friends. Sure, we were not prom kings or football stars, but we preferred it that way.

Much has been said over the years about how D&D is “evil.” I never understood why people would make that claim other than a few of the antagonists in the printed text were demons. Did these same people have a problem with J.R.R. Tolkein? D&D is heavily influenced by him, as is just about all of medieval fantasy. It's not like we were performing ritual sacrifices and painting ourselves with blood; we were sitting around tables rolling dice and eating Funyuns into the wee hours.

The game is exercise of the brain (unfortunately, not the body so much. Thus, my gut continued to grow robustly). It stimulates so much creativity that I would bet that many legitimate writers have indulged over the years. It builds character (both figuratively and literally) and quick-thinking. Not seeing so much any “evil” inherent in the subject matter.

The downside, however, is that it does keep you sequestered in darkened basements with a small group of like-minded social misfits and doesn't polish social skills terribly well. After high school, I was still pretty maladjusted (although I did end up dating Mike's younger sister for a while, so I had finally touched a real-live girl). That stigma of gamer-types held pretty true for me in those days.

I had no confidence in myself and had no desire to expand my social circle. Mike's sister and I had chosen to go our separate ways and my self-esteem plunged, once again, into the mire. During this period, I also met Tim, who was an older friend of Ogg's and an avid gamer as well. I was working a restaurant job and had made a few acquaintances there whom I hung out with at times, but was still rather unsatisfied with life in general and still quite socially awkward.

During some of the social situations where my two peer groups were together, I would frequently hear Ogg and Tim telling stories of this strange medieval group they were in that actually went out and fought each other with weapons made of foam. At first, I thought this was quite the silly idea and was definitely not my cup of tea. They both had made attempts to get me interested; especially Ogg, who said it would do me a world of good. I failed to understand why. What would be good about me being embarrassed by other geeks who could fight better than me? I had no combat training, other than the martial arts weapons I made and played with as a teenager. Hitting trees with homemade nunchuks does not a fighter make. No, thank you, I'll stick with dice and paper.

These hurt less...until you step on one.

Through circumstance, a weekly gaming session had been created that took place on Monday nights. Various people from the foam fighting group had been invited to join and I found their company quite enjoyable. Monday Night Gaming became a quick institution.

During that same period, and since I had met a few of the players, I grudgingly went to a “battle” with Ogg and Tim. Thus was my first exposure to a group known as Dagorhir. My eyes were met with wonder seeing all the cool costuming and creativity. Misfits from all walks of life, they gathered together on the odd weekends to take to the woods and fields to savage one another in mock war. See the movie, Role Models; it was much like that, but with not so many over-the-top characters running around.

This is not a scene from the movie.  I am the guy kneeling in the front with the large, blue shield.

At my first event, by the rules, I had to be a “page.” This meant that I had to put on a white headband, follow people around, learn the rules, and pretend I didn't exist. The last part came pretty easy to me... I had lots of practice.

I would like to say I was hooked from the very moment, but, sadly, it is not true.

While I, now, thought the concept was pretty cool. I was treated (like all other facets of my life) like a non-person bordering on a burden. Shifted from area to area (“Are you a newbie? Then go stand over there.” “Why are you standing over there, newbie, you need to be over here.”) like a misplaced piece of luggage, I was eventually assigned to walk around with a fighter who had showed up late. The penalty, in those days, for tardiness was that you had to be a Herald (referee) for that days battle. This, of course, didn't make him happy and the fact that he had to show around a stupid newbie did nothing to brighten his day. Thankfully, I had learned most of the rules of the game from Ogg and Tim, because I got almost nothing from my tour. This just played into my desire not to be there so I decided not to return.

Six months passed and the Monday Night Game continued to grow. Ogg was now dating a girl from Dagorhir, Donna, and she and I became fast friends. More and more people stepped into my life from the group. Still, I had no desire to return to the fray. Then Ogg asked me for a big favor.

It was to be the ultimate birthday weekend for Donna. Ogg had planned a huge party on Saturday and there was a battle scheduled for the following day. The plan was for me to ride out to the battle with them and then drive Ogg's car home after a limo showed up to take Ogg and Donna out to a nice dinner. For his sake, I agreed to go and just sit and watch the battle. I still had no interest in joining.

The party, however, was most enjoyable. Most everyone there was from Dagorhir and every one of them asked why I was not in the group. Some remembered me from my one and only foray but everyone was keen on me showing up and trying it again. Some of them even apologized for the way their compatriots had treated me six months earlier. Maybe tomorrow would turn out to be interesting after all.

It was pointed out to me, once we arrived the next morning, that since it was technically my second battle, I was allowed to be a “scout” this time. That meant I could run around with a team and do what the term implies. I decided, out of boredom, to do it, ready for the rolled-eyes reaction from the team I was assigned to. To my surprise, they were happy to have the new guy and actually made me a part of their strategy. Everyone was completely friendly and treated me as a welcome newcomer this time. I started thinking that maybe I could get in to this thing.

I spent a few years trying out different styles of fighting and learned a great deal about the strange science behind the construction of the weapons. I got better over time and eventually discovered that being a shield-man was, apparently, my calling. I got comfortable in my combat prowess and even sort of made a name for myself in some circles. More than combat, however, my head quickly turned to the organizational side of things.

My desire to be on “court” came from a desire to get more involved. I was already considering Dagorhir to be “home” to me. I realized that Ogg and Tim had been right all along. This group is just what the doctor ordered.

I wish I could say that my heavy involvement with the administrative side of things was purely selfless. Most of it came from a place of wanting to give back what the group had been giving me all those years, but it also felt really good to be in positions of authority. Not because of some power trip, but because it perked up the self-esteem to have people looking to you for guidance. I rose pretty quickly up through the ranks and did, ultimately, become King. So there I was, head geek of the many geeks but, you know, it felt good to be the big fish in the small pond for once in my life.

A very young me (right center, kneeling and sort of snarling) posing at a battle with my fellow members of the fighting unit Dyr Kanis who all thought our fecal matter presented no foul stench.

Also, this was the time of my life where I discovered the true unsung (or, more like “sung”) treasure of medievalism in the northeast part of the country. I discovered a magical place in Pennsylvania called The Pennsic War. I don't think you could get a closer approximation to the “ideal” medieval chapter of history in this country than attending this event. I had been told what it was like, but words cannot describe it at all. I was still relatively new to the whole middle-ages thing, but Pennsic can show you very quickly how wrong you have it. I walked into the event for the first time in barely-passable costuming. In my hand was a can of Coca-Cola that began shining like an anachronistic beacon, drawing undue attention to the new guy “who just doesn't get it.” I found the closest merchant selling ceramic mugs, bought one, poured my coke into it, and threw the can away.

You can sort of see why a pop can might stand out a bit.

Now I would never be presumptuous enough to say that I know what it would have been like to live in the middle-ages, but Pennsic taught me how to live in the “idealized” version (you know, with toilets, showers, and a whole lot less crippling disease and plague). Although I was only at this two-week event for the final weekend my first year, I still found it to be amazing.

The following year changed my life. Riding high on my status within Dagorhir (which is actually not affiliated with Pennsic), I did things at that event that I never thought I would do. On top of imbibing more alcohol than I ever had before in my life (not that that's anything to brag about), I spent several days “dating” a strange girl who I had stepped out of character and made out with because she said she had never been kissed (how can you resist that invitation?). For someone like me, this is completely unheard of. The old me that had no confidence would never had taken such a gamble. It worked out quite in my favor in the end.

Nights at Pennsic can be...scenic, to say the least.

If you had told me only a couple of years previously about something else I did at that event, I would have laughed in your face. I was talked into going to a spot at Pennsic called the “Classic Swimming Hole” and, in deference to my horrible memories of the high school locker room, threw aside my inhibitions and jumped, naked, into a freezing river alongside about fifty other similarly-unclad people of mixed gender. Scary at first, but ultimately liberating on so many levels. There were no football stars remarking about my physique (or lack thereof), no pointing and laughing (at least not outwardly), but a whole lot of people having a whole lot of (believe it or not) innocent fun. It was nothing like I imagined it would be and I am a much better person for having done it. I got home from that event, found myself a girlfriend, became King of Pentwyvern (our local kingdom), and eventually quested for and became a Knight (a accolade kind of harder to achieve than King, which is only for a year, and dictates that you conduct yourself in a certain chivalrous way on and off the field of battle. A position you keep forever), spent nearly 20 years as the “Head Herald” (head referee who designs and runs events), and just generally enjoyed life like I never had before.

So now, here I sit; older, wiser, married, and fortunate enough to have some very good friends surrounding me. Ogg has moved to the other side of the country, but I still see Tim and Mike almost every weekend along with many others whom I would never have met were it not for this nerdy foam-fighting group. Tim and Mike were best man and groomsman in my wedding (which was medieval-themed) and I still occasionally attend Pennsic when I am able. A lot of the same crowd surrounds me both there and at home. I have not attended a Dagorhir event in many years, though, but I've been told that my “legend” still lives on.

And apparently it does.  I just found this on the web.  It is from someone's site.  I didn't make this but I am the guy in blue, second from left with the weird symbol on my chest.

Hopefully, this year, I will be able to spend at least a little time at Pennsic again. My wife even enjoys the event, in her own way (she likes to shop there, and there's plenty of that to be done) and is always happy when we get to go. I will camp with most of the same people I have known for years and see faces that I haven't seen since the last time I was there. I will probably even go back and visit the swimming hole again, so hide your eyes. It's not a pretty sight, but the difference between then and now is that, now, I don't care if you don't like what you see. It's home to the new, improved me and, if you don't like it, you can go back to high school. Despite what Mom and Dad told me, I never wanted to go back to my teenage years... you can keep them.

Despite everything that has happened in the last few years, you can turn off your Wayback Machine, Mr. Peabody. I like it here and I'm staying.

Shut it off, hyper-intelligent, mutant canine.  I'm good here.

Luck, and My Lack of It...

As some of you know, I’m a firm believer in luck. I worship luck the way some people worship famous people… from very far away and never likely to meet. I sit, starstruck, and wonder what it would be like to have good fortune just fall into my lap.

I’m not going to sit here and say that my life is all emo tragedy; that’s not what I’m trying to get across at all. While some horrible things have happened to me as of late, I do not blame them on luck. We can chalk those up to something bigger, if you like. What I AM saying is: when it comes to more “insignificant” things, I have the worst luck you have ever seen. Sonnets will, someday, be written about my grand (or really more like petty) misfortunes.

Games (of any sort) are the worst of the lot as far as this goes. This, especially, includes the lottery. Time and time again, I have had to prove to people that I should not be included in the office lottery pool. At my last job, they badgered me until I played and that, not unexpectedly, was the first time that they won ABSOLUTELY NOTHING back. They had always won a few dollars here and there, but the first and only time I got involved was the only time they won nothing. They never asked again. Unfortunately, the people at my current job were not deterred by that story and so I donate a dollar a week for the pleasure of being a “part of something” that will, ultimately, end in tears.

Unfortunately, my bad luck with lottery spills over into the real world. Every time I wander into any convenience store, I will, invariably, be behind the person who plays scratch-offs like they are about to reveal the cure for genital warts under the magic silver powder as they furiously attack the ticket with their coins or keys. 

Keep scratching, my friend... I don't need these Twinkies until next Thursday anyway.

 They stand there and make everyone wait as they incessantly scratch, win a dollar, use that dollar to buy the next ticket, and vigorously scratch at that one while I, and the rest of the county, stand somewhat patiently and await the inevitable cataclysm of 2012 that will end this eternity of waiting to purchase our soda or cigarettes. What would be wrong with buying some tickets, stepping aside, and letting people who have some semblance of lives get on with their over-consumption while you grind at your tickets that will, no doubt, reveal untold riches?

I will saw at the silver glue/powder until I see this.  Today will be my day.

The good news out of this? I will NEVER become a gambling addict. “Games of Chance” are my Kryptonite. I will not play ANY game that just involves being dealt the right cards. I may be one of the only white males in the Midwest who doesn’t even know how to play Texas Hold’em. There is absolutely no use in learning this game for me. Might as well set my paycheck on fire; at least it would provide me with momentary warmth. And don’t even mention “the fun of playing”, as I get no enjoyment out of any game where I’m guaranteed to lose.

I have nothing against card games, mind you. Twice a year, at our large family gatherings, giant Pinochle tournaments start up. This is a game I will play because, while I am dealt lousy hands every time, the challenge for me is to play those abysmal hands and apply some tactical skill to it all (that, and playing with my family is hilariously fun) . It’s a team effort and it’s all about overcoming disparity. Poker of any style relies on the luck of the draw (and yes, there is skill involved but too much of it is built around being dealt the right cards…I don’t know how that feels so I cannot speak any further on this matter).

This image is a lie.  The cards should be a 3 and a 5 (different suits) and those chips belong to the guy next to me.

I have never played roulette (not even the Russian style, which is why I am still here posting idiotic blogs… you’re welcome) or put a coin in a slot machine…ever. Oh, I’ve been to Las Vegas…when I was eight and spent my time looking at the pretty lights. I have no need to ever go back there (unless I was visiting someone. In case you’re reading this, cousin).

Recently, I went over to a friends house for a visit (and to return a winter coat that he had drunkenly left at my house).  As we chatted, the subject of this wretched game came up:

This was developed by the Dark Lord to torment my eternal soul.

My friend loves the game.  In fact, his bathroom is themed around it (which I think is kind of creative and interesting).  He spoke of all the dodgy deals and marathon sessions he has played in and suggested we play sometime.  My response was less than friendly.  They say he will get to come home from intensive care very soon and should have a full recovery, but I don't think I will be invited to dinner at his place any time soon.

It's not that I have any trouble grasping the game.  I can handle the money, property, and little green houses.  I can negotiate with the best of them (but only if I get to be the car.  I own guns) and can handle strategies.  I have the wherewithal to be a railroad tycoon and a decent slumlord.

The problem comes with the dice.

Of course, this roll means I am exactly seven spaces away from Boardwalk with someone else's large, red hotel standing majestically on it.

I could spend years studying the intricacies of Monopoly and study mathematical theories pertaining to the science behind winning and would still be the first player out of any game I choose to torture myself by being involved in.  The evil dice will make sure of it.  Any other players with developed properties on the board are guaranteed income from me each trip around the board.  Usually, I just ask the banker to hand my $200 from passing "GO" to the nearest property owner before I even roll... it's just easier that way.

Interestingly, the only dice roll in the game that seems to be "in my favor" is when I roll "doubles" to get out of jail.  This, however, only serves to let me land on other players' properties faster and, thus, helps me more quickly ease the burden of my small pile of cheerfully colored money.  The cheap properties that I may have acquired during the early stages of the game invariably get flipped over to the "mortgaged" side by about the fifth trip around the board.

Never been there, they tell me it's kind of helpful.

As we chatted about this (yeah, I'll say it) Satanic board game I tried to get across the point of my bad luck.  In response, he pulled a set of large dice out of his desk drawer and asked me to roll them.  I think I rolled something like a 6 and a 4.  He scoffed at me and told me that it was a decent roll, and it was.  The problem, I explained, is that the roll meant nothing.  Yeah, I can sit and roll dice all day and get truly random numbers just like anyone else.  When the roll stands to gain me anything at all, those rules change.

"Alright," he said, not for nothing, "roll them again, and, this time, it's purely for honor."  That was enough.  After he looked, dumbfounded, at the dice which had come to rest on 3 and 1, he swept them back into the drawer and snapped "Got it. 'Nuff said."   After I left, he probably dipped them in paint thinner and slaughtered a few chickens in the back yard to ward off whatever curse I had brought upon his home and family.  Can't say I blame him.

Now this brings us to another style of game:

Part of any self-respecting gamer's "standard battle loadout."

Yes, I am a nerd/geek/dweeb who likes role playing games (a subject I plan to blog a bit about later, so I won't get into the why's and where's right now).  For those who do not know, these are games where you take on the role of a "character" and get put through a series of mental-picture adventures by the person who takes on the role of "Gamemaster." The various dice that inhabit your collection represent the element of "chance" that allow the characters to succeed or fail in their endeavors.  I know... but, believe it or not, I have touched a girl before.

I have enjoyed these games for many years but as I get older, my tolerance for my idiotic luck fades. WARNING:  GEEK TALK APPROACHING.  A year of two ago, a friend ran a Star Wars roleplaying game.  I was excited because, in this particular new version of the game, players were finally able to take on the role of Jedi.  This, to me, was the ultimate "nerdgasm" as I have been such a fan of these fictional knights since 1977.  I ordered the game book off of Amazon and eagerly awaited its arrival like a kid going to bed on Christmas Eve.  I poured all the creative mojo I posses into the creation of this Jedi character.  I came up with a cool name for him and, with the assistance of the gamemaster, wrote a heck of a good back-story that I think even George Lucas would be happy with.  The excitement pounded in me as we sat down around the table in the basement (my life is a cliche...I swear it is) and pulled out the books and dice.

Suffice to say, I ended up with the clumsiest parody of a Jedi Knight that anyone has ever seen.  On a twenty-sided die, I was unable to roll above a 4 in any given circumstance.  What resulted was nothing more than my character that I had worked to hard to create and flesh out becoming a lightsaber-wielding Chevy Chase from the early years of Saturday Night Live.  To the ultimate annoyance of my friend, the gamemaster, I quit the game and spent my Saturday nights home watching movies and playing Playstation games (while my wife continued to go play in the Star Wars game).  It was quite peaceful.

This past year, right after we found out about Dad's cancer, it was suggested that I join a different game now being played by the same group.  The company of people became a "safe place" and I am still involved with the game.  This time, however, I had the gamemaster make my character for me and I put almost no effort into him. I also found it amusing that, due to it being the 21st century, I could game "paperless" (aren't I "green?") with the use of my netbook.  My character is a spreadsheet and I have a .pdf of the game book on the hard drive.  Abandoning physical dice in favor of an electronic "roller," my misfortune is not as bad as it once was... probably because I have much less invested this time.

Thankfully, so far, this phenomenon has kept itself to matters that aren't terribly important.  Again, luck had little to do with my parents' passing.  That was a matter of life and health and the lack thereof.  So far (vigorously knocking on every wooden surface I can find), no trees have fallen on my house (sorry, Rob and Wanda) nor have bolts of lightning electrified my television or computers (yet).  As long as the bad fortune stays within games and other insignificant matters, I can live with it.

At least until the power goes out right when I am finally doing well in a game of Black Ops.  Trust me, it will happen.