Stephen Mark Rainey's Blog, page 54

Blobs, Rebels, and Rogues

It has not been a particularly cheery week, what with ice storms, power outages, tax time, technology issues, dealing with my mom’s and brother’s estates, unexpected bills (big), and being generally indoor-bound. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen this much water fall from the sky, frozen or otherwise. Whatever passed for my front yard is a partially frozen lake. Geocaching has been right out. And although I’ve been exercising like the dickens, inasmuch as I can in the house, my old body hasn’t felt altogether right after a week and some change of no hiking. Thirty-six hours of the past weekend were spent without power at home, so I took up residence at Brugger’s place (make no mistake, I count my every blessing that, at least for the moment, I had the luxury of a place of refuge as the temperature dropped). This morning, as the latest ice storm moved in, I lost power for several hours; thankfully, it was restored, though the sky is once again falling and the temperature is dropping. It ain’t over yet.
In the plus column, I finished a brand new short story for an upcoming anthology. I’m pleased with it; the plot involves an “Owl Man,” which is kind of like the Mothman’s first cousin. I sent it off to the editor last night, and now the waiting game begins. Also, the very welcome news has come down that I, and the rest of the office staff, now have the option to work at home for the long haul. It’s a far, far better option than commuting out to the badlands every day.
For last night’s entertainment, I put on the original The Blob, which I hadn’t seen in a good while. Frazier and I enjoyed it as always, though Droolie appeared nonplused, probably because he thought that, based on the title, the movie was about him. Alas, no.
So maybe I’m an even bigger Star Wars geek than I realized. A while back, just for shits and giggles, I put on the animated Clone Wars series. I can’t say I expected it to grab me, but guess what. It grabbed me. Really grabbed me. So then I went straight into Star Wars: Rebels , which — again — at its start failed to tweak the right nerves, but then suddenly it did. So I ended up compelled to watch that whole series. Tonight, having finished Rebels , I kicked back with Frazier and Droolie for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which has been among my favorite entries in the series since I first saw it. The guys enjoyed it quite a bit, as you might infer from the photo above.
I don’t anticipate a sudden turnabout of fortune or mood, but I haven’t kicked off the planet yet, so that’s something for the plus column as well. Cin-cin.

The High Life Beckons

My brother Phred was a flawed angel; some would say with an emphasis on flawed. He struggled mightily with his own foibles, and sometimes, even when he won against them, he did so only to introduce a set of unforeseen side effects. Per his custom — his drive — he described these things in his songs, bluntly and without whitewashing. He kept so much private, yet he confessed his very soul to his listeners. I knew much of what was going on in Phred’s life at any given time, but it was only after hearing him sing that I could truly understand what he was going through. “The High Life Beckons” is a perfect case in point. Here are his lyrics.
“The High Life Beckons”
©Phred Rainey
Some night sharp, and some nights dullSome half empty, some half full
If I could only drink wine     But not all the timeAnd not fall from grace     Or on my faceBut that just ain’t to be     Such is me
Sometimes I think I’d rather be in handcuffsStrolling down the avenue in handcuffs     Whistling a merry tune I’d be     Wondering what it’s like to be free
Each night I let the bottle downAnd every single bar in town
It’s part of the daily grind     My body aches for wineThe comfort that it brings     And not those other thingsBut that just ain’t to be     Woe is me
You people ought to see me in my handcuffsI’ll never get out of these handcuffs     A wretched life awaits if I do     So hard to believe, but it’s true

Back for Swing

I’ve long said that attempting to psychoanalyze or ascribe specific motivations to an author based on his or her work is an exercise in futility or outright mistake. Some years ago, my depiction of a character in a short story prompted a reviewer to accuse me of antisemitism — which I can only decry as a baseless and utterly foolish claim, far more revealing of the reviewer’s prejudices and preconceived notions than the author’s. However, songs — poetry in general — and straight fiction are wholly different animals. My brother, Phred, used his lyrics to reveal his deepest feelings, undisguised, vividly painted and paired with his most wistful, poignant melodies. I so hope to get some of his recordings preserved digitally, though I fear that even high-quality analog versions will prove few and far between. There is still much material to sort through.

“Back for a Swing” is one of Phred’s most revealing compositions, a brutally honest confession of his own objective glimpses of himself. To hear the song — a beautiful ballad reminiscent of work by Tindersticks — makes me weepy every time I listen to it.

Back for a Swing
©Phred Rainey

Take a pull on that wine
And pull on my sleeve
You know that I
Would never make you leave
That’s what I want you to say
That’s what I want you to say
It’s what I dreamed about
It’s what I want you to say

That’s what I want to hear
All I want to hear

My clothes on the floor
A dead car in the yard
All those things that you see
It shouldn’t be so hard
To change the things that you see
To get a spark out of me
You want to change what you see
To get the most out of me

It shouldn’t be so hard
To make a man out of me

You see I don’t come across
Like a normal man
I keep too much to myself
As much as anyone can
But I can’t hide anything from you
Can’t hide anything from you

I wish I could say you’re responsible
I wish I could say you’re impossible
But it’s too easy to
And God knows it ain’t true
I took what I saw
I didn’t think you’d care
I thought laying back
I saw you lying there

You shouldn’t be so hard
You’ll make a man out of me

I tried to walk through a swamp
I tried to make my own way
It’s just the things that I do
That make a lie of what I say

I can’t hide anything from you
Can’t hide anything from you
I can’t hide anything from you
Can’t hide anything from you

If I Were a Carp & Other Unpopular Opinions

It’s a song I particularly enjoy, although it is a bit fishy.
This week, I have had a regular moment (or several) of grief for my brother’s death each day, usually in the morning while I am working and listening to music. So much of what I listen to (mostly eclectic tunes on Pandora or Amazon Music ) is due either directly or indirectly to my brother’s influence, or it reminds me of certain times together with him. But the feelings are not quite as raw as they were the previous week. Well, at least, most of the time they are not. I have no deadline or expectation for grieving. Grief comes as it will, and I embrace it right now. It feels...necessary.
Yesterday morning, I awoke to find a new geocache had been published in town — at UNCG , in one of the parking garages, which do tend to be challenging, since they frequently offer a choice of levels for hunting. Initially, I did not read the cache description as thoroughly as I should have (shameful for a writer of such ill repute!), and thus I ended up spending considerably more time and energy on the hunt than was necessary. In the end, I did find my quarry; in fact, I snagged the almost-coveted first-to-find slot. As I was logging my find, a group of geocachers I had never previously met (they were from the Raleigh area, it turned out) showed up on the scene. Sadly for them, they had missed out on the FTF, but they appeared to have an enjoyable time on the hunt. They clearly found it in far less time than it had taken me.

Later, Ms. B. came round to put in a shift working on our kitchen upgrade project. On a trip to Home Depot , we stopped for another newly published cache, which I managed to find in short order. But as with the other cache I found this day — both created by the madman known as cachecredit (a.k.a. Ken) — accessing the log required some additional time and effort (although this one proved less complicated than its brethren at UNCG).
Unpopular opinion time:
I have very little appreciation for the "classic" 1961 film,  The Innocents , based on Henry James’s “Turn of the Screw.” I had never much cared for it on previous viewings from many, many years ago, but having found the recent  The Haunting of Bly Manor  a brilliant, masterful work, Ms. B. and I decided to revisit The Innocents  and give it another look. Despite exquisite cinematography and extraordinary performances by the two kids, the film itself is one of the most unengaging, overwrought, self-conscious works ever. There are perhaps two scenes that qualify as “creepy.” The characters, to the last, remain too distant to relate to, their identities largely defined by how much noise and blather they can emit — so unlike the sensitive portrayals of emotionally traumatized individuals in Bly Manor . It’s exceedingly difficult to resist comparing The Innocents , not so much to Bly Manor , but to Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963), which is, to my mind, a classic that gives The Innocents a pounding rivaling Abigail Crain’s cane on the walls of Hill House.
Between last night and this morning, we had significant precipitation, some rain, some snow, some sleet. Mostly, it made mud. Today, I spent some time working on a new short story for an upcoming anthology. Since the sun came out midday and the temperature turned out tolerable, I took a nice break and headed out to Triad Park to hunt a trio of relatively new caches. I went, I saw, I signed logs. A fine outing, to be sure. And now it is back to the story, for our deadline, she be tight. Despite mucho precipitation during the night and early morning, the afternoon
weather turned out perfect for geocaching. The cache was not in “there,” but the pipe made for a nice, muggle-free environment to sign the cache log.

That Lucky Old Moon and I

My brother, Phred, was a songwriter. He composed and performed dozens, if not hundreds, of his own compositions over the years, usually under the moniker Joe the Fireman. Sometimes Joe the Fireman was a band, comprising widely varying personnel; other times, Joe the Fireman was Phred going solo.
Phred’s songs tell his life’s story. Sometimes, they’re in cryptic code; sometimes, they spell out, in raw, graphic fashion, every struggle of his oftentimes troubled soul. Since his passing a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been reacquainting myself with his music, inasmuch as it is possible. I have a few cassette tapes of his songs, some performed solo, some with a backup band. I don’t know whether he ever wrote out lyrics, or set down chords, or left any kind of record, other than random tapes, a couple of vinyl pressings, and a few digital files that can be found here and there. I’m taking it upon myself to transcribe as many of his lyrics as I can manage, so that in some fashion, at least some of the story he related via his music may yet be preserved for posterity.
Here are the lyrics to “That Lucky Old Moon,” which rates high among my personal favorites.
That Lucky Old Moon©Phred Rainey
I guess I might like the things she didAt least the things that I thought I sawPulled out the carpet, at least I think I didNearly open-hearted, that’s my tragic flaw
Meantime, I split the differenceGet down to half-filled
I found a color to match her nameAnd her eyes’ light could fill the skiesSaw it brighten and I saw it fadeShe wandered off and I wondered why
Meantime, I feel the distanceWho was I not to know the difference?
That lucky old moon and IGet to count the stars at nightAnd count the reasons why
Fall in the lakeHide in the hills
Then the spotlight became my friendIt lit the things that I turned to seeA brighter color and a brighter endYou got me off the ground and you buried me
Due time, I feel the differenceI found passion, no despair
Now that lucky old moon and IGet to count the stars at nightAnd smile at the reasons why
Float on the lakeMake love in the hills

Phred Comes Home

Yesterday morning, I picked up my brother’s ashes from the funeral home in Winston-Salem. From there, I headed to Triad Park to get in some much-needed hiking and geocaching. It was a stroke of fair fortune that I ran into fellow cacher and friend Dave (a.k.a. Rhodorooter), who happened to be going after some of the same caches as I. A little later, I set a course for the old homestead in Martinsville, this time by way of the residence of friends and fellow geocachers Tom & Linda (a.k.a. Skyhawk63 & Punkins19). They had a nice little care package for me, which I greatly appreciate. Among the goodies were some chips and ghost pepper salsa, which fiercely hit the spot (although I might have overdone the salsa a bit).
Once at Pleasant Hill, I carried in Phred’s ashes, which I have put into a nice rosewood container. I carried him up the same stairs from the basement to the kitchen that Mom carried him up when she brought him home from the hospital for the very first time in 1964. This simple act somehow felt like... symmetry. My little brother was home once again, this time for the last time. Just after dark, I scattered some of his ashes in the front yard, where as kids we loved sledding when it snowed. Then I scattered some in the woods where we used to camp out in warmer weather.
Phred’s longtime friend Jon had contacted me a while back, and we decided to spend some time together at the first opportunity. That was last night. He came over to the house for a while, and we shared lots of memories of times together when he and Phred were pretty much inseparable. We raised and sank a few drinks in the process. It was the best kind of quality time during a sad time.
Headed back to Greensboro this afternoon by way of Danville and a new geocache. Despite the hard, sad time dealing with Phred’s loss, in the past couple of weeks, there have also been many wonderful, important celebrations and remembrances of his life that lifted my spirits.
Here is a video I sent to Tom & Linda, which chronicles my first taste of the Ocracoke Variety Store Ghost Pepper Salsa they gave me.

Phred’s Posthumous Profile in the Winston-Salem Journal

 

A nice posthumous profile of my brother in the Winston-Salem Journal today:

Alan “Phred” Rainey, Owner of Earshot Music, Has Died

I most appreciate that the piece features a video of him from 2014, when he was healthy. And I love being able to hear his voice again.

The Universe Takes a Good One

It is with the greatest sorrow that I must announce that my younger brother, Alan “Phred” Rainey, has passed away following a long struggle with leukemia. He had been hospitalized for quite some time, and we had hoped he might get to a point where he could go back home. But over the past several days, his condition worsened, and a couple of days ago, he was admitted to hospice care. This evening, he slipped away peacefully.

Old dude (pre-old), Oolie-Poolie, Dad

Phred was born in May 1964, five years and two days after me (we always figured our folks might have been aiming for the same month and day; they never told). I well remember Mum bringing him home from the hospital for the first time. She came up the stairs to the kitchen from the basement, bearing a weird, prune-like bundle wearing only diapers. My first words to him were “Hello, dye-dees!” (Some derivation of “diapers,” I suppose it was.) Brother had lots of nicknames as a wee young’un. My 1969 diary indicates that “Oolie-Poolie” was the preferred sobriquet of the day. Countless entries refer to Oolie-Poolie and our beloved dog, Patty (“Patty bit Oolie-Poolie” appearing most frequently). “Phred” didn’t come along until his adult years, sometime post-college. I can’t recall the origin or significance of “Phred,” but he surely made it his own. To this day, I think few people, even his good friends, know his given name was Alan.

Oppressing the peasants

 
Brother and I had a fairly idyllic childhood, and we got along in the typical way of siblings with an age difference of several years. One of my favorite recollections of brotherly love was when I was 11 or 12, which put him at 6 or 7. Our parents had finally warmed to the idea of letting me stay alone with him for fairly short periods. One night, they went out and left me in charge for about an hour, after which a young lady named Sherry was to come round to babysit us for the rest of the evening. During that hour, due entirely to circumstances beyond my control, I locked Oolie-Poolie out of the house. Before I knew it, a brick came crashing through the backdoor window. Against my better judgment, I let him back in so he could clean up the glass. At this point, marginally peeved, I threatened to stab him with my pocket knife. I ran my thumb along the blade to test its sharpness (I mean, who would want to stab his little brother with a dull blade?), and in the process sliced my finger wide open. So, for a fair spell, I stood there, fussing and bleeding, trying to make sure he understood that his behavior was unacceptable. Soon enough, Sherry arrived to find a broken window, a brick, and a mess of glass and blood in the floor. She bandaged my gaping wound, taped Saran Wrap over the door’s, and told us she never wanted to see either of our faces again. (This was not true, of course; she babysat for us many times in the coming days, and only rarely did Oolie-Poolie cause as much trouble as on that particular night.) Once reconciled (all thanks to Sherry), brother and I devised the perfect alibi: we decided to blame the property damage on Dwayne Sigmon, our mortal enemy from the neighborhood. So, first thing next morning, when pressed to explain events, I told my understandably irate Mum and Dad that Dwayne had come out of the woods and heaved a brick through our backdoor window.

“Really? Why?”

 “Oolie-Poolie must have upset him.”

To this day, I will never understand why Mum and Dad refused to accept this interpretation of events, or why they wouldn’t allow me to babysit for my brother until I was 15 years old.

Despite the harmonious relationship between my brother and I, which you may have sensed from the preceding anecdotes, we did have the occasional rocky moment. Early 1972: I had painstakingly created an audio cassette recording of one of my monster stories, complete with music and sound effects. When I went to play it back, I discovered, not my monster story, but Oolie-Poolie singing along to The Partridge Family Sound Magazine album. Of the unforgivable offenses from childhood, this ranks near the top.

Like so many little brothers, young Phred tended to follow me around, often annoying me to the point that I wanted to shoot him in the butt with my BB gun. One time — I think I was in ninth grade — I shot him in the butt with my BB gun. To my eternal mortification (and yours too, I’ll wager), he violated the sacred trust between brothers and tattled, which resulted in my BB gun being confiscated for a period of two weeks. It may be worth noting that Mum was not known for her ingenuity when it came to hiding things, so whenever she wasn’t around, I grabbed the gun from her closet, shot things to my heart’s content (not little brothers at this point), and re-hid it before she returned.

As kids, we loved visiting our grandparents in Georgia, and we spent every Christmas with both sets of them until they passed away. (Most of the furniture in Phred’s house originally belonged to one set of grandparents or the other.) I would venture to say that, for both Phred and me, spending time at our grandparents’ was truly our version of heaven. Now, Mum’s mother, whom we called “Neenie,” was not necessarily slight of frame. In those days, we always said the blessing before every meal, and it was customary for our grandfather (“Papa”) to ask “Who’s going to say the blessing?” On one visit, four-year-old Phred brought the house down by pointing to Neenie and shouting, “Let Chubby say it!”

In the bedroom where he and I slept at Neenie & Papa’s house, the door to the living room had glass panes, which were covered by a diaphanous drape. One Christmas Eve, Neenie was wearing a chain belt that jingled, and she happened to walk by the door just after we had gone to bed. Upon seeing her silhouette on the translucent drape, Phred shot out of bed and cried, “Santa!” He suffered marginal disappointment to discover it was only Neenie, but Santa that year (as he was every year), proved very good to both us young rascals. 

A typical Christmas: Dude with gun and brother blowing his bugle

In elementary school, Phred developed a special affinity for music. I taught him to play guitar, and it wasn’t long before his proficiency surpassed mine. He also played clarinet in the school concert and marching bands, so people started calling him “Pete Fountain.” Over the years, he learned to play other instruments, including bass guitar, keyboards, and drums.

In his high school, college, and post-college years, Phred formed a number of bands with similarly talented musician friends. He headed up The Stars & Bars Band, Industrial Soldier, Joe the Fireman, and countless unnamed duets and trios. He wrote, performed, and recorded craploads of songs, sometimes with other folks, sometimes solo. Wherever he lived — from Blacksburg, VA, to Chapel Hill, NC, to Winston-Salem, NC — Phred attracted a considerable local following. A decade or so ago, he played frequently at a club called The Garage (sadly, now defunct) in Winston-Salem, which inspired Brugger and me to play music of our own there from time to time.

Phred provides musical accompaniment to Mum’s reading of The Night Before Christmas

During his Virginia Tech years — and for a long spell afterward — Phred worked for a music shop called The Record Exchange in Blacksburg, VA. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he ended up living several miles out of Blacksburg near Craig Creek in the Jefferson National Forest, where he introduced my (now ex-)wife and me to the joys of exploring endless networks of narrow, winding mountain roads in his pickup truck. We discovered what turned out to be one of our favorite places on Earth: a huge wall of slate cliffs above Craig Creek, with a clearing at its base perfect for camping out — which we did countless times over a couple of decades. On one of our truck outings, we took some random dirt road through the forest and happened upon a stone memorial, standing out there in the middle of nowhere. This turned out to be the site where legendary actor and WWII veteran Audie Murphy had died in a plane crash. Nowadays, the road to the memorial is more heavily traveled (and there is a geocache there), but back then, as near as we could tell, we were the only living human beings for miles around. For me, that was some thing of a transcendent experience.

In the early 1990s, Phred acquired a beautiful black lab, whom he named Luther. He loved Luther deeply, and that sweet dog was his constant companion whether he was at home or traveling. When Phred and I got together on our many rural excursions, Luther always accompanied us. One time, though, while just the two of them were out roaming along Marrowbone Creek in rural Henry County, VA, Luther went running after something and, as he often did, joyously leaped into the river. On this occasion — after a period of excessive rainfall — the water was high and fast, and the current swept Luther away. Panicked, Phred ran along the riverbank, trying to keep up with him. When it was clear that Luther was not going to be able to get out on his own, Phred, with no thought of his own safety, jumped into the river and swam after him. Eventually, he caught up to Luther, grabbed his collar, and managed to drag him to the bank and safety. I still get chills thinking about what might have happened to one or both of them. But you know what? I understand it. Like me, Phred loved animals and was fiercely loyal to those in his care (even Patty, who took such pleasure in gnawing on his bones).

Phred and Luther

After Blacksburg, Phred moved to Chapel Hill, NC, to manage The Record Exchange store there. He and I got together there a number of times, but by then, his busy schedule precluded sharing as much social time as he had in the past. After a couple of years in Chapel Hill, he moved to Winston-Salem, again to manage the local Record Exchange store. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before the Record Exchange went out of business. However, this ended up offering Phred an opportunity that was too good to pass up: he became owner/manager of Earshot Music, which opened in the same space The Record Exchange had occupied.

Despite having established himself as a mature and responsible adult,* Phred enjoyed releasing his inner child whenever possible. From our school days until my dad’s death in the early 2000s, our family owned a timeshare condo at Myrtle Beach, where we all met every summer. Phred loved that place and looked forward to going every year. One time in the late 1990s, when he lived in Chapel Hill, he and I rode down to the beach together. When we got there, he got so excited that he did an expert handstand in the middle of the living room. Did I say expert? Actually, he kind of overbalanced. Yeah, he kept going over, and — CRASH! — right into the lovely glass-topped coffee table. Yep, glass was everywhere. There was finger-pointing at Dwayne Sigmon. Groundings. Well, no groundings, not really. By this time, my folks were pretty well accustomed to Phred’s excesses and simply made him call maintenance and explain to them what had happened.

*No.

In the mid-2000s, Phred decided to revisit his fondness for acting. In high school, he had acted in several school plays and proved himself quite adept. In Winston, he joined up with two or three acting companies and performed in a number of stage productions, some comedy, some drama. There was one production at small venue in Winston called The Stained-Glass Theater, which had once been a church. I cannot recall the name of the production, but it was a two-man drama, with him playing one of the two leads. He knocked that role right out of the ballpark.

Unfortunately, the rigors of managing a music store eventually crowded out most of Phred’s favorite creative endeavors. Acting went by the wayside, as did his forays into making music. Still, over the years, Phred became something of a local legend — for his talent, his knowledge, his warmth, and his passion. Since his passing the other day, seeing so many comments from people whose lives he impacted has brought me to tears. 

When we lost our mother last summer, the blow hit us both, but he took it particularly hard. He had not seen her in her twilight years nearly as much as I had, and I believe the drastic changes in her condition each time he saw her impacted him in devastating ways.

When Phred was diagnosed with Leukemia, he was stoic, determined to overcome the challenges he knew he would face. For a long time, with all the treatments he was getting, he held out hope that his blood counts would get to the point where he could have a stem cell transplant that would offer him a new lease on life. However, he continually suffered infections that resisted antibiotic treatment, and it was clear that the increasingly severe hits to his body were inflicting deeper and deeper damage. The past nine months, he spent more time in the hospital than out of it.

Last week, he and I had been shooting a few messages back and forth regarding Mum’s estate, which is still a long way from resolution. The tone of his texts were “normal,” with an occasional lighthearted quip. We were about done for the evening when he asked if we could talk on the phone. Of course we could, I said.

When I heard his voice — weak, pained — I knew it was bad. “Mark, it’s about time for me to say goodbye.”

Those words hit me like none ever spoken to me. He told me in some detail how he badly he had declined physically; the doctors gave him only a few more days. He asked if I would care to come see him in the hospital the next day, so I headed over to Winston very first thing.

We had a meaningful visit. He was lucid, which wasn’t always the case, given the meds he was on. He couldn’t speak much, as it hurt him and brought on serious coughing. A while back, I had found some of his old diaries in Martinsville, so I took them along and read him some passages that I thought he might find uplifting. I believe he did. The last thing he said before I left was, “The universe is getting the better end of this deal. It’s taking me away.”

Two days later, Phred was moved to hospice care. Once again, I went to see him, and this time, it was clear how little time he had left. He mostly slipped in and out of consciousness, though — thankfully — he was aware of my presence. I sat next to him while he listened to ambient music, which he appeared to find relaxing. When we were kids, back when we visited Neenie & Papa, if either of us didn’t feel well, Neenie would lightly rub our heads, which we both found soothing. So I rubbed his head for a while and reminded him of how Neenie did that way back when. He seemed to find genuine solace in this, and he told me that it really did feel good. After that, he faded away a bit; he just listened to his music and hummed.

Before I left, he reached out and, for the very last time, I held my brother’s hand.

Phred desired to be cremated (as do I, when the time comes), so his wishes are being honored. He asked that his ashes be scattered in several places that were special to him, including some of those I have written about here. Those wishes too will be lovingly honored.

I will never say that my relationship with Phred was without serious complications. We sometimes had them. Outside his more social relationships, he was an intensely private person, and he habitually kept those he loved — and who loved him — at arm’s length. Sometimes, we did not understand each other, and the results weren’t necessarily pretty. Yet, he and I shared a deep, unbreakable bond that I always valued and now treasure. The universe did get the better end of this deal, for it is taking back a gentle, warm, generous, formidably intelligent, sometimes frightened, oftentimes insecure, youthful soul whose life clearly touched many, many people. I can’t count how many of his friends have followed up to check on me. Each and every one has my gratitude.

I will miss my brother till the day I die. Wherever he is right now, I imagine he is running from Patty, who is surely ecstatic to be able to again engage in her favorite activity: chomping on Oolie-Poolie’s leg.

A Stellar Start (NOT)

2021 has not exactly kicked off on a stellar note. DC riots and Capitol-storming aside, things on the family front have not quite gone as hoped. My brother, Phred (a.k.a. Alan) is in dire straits, health-wise, and this has cast a pall over even the more pleasant aspects of life. Dealing with Mom’s estate has presented me with more than its share of challenges, but right now — thankfully — I am able to step back a little to deal with other priorities.

The other day — Thursday, I believe it was — I took a little respite by heading up to the Laurel Bluff Trail, up at Lake Townsend. Friend Natalie had placed a slew of Munzees out there, and while I’m only so enamored of the Munzee concept, it gave me a fine excuse for an early evening hike. The sunset was gorgeous, and I ran into scarcely a soul out there, which made for a relaxing, contemplative outdoor experience.

On Friday, Kimberly and I headed to the old homestead in Martinsville, primarily to take down the Christmas decorations, which is always rather sad; perhaps more so this year, with Mom gone and Phred not doing well. We did have a fine dinner from Third Bay Cafe, watched The Mist, and played a bunch of fun tunes on YouTube till the wee hours. Once back home on Saturday, we set to work on the house upgrade; got a good spot of painting done in the kitchen.

Today, I hiked on the Blue Heron Trail to do some cache maintenance, which wasn’t as much fun as hiking to find caches, but it provided me with some much-needed exercise, and the weather was just right.

I’m putting the finishing touches on my Ameri-Scares novel, New Hampshire: Ghosts From the Skies, which I anticipate turning in this week. Then I have a short story lined up for an upcoming Lovecraftian anthology, which I hope will fly. Those are the high points, I reckon, but the low ones will be lurking around every corner. There’s just no way around them at this point.

But we maintain. Peace out.

A lovely evening on the Laurel Bluff trail, with the sun's last rays highlighting the trees across Lake Townsend

Fresh paint and primer brightens up the kitchen a bit....

How Very TruXXX

Letter from my (BIG FUCKING BANK):
"As a long-time client of (BIG FUCKING BANK), you are our number one priority. Our mission is to provide you, our client, with the finest possible customer service and convenience. As you are aware, we have recently merged with (OTHER BIG FUCKING BANK). In order to continue to provide you with the most convenient access to our services, we are closing the (BRANCH NEAREST YOU) as of January Whatever 2021. Rest assured that we are blah blah blah blah blah blah."