Monday, January 22, 2007

Well it's 1969 Okay, All Across the USA

Once again, Blogger won't let me download photos. I thought the new blogger was supposed to be so much better. I never had this many problems with the old Blogger. Ugh.

Okay, I'm just going to post this fiction-y-er-ish thing. Most of the events happened, but I was too young to remember them, so I made myself and my brother older in this and sometimes used accounts of what other people told me, and sometimes remembered bits and then just made shit up. Hopefully, you won't find it too long to read during lunch and your breaks at work.

1969

Tonight is a big deal. My dad keeps telling us, “Kids, remember this. This is a very big deal.” My brother rolls his eyes and walks into his room. I stay in the living room so I can be where everyone else is. I’m afraid to miss it. It is a very big deal.

My mom has set up the card table so she can put all the food she made on it. My grandma and my Uncle Jack and my Aunt Lynn are coming over. My Aunt Lynn is divorced and everyone says it in a whisper like it’s secret and we can’t say it around her because it might make her feel bad. Her daughter is a year older than my brother. She will never play with me. After they get here, my cousin goes off with my brother and they shoot things with their slingshots. I don’t even try to tag along because I know they will start shooting at me.

My mom touches or winks at me every time she comes out of the kitchen with potato salad, or Jell-o or bread or devilled eggs. My dad likes very dark bread and brown mustard, so we always have to have it, but my mom doesn’t make me eat it or I’ll throw up. He also eats peanuts in the shell and all of our ashtrays are full of empty shells. There’s almost no room for cigarettes or ashes.

Once the whole family arrives, my dad and my Uncle Jack talk about politics and everyone tries to get them to change the subject because they don’t agree. There is so much cigarette smoke everywhere that my eyes burn.

Nobody is walking on the moon yet. They are all just watching the news, which I’m not allowed to watch because when they have the war on the news, I get scared. I once heard a ticking clock and thought it was a bomb and ran out of my parent’s room screaming. So, I’m not allowed to watch the news.

I finally get so bored, that I go into my bedroom and play with my wedding paper dolls. There is a bride and a groom and you can change their outfits for the wedding and later for the honeymoon. I hear a thunk. I know that my brother and my cousin have hit my window with a rock. I think I might tell on them, but the grown-ups are loud and drinking beer and I don’t like the way they act.

My mother comes in my room to wake me up. I fell asleep and now the groom’s tuxedo wedding outfit is stuck to my face. She picks me up and carries me into the living room. I sit on her lap to watch the man walk on the moon. Everyone is quiet and serious, but I watch my dad instead of the guy on the screen because I’ve never seen him like that before. He is staring like he usually does, but this time he seems happy – like he’s far away from our cramped and smoky living room.

22 comments:

Les Q said...

hey....if its the prob where the insert pics thingo is gone from your toolbar when posting....delete your temp internet files and it will be restored...... :)

rel said...

Churlita,
Your a good story teller.
That was the year I graduated from nursing school. I do remember that stroll across the green cheese.

I load pics from Mozilla-firefox. No problems yet.
rel

Margaret said...

grown-up gatherings seemed so obnoxious as a child!

matt said...

Great writing! Have you been mulling that over or is that just ad hoc? Either way it's very good.

You described every get together of my father's family from 1965 to 1985. Once the patriarch was gone it all just fell apart. That made the imagery so powerful for me.

Long_Division said...

I've missed you! (My fault, not yours.)

Anyway, I'm trying to get back on the blog horse but I thought the new Blogger hated me. I'm glad it's nothing personal.

Churlita said...

Les Quinn,

The thingo is there, it just keeps making me sign back in everytime I want to download a pic or do antyhing else, really, but it never downloads the pic.

Rel,

Thank you. I wish I had the computer skill so download Firefox as my operating system, I just wouldn't know how to do it or fix any quirks that needed to be fixed. But I also think it's a problem with Blogger because it only doesn't load them when Blogger kicks me out and makes me resign in after I try to update anything - not just photo uploads.

Margaret,

I know. They also scared me because the grown-ups were so unpredictable.

Matt,

Thanks. Remember when everyone smoked and nobody worried about kids breathing it all in all the time?

I quickly wrote this about a year ago or so and then forgot about it. I found it when I was trying to tidy about 5,256 papers and decided to clean it up a little and post it.

Long Divison,

I've missed you too. I'm so happy that you and Mochila have reentered the Blogosphere. I can't wait to start reading you regularly again. I think the new Blogger is a big drunken asshole loser who hates the world in general.

fringes said...

Sorry about your Blogger problems. Great story, if that makes you feel any better.

Lynnster said...

Yep, now Blogger is trying to mess with your stuff to coerce you into switching to New Blogger... be strong!!!!

I kind of dig using the Blog This! function in Flickr for photos. It takes a couple of clicks and you're done.

And let me just say I am totally crazy about you now, if I weren't before, for the Stooges song title post. You are awesome!!!!

I kind of miss making all my post titles song lyrics, but since I'm being picked up on aggregators now I'm trying to make my titles a little more descriptive and true to post subject. But it was funner (sic) when I made them all song lyrics.

Churlita said...

Fringes,

Thanks. It does make me feel better in general, but I'm still pissed off at Blogger.

Lynnster,

Thanks for the tips. I've been using song titles or lyrics since I switched to this new blog in October. We'll se how long I last. I have always loved the Stooges so you will probably see a lot of Iggy or Stooges lyrics on here.

egan said...

Do you think they ever really walked on the moon?

Churlita said...

Egan,

Sure. They wouldn't put it on those MTV ads if it weren't true. right?

egan said...

Maybe. Do you think Blogger is a great product? Can you believe I will be a father? Crap, I'm doing it already. How are you Churlita?

Greg said...

I think lynnster's right. A couple weeks ago when Blogger had a scheduled downtime, if you went to the Blogger page, it would read something like "Old Blogger will be down until this afternoon. New Blogger is up and running." Grrr...

Churlita said...

Egan,

I do beleive you'll be a great father, but I'm smart enough to know that even for free, Blogger isn't the very best product ever.

I'm fine. Thank you and how are you?

Greg,

The drag is that I've already switched to the new Blogger and this is how it's doing me. Grrr, indeed.

egan said...

Churlita, I'm all over the place. I should go for a run or a swim to work off the nervous energy.

Anonymous said...

Great story, I remember being at my aunt and uncles at adult parties. We were supposed to be sleeping but we would play, thinking we were getting away with something. It is only now that I realise that they probably kew and didn't care as long as we were quiet and they didn't have to attend to us.

Churlita said...

Egan,

You should do both. You have a long haul before that baby gets born.

Allison,

Oh yeah. They were probably happy they could party without you guys interrupting them.

Mark said...

I so remember the moon walk! My father, too, made sure I was paying attention. He kept telling me, "This is history. You'll want to remember this."

He became upset when I asked him, "Haven't we already walked on the moon?"

In 1969 I was 7 years old. Ironically, I wish I would have paid more attention now.

Churlita said...

Mark,

I wish I had paid more attention to a lot of stuff. The only thing I can do, is try hard to remember to pay attention to those kind of things from now on.

Isn't it funny that now when someone talks about the Moonwalk, everyone thinks they mean Michael Jackson's dance?

Anonymous said...

hmmm sounds like blogger is having another spazz attack...there was a maintenace message a lot of yesterday over here.
do you have the latest blogger?

Anonymous said...

This was actually a very good story. Simple yet universally identifiable. I liked it, although I have no memory of the first moon walk myself (even though I'm older than you.)

Churlita said...

Les,

I do have the latest blogger. Mine was okay for the most part today. Maybe blogger's not a drunken asshole, maybe Blogger's just an annoying spaz and can't help itself.

Bice,

Thanks. I don't remember it either. I'm the youngest, so I just heard about it from older siblings.