Tag: #family

Of Aunts and Thank You’s

by Stephen J Frankenberry2 Comments on Of Aunts and Thank You’s

“Steve, I have some news” Beck said as I poked my head in the living room to her on the Beck couch to say “Hi” after what had been a frustrating but finally muddled through Friday.

“Aunt Anne passed away”

I was going to joke about something totally silly in my poking corners of living rooms with sisters on couches and then …

… pause … “Oh no … no” and I flashed to the late 90’s almost 00’s and felt guilty, immediately, as I hadn’t talked to Aunt Anne in too long.

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There were thank you cards that I would never send for wedding gifts I never kept (though there were a couple I would like to have, that fully loaded tool box filled with shit I would never need or know how to use for one) and feel guilty of for the longest of time and there was paperwork eventually that said the magic had passed well before its time or thank you card expectations suddenly no longer a thing, plus divorce numbers in graphs and charts and over multiple demographics helped me explain, painfully, fast endings and also just being lazy and hurt.

“Hey what time is it?”

“It’s now and you still haven’t sent those thank you cards and, oh, try again sometime, maybe, on this whole marriage thing if you can or wish?” Another thought entirely there, and a nonstarter.

And then there was Aunt Anne.

I needed a place, a spot, a wherever that wasn’t this whatever now, I needed, really, to just run away.

Cue Aunt Anne and Uncle Don and Florida sun and unintended but welcome beaches and Mouse dreams. Yes, I went to the beach and Yes, I worked for the Mouse, even wore tights and big ass floppy shoes and baggy shorts and plastic heads on the weekends.

I know, kinky huh? Just minus the soft light and candles and knotted rope.

She offered me a room, in a welcome home when I was at a loss as to what to do after my unexpected sideways step replete with those Thank You cards I never sent that I kept in a box on a new nightstand as a reminder of my lacking’s but also of my refusals (that was my justification anyway).

But Aunt Anne and Uncle Don and that huge living room where I would sit, cross-legged watching TV with them and commenting together on new shared favorite shows as a part of the family still sits cross-legged with me, along with remembrances of Benny the Cat who catted along with me to this new stead and who Aunt Anne, to her sure consternation, and unneeded pressure, kept an extra eye for “Hey that’s Stephen’s cat, keep an extra eye or i’ll never sleep and then be forced to hurt you … “

My cats have always had that effect.

We’re all, obviously, older now, shit catches up eventually as it will, as it does as it must but there are Aunt Anne’s and Uncle Don’s along the way who give you place, comfort, friendship, if you are lucky enough, a place to lay your head and regroup and even go to the beach or wear big ass plastic heads on the weekends (no, not in a kinky way … freakin’ wierdo’s) and breathe for just a moment.

Lubs Aunt Anne.

Ricky & I (short story – beginnings / revisit for Halloween week)

by Stephen J Frankenberry3 Comments on Ricky & I (short story – beginnings / revisit for Halloween week)

And another, my second to last one, for this week and me revisiting some creepy or creepy adjacent things of mine on a daily for this Halloween week.

Back to April of last year.

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April 27, 2024

Ricky & I

We watched them warily, Ricky and I, and held back at a safe distance eventually going the other direction down the other side of the street so as to be even safer still as the older high school kids toilet papered and egged houses ahead of us as some sort of shit rolls downhill repayment for what we couldn’t possibly understand or imagine might be going on behind closed doors for them at home (I would learn years later, of some of them, in the news). We just knew that we had a short window now where we hadn’t quite aged out of our trick or treating, something evidenced in the fact that we were already starting to get lazy in our costuming, always just hobo’s now, something that wouldn’t get more creative again until my college years but on those nights the “candy” was usually cheap beer and girls, another thing that couldn’t possibly be understood or imagined or even cared about then, we just still had our sweet teeth and some lazily costumed possible final attempts, this year, maybe next, to satisfy them for free and we didn’t need any of these toilet papering egging assholes seeing us and ruining it.

Ricky and I had become pretty adept at avoiding these guys in our neighborhood after school and on the weekends, thankfully we didn’t have to figure out any extra avoidance techniques during the school day just yet – we still had this one more year before we shared the halls with them, well at least the ones who hadn’t graduated yet, though Ricky and I were afraid that the ones that were supposed to graduate out might be held back and still be around for our first year of High School, a would be hell if they had anything to do with it.

No, it was just after school and the weekends and oh, the school bus that we all rode together though at least that interminable time was relatively short as interminable goes (ok, that was kinda interminable all of the time, daily) but we could always depend on our driver, Missus D, to have our backs and put the fear of Missus D in them if need be, sitting up front and telling her that Moms said Hi with their latest batch of sugar cookies and never forgetting her at Christmas time with cards from each of us and small finely, meticulously wrapped in wax paper offerings were definitely to our advantage.

But on this Halloween night, though we did our best to measure wary fear with still being able to hit up the neighborhood candy houses, our usually successful avoidance attempts weren’t good enough. Seems Tommy Whitmore, who had also taken to calling himself “Jax” around that time, don’t know why, maybe he just needed another name that wasn’t the “Tommy!!!” he heard yelled, screamed, slapped, surrendered to at home, must have seen us behind he and his boy’s mean spirits under the Dowling’s porch light and came down and across the street to wait just outside the light’s reach, that hard circle line of light on one side and dark on the other right before their garage, and, with hands on his hips and a stupid grin, Tommy said,

“Hey boys, how ya doin’, and how ya doin’ in those candy bags of yours tonight?”

“We’re good Tommy, just leave us be, we’re not bothering you.”

“Hey, it’s “Jax”, but you ARE bothering me, bothering US” Tommy said with a hint of malice “just by being you, and you haven’t even offered me anything from your bags of goodies” as he did a grab while his boys hung just outside that light’s ring in the Dowling’s driveway giggling vacantly and even more stupidly than Tommy’s dumb ass grin.

“Hey, those are ours!!’ Ricky yelled, straight backed but for only an instant.

“Oh, he speaks, on his own, the redhaired one” as Ricky’s spine shrunk. “No, these are ours now and we’re also going to take you two on a ride.”

“No Tommy …” and a glare with a raised hand’s intent “No … Jax … we have to get home, we’re not getting in any cars with you. We were done anyway, take our bags and just leave us be.”

“Well that just ain’t gonna happen you two …”

Then came a rush of wind sweeping past and around our heads … something usually reserved for family stories at backyard get togethers or at funerals when Ricky’s extended family would arrive, and the strangest of strange things would happen, in a surreal happiness, it was fast, a blur, made the ground shake just enough to unsettle your feet, make you feel a little askew. We knew what, who this was, Me and Ricky, but Tommy and his boys didn’t.

I told you that Ricky and I had become pretty adept at avoiding these guys and we had, but it was more, sometimes a not just protecting ourselves, but protecting them.

“No Tommy …”

“It’s Jax!”

“No Jax, not tonight”

“You gonna defy me, you useless pieces of shit, no that ain’t happenin’. Right boys?”

But the ground shook some more, the air trembled again, whooshed past and around us again, as air shouldn’t tremble like that and I stood my now shaky ground.

“Not now”

“And it’s Jax!!!” he yelled

“I wasn’t talking to you Tommy”

I said to Ricky “Not now” but his shrunk spine grew, not a one of simple stand up defiance, but just grew.

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I met Ricky through Mom get togethers in new neighborhood get togethers. Let’s introduce ourselves with kids to break the ice but really kids being just an excuse for Moms to drink wine on an early Saturday. I had seen Ricky on the ballfield in my new digs, after having moved from Baltimore to now Pittsburgh, he was a monster. His throws from his shortstop spot practically took the first baseman’s glove off and we weren’t even in high school yet.

“Do you play?” he asked me.

“I pitch”

“We could use one of those on our team. You any good?”

And that was it, I confounded him with my off the table curve that I shouldn’t have been throwing at that age and he tried to take the glove off of anyone who had the misfortune of playing first base. Instant friends.

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Friendships can be curious things. They might start with Moms using you as pawns for a glass of wine, or two, on a Saturday afternoon, they can be responses to what you don’t know yet of the evils of the world behind closed doors and you group, join forces, even if it’s only in a force of two or they can be things that were just supposed to happen, like Ricky with a rifle of an arm that make first basemen regret they play the game and you note, Ricky. He and I became a pair of buds linked through and through until, well, we just weren’t.

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“Not now”

“What not now you little prick?!”

“Ricky is my friend”

“And?”

“You don’t want to do this, he’s not liking you right now”

“What? Little redhead here?”

“Please just let it go Tommy” 

“It’s Jax!!” (and there was that raised hand again)

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The other curious thing about friendships is that there are those that are just cursory things, friendships you recall for just being a “friendship”, where you might call each other, out of the blue, to check in years later, heard you had a kid, how is the better half, what’s her name again but then there was Ricky and his secrets, his family’s secrets, our secrets then.

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His spine grew instead of a backing away shrink, unnaturally so, to four times his height and his red hair fired until it rivaled the sun right on that hard line of light and dark in the Dowling’s driveway and he shone, glowed and towered Tommy and his voice changed making any Tommy attempt at inspiring fear seem weak and puny “YOU WILL NOT MESS WITH MY FRIEND!” followed by a simple backhand slap.

And that was it, Tommy, not Jax, that new name nonsense ended that night I figured (though all these years later I hope not, that was his one, lone attempt at a “me” thing in his so lonely, pained world – Hey Jax, heard you had some kids, how is that better half of yours I don’t know, I’m sure she is beautiful, how have you all fared?) slunk away from out of the dust bins across the street and amid the scattering of idiots he called pals.

“You’re done aren’t you Ricky?

“Yeah, gotta go now”

“Dammit Ricky, I have no one else and I don’t even want anyone else as my friend.”

“I know, me neither, but I gotta go”

“I know”

And then, there was that rush of wind again, picking up leaves and dust and moving earth and all it’s leavings around in a small twister.

“Hey Missus D, thought that might be you”

“You good?”

“Yeah, I’m ok I guess, thank you for keeping an eye but …”

“Don’t worry, you’ll see him again, Ricky’s got a good heart, you know that, but he and my sister need to find another place now, to be safe, try and start again, heard in the wind that there might be a good spot in the mountains near the coast, some small towns of like kind, until Ricky learns how to control things. Plus, you’ll see him again ‘cause he always hated that he couldn’t hit your curveball, he’ll be practicing … Sugar cookies tomorrow?”

“Maybe the next day Missus D, gotta give Mom the head’s up”

“Ok, and maybe an offering wrapped finely in wax paper? At Christmas?”

“Of course, as always”

It’s a Frankenberry Monster Cereal Family Time … Again … Again … So Matt … (post post)

by Stephen J Frankenberry3 Comments on It’s a Frankenberry Monster Cereal Family Time … Again … Again … So Matt … (post post)

Note: revisiting this one from last year, my first Fall here in my role as the Brother Uncle Troll under the stairs, one who doesn’t eat cats by the way (sorry, I know that’s kind of random) as some tails might go, but looks to them, instead, as friends and for emotional support and as somefur’s to defer to and claim to be talking with so as not to completely appear like just someone slowly becoming a batshitting nutter talking to the wind or chemtrails or RFK Jr or ghosts or Nelson (one of the extra folks in his head) … again.

Oh, Nelson? He’s quite nice in case you were curious.

Bella: (stretching) Hey dude. Did you say something?

Me: Just go along with it Bell, for appearances sake, Ok?

Bella: Sure, whatever. I’ve always been a bit iffy on this Neslon fella by the way, just to let you know..

My first Fall it was then, with my Sis and Nephew(s) and extra cats (see? I wasn’t going totally nowhere with that) and because, now, truthfully, I’ve just really been looking forward to calendars turning and to re-posting it for some fun as it’s one of my favorite posts. It is, though, a bit long so if do you take the time (much appreciated) I recommend a stand up and stretch in the middle and a stroll to the concession stand and maybe a pillow behind your back for when you sit back down.

It’s that time of year where we see our name displayed in all its sugary, questionably healthy, comically scary strawberry Frankenstein Monster goodness, any number of “essential” vitamins just an added bonus (See?! I told you Ma! essential freakin’ vitamins!! It IS good for us!!) on grocery store shelves and make sure to text each other pictures of our first sighting.

From Beck this past Friday “‘Tis the season!” and even with a new Jim Henson Muppet character design, well how ’bout’s that!?, though we need to find a store manager to discuss shelving priorities. On the bottom?! Really?! And Boo on top? Love him like a brother but there has never been a day where I didn’t have to open some windows and air out the smoke with this guy.

Anyway, from last year, one that also includes a post from a couple of years ago within it about the newest member of the Frankenfamily then, Carmella Creeper,  Caramel Apple, nice change of pace and so much better looking than the rest of us, well in an undead, sweet Caramel Apple but eat your brain zombie-like kinda way.

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October 20th, 2024

When I got home earlier last week I said to my Sis (Beck) and Nephew Matt “So, how do you know when it’s October?” Pretty simple, the pumpkins adorning front steps, the Halloween decorations filling up lawns, sometimes to the extreme (oversaturation people!! Fun, but oversaturation!! And inflatable evil doesn’t really come across) football season already more than a quarter way through, the cool crisp nip to the air and the proliferation of hoodies and sweaters and the nagging sense of dread at the back of your head and taste buds of pumpkin spice (Pumpkin Spice is people!!!)”

I know, I said that last year, and probably the year or years before that too just because it’s funny (Ok, even if only I think so) but still, I didn’t yell that part all madly Charlton Heston-like as not to frighten the children so we’re good, but then I asked “How do you know when it’s October in this family though? When you see this particular display in the grocery store” … and I then showed the both of them the picture on my phone from my trip to Market Bistro (my new favorite grocery store by the way and I absolutely LOVE a good grocery store as any any old man should) in Latham earlier to grab something for my lunch (and no, I wasn’t grabbing Halloween time perfect cereal, Mom would not approve of such a meal, not now anyway) to which Beck said “Hell yeah!!!”

Though Beck immediately noted the lack of Fruit Brute or Yummy Mummy in the display … then it was a quick lesson of family history for Matt who had also chimed in with his Mom’s “Hell Yeah!!” but didn’t really know why.

“Yah see Matt … why don’t you sit down son. Way back in ’71, the Monster Family of cereals was born into a cereal age where sugar coated treats could be sold as a healthy breakfast option replete with whole grain and a varying number of essential vitamins and minerals and calcium (add milk) but also a laundry list of other ingredients you couldn’t pronounce that would cause pause years later according to science and could probably explain some things, but claimed with cartoon character spokestoons for legitimacy in a kid’s world and Frankenberry, Count Cholula and Boo-Berry were welcomed into the greater family fold of these cartoony sweet characters with hyperactive kids Mom sleeve tugging in the grocery store to buy “Please, Please, Please!”, Ok’d by Moms only because of the “essential vitamins and minerals” labeling bit and the need to get you to just shut the hell up and stop stretching her blouse.

Your uncle here was only 7 back in that day, Matt, a day where the internet was Saturday morning commercials of cereals and candies and toys that just happened to have cartoon vignettes placed between them of anvils and beep beeps and a wondrous company called “Acme” that provided myriad ways to blow shit up, Wacky Racers Wacky Racing, cat and mouse best friends trying to kill each other, a snarky rabbit in a rabbit hole “What’s up Doc-ing?” with a sarcastic smirk and a carrot, a That’s All Folks’ and before, shudder, the actual internet, where you had to walk uphill both ways in your bare feet over broken glass (Yes, a lotta broken glass back then Matt and folks without shoes … oh, and it snowed a lot, No, I don’t know why, it just was) to get information from a library or a newspaper and where you communicated with your friends through an ancient tradition of talking face to face or on a telephone attached to a wall in a kitchen that was only as smart as the conversation happening on it (which was often decidedly NOT, no matter who was on it, Moms and Dads included) but one that came with a timer as, back in that day Matt, the whole family shared just one phone, or more to the point, just one phone line even if there were other phones in bedrooms, maybe, for the hoity-toity wannabe’s who just wished to show off to friends and neighbors but which could get uncomfortable with your mother showing them into her and Dad’s bedroom for a “glance” at a new bedspread or curtains or something … “Oh that little extra phone thing on my nightstand?” but still just one line, so that if you picked up another phone you could hear someone else’s conversation.

So you had to learn patience and a respect for privacy (unless you thought your Mom had some juicy shit to share with her friend Marina or there was something you could hold over your brother and his friend’s heads to blackmail them with so you quietly snuck into Mom and Dad’s room and picked up the hoity-toity phone) or if it was a real far away friend you might actually have to send a letter as those long distance calls could be a cost so you sat down in your room and wrote a letter with words on paper, or parchment as you might think of it now, and then put it in an envelope with a stamp … what you might ask? … a stamp? … oh, a small square sticky paper thing with fancy edges that represented mail money with presidents on them or flags or flowers or whatever was the latest “this deserves to be on a stamp!” picture that you licked a gluey bit to stick them … yes licked … a gluey bit … with your tongue … and after some person at the Post Office had rolled or layed out however many you were looking for with their bare, possibly filthy fists across the sticky bit that you were going to lick … I know … how did we all survive and that stamp went on that envelope that you wrote an address on and put in the mailbox to then wait patiently for a reply until you died of old young age. And you can’t even imagine what a breakthrough stamps you could peel off of a sheet were!! Think of the DVR or the toaster oven or the wheel just in a stamp kinda way … and the public health implications? It was HUGE!

Anyway, I won’t belabor this as I’ve written something to this effect at this season for years, just know Matt, that I don’t change, nothing in the air at this time has me suddenly looking any scarier or sickly sweet as I do on a Sunday morning, after a sleepless Saturday night doing just this sort of overly wordy thing only with beer, for a pee replete with “Aaaaaarrrgggghhhhs!!” at a damp bath mat soaking my socks (dammit fella’s!! can ya dry off in the shower a bit more when you’re done please?! And I was gonna keep wearing these dirty socks I’ve had on since Friday!! They were practically, and comfortably mind you, pasted to my feet”) full moons don’t have me suddenly transform, that is a Fruit (Frute) Brute gig in his warewolfyness, I don’t float around all dreary eyed high-like wondering who I might be the blueberry spirit of (probably of some marketing guy who reveled the late 60’s too much), I don’t have a sarcophagus in the basement where all that overbought emergency toilet paper of recent years can come in handy, I don’t have to run from villagers chasing me with torches and pitchforks and poorly misspelled signs just at the mere sight of my pink self for sale on a grocery store shelf, like some sort of monster nightmare commodity replete with steam vent horns and temperature gages, clunky boots, knobs in my neck and sleepless night residual sugar highs (I swear some of that sugary stuff could sit in the system Matt … like all freakin’ day! … at least that was what could have been my excuse for a who me was then if I hadn’t been too young to think of it).

But do know, as you grab at crucifixes and lunge for holy water that that ain’t my monster domain either, plus poking me with said crucifixes while making a nice lemon butter and garlic pasta just makes me giggle, it tickles, and that is the Count’s purview anyway, plus he takes a pill now that helps him “Wow, I never knew how tasty garlic was!” which he says EVERY FUCKIN’ TIME WE TRY TO ENJOY ANYTHING WITH GARLIC AND IN HIS ANNOYINGLY OVERDONE ACCENT (he always wanted to be an actor). Yeah, we get it … you can have garlic now … sigh

But I should also let you know Matt that your Mom was remiss in her noting the lack of inclusion of some family members in the “family picture” display at Market Bistro as last year we Monster’s were introduced to a long lost cousin, and a pretty cute one too, well, as cute as an undead zombie that only wants to eat your brain can be cute, Carmella Creeper, but certainly a hell of a lot cuter than we ugly mugs, that’s for sure. Yes, that includes you Count. No, shut up, you ain’t “distinguished lookin'”

Carmella has fit in quite nicely and to tell you the truth it is nice to have a woman around, she freshen’s up our old guy monsters perspective and in Caramel Apple, such a tasty new addition to our old, tired flavors.

Anyway Matt, that is the story and where we stand right now in another Frankenberry Monster Family cereal season.

Matt: (looking up suddenly at the stares from his Mom and myself) “What … were you talking to me?”

Me: “You put your earbuds in didn’t you? Had them in almost the whole time?”

Well, anyway, next October will come around sooner than you think for more story time.

Before that though, this was the Attic introduction of Carmella to House Frankenberry Monster Cereal Haunted House of the Monster Cereal Family House.

Ok, I can work on that.

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June 10, 2023

A Welcome To A New Monster Cereal Family Member

A good friend of mine recently posted to me at Facebook of the arrival of a new member of the family of Monster Cereals, Carmella Creeper. (thanks Patty, I didn’t get the cereal text alert for some reason … thought for sure I was on the list).

Fixing up her room here in the haunted house as we speak.

For those that may not know my name is actually Frankenberry. It’s not a radio handle I invented somehow as some have thought on occasion over the years, that I may have decided, maybe drunkenly they surely had to have thought, that a pink strawberry flavored Frankenstein looking monster cereal character would be the perfect name to attach to a radio persona or to a Blog from an Attic.

No, Stephen J Frankenberry to be exact as my English mother would surely and adamantly have you note. And Stephen with a proper “PH” she would also add. Not some Americanized “V” as she always viewed it. Not that she thought less of anyone with that “V” mind you, though maybe silently thinking such of the parents, “It’s not their kids fault” she surely thought.

“I’m sure they are all very fine Stephens but just with a “V” … Oh, Bloody Hell!”

The cereal came out when I was 7, in 1971 (yes, I’m old) and inspired many the jokes then and ribbings on long school bus rides and also prank phone calls on the weekends that would drive my mother mad, in a “mad” monstery kind of way though.

“Hello, is Count Chocula there? (click)

“Hello, is Boo Berry there?” (click)

A few years later

“Hello, is Fruit Brute there? (click)

She, in her very English just off the plane only 8 years earlier, had no idea what prank phone calls were.

“Joseph Frankenberry!! You and this bloody name!!” followed with a “Hell’s Bells” and many other very English expletives that she would eventually get a bit more explicit with but in an English accent which just made them sound really cool and cute so you forgave.

Whatever and well, I have always been inextricably connected to a pink strawberry flavored Frankenstein monster cereal character and am quite fond of it, even have a tattoo on my forearm to proclaim Monster Family solidarity.

So, to find out that I have a cousin?

Well now, that was pretty exciting.

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Nice to make your acquaintance Carmella, and welcome to the family.

So, a couple of things. I tend to walk around the haunted house here in only my boxers, neck bolts and my big ass scarred head and head accessories clutching a one eyed teddy bear, the Count can be a little arrogant and is something of a night bat with his late night TV viewing of horror and Hallmark flicks (he finds it very amusing that somehow the two aren’t really all that distinguishable from one another), Boo is a sweetheart though a little flighty, and Fruit Brute is a bit unpredictable and will most certainly leer at you. Just remind him that we are family and that this isn’t the South … oh, and that you will kick his ass (he’s all talk). Yummy Mummy visits from Egypt on the holidays and has his own room with a sarcophagus in the basement.

Oh, I’m also historically, according to the TV commercials, a bit of a scaredy cat, so if you can keep the “Creeper” part of “Carmella Creeper” to a minimum I would appreciate it. Your room is all the way up at the top of the stairs in the attic loft bedroom with a great crow’s eye view of the graveyard in the front lawn. It’s a pain in the ass to mow and weed whack around all the headstones but is still quite eye catching (though the HOA are NOT fans and don’t find the same aesthetic in it that we do).

But again, welcome to the Monster Cereal Fam Carmella!! Lookin’ forward to October!!

Brute, seriously? What did I tell you about her being family?! Really Carmella, feel free to kick his ass!!!

Summer’s End (simple post)

by Stephen J Frankenberry5 Comments on Summer’s End (simple post)

Man, it was such a nice afternoon drive on my way home Friday, especially with a boss guy emailed “go home early, you’re appreciated” most welcome missive, that weather that you wish would just stay year round, an almost perfect perfect where I had my windows and sunroof open wide, the slow fade of another summer alright I guess, right here in this moment, but then THAT guy caught up and passed me, the one in the pickup truck so tall that it could block out the sun, if you were maybe sitting in a Stewart’s parking lot after grabbing their 2 hot dogs for 6 bucks daily special for dinner as it pulled up or driving too close on your ride and the sun would be pissed, “Hey! Don’t be fuckin’ with my gig!”.

The truck that needs an extension ladder to climb into, the driver surely hoping every day that he didn’t forget anything he needed, like his wallet or his crushed hat or his man card or his apologies to his better half for everything he did or didn’t say, or his oversized flag that he stole from the front lawn of an elementary school, otherwise he would have to jump down with a leap of faith, grab and repeat the extension ladder process and that could definitely become tiresome. I mean there is only so much your knees can take right? And (sigh) … then I got stuck behind him for my 7 mile or so stretch on this roadway for the ride home.

He had tires to rival a semi, an exhaust pipe about the circumference of a 50 gallon drum that I think probably began the process of numerous future doctor’s visits to try and discover the cause of the four different forms of cancer that came from me just driving behind him with open windows and sunroofs while trees just got dang plum tired and fell over dead in his wake.

I was, though, able to finally pass him only to have some little fast and furious gnat of a car, the one with that fancy blueish green paintjob that seems like an illusion, pass the both of us, with dual, though, thankfully, only about 25 gallon drum exhaust pipes, a little Vin Diesel slider that sounded like an angry dirt bike on angrier steroids and I just about gave up.

I hate all of you by the way.

But I did eventually make my way home where I practically ran to the flowers in my sister’s front yard and the bushes that surround them, dropped to my knees and took a deep breath, probably something that worried the neighbors … the nosy ones who are surely always watching … “You see Walter?! I told you that one was on the drugs!!”

… and then there was Arthur, my sister’s orange fella guarding the gate to the hold, the great beast, but he didn’t even bother me a glance, no, this was his spot, his domain to survey like some sort of lazy cat land baron  “You finally arrived I see? (looking aside in utter disdain) grand, now go and fetch me some treats if you will and then be gone with you. Tithes backup human, tithes, gotta pay the tithes before I allow you to pass”.  

I ruined his Baron treat plans and went in through the garage.

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So, it’s a holiday weekend, and my Sis and nephew Matt have headed down the state to hang with Beck’s guy, Buck and the gang at his place and I am the cattaker again, and it’s not a gig I take lightly.

It’s a one where I lay down the law and tell these here cats, Saphira and Rikki and Arthur that I’m not fucking around, and Bella and Cricket too, then I ask them what flavor food would they like now at breakfast or dinner, opening cat cans under cat noses, the beef one or the salmon one or the beef and salmon one combined in one can like magic, all deliciously cat stinky, sometimes pate or sometimes grilled or sometimes even chunked and then I just wait for cat approval while scratching their foreheads.

Now take that!!

And Arthur?

He keeps Mom informed.

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Letter from the orange land baron’s sun spot:

Hey Mom,

No worries while you’re away though I miss you and Matt already but I’m keeping an eye on my backup human, he can be a little sketchy and talks a lot, to no one it seems, maybe imaginary friends? I don’t know and he talks too much I think, what is he hiding in his talk, talk, talk? But I’m offering moral support to his loud warm post noisy machine clothes stuff and I don’t do this without personal risk by the way, as I lay up against a random pair of underwear.

Clean? Stinky? Not sure, it’s a crap shoot (Ha! see what I did there Mom?) but I am here for him should he need me and also to keep an eye … I did mention him being a little sketchy right?

Holding the fort Mom.

Love,

Arthur

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But we’ve reached the end of another Summer, sadly so as Summer has always been the carrot for me and not just for the obviousness of it as it is bright and welcoming and warm and plays days old sport and allows time to really enjoy time, vacations are allowed and expected, your workplace turns into a ghost town while you trip over Summer tumbleweeds if you are still around. There is a laissez-faire nature to it before you have to hunker down again for the impending doom of Winter, because there is always a hunkering down and the impending doom of Winter.

Though the Fall may turn pretty as colors change and there will be those who extoll the virtues of it, it just ain’t summer any longer but anyway, I think in the long run, those are just the folks trying to justify the end of Summer, the time they will surely, sorely miss as much as me.

So I muddle through another end of Summer days, move my snow brush window scrape thingy from the back seat to the front (a bit early I know but it’s important to be prepared) and thank the please bring flat tires to monster pickup trucks just for the sake of humanity’s breath heavens and hunker down awaiting another Summer though it seems as if the clock is disproportionate now. Being old’ll do that. It gets faster and slower all at the same time.

//////////////////////////////////////////

Letter to my Sis from the basement:

Hey Beck,

No worries while you’re away though I miss you and Matt already but I’m keeping an eye on the cats, Arthur specifically, who just talks, talks, talks, bit of a sketchy little fella who has secrets I’m sure, what only the cat saw, but he has been a nice backup cat while Bella and Cricket are asleep, he even hung with me while I folded my laundry

But I’ll give him credit, he layed up against a random pair of underwear without even batting an Arthur eye and surely at his own personal risk.

Clean? Stinky? Not sure, it’s a crap shoot (Ha! see what I did there Beck?) but I am here for him should he need me and also to keep an eye … I did mention what only the cat saw right?

Holding the fort Beck.

Love,

Steve

A New Captain’s Chair To Cardan Four (simple post about a chair)

by Stephen J Frankenberry7 Comments on A New Captain’s Chair To Cardan Four (simple post about a chair)

Finally got myself the new PC chair I’ve been wanting. The old one, though of sentimental value, really needed to be retired, not completely, but at least to a different corner of this room, a sort of studio apartment in my sister’s basement, it has a small fridge an air fryer and a microwave so studio apartment enough … and it is still cat worthy with a plush blanket on it. It was Shoes the Big Orange’s fave spot that we occasionally had to fight over, like cats and humans.

But this chair is 20 years old, bought at Staples with an old friend in tow back then, a new radio show partner and a way to christen my new solo apartment and our new gig, but it was eventually like sitting on a slab of patio stone, just with arm rests and minus patio stone parties and the smells of grilling but, more importantly, a slab of patio stone, just with arm rests and minus patio stone parties and the smells of grilling AND no head support.

You see, I have an old man card now and one of the stipulations with being a card carrying old dude is that you fall asleep in chairs. You are even graded on it by outside observers (Beck, my Sis, or Nephew Matt or even some cats though their marker card is a bit of a disdainful mystery) and my grades were pretty top notch according to them, though I just have to trust that they are being honest with me. I mean, I’m reporting this back to the old man guild so …

But in this meeting of old fella requirements I was finding myself with cricks in my neck and sore shoulders as my lolling head had no aforementioned support.

“Beck, my neck is killing me”

“You fell asleep in your chair”

“No I didn’t”

“Yes you did”

Another stipulation for holding onto to your old man card, the sleeping in chairs part at least, there are many other stipulations some of which include suddenly becoming enamored of particular grocery stores, or gingerly sliding your legs together outside your car to get out (hey, I got back issues!) and making breathy grunts every time you stand up, like EVERY time, but another stipulation to falling asleep in chairs is that you don’t actually admit that you fall asleep in chairs.

“No I didn’t”

“Yes you did” with picture proof “and this is one of the reasons that you always have a crick in your neck”

“Damn … ” you whisper to yourself “Ok fine, but what about sharing a pillow with a blind cat who has a totally different definition of “sharing” than you, and you have to contort your head to fit in the small pillow window afforded you by said blind cat, who also happens to be very stretchy?”

“Ok, grant you that but still …”

So a new PC chair it needed to be, plus no one seemed to be inviting me to the patio stone parties with the smells of grilling anyway.

I went online and did an exhaustive search, researched office chairs, checked google reviews, looked for the most stars …”

“Hey, old man, you fell asleep again …”

“Oh, son of a bitch, fucking stars …”

But I eschewed the research and just decided to go on foot/car, sliding my legs together gingerly out of the car at every stop with breathy grunts, and came across nothing but places that had chairs in big boxes with pictures of how they would look when I did, maybe, get them into a basement room in front of a PC for new more comfortable stories in the Attic.

They all sucked.

Then I thought “wait, how about Staples? I’d been there before for just this sort of thing, where I got this old chair in the first place as I mentioned up top right?”

Heavenly horns, invites to patio stone parties but instead with cushioned summer patio furniture and chairs here, a shitload of chairs. No boxes with just pictures on the side of them, but actual chairs layed out in a corner of the store, a free range land of fully assembled chairs exampling, whinnying, imploring you come grab the reigns, in front of boxes, of what I could expect when I rolled in them, and leaned back in them, and possibly fell asleep in them.

Employee: “Sir, are you awake?”

I was a kid a in a chair candy store and I assed in all of them, every last one of them with a little butt wiggle, some bearing too soft, some too hard, some maybe just right and without spilling any porridge on any of them or anything until?

So, I have a new computer chair now and, as a friend said in response to a text pic I sent “That’s FANCY!”

“I know huh?”

And to another who I also sent a text pic I remarked that I feel very “Spaceshippy” now

“This is ready for the bridge, Captain!” she said

Indeed, now I just need a good take off command to throw at my pilot like all the best captains of Star Trek, like I saw in an episode of Strange New Worlds.

“Tally-Ho!” or

“And umm … Start!” or

“Let’s all go to dinner on Cardan Four!”

Ok, works in progress but I can tell ya that “Let’s all go to dinner on Cardan Four!” could really work, could be a thing.

Man, the food on that moon!

////////////////////////////////////////

“Steve, you are asleep in your chair again”

“I know, please tell the guild”

XTC and Days

by Stephen J Frankenberry1 Comment on XTC and Days

Broke out XTC’s “Oranges and Lemons” from back in ’89 earlier this week as the weather called for something that wasn’t my latest in the car, the slog of old school Deep Purple, in all their iterations.

Now for reference, I don’t listen to music any longer except in the car, 25 minutes at a time, Lilly, my six speed old man CD playing (ask grandma or grandpa about CD’s) girl. Love ya ol’ bluesy heavy metal but you can only go so far and you can be a bit dull. Are you loud, yes, loud is good, has always been good (sorry Ma, I’ll turn it down) especially with open windows, but are you bright and bouncy and lyrically damning and compelling and biting enough for sunny days? No, that you are not.

I’ve been a music only in the car for the longest time now where I used to be an always in the foreground or at least in the background as a subtle soundtrack of days. Should I worry that things are falling off, that once loves have been so easily discarded like baseball (not my doing) or relationships for instance? (reasons) or more, just altered?

I don’t know and I probably should be a little concerned that I don’t really care I guess. I mean I like to hear new things, usually at work where we sometimes build spots with new music, but at this point in my oldness I have my comforts and going back to Deep Purple or The Rainmakers or The Silencers or Alan Parsons or Bob Mould or XTC works just fine for me. I just don’t really feel the need to invest myself in anything new, I’m pretty full in that old regard, though I do look forward to something new from MonaLisa Twins at some point, the only “new” that has caught my fancy in the longest of time.

No, I’m good, I have words and cats and my sister has cats, they sing well enough at my feet at the crack of stinky can or on a set of stairs, one of them just needs to learn how to play guitar or even bass … not drums though, I don’t wanna have to hit a broomstick on a wall like a cranky old landlady.

Including an Arthur … apologies, I kinda talk pretty loud …

“Really Steve, you don’t say”

“What?”

… something I am always reminded of in videos but then forget when taking a video. But ya gotta love his eventual southern belle-esque turn of disdain here, a “Why my Lord, I neva …” the only thing missing being him holding a dramatic paw up to his face.

Now back to XTC and “Oranges and Lemons” their “Sgt Pepper” or from the artwork their “Yellow Submarine” (every band wants to have their own). I had the hardest time trying to decide which tune from it to present in this post as this album is just perfect, and I have only come across a handful or so that would meet that “perfect” mark for me, filled with so many great choices of tune and so many that even sing to our current times from 36 years ago and with Arthur’s disdain.  

(writer’s note to self: This isn’t Facebook numbnuts, you can put more than one video here… Oh, right …)

Ok, so three then.

And close with pictures of cats … there’s always pictures of cats.

Saphira The Diva …

Rikki The Raspy … dude, can ya run down the street and get me a pack of smokes …

An Arthur face …

Bella yells a yawn …

And Cricket commandeers my pillow …

Cheers all,

Same Stuff, Different Birthday

by Stephen J Frankenberry9 Comments on Same Stuff, Different Birthday

Well the fourth … hold on … no, fuck you ad (freakin’ calendar phone apps) keep holding … you know what, let me just turn this over old school instead on a wall with a tack, oh hello July, you look like a younger Grayson (he was a cat, a very special cat) …

… the fourth is supposed to be this Friday if these annoying ad inundated apps and cat calendars have anything to say about it and that is the deadline Trump has imposed on his Big, Ugly Ass Evil Bill reconciliation package so he can take a victory lap right before the holiday while grilling immigrants and hot dogs and passing out brown shirts and small flags on small sticks made in China while laying claim to yet another amazingly destructive measure that he seems to gain so much pleasure from, he’s probably even considering subtly implying necessary kickbacks from his oligarchs and thinking of hugging another poor unsuspecting flag again for emphasis … I know, who would do that right?

But, well, I’m going to try my best to not lose any more sleep over it for the moment (though that’s probably an empty desire) and instead just enjoy a short week for my birthday as I have taken it, the 1st and then the 2nd off, back in on Thursday and then off on Friday and into the weekend.

Now I have no plans for this, don’t wish to have any plans for it other than doing what I’m doing right now, keyboard scribbling and hanging out with the girls (Bella & Cricket) for a little extra time. And, well “no plans” is still a plan, at least in my book and I am REALLY good at such.

Hey? You need someone to assist you in planning no plans? I’m your guy. And it’s pretty simple really, I just tell people NOT to ask for my help and then just do nothing. I don’t know if they take this advice that I don’t give on helping to plan no plans but it works for me and I’m happily left in the dark as to their successes or failures.

But with my birthday rolling around for yet another year, timely precise bastard that it is (you know, you could miss a year or two, I’d be alright with that) but with it returning with reminders of more gray hair and shorter breath and larger waistlines and creakier, cracking backs I am reminded, as with a conversation with Beck earlier, that well, I, we still got ones, these birthdays and not ones that someone else is remembering for us with flowers and maybe a knelt tear or two.

No, we’re still kicking it, Beck and I reminded ourselves, while she practiced some guitar and I caught up with her on her recent past weekend away to the Burgh (Pittsburgh) with her guy, Buck.

She went out that way with him this past Thursday, something she and he do every summer, maybe a couple of times, to take the Burgh back in and catch a Bucco game on a Saturday.

And in their yinzing they visited the Iron City Beer Brewery for a tour and eventually the gift shop and picked me up a couple of things … much appreciated.

Now while she was gone I was the cattaker, as always, as I mentioned in my 5:39am post from last week, and others as well making sure to take care of her three along with my two of course, keep everyone in good furry sorts of stinky food and company, including Arthur, who I think broke a little earlier this morning at 5am in his missing of Mom (Monday the 30th) as I heard him at the top of the stairs, meowing his pained, lonely cries down into my basement room (a nice one by the way, this basement room, not some dark and dank place with only food and water provided by someone throwing it down the stairs just within reach of the chains, but a really comfortable spot with a bed and pillows and litter boxes and stuff collected and a TV and an air fryer and a fridge and a microwave and bookcases with clothes to read on the shelves.

But he was just looking for company and, as I have done in other recent posts, a couple of quick videos then, simply because they are always Arthur cute and endearing.

Timeline:

5am: Arthur plaintively meowing at the top of the basement stairs  

8am: Groggily make my way upstairs for a shower

830am: In the final moments of getting dressed for the day

845am: Make my way back upstairs with Arthur following to feed he and Saphira and Rikki, who, raspily reminds me that I’m fucking late for her breakfast, that she has been simply wasting away waiting for me at this late time and where she just glares at me in her chunkiness when I say that she should really start an exercise routine and eat a bit of lettuce or something.

Well, another birthday, one that has me turning 61 and officially being in my 60’s now (yes, can’t fudge this shit any longer when I could still say that I was in my 50’s last year) and my first one at Beck’s place, in a nice  basement like its own apartment, with she and Matt and extra cats.

Still kickin’ it we are Beck, and happily and thankfully so.

Holding off on flowers and tears from others just yet …

Oh, and a favorite birthday post from a few years ago where it was all about Victor stories and gifts of fancy hot dogs and ice cream cakes (he is a number of years older now and would surely hate me for this re-post)

This Valentine’s Day Mom (poem)

by Stephen J FrankenberryLeave a Comment on This Valentine’s Day Mom (poem)

This Valentines Day Mom

In lieu of penny cards and cartoon hearts and scribbles for the girls in class

I give pews and prayers, psalms and songs

hymned

thoughts

of you

as we kneel and stand and kneel again

by rote

but not

this time

.

For this Valentines Day Mom

a visit’s miss of vibrant flowered kisses and Cadbury hugs

I introduce you new neighbors

with stoic, staid flowers

instead

in a tall-stoned village on a hill

taller for the tall stones of stories chiseled name’s memories

through a winter’s quiet breezed thought

around words from a book and a sash

of Greg Torggler, Max Rubenstein (“Ruby” to his friends?)

Nancy Benedict Sirko and Theresa (“T” maybe?)

Joan and James and Gail

to hold you (“Linny”, Dad would gush)

close

as neighbors should

.

For this Valentines Day Mom

No phone call to check on the mail

did it arrive

with personal notes and jokes

and a picture of a cat

folded in Hallmarked thoughts

writ with pen’s messy flourish

often the second or third drafted card bought

to flourish just right

but

I give

you

that one special penny card

that one special cartooned heart

held

brought home from class

scribbled “Mom” just for you

For this Valentine’s Day

Ma

by Stephen J Frankenberry8 Comments on Ma

Been holding off on posting of my mother’s passing here until I wrote something for her. Now what I have here doesn’t even scratch the surface of what she meant to us and our family and her friends, but, like my Dad, who passed around 30 or so years ago now, she was important, so very important.

And that’s it right?

For all of the sanity that I sometimes wish I still had, or at least present, she was the one who helped me keep up that appearance.

/////

Phone rings

“Hello?”

“Hey Ma!”

“Oh Hi Stephen … how are you?

“I’m good Ma”

“Everything ok?”

“Yeah, everything is fine, all good, just wanted to call and check in on ya. Are you Ok?”

“Yes, I’m fine … you sure you’re all right? You sound like you’re ready to cry, is it another of your cats Stephen? Oh, bloody hell, you and those cats. Who is it this time?”

“No, the cats are good Ma, and it’s Bella and Cricket now, Cricket the blind one …”

“The blind one, you have a blind cat? Well good for you for giving one a spot. Wait, is it a girl again? Hold on, I’m thinking is it …”

“No, no girl this time around Ma, and it’s been a really long time for that anyway, no I just wanted to check on you, see how you were”

“I’m all good Stephen. Your Dad says Hi by the way”

/////

Email from Aunt Lib:

I waited a couple of days to reach out to you.

I will miss Linda. She was not just a sister-in-law but a friend.

It was not easy to see Linda the last couple of years. When Elfriede and I would go over most times to meet Becca we always could laugh and enjoy our stories together.

I hope, Linda, while openly participating knew how much joy she brought to all of us.

Stephen. Try, when you are by yourself , you will say a special prayer for your parents. I hope that God will hear our prayers. I know Joey has been praying for you and watching over his Lin

I am in Oregon, will see you in February.

Love Aunt Lib

Reply:

Thanks Aunt Lib. I haven’t sat down to write something for Mom just yet but I have been sending myself notes and reminders of what I want to say. I know that’s when I will most probably break down numerous times so I need to not have anywhere to be for a few days, so probably this weekend when I work up the courage. My prayers will be in there. 

And yes, she was your friend, and you indeed were hers. Mom was obviously a very warm and caring, friendly person who had many friends over the years but none could hold a candle to you, Elfriede and Marina (and Aunt Anne as well, though with the distance). You were her almost lifelong bests and you were her strength when she needed it and I will thank you now for her … and start to tear up. 

I will indeed see you in February Aunt Lib. 

Love ya

Reply:

Thank you I am now tearing up so is Kathleen.

Take your time. Never rush love.

Love you aunt lib

/////

Messenger to my Mikey Six with some personalization for each (my group of most important immediates who I have for years forced my shit on upon finishing whatever was the latest, a poem, or a tune or a funny post that probably only made ME laugh and a Mikey Six who are more, actually a Mikey ten or so now … but that is a good thing)  

Hey JJ. So, my Mom, Ma, passed away Monday night, apologies a few days late though, it’s been a week my friend and I have been a bit overwhelmed. But she passed after only the text from Beck early Monday afternoon to give me the heads up of the final turn, that of course I knew was coming, that we all knew was coming, ups and downs over the last few weeks left things in a limbo but a one we knew wasn’t really a limbo at all, but Jesus dude it was the longest, most heartbreaking 36 hours in history, or at least mine and my Sis’s and even worse for my brother who is in Louisiana.

I went down to her assisted living place Monday to see and sit with her after that text and a call with Beck, along with Beck and Nephew Matt and Buck and to see some of the hardest quietly loud attempts to open an eye, one or the other, amid labored breath and then I drove back up home that night to make sure of the cats, Beck’s and Bella and Cricket, even though Matt has a friend who could have handled it I just couldn’t leave things to someone else, it’s fucking cold out there especially with a couple of Beck’s being inside/outsides, and that wouldn’t have been be fair to Matt’s friend, if only for some god forbid added heartbreak (I’m a house cat kind of guy because of such heartbreak) I just couldn’t leave that kind of thing to him.

So I came home, to check in and sit when Beck called to tell me, waiting the clock of my ride (she didn’t want to call me on my way) that Mom had passed not too long after I had left and after Matt and Buck made a quick out to grab some food and Beck told me of her playing some horrible guitar for her while telling her she could go. She had seen us and we were there and we were good and she was good as well and Mom just, well I guess, said ok and left. And she left while maybe even saying “Jesus Beck, after all these years of ongoing lessons of yours this is what you got right now?”

And you know, the dumbest thing, though I already have the post I want, need, to write for her, and am working on now and has been in my head for the most part anyway, 10 hours in the car, back and forth, with no tunes and just some pretty passing scenery on the Thruway, or even not so pretty (there are a lot of dead homes and failed places along the way and too many thoughts of time), I came home and instead finished the dumbest of silly posts I’ve had waiting for a few weeks, “Jesus Stephen, after all these years of you writing things this is what you got right now? That’s Ok though, I understand”

I’d like to think that maybe she might also say, keep playing Beck and keep writing Stephen.

Anyway my friend, a post for Mom to come.

Cheers JJ

Love

/////

“So what is the murder mystery tonight Ma?”

“Murder she Wrote. I love Angela Lansbury though I always know who did it, and early”

“But Man Ma, that Cabot Cove is the most dangerous sleepy small town in America huh?”

The first time I said that to her she laughed her Mom laugh, that warm, genuine one. I would say it on occasion again, in different phone calls but always with the same, warm laugh.

/////

I sat on the end and edge of my bed, almost not sitting on it at all and cried, genuinely being heartbroken but also leaving my bedroom door cracked open just enough for the drama of me to sound through. Now mind you I really was heartbroken but heartbreak never wants to be lonely however much it may claim to.

My freshman year had been a wonder and a glorious time and I befriended and looked up to quite a few seniors (though not without laying the groundwork of a lifelong friendship with three of my Mikey Six) and one of these seniors was a girl I had quite a crush on (one other as well though that is a story for another time).

But, after graduation, she was to be living in a town near mine at home in Mahopac NY. Katonah (I can never head down 684 south towards the city and pass Katonah without thinking of her) and on her own, in her new “starter” place, with a new job, to start her journey in the “real” world and “Wow!” I thought “who could have written this better?” and we planned a day on the shore, a Saturday.

But it didn’t take me too long to realize she was just being kind and that we were now in different worlds, her graduated one and mine still with some years to go in that cocooned world that college can be.

Then I stepped on a piece of broken glass in the sand and we left the beach and went back to her new adult place and with me with a sock and sneaker full of blood and she told me, as I finally got my foot in order and washed my shoe, that she and I couldn’t be a thing, but not because we were of different worlds now but that I was  …. I didn’t mention this earlier but it was the 80’s, I was Bender before Bender in the Breakfast Club, combat boots and bandanna’s wrapped around the ankles, more earrings almost that could be counted on two hands and this, and this was the thing, that I couldn’t have been a guy she could bring home to Mom and Dad, plus she had a kinda boyfriend, one I almost imagined years later might be the one who got into banking and hedge funding and wore a suit and made mom’s swoon and dad’s proud of possible new perfect son in laws, minus the affairs, in perfect suits … she told me I just didn’t look quite right.

Now I know, now, she was absolutely right, I was just a kid, and though we had acted in plays together with me imagining some play’s romance playing out into the real world, that could never have happened, I still harbored a bit of hope.

But sleeping on her couch, in her new job place and she being on her way, maybe even heading to the city for callbacks I just got up and left, but too late for the train I was sure.

I didn’t wake her, I didn’t blow a dramatic kiss, I didn’t start writing stories or bad poems to leave her in notes of unrequited love on a kitchen counter, I just got up and left … and started walking.

Back then, and I’m sure some, if not most of you can relate, when we first got our own driver’s licenses the world suddenly got smaller, some towns suddenly became “right next door” to each other as we drove around non-stop.

When walking though … and not thinking … not so much.

Katonah became again the place in a far away world we only visited very rarely, on drives that took sooooo long to get to dentists with Mom driving or to those shots I used to have to get in Yorktown heights  when I was younger for my allergies (the ones that eventually did the trick, RFK Jr and Aaron Rodgers notwithstanding) and before I knew it I was walking with my thumb stretched and at whatever the hell time it was.

And I was found.

I sat on the end and edge of my bed, almost not sitting on it at all and cried, about broken hearts, and going back to school seemingly alone and also about how I wasn’t dead behind two idiots wheel but with the door cracked open just enough for drama to seep through.  

Mom? They happened to be not just two idiots just tooling around, and drunk, man that car stunk, but two idiots that just happened to see my thumb and just happened to be going in the same direction I was going and also right by the house in a far away place called Mahopac on their drunken way.

If there are actually guardian angels …

She sat with me and gave a hug or two but also reminded me, in no uncertain terms, that I was just bloody lucky to have come across a couple of guys, who in their drunken dumb, knew this kid with a limp from a newly bleeding foot needed to get home, and on their way no less which made it easy, but that I would also have so much more to come in my new year, even though I couldn’t see it right now, new friends to make and even get to the point where maybe I was the guy the freshmen would look up to, or maybe get a crush on. There were also some Bloody Hell s and Hell’s Bells liberally tossed in there as well and another hug, this one for me still being alive.

… she would save me on other occasions too, like that time she pulled me back from what I will always think was a mental break when I asked John to sit on me on the side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike before I stepped into the roadway when all that I had has was lost, my job, my marriage, my prospects and I was driving a nowhere road and some State Cop gave me some grace and sympathy and put my cats in the back of his car as Mom gathered the forces of her friends, The Carrs in this case, to drive her halfway across Pennsylvania so she could meet me and drive my car back, a broken me and a couple of cats.

/////

But she was also the very first phone call I made to share my victories, my glories when someone had finally noticed, dad passed away too soon to really share them with him as well though I did get a chance, once, to play for him some of my aircheck tapes though he really didn’t know what that meant, dad wasn’t a guy to listen to the radio, other than maybe for a weather report or two.

/////

There is this one picture of my Mom with her girlfriends back when she was a teen. Sitting on a rock wall, maybe just outside of her home, possibly even skipping school, outside her home of moms and dads and brothers, looking all cool with the girls and smoking cigarettes and being the what all. I’d like to think that maybe she recognized herself in me.

/////

“Hey Ma, you wanna watch a movie tonight? No, no murder mystery” I called from Barnes and Noble, my gig then, “I’m getting out a little early and I’ve already hit Blockbuster for “The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert”

This was when I was on her couch in her little one bedroom place just up the way from Aunt Lib and before we both knew that I needed to get out of there before she killed me and left me in a ditch underneath the power lines and before we realized that family was all we had and she was able to usher me off to new begins.

But that scene, of ping pong balls shot from a place you couldn’t possibly imagine ping pong balls to be shot from? She just laughed, that warm laugh, and in this case, an out loud guffaw and we re-wound and re-wound playing it over and over again.

/////

My Mom loved this family. It started as only her stand in for what she had left behind but after meeting my dad and his warts and all gang and having a me and then a Beck and Nick in other ways she surely thought to herself, I have done alright.

I found a guy who adored me, I and he cared for numerous foster kids from broken homes under our roof, I shepherded disadvantaged kids through school she might have said, I popped out a kid who didn’t disappoint me and called me a lot, I added some even better ones and I found friends who I could really call friends and confidants.

Something about rich lives Ma.  

/////

The first album I ever bought was “The Beatles Live at the Hollywood Bowl”, well, the second, the first was the Star Wars Soundtrack until I discovered that “soundtrack” was just the music, not some recording of the actual flick just minus the pictures, which was pretty disappointing, though I did spend way too much of my paperboy money on the Star Wars stickers I could adorn it with.

But she came from a distant land, a land of wonder of all my Mary Stewart King Arthur books and I bought the album and became a lifelong Beatles fan because of her, and plus, England was so small, she must have been on a first name basis with them right? I mean, how could she not? That’s what I told all of my friends anyway.

/////

Phone rings

“How ya doin’ Ma?”

“I’m Ok Stephen”

“Tell Dad I said Hi back”

/////

Miss ya Ma so much, and our phone calls.

New Year’s Eve, Stinky Joe and “For the Love of Benji”

by Stephen J Frankenberry2 Comments on New Year’s Eve, Stinky Joe and “For the Love of Benji”

(a silly sort of stream ramble)

Now I don’t know about you all but I didn’t really have anything in mind for this New Year’s Eve, very much unlike New Year’s Eve’s from recent years past where I, at best, have ended up panhandling on a street corner in the morning or busking with no discernable talent or instruments for enough money for a train ticket back upstate and maybe a new pair of pants after a night I can barely remember to, at worst, panhandling on a street corner in the morning or busking with no discernable talent or instruments for enough money after a night I can barely remember for a train ticket back upstate and maybe even a USED pair of pants AND shoes (used or not).

But no, however much I will miss those New Year’s Eve’s that had turned into an annual tradition and time spent with old acquaintances, including Stinky Joe (rest in peace old friend) and the jangly collar of his long dead dog, Stanky John (though I never had the pleasure) and also proved to be a pretty good side hustle, with or without any discernable talent, though the panhandling helped, I decided to go in a totally new direction this year.

Now get this, and I know you’re gonna say “Whoa!! Dude, bring it down a notch there bucko!!!”, but I thought to time my laundry to have the ding of the dryer hit just a few minutes before midnight and then put on clean, fresh, warm jammies for the ball drop (yes I said jammies … don’t judge, it’s a new year … turn corners in your better than thou judgements will ya? plus they were only 7 bucks at Ocean State Job Lot and I LOOOOVE sportin’ a great buy) while sitting in a bed made with clean, fresh and warm sheets and watch another movie eventually with maybe even a cat on a lap, still.

My lord, the wild, crazy of old men.

Though I will surely miss the thought of panhandling on a street corner in the morning or busking with no discernable talent or instruments for enough money for a train ticket back upstate after a night I can barely remember and maybe a new pair of pants as I melt away into the comfort of new, clean, warm jammies and sheets I will at least be able to check a movie or two off of my list, and Jesus, we all could do with checking some off huh?

So many friends recommend so many things where you reply “Yeah, that one is on my list” to at least make them feel like you still share some movie interests and that they have done a good job with their latest recommendation added now to your list until that list is longer than your arm and even a leg combined or maybe even both of both until you just trip and crumble under the weight.

This is just that time.

And yah know, maybe I’ll even watch something in memory of Stinky Joe and Stanky John’s jangly collar. They were always going on about “For the Love of Benji” one that has always been on my list since the mid 70’s.

I told you this shit was long.

Rest in Peace Stinky Joe.

Stinky Joe “You already said that … now have you watched “For the Love of Benji” yet?

Ok, you’re weirding me out now Joe.