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Showing posts with label personal reflection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label personal reflection. Show all posts
This weekend in Atlanta is the annual Dragon Con. I'm remembering the first time I went to that.
It was another Labor Day weekend, twenty-five years ago. The night before it started, my Star Wars website TheForce.net published an interview that I did with "Weird Al" Yankovic. I left my apartment in Asheville the next day and drove three hours to my girlfriend's place at University of Georgia. We got to Atlanta and walked around Dragon Con a bit, then we hooked up with another TheForce.net staffer named Alena. We wound up having dinner along with a few Dragon Con guests (the actress who played Vasquez in the movie Aliens was a few spots down the table from us). Alena was a really sweet young lady, she was host of the site's new weekly video feature. We then went to a little gathering where among other people were Peter Mayhew who played Chewbacca (VERY giant but soft-spoken man) and Jeremy Bulloch (who wore the Boba Fett costume in the original trilogy).
Later that night at the convention I represented TheForce.net with a presentation on midi-clorians: those weird germ things that George Lucas had introduced in Episode I. There was this girl in a Princess Leia costume who kept interrupting me as I was talking, and I kept thinking "she's like Annie Wilkes in the movie Misery". And that's when the idea for my first movie hit.
We were at Dragon Con the next day too. Following a panel discussion about the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Lisa (my girlfriend) and I got to meet John Rhys-Davies, who has been in a lot of movies and would soon be seen as Gimli the Dwarf. A short while later my girlfriend and I shared a booth at Planet Hollywood with Paul Blake, the actor who played Greedo in the first Star Wars movie. A very nice chap. I asked him what did he think of Lucas changing the movie so that Han Solo didn't shoot first. I'll never forget his response: "I think it's absolute BOLLOCKS what George did! Why did he do that? Han was perfectly justified in shooting me, I was about to kill HIM after all. Why did George do that? I'll never understand it!"
It was a great two days at Dragon Con. And then the next day on Sunday my girlfriend and I went to church where she worshipped while growing up. An hour or so after that we were on our way to Atlanta to see a performance of the musical The Phantom of the Opera.
I'm sharing these memories, because they are among the last, most precious memories that I have about the way the world used to be. Before everything changed a week and a half later.
As of five days ago I am the owner of a brand new car. It's the third Toyota Corolla that I've driven and it's the very first car that I've gotten on my own. All the others that's have come over the course of my life I've had help with or co-owned. This new one is all mine. And when I have time I'm going to properly go through the owner's manual and familiarize myself with all the gizmos and do-dads that are part of a modern automobile. I regret to say that my father would be mighty upset at me, that I've bought a vehicle so apparently overly-laden with technology. Dad hated computers and he especially hated computers in cars and trucks. I can still hear him now: "A car only needs gas, air and electricity, it don't need no stupid computer!"
I tried Dad, I really tried.
So I said hello to a new car. But it only happened because it was time to retire a vehicle that has seen me through thick and thin for almost twenty years.
This is the 2004 Toyota Camry that I had been driving since December 2007. It replaced the Corolla that I had been driving from the time I was working as a reporter in Asheville. That car was totaled on the way to a wedding, it was rear-ended by an off-duty sheriff's detective. A few weeks later my wife at the time and I got this Camry. It was still practically new, had very little mileage on it.
It never had a proper name, but I liked to call it "Silver". After the paint color of course, but also because it was as trusty as the Lone Ranger's horse.
When my wife and I separated, I wound up with the Camry as she went to another state. And it and I have been together all this time. I drove it all around Reidsville and the surrounding area. When I was dating my girlfriend Kristen I would drive it up to Roanoke, Virginia at least once a week to see her.
Slowly but steadily, the mileage crept up. It hit 100,000 one night on my way back from getting a sandwich at the Sheetz in Eden. And still Silver went on.
Then came 2016.
I wrote about it in my book. About how one night that February, God spoke to my heart and asked me what was I doing? That I knew Dad wasn't coming back (he had passed away a little over a year earlier). That I wasn't going to be happy where I was, that I knew these things and I needed to accept them. Then God put something else on my heart: "Go. Just pack up the car with Tammy and the essentials and Go! Let Me lead you to where you are supposed to be. Don't plan it. Have faith Chris, as you never have had faith before."
A few months later I filled Silver up with clothes, my Bible, my iPad, my dog Tammy's belongings, as well as a pocket compass and a black cast-iron skillet (you simply do not go onto a journey into the wilderness without a cast-iron skillet) and we headed off into literally God-knew-where. June 12th, 2016. It was Sunday morning. We left the hotel we had been staying and when the car hit US 158 out of Reidsville I started playing Lee DeWyze's "Blackbird Song" over the car stereo.
We were headed into the unknown. Smack toward the edge of the map.
That turned into a year-long odyssey across America, through eighteen states all the way to California. And though we didn't settle down anywhere out west, we did eventually find a place to be. It took us a year and more than 10,000 miles but we ended up in South Carolina.
Tammy and I spent over a year staying with friends, giving me time to figure some things out as I never could before. Eventually I was able to find work and land my own place. Sometime after that I began my career at the state department of mental health. A few years after that ended I wound up finishing writing my book and seeing it get published. I recently began a new job.
And Silver had been with me all along.
Sadly, all good things must come to an end. My trustworthy Camry began to succumb to age and mileage. It needed repairs that would have made it more economical to find a newer vehicle. It had come to a point where going out every time became something to desperately pray for safety. I knew when a mechanic told me last week that the timing chain was causing the knocking under the hood, that it was time to bid farewell.
But we had some glorious times, Silver and I did. Over 232,000 miles. There were only two real significant incidents that she was involved in. One was when I hit a deer one night on the way back to my parents' home, where I was living for awhile. The other happened in California, when I shredded a tire and ruined a wheel trying to get to a garage (something that cost me a few hundred bucks). Other than that, Silver went untouched by anything other than foul weather... and she handled that pretty good.
During our last Christmas together, my wife gave me a Yoda dashboard ornament. It's the kind of thing that speaks to you when it's turned on. I only did that a few times before Yoda's voice got too much while I was driving. But I still kept it on Silver's dash. I've still got that ornament. I'm going to get some fresh Velcro and put it in my new car, so that the spirit of Silver can be transferred to the Corolla (I'm trying to come up with a name for it).
And so I took a few last photos of Silver at the Toyota dealership. And if the meds would have let me, who knows but I might have shed a tear. It was like saying goodbye to an old friend. But in the past few days I'm also coming to see that embracing the new can be a good thing, too. Silver served me during a long stretch of my life. That time is something that I'm ready to move on from, and come to discover new things and new experiences. I think I was holding onto the car because there were a lot of great memories that I was still clinging to. Memories can be good. But they shouldn't stifle one from making new ones that can be just as wonderful.
And that's what I want, what I need, to do now.
Silver, you were a good car. The very best of them even. With a grateful heart, and thankful to God for His provision, I salute you dear friend.
This is the first photograph that was ever taken of me. A few hours after I was born on March 31st, 1974.
A lot of people over the years have remarked that I was the brightest and most alert baby that they had ever seen. That they had never beheld a newborn who had a smile like that. One person told me that even then it was like I was plotting mischief upon an unsuspecting world.
Keep that photo in mind while I openly ponder some recent developments.
Massachusetts is now the twelfth state as well as Washington D.C. that allows abortion without limits.
I used to believe that a woman had "a right to choose". That was when I was much younger and far more foolish. I started coming around to the true horror of abortion about the time that I started college. I now regret that I ever supported the abortion procedure, but hey: we live, we learn.
My stance today could not be more wildly the opposite direction. There is not only the life of the child that is exterminated during abortion, but there is a terrible social cost also. When human life is judged "inconvenient" then anything becomes permissible. A civilized society is supposed to be one that places a value upon the human soul. But for more than half a century in this country that value has been horrendously diminished. Human life has become something practically disposable. What were once atrocities have become an accepted part of daily existence.
Abortion may not have started it. Ultimately that is the fault of fallen human nature. But abortion certainly has exacerbated it. As Mother Teresa said when she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, the greatest destroyer of peace in this world is abortion. If a mother can kill her unborn child, then what is there to keep me from killing you or you from killing me? There is absolutely nothing in between to keep that from happening.
So now it is legal in too many places to kill a child just before it would be born. And the cold, cold rationale that I have read, from quite a few people, is that such abortion isn't ending a human life at all. The reasoning is that a fetus only becomes fully human when it takes its first breath.
Let's be clear on what they are saying. If a baby is moments away from being born but still attached to the mother by the umbilical cord, it's subject to abortion. Only when it's outside the mother and breathing on its own, is it to be considered a human being.
Huh.
I might have some things to say about that. Actually, I do have some things to say about that.
Look at that picture again. The sweet little cherub who had his whole life ahead of him. The miracle of life. Among the most beautiful of the experiences of the human condition.
That picture however does not convey how much things could have been very different.
There were complications during my delivery. A Caesarian had to be performed. And when I came out of my mother I was not breathing. I was not moving. I was not doing anything.
I was just an immobile infant in the delivery room, unresponsive to any stimuli whatsoever. Not crying. Life's first breath was not entering my lungs.
According to too many abortion advocates, I was dead. A "non-viable tissue mass". Something that could have and maybe should have been discarded. If I wasn't able to breathe on my own, then by what right could it be said that I could claim to be alive at all?
Dr. Carl Weatherly, an amazing man, saw that I wasn't breathing. He went to work immediately, doing everything in his power to compel me to take my first gasp of air.
One minute passed. Two.
Three.
Four and five minutes, still no breathing.
At six minutes without oxygen the cells of the brain begin to die. With each passing moment the chances of irreversible brain damage increase.
Seven minutes. Eight.
Nine.
And finally, twelve minutes after being born, I began to breathe on my own.
That's twelve minutes that I was, for all intents and purposes according to the pro-abortion side, a dead clump of inanimate tissue.
Dr. Weatherly and his team pulled off a miracle that Sunday night. Or rather, I believe that God used them to pull off a miracle. I was breathing on my own. And a short while later the photograph you see above was taken.
Maybe I'm biased, but I don't think the baby in that picture was someone to discard as already dead just because he didn't come out of his mother crying as a baby normally should.
When I was first told the story of my birth, I resolved to myself that I would do what I could to make my life count for something. That has taken me down many a strange and winding road. I have had to confront a lot of bad things in my time. But there have also been many wonderful and magnificent experiences also. Sometimes I wonder if I've lived as fully as I had wanted. Friends and family who know me best have told me that I've taken as big a bite as anyone they have ever seen. Some good people were committed to making me survive that night. I have done what I can to honor them.
And now, I merely want others, who have not yet taken their first breath, to have the same chance of that full life as I have been able to enjoy.
That some among us do not believe that those unborn children do not deserve that chance, and applaud the notion as did Governor Healey and the "healthcare workers" surrounding her this week as she signed the law, is nothing other than pure evil. It is something that hearkens back to the sacrifice of infants on the altar of Moloch. The ancient Israelites ended up paying a terrible price for their idolatry.
We cannot thrive, or even survive, as a culture that celebrates death. It is impossible.
And it shouldn't take a dead man to state that obvious fact.
When you have been a medical professional, there are a lot of things that you'll never be able to unsee.
Things like severe anal lacerations.
Things like fungus in places where it should not be.
Things like genital warts and sores.
Things like diseases such as hepatitis, monkeypox, and full-bore AIDS.
Things like balls, beads, and light bulbs shoved up into a person's large intestine.
Things like cancers that a normal person would usually be able to avoid having.
Things like "meth mouth" stemming from selling one's body.
Things like walking corpses barely able to stand.
Things like depression, of a kind for which there is no medication to alleviate.
Things like fights between two people that go far beyond the typical domestic disturbance.
Things like malnourishment.
Things like slashed wrists and deliberate drug overdose.
Things like suicide attempts that more often than not succeed.
Having seen such tragedies, too many times, I must pose this question to anyone so interested:
Why should I or any other person of conscience ever condone or approve of the behavior that causes these terrible tragedies to happen?
How is endorsing such behavior - knowing what comes of it - at all possibly expressing love and concern toward fellow man and woman?
Over the course of the past few weeks, I've made some remarks here and elsewhere. About homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism... pretty much everything under the "LGBT" banner. Some people have latched onto those remarks and declared that I am a "bigot" and "homophobic". Word that have been used too often, by those who try to shut down all debate and dissent. Nobody wants to be "phobic" after all. Who wants to be a bigot?
But that's not going to work with me. I'm not afraid of anything or anyone. I do believe in being wary and enlightened however. And in being a decent person.
Last month was "LGBT Pride": a revelry of sexual deviancy. I cannot partake of such alleged celebration of lust. Not if I am to stay true to the person who God made me to be. And that includes being a decent enough human being that I cannot with approving heart witness other people degrade and debase themselves.
That is what homosexuality and bisexuality and transgenderism do: they destroy everything that is good about a person. It destroys one's body, one's mind, and in the end one's soul.
The rage began when on a forum I posted four simple words from the Book of Proverbs: "Pride goeth before destruction." Immediately some of the more frothing members of the LGBT community pounced. If scripture is powerful and provocative, it certainly was in this case. For that alone I was declared guilty of bigotry, of homophobia, of fascism... whatever other such adjectives flitted through their bitter minds.
The people making such accusations have some of the darkest souls I've ever seen. They are very, very troubled and broken. They are so broken in fact, that they cannot comprehend their wretched condition. They are so trapped by their unholy indulgences that they cannot tolerate the merest whisper that what they are doing is killing them.
It is killing them. I know this. Perhaps not today or tomorrow. Maybe not even five years from now. But it is destroying them in every way that a person can be destroyed. Especially in soul.
If anyone wants to attack me for my beliefs, if any individual ridicules me for not joining the LGBT "cause", if refusing to endorse that kind of behavior costs me personally in some way or another...
I'm not going to be moved. No matter how many people may hate me for it.
And they do hate. It's all that's really left to them. They hate those who refuse to join in with them. But in truth, they hate themselves. It gnaws at them, deprives of their body and spirit. It exacerbates a hunger that can never be satiated.
There are only two ways of escaping it: death, or turning away from it. Turning toward God or to whatever higher power one happens to believe in. I do very seriously doubt that God is going to appreciate homosexuality either. The Judeo-Christian ethic is rife with warnings against sexual sin, including men having relations with other men or women doing likewise with other women. I'm aware that some so-called churches are "affirming" of homosexuality. But that is in dire violation of the words of our Lord, when He said "Go, and sin no more." God doesn't want us to remain as we are. He wants us to become what we are truly meant to be. Debasing and degrading one's self in obscenity is not doing that at all and there is no sound doctrine which confirms that it is.
As Martin Luther said at the Diet of Worms: "Here I stand. I can do no other."
So to all the haters: it doesn't bother me, how you label me "bigoted" or "homophobic" or anything else. Doesn't matter if all the crowds, all the politicians, all the media, all the allegedly wise clergy, all the former friends tell me that I am wrong.
What if the Palpatine we saw in Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker was not the "real" Palpatine at all? What if he was some kind of replica without an iota of Palpatine/Sidious's spirit whatsoever?
There is precedent for such a notion.
In Timothy Zahn's two-part "Hand of Thrawn" novel duology from the late Nineties, the galaxy hears whispers about the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Thrawn in the still-venerable expanded universe, you may recall, was killed toward the end of The Last Command. The galaxy thought he was dead. But he prophesied that he would return in ten years' time if he ever was thought to have died.
Long story short, it turns out that at Thrawn's hidden fortress (see what I did there?) in the Unknown Regions, the grand admiral had prepared a clone of himself. It had been in stasis all that time. Just waiting to be "brought online" by his faithful Chiss followers. It would not have had any of Thrawn's soul, but it definitely would be Thrawn after a fashion.
What if Emperor Palpatine did such a thing for himself?
I can easily imagine that Palpatine went to Exegol and had himself cloned, and had it put in storage. It would be waiting, for the "unlikely possibility" that Palpatine would die. Who knows how but perhaps the clone was given the original's memories and abilities (it seems to have been the case for Joruus C'Baoth in the expanded universe), ready to be taken out of its vat and brought online. The Emperor would be reborn. But as Palpatine says in a deleted scene we know exists, he would be "more than a clone, less than a man."
So Palpatine/Emperor/Darth Sidious creates the clone and when his Sith Eternal followers get the news that he died and the Empire is finished, they activate the clone. Just as Thrawn's people were about to do with his own clone. And THAT is who we see in The Rise of Skywalker: a replica of Palpatine, created as a failsafe in case the real one was killed.
Such a notion preserves the idea of Anakin Skywalker being the chosen one who brings balance to the Force. While at the same time restoring Palpatine as the overarching mastermind behind the dark events throughout the Star Wars saga.
Just a theory, I confess. But it's one as good as any other.
My memoir Keeping the Tryst has been getting around some. I confess, its biggest audience seems to be composed of people who have known me, friends and family. It's gotten some other purchases, though it's far from being a "bestseller". Still, I've been happy. And one never knows how far a book will get in the larger scheme of things. A lot of books started out selling small but went on to bigger things.
One of the most consistent remarks that I've gotten about Keeping the Tryst has been about my memory. This book covers half a century of the lifetime of an American boy, and it does so in at times almost microscopic detail. As I said in the first chapter, I have no idea how it is that I remember some things so vividly and clearly. It just "is". Sometimes I feel like Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five: unstuck in time. One moment I'm here in the present and the next I'm anywhen else down my timeline, and sometimes it's as if I can see a little bit ahead, too. The memories come often without anything precipitating them.
Like this latest one, that has me stumped about why it should come to mind many decades later.
A few nights ago I remembered something that I saw on television, at an age so young that I couldn't pinpoint what year. It had to do with a giant green turtle and a beautiful woman with glowing green eyes. It was a movie. And for some reason it made me sad, like it had a tragic ending.
I knew that I wasn't imagining this. It's something that has crossed my mind a number of times over the years, without warning. This was a thing that I had seen with my own eyes and it must have been before I ever started school at the age of five. And it was haunting me.
Why?
The other day, the memory came again. And finally, at long last, I plugged what little I knew into Google and braced myself for whatever might come.
Well, it turned out that I was not the only poor soul who had gone looking for the giant turtle and the girl with glowing green eyes. Many others had too. And so I followed the trail...
It was a movie after all. Its title is The Bermuda Depths. And it was broadcast on the American television network ABC on January 27th, 1978.
That was a few months shy of my fourth birthday.
I read the article on Wikipedia and found out more...
The Bermuda Depths is a science-fiction/fantasy/horror film, starring among other people Carl Weathers (who was in between the first two Rocky movies) and Burl Ives. It's about a young man who grew up on Bermuda, meeting a girl named Jennie when he was younger, and after some time away comes back to the island.
I remembered that much, too.
And then there was that monstrously enormous turtle. That more than anything else is what made the impression on me. It was a terrifying spectacle. I remember there being a fight with it toward the end of the movie. And I think that in a way the turtle won.
I have memories of watching the final scenes and crying. I cried a lot, as a child. I was very sensitive. Sometimes I would cry listening to a song. It just needed to sound sad enough. Songs that don't faze me and haven't for a long time since then. The Bermuda Depths made me cry, and I don't know why.
I suppose that I'm going to have to watch this, sometime or other, maybe in the near future. I did a looksee and it's available on DVD at Amazon for thirteen bucks. Maybe when I do see it, the real last pieces of this movie that has at times haunted me unbidden will fall into being. Perhaps then I will understand why memory of it has lingered and persisted for going on fifty years.
If I do see it, I'll make a post about it. But then again, I wonder if I really should watch it. There should be a bit of mystery in one's life.
However this goes, my memory has a name now. And I know that I wasn't imagining it.
EDIT 07-18-2026 02:06 AM: I was so startled by discovering that I hadn't hallucinated it that it didn't occur to me until just now that there might be clips of The Bermuda Depths on YouTube. But there are some. So I'll post that link and lure others to also partake of the madness.
It occurred to me that it was thirty years ago today that the science-fiction blockbuster Independence Day came out in theaters...
I saw this movie seven times that summer! The only other movies I saw during the summer of '96 were Twister and A Time to Kill. And I can tell you exactly on which dates I saw Independence Day each time.
It was on July 4th that was the first time. I was working a summer job at a bindery and we had a few days off for the holiday. Ed, my best friend at Elon, and I caught the movie at the now-non-existent Janus Theaters in Greensboro, North Carolina. We loved it so much that we caught it again two days later. And then a little over a week later my friend Bennie from Belgium was visiting for a week, and we saw it together. Then a few days after that my friend Johnny announced that he was engaged and asked if I would be one of his groomsmen. I said yes and to celebrate I took him to see Independence Day, too. The following weekend I saw the movie for the only time on my own. Then the following week Ed and I caught it again and then a few days before classes started at Elon he and saw it once more with our friend Gary.
To this day I cannot explain what it was about that movie that had me going back over and over to see it. Maybe it was getting stoked about Star Wars's special editions coming out in a few more months and it made me want to see any big-screen sci-fi blockbuster at all. So Independence Day was preparing me mentally for that.
(In case anyone's wondering, I have not seen the sequel. It came out during me and Tammy the Pup's epic journey across America and for various reasons I didn't catch any movie that summer while we were out and about. I really don't care to see it either. The original movie was too much "lightning in a bottle" and I don't want to diminish thinking that.)
Tonight it's another case of perfect recall come unbidden. I've been told that how this translated into the writing for my book is pretty astonishing. Sometimes I feel this is what it was like for Billy Pilgrim, the unstuck-in-time protagonist in Slaughterhouse-Five. One moment I'm here in the present, then Bam! I'm in the past, reliving the moment. And sometimes it's like flashes of the future come too.
So here's the latest trip back in time...
I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing on this night in 1992. I was in Virginia Beach, there to see a friend I had been known in middle school and high school until she and her family relocated (her father was a Methodist minister and he was given a new church to pastor). My sister and I had come to see Dana graduate from high school. Anyway, that afternoon my friend and her family, and my sister and I went to the beach and had a great time. We got back to their home and had pizza for dinner. Then Dana's brother and I spent an hour just chillin' and watching an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (the episode was "The Masterpiece Society"). After the show we entertained ourselves, like a particularly cutthroat game of UNO at my friend's kitchen table.
Then the next morning we said our goodbyes to each other and my sister and I found our way back to US 58 and the six hour drive home.
I bought a Super Soaker while we were in Virginia Beach. I still have it. It's in perfect working order.
For once a pleasant memory. I should try to evoke them more often.
Edit: I forgot to mention how that evening I was wearing my favorite The Far Side t-shirt...
It was ten years ago today, June 12th of 2016, that I packed up the bare essentials in my car (clothes, Bible, computer, my dog's belongings, the iPad Pro, a Boy Scout pocketknife, and a black cast-iron skillet), and then my dachshund Tammy and I left Reidsville and set out into the unknown.
I didn't know what our final destination was going to be. The entire enterprise was predicated on the notion that God was going to lead me along the way, to wherever it was that He needed us.
The only reason we went west at all is because Ed, my best friend since college, invited me to join him for a special screening of the original Ghostbusters in Asheville. Here we are, note that Ed is wearing his customized film-quality Ghostbusters uniform:
That's how it began: the year-long adventure across America for my dog and I, looking for a new home.
As I've shared in my book Keeping the Tryst, sometimes I feel like the journey isn't finished. A full decade later and there's a sense that I'm still not where I'm supposed to be, despite all the good that's happened along the way (writing, being a mental health professional, getting back into filmmaking etc.). I'm waiting for something. What that is, God will reveal in His timing. I'm not ready to declare the odyssey completed yet.
The saga continues.
That morning, about 9 a.m., we left the hotel where we had been staying in Reidsville. A few minutes later, as the car got onto US 158 headed west, I started playing a song from my iPad. My favorite bit of music from the television series The Walking Dead. It set the mood perfectly as we embarked on our journey.
Here is "Blackbird Song" by Lee DeWyze.
Maybe ten years from today there will be more to report. I like to believe so anyway.
If it's something significant that happened in my life, the tendency is that I'll always be aware of its anniversary when it comes around. Sometimes they're good anniversaries. But most of the time the bad ones overshadow the good.
If you have read my book Keeping the Tryst, then you are aware that there is a date that I spend some time on: May 16th, 1986. That is the day of the cruelest betrayal that has ever happened to me.
I was just over twelve years old, still a child but on the cusp of the unfolding of youth's great transformation that leads ultimately to adulthood. What happened that day destroyed much of that experience for me. I will never know what I could have become had that innocence not been taken from me at just that moment in my life. Not just physically and emotionally, but spiritually also. Yes, especially spiritually.
It was the sort of thing that burns itself deeply into one's chronological awareness of their life. And so it is that May 16th became a day upon which I harbored dark and dread thoughts. Especially every ten years. I can tell you precisely where I was and with whom, on the tenth anniversary (fortunately I spent much of that day in the company of my two best friends at Elon, being with them always cheered me up).
There was the twentieth anniversary, in 2006. I threw myself into making a bunch of blog posts that day. Working on this blog has long given me an escape at times. I had just finished reading The Da Vinci Code and had expressed how disappointed I was with that book (seriously, what WERE we supposed to be afraid of it for?). And my wife at the time - the person who I will forever be torturing myself for the hell that I put her through - helped me get through that day.
Ten years later, on May 16 2016, the memories came back, again. At the time I was in the midst of trying to motivate myself toward getting the house I'd grown up in ready to sell. My family was insistent that we had to be rid of it and that meant that I would have to find a new home. In the end I went above and beyond that and left town completely for good and that was how it came to be that my dog and I spent a year traveling across America looking for a new home. But even so, May the 16th cast its shadow, and for much of that day I felt triggered: by memory, by uncertainty, by betrayals of their own accord. And then May 17th dawned and the past receded with it, and I was free for another year or ten.
So a week ago today was May 16th, 2026. Forty years ago since that day at the Christian school where I had been a student of for over half my life. Forty years since the day that my earthly being had been nearly completely ruined.
And somehow, when May the 16th of this year came about... I didn't notice.
It was something that had not grasped my attention at all. Had not registered in any way whatsoever. It was just another day, one more Saturday along with all the others that came before it. I woke up, played with my dog, did a little work on my iPad, called up friends and spoke with them for awhile, and later that night I had dinner and watched a horror movie on my favorite nostalgia channel. There was nothing inordinately wrong with May 16th, 2026.
It didn't hit me until late last night that I had completely missed the anniversary. That this was the first year when I had been totally free of it.
How did THAT happen?!?
Maybe it is that I've been so fixated on the various crises happening in my life right now. I'm desperate for real work, running on fumes, have been hit with one situation after another come each new day... there hasn't been time to fixate on the arrival of any anniversary. And maybe that's the way it's *supposed* to be for any such occasion.
I'm wondering though, if maybe writing and publishing my book had something to do with it.
That was an especially difficult and hard thing to have shared in the pages of Keeping the Tryst. I'll never forget what it was like to write about that. But ultimately I braced myself and sat down and pushed forward through all the pain and agony, until there was more or less the words that you find in Chapter 7. There was a lot of pausing and stepping away from the keyboard during that composition, and times when I had to collect myself. I never ceased completely though. And it took me a few false starts but in the end I had plunged into the darkness and brought to light nearly forty years of accumulated turmoil, knowing fully well that it would be something that I would be sharing with others, come of that whatever may.
Perhaps doing that has been a healing thing for me. I think it's altogether possible.
It's also possible that this was the first "every ten years" anniversary that has come about since I finally found myself able to talk to the authorities about what happened when I was twelve. Granted, that came 34 years after it occurred. And as the lead detective told me at the time there was little chance that my coming to them would end up in prosecution. After thirty-four years people have moved on, they've also passed away. I told him that I didn't care if nothing more came of it. That I was just glad to finally be telling someone about it. That was a HUGE relief that came over me, that I was at last able to do that. I don't think that I would have been able to write so openly about it, had I not met with the detectives at the sheriff's department in Wentworth that day. I'm forever going to be thankful for them that they listened to me and that they showed real concern and sympathy.
However it came to be, May the 16th of this year came, and went, and I was none the wiser or lesser for it. It was just another day, albeit one with its own problems that I am trying my best at the moment to overcome. But for once the memories of a day four full decades in the past did not arise on schedule to haunt me.
I'm going to mark that down as a great triumph. One worth noting, and celebrating, and rejoicing in.
It is absolutely shameful what is happening right now in Rockingham County politics.
Regardless of distance in its various measures, I have still been proud to be a son of Reidsville and the surrounding area. But what I'm seeing lately from afar is utterly heartbreaking.
Twenty years ago I was a candidate for public office in Rockingham County. I didn't win my race but it still became one of the greatest experiences of my life. My campaign was an honest, sincere, and upbeat one. It was FUN! When the results came in, there was no bitterness at all for not getting a seat on the school board. There had been too much enjoyment from coming to meet new people, hearing and talking about ideas, harnessing creativity to make signs and shirts and television ads. I didn't run against anyone per se. I merely ran as myself, being completely forthcoming with voters, and let the chips fall where they may.
Why can't it still be that simple?
I'm so damned sick and tired of people lusting for power and influence. All it does is show that they are the LEAST worthy people to have power at all.
Some are going to interpret this as being a commentary on the state senate race between incumbent Phil Berger and challenger Sam Page. But I'm not casting blame on anyone in particular. It's just become a wholesale disgusting situation that is embarrassing even those of us who are expatriates of Rockingham County. It has actually made the press here in the Upstate of South Carolina. I remember the county's district attorney race of 2006 and that was disgusting. What is happening now is far, far worse. It's going to go down in history as one of the most bitter races in North Carolina history. EVERYBODY needs to step back and refocus on pitching themselves to the voters, instead of trying to convince their would-be constituents why their opponents *shouldn't* be elected.
See? THIS is why I'm so effin' SICK AND TIRED of the two-party con job that's been worked on over this country. It's all about power and control and skimming off the top whenever the chance comes. The politics of the county has twisted and distorted real vision and principles. When I ran I had a rule: I would never go negative. EVER. I vowed that I would never do something that I would regret later down the road. There is nothing wrong with holding to that. Be the best candidate you can be and be content to let the voters decide. That's the way it's supposed to be. But the candidates have become so fixated on destroying each other, they've lost grasp of WHY they're supposed to be running in the first place. Why SHOULD any sane and rational person want to vote for anyone like THAT?!? I sure as hell wouldn't.
(Please pardon the profanity. I NEVER use that unless it's absolutely necessary to getting my point across, when polite language has failed.)
Come on Rockingham. Do better.
As an entertaining aside, I'll close with this. One of the candidates in 2006 started turning too negative for my tastes. This is the ad that I created in response to that. Not necessarily "against" him but I wanted there to be something happier/feel-good out there as a counterbalance. Of the three ads that I made, this is my most favorite...
It occurred to me today, while at a school working with a group of special needs kids, that this week is an anniversary of sorts for me.
It was ten years ago on February 1st that "the voice" spoke to me. The words that eventually propelled me to leave most of my life behind and go into the unknown.
The full account is in the last chapter of the longest section of my book, if anyone wants the complete tale. The short version of it is that I was at a very low point in my life. I had just had an argument with someone in my family. Things were said that sent my mind spinning in confusion. I felt alone, lost, abandoned... and completely hopeless.
And then, without warning, something spoke straight to my heart. In words, that it was like I could almost hear with my ears. They came so clearly, and of their own accord. I know that I couldn't have whipped them out of my own mind.
This is what the voice said:
"Chris, what are you doing? You know your father isn’t coming back. He wouldn’t want you to be this way. And you know that this isn’t where you want to be. You have gone as far as you can in Reidsville. You are a big fish in a small pond here. You know this isn’t where you want to fall in love and have a family.
"You know that you want more than this. You’re not going to find it here. You’re never going to become the man that your father knew you could be if you remain. This house isn’t where you want to spend the rest of your life and you know that you aren’t the invalid your family believes you must be.
"So… go! Just GO! Pack up your car with Tammy and the bare essentials and leave. Take your part of the sale of the house and head off. Don’t plan it. Just do it. Let Me guide you. Let Me show you where you need to be in the world. Take a leap of faith, as you have never done so before. Trust Me, Chris. It will be hard. You won’t find your happiness quickly. But you will find it. Keep the tryst, as you promised you would. Leave and be free, as you could not be before. This is your moment, Chris. All you need to do is grasp it and follow Me. Twenty years ago you committed to seeking after Me, and now you get to do that as you never have."
I really do, truly believe, that God spoke to me that night. And for the first time I saw hope. I saw promise. I saw freedom.
It would be the most daring thing that I had ever attempted. Much more daring than flying off to Europe on my own when I was nineteen, even. It was a notion that might otherwise strike terror in someone's heart. But I coudn't deny what I had heard spoken to me. Those words thrilled and enthralled me. It would be such an adventure. Chris and Tammy: A boy and his dog, set off into the world beyond the horizon. Tell me that doesn't entice you to want to see what would happen!
Well, it is now ten years since I heard those words. And a lot has happened in that time. Tammy and I did indeed get into my car and left Reidsville, one Sunday morning in mid June 2016. We spent a year across America. Then we spent a year and a half with friends who gave us a home while I was able to address my bipolar disorder as I'd never been able to before. That in time led to a career, a real one, getting to help others who also have mental disorders. Then I had to sadly leave that job because of external circumstances, and here I am today: still calling myself an artificial intelligence trainer but mostly clinging on as a substitute teacher. All the while writing a book about my life up to this point.
Am I happy? Am I really happy? I would be lying if I said that I was. The life that I thought would have come about by now, is as elusive as ever it seems. If anything I'm hanging on by my fingernails more than ever. There is no hope that I can see of being in a relationship with someone, and that's something that I very much had hoped and prayed for.
What good was it after all, to have left it all behind? Some of my family wanted me to be confined to an assisted living environment. They said that my manic depression made it impossible for me to have a normal life. Were they right?
I don't think they were. Because despite how things turned out... I think God kept His word. And I have to think that He is still keeping His word. He did warn me that happiness would not come soon. That there would be some waiting for it. I've had to be patient for that. In the meantime though, since that night in 2016, there has been too much than to believe that it's been a complete waste. It hasn't been that at all! My bipolar disorder is much more under control than it ever has been, and I think my spending almost four years as a peer specialist was a big part of that recovery. I've written and published a book that's over 500 pages long (but a lot of people who've read it have said that it reads REALLY fast 🙂 ). Tammy and I are still together, and hopefully will be for years yet to come. I may not have the best of cars but it's still running (but I'm knocking on wood all the same). We have a roof over our heads. I'm producing more material for my blog than I was ten years ago, so however much I feel like I've lost it as a writer there is still that much getting written...
Most of all, I've become closer to God than I ever have been before. I'm at a place with Him that for a very long time I didn't think it would be possible. That I could be here with Him, now, seemed so unreachable a point to come to. And yet here I am. And I hope that comes out in the book especially. I've said before that Keeping the Tryst is many things. Being a testimony is one of the most important. If I was able to write that, well... I guess that has to mean something, right?
I hope there is going to be more still to come, of what God said would happen if I trusted Him enough to leave my old world behind me. Maybe the past decade has been preparation for that. I like to think so. But all by itself, the past ten years have been an enormous journey across space and time and heart and soul. Like Bilbo Baggins, I am not the same person as when I first set out.
On Christmas Night I started watching the newest three episodes, volume 2 it's being called, of the final season of Stranger Things. I was as eager to see these next three chapters as I have been to watch anything else from the television/movies sphere of things in the past ten years or so.
I'll be honest: I felt like I'd "missed" something. Volume 2 failed to stick the landing it seemed. The previous four episodes were a high-balling rollickin' ball of high-grade hashish washed down with a bottle of pure awesomeness. But these three episodes, well...
It seems that I wasn't alone in that sentiment. Many people have said that these were the low point of the entire series.
Especially...
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Let's talk about the scene in episode seven, "The Bridge", that got the most attention.
I actually don't have an issue with Will's situation. Not anymore than I do regarding Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter books. That does NOT mean that I can condone homosexuality at all though! That is something that I am forever going to believe is wrong. But I also understand that it is a temptation that some people face, for whatever reason. God knows that I have my own temptations, some even that I wonder if anyone on earth will ever remotely understand. Having a mental condition that inflames those temptations at times only makes things worse, but I digress.
Will's confession to the others was something that had been building up since the first season. He has always been different, off-kilter, something of an outsider to "The Party" and their allies, no matter how much he has been a part of that group of close-knit friends. His own father cruelly believed that Will wasn't normal. His ordeals relating to the Upside Down further severed that connection Will had to the human condition. If nothing else, what he went through because of Vecna mutilated and disfigured Will in heart and soul. There is no telling what he would have been like had the events of November 6th, 1983 not happened. That night forever marked Will Byers as being different, for the worst, in every possible way.
In some ways I find myself relating to Will. I was quite an outsider also, growing up. Always "looking in". And as I've shared in my book, I did go quite a long time unable to allow myself to appreciate females. I had been abducted also, and pulled into an "upside-down" too. There was a Vecna figure who came into my life. As I share in my book, I was thought of as being different - sometimes being called "fag" by other people - because of my reluctance to appreciate how girls look. That stemmed from the abuse I experienced.
So, I can absolutely understand Will in ways that maybe most people can't. I can empathize with Will. It's almost like the Duffer Brothers were writing about me, when they wrote for the character. I of all people am in a position to understand Will Byers more than many if not most other people can, and I'm glad that most people DON'T have to understand what Will has gone through.
For a lot of reasons, I am never going to be able to accept homosexuality as being something good. But it is a temptation that many people have. And I can understand Will if that's what he's been driven to. If that makes sense.
So no, in all honesty, I don't have any problem with the scene in "The Bridge" where Will is "coming out" and saying "I don't like girls." I can readily understand why he's telling the group that. It's something he was ashamed of, and harbored deep resentment about. He had to confront that, and make it into something that Vecna could not turn against him and consequently the group. It was Will's biggest weakness and he negated it. That is certainly something that I can appreciate, and even admire. It could have been practically anything that Will had shame about. But in the case of Will it was the most private thing that any young person in the years surrounding adolescence can wrestle with. Vecna has become THE prototype of the child molester, in a fashion that no other fictional monster has ever been. Will was his first and most tragic victim. Of course there is going to be a secret shame from that. But Will confronted that and came through with flying colors.
No, it's not what Will did that bothers me. It's HOW that was handled is what bugs me.
Much of the entertainment industry has been accused of fronting an agenda. It's not an unqualified accusation. Stranger Things has been no different. I've never found it any more so than most other series or movies though. Indeed, other than the profanity (ehhhh Duffers, most kids did not talk like that in the Eighties, trust me, I was there) it's been pretty neutral so far as projected ideologies go. Now, some are saying that Will's "coming out" is going to be a textbook example of leftist propaganda.
THAT is something that is certainly not an unfair accusation.
It was too "in your face". Too blatant. It was too much aimed at the audience more than it was a revelation meant for the group to absorb. It was designed for shock effect, even if all the signs were there from the beginning that Will was headed for this moment. I've never read Stephen King's It but when Will's time came, I imagined it would be something like Eddie's revelation in the It miniseries from 1990: his confession that he was still a virgin, that the only people he had ever really bonded with were the rest of the Losers. That could have been the model for Will's confession. It would have let down the burden of Will's secret shame and beautifully established his acceptance by the group, that no matter what Will was never going to be alone. As it happened in the episode, it was too blunt, too "brusque".
That's the biggest problem I have with Will's coming to the group as he did. It could have been written and executed and even acted better. But the cast did the best they could with what they were given. Maybe the Duffers will learn from this experience. It certainly seems like I am not alone in my assessment about this episode. Perhaps the Duffers will take it to heart. Hey, we can't hit a home run every time. And so far the creators and producers of Stranger Things have been doing pretty good. I can forgive this one faux pas.
That's pretty much it. That's everything of what's been bugging me since watching volume 2 about 96 hours ago. But last night I rewatched these three chapters again, and found myself enjoying them much more than I had initially. So much so that now I don't think they're bad at all. They did what they were supposed to do at this stage in the same: set the board up for the final moves. The pierces are now in place and war is coming. Everything else has been cleared away. The Duffer Brothers have been pulling rabbits out of their hat for the better part of a decade... and now they'd darn well better pull out an alligator.
Whatever else could be said about those three episodes, I'm expecting the grand finale, "The Rightside Up", to wildly exceed them. Maybe in hindsight we'll all these three episodes as being set-up for what is to come. And then they will be better appreciated. Perhaps so.
Nine years ago tonight I was in a movie theater in San Diego, California. I was about to do something I'd never done before in my entire life: watch a Star Wars movie in the theater without anyone to share the experience with.
It was still Tammy the Pup and me, a boy and his dog across America, a very long way from where we had started six months before. I was stuck between wanting to see a new Star Wars film so very much, but also having to face that there would be no friend or family to enjoy it with. That's how I went in to see Rogue One.
But maybe God provided. I wound up sitting with some high school kids who were very excited about the movie, and we talked a little bit. We'd become rather acquainted by the time the lights went down and the movie started. I think we all enjoyed the movie in each other's company. Something that was well reflected toward the end of Rogue One, when the movie comes to the scene of those Rebel soldiers trapped in the corridor. We were ALL screaming, every one of us in that theater, as we watched Darth Vader mercilessly eviscerate every man in his path. It was Darth Vader in a way we had always wanted to see but somehow never had the chance to before. We truly shared a moment of collective horror... but in the right company, that can be a very fun thing.
The movie soon ended and as the credits began rolling my new friends and I talked about it and we agreed, that Rogue One was one of the best Star Wars movies yet made.
Doesn't seem like that was nine whole years ago. I wonder what those kids are doing now. They'd be in their mid to late twenties now. I hope they are well, wherever they are. They certainly were good company for one fine evening at the movies.
The other week I got a haircut. I tend to like how these things look after they've grown out a bit. And I've lost some weight lately. Been trying to take better care of myself than I had been, so among other things I'm eating a lot more fresh veggies. I definitely think that working on the book took a stressful toll. There were a lot of things in that which were a real struggle to write. But I did it and I think I picked up the visage of a real author in the process.
Anyhow, this is how I'm looking lately:
Not bad for a guy in his early fifties! Every so often I get asked how old am I. It's become a lot of fun making people guess. I've been told that I look everything from 45 to 23!
Well, we'll see how long it lasts. Maybe when I hit 70 I'll be getting mistaken for a person in his forties :-)
Every so often someone asks me the question: "Chris, why don't you have someone special in your life?"
It's not a bad question, not really. There are a lot of reasons why I don't have a woman to love. One of the biggest is that I just haven't found her yet. It seems that the prospects of that happening are dim. But my expectations are high. The woman who God might bring into my life has to love and serve Him first, more than she would me. That is not easy to find in any person, it seems.
She also has to be able to love me for who I am, lumps and all. That means accepting that I have a condition that will at times make life difficult for both of us, and I'm speaking of my having bipolar disorder. Now, that is something which has become MUCH more controlled in the past few years. It's not the monster looming over me like it has been for most of my life. But even so, it's there, and though I'm better at knowing when it's about to strike the symptoms still come.
I also know what kind of person she needs to be outwardly. I desire someone who cares about the impression she makes. And by that I mean I do NOT care for someone with tattoos and metal in inappropriate places on her body, especially on her face. I want a girl who looks natural. With symmetry. Sorry, not sorry, but tattoos on a woman are a major turn-off for me. I don't find that appealing, at all. It seems that many if not most people, including the females, are getting inked these days. That is something I'm not interested in a woman having.
My standards are high. Maybe unapproachably so. But I know what I'm looking for. A real diamond in the rough. If and when I find her, I'm going to be very thankful for her.
But even so, all of those things don't zero in on the real reason why I'm unattached. There are others. And one of then is something that I am actually very joyful about.
Something that struck me a few days ago. I told this to my friends yesterday during our belated Thanksgiving dinner together, and they thought I was right, too...
A lot of people know that one of the things I've most wanted in life is someone to share it with. I've longed for God to bring a woman into my world, who I can cherish and honor and love. Someone who can truly love me, imperfections and all, and never abandon me because of my frailties.
What's happened to that? I talk about that desire a bit in my book Keeping the Tryst. It's important enough to merit mentioning. But I haven't lamented not having a lady in my life as I used to, in quite awhile now. Though time has seen that desire magnify, not diminish.
So, what's happened?
In a word, Tammy. My dog happened.
It hit me right between the eyes this past week, the discovery that I've been so focused on giving Tammy a good life, I've been ignoring the desires I have had for my own.
I do not believe at all that that's been a bad thing.
I promised Dad, on the night before he passed away, that I would look after Tammy and take care of her. As best that I possibly could. Dad and I had gotten Tammy together but I never harbored anything more than the sense that Tammy was his dog first and foremost. He was "Daddy " to her. He was her person. The one she most followed and looked to for comfort and attention. I was just... well, I guess I was "the other guy" in the house. The spare. The one to get attention from when Daddy was too busy making dinner or something.
Tammy was Dad's dog and on his next-to-final night with us he came to enough to ask about her. And I told him that he didn't have to worry. I told Dad that I would watch over her and see to it that she was taken care of.
That was eleven years ago. Quite a while.
My promise to my father, to look after someone we both loved, has been the central mission of my life all this time. It's been the most important aspect of my being, second only to my relationship with God.
Tammy is more than a dog to me. She is family. She is the last living connection I have to my father. I cherish her especially because of that.
And she has absolutely been worth setting aside my desires for my own happiness for.
She IS happiness for me. Every day that ends with the two of us together, is something I am thankful for. It's that much more time that I can feel like I've made Dad proud of me, for taking care of his dog.
I don't count having my own desires set aside for her sake as a loss. Not at all.
I'm doing what I said that I would do. I'm fulfilling a promise. I'm being honorable. I'm doing the right thing, no matter how it looks to the world. If you've read or are reading Keeping the Tryst then you know how much my honor means to me and this, is in keeping with that.
I cannot do otherwise.
Some day, it will sadly end. I'm a realist. I know that Tammy isn't as young as she used to be. But she's still here. She's still with me. And every day that we have together is a victory to celebrate and be thankful for. Every day that we have is a gift from God. And that is never something to be regretful about.
I don't count the decade and more I've had without a woman in my life as being lost. Not at all. When you love someone enough you can very easily set aside your own needs and wants for sake of that person. And that is what Tammy is to me: a person. Dear family, and family looks after each other no matter the cost. Just one of many things that my little dog has taught me.
It may not be as big a deal as having a spouse and kids. But this is the hand that God dealt me. And I am absolutely making the very most of it. I can be grateful for that.
And who knows? Maybe someday, sooner than later, God will bring a woman into my life. I think Tammy has enough love in her for another person, too 🙂
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the United States. And though it has been adopted by a few other countries, the American observation of the holiday remains a unique one. Thanksgiving has been part of America's identity since the early seventeenth century, most notably by the Pilgrims of the Plymouth colony in 1621. The notion of the American people giving thanks to God for the blessings He had bestowed was further ingrained by the Continental Congress in 1777.
And then in 1789 President George Washington famously proclaimed a day of national thanksgiving. That pretty much sealed the deal. Thanksgiving would forever be a sacred time for the American people.
My experiences with Thanksgiving have been varied. Some of them have been good. Others, not so much. I don't want to dwell on the latter though. I like to believe that recent years, months actually, have brought deliverance from much of that pain. Yet Thanksgiving will forever be something that I approach with trepidation. It's the entire month of November, actually. While writing my book it struck me how so much has happened in my life during the various months of November... and not all of that very good. There has been a lot of family heartbreak during November and now that I realize it, that has cast a pall on this month, maybe from now on.
But in spite of that, there are enough good things that have been in my life that I cannot but have a grateful heart about. And I can definitely honor God by remarking upon those.
So here, as part of what has at various times been a holiday tradition (though it's been five years since the last time I did this), are what I am thankful for right now...
I am thankful for my relationship with God, that has grown so much over the course of the past few years. I think part of that is because I have made it a prerogative to choose to be thankful, in spite of how circumstances have sometimes gone.
I am thankful for the work that I have right now. That was definitely an answered prayer.
I am thankful for the many wonderful people who are in my life, who have been there for me when I needed that most.
I am especially thankful for my "inner circle", my closest friends who really are precious family.
I am thankful that I have a roof over my head and a working vehicle.
I am very thankful for my dog Tammy. I thank God for her each morning and evening, and I pray that He might let us have many more wonderful years together.
I am thankful that this year I got to see my book Keeping the Trystpublished after a decade of on and off work upon it. And it seems that others are enjoying reading it. I am very happy about that. Maybe the new year will see it discovered by even more people, too.
I am thankful for some opportunities that have opened up, and I am looking forward to seeing what happens with them.
I am thankful for my overall health. And especially my mental health. After half a lifetime of dealing with bipolar disorder, I can truthfully testify that my mind is at last my own. Are there moments where things could be better? Yes, there are. Those will always be a threat to live with. But manic depression no longer looms over me like a monster. That is a beast that has in greatest part been brought to ground.
I am thankful that I have lately begun reading for pleasure again, more than I had been. I suppose I've been so fixated on my own book, that I'd forgotten how much fun it is to read the classics. In the past month or so I've been re-reading the Harry Potter series. It's almost like a spark of childhood has been re-ignited in me and I want to nurture that.
I am thankful for my iPad Pro: my most indispensable tool. Although I'm now on the second keyboard for it (cranking out 142,023 words of my book took a toll on the first keyboard, especially the "t" key).
I am thankful that I did not require surgery in September (long story)!
That's what comes pretty much comes most to mind for this occasion. And I shall pray that YOU, Dear Reader, will have even more things to list that you are grateful for this Thanksgiving :-)
In the wake of some recent events I'm feeling the need to say something lately, that I've reiterated a number of times before...
I hold to certain principles. They are more than just beliefs. They are certainly more than mere opinions. Mine are CONVICTIONS. Not one of them was arrived at without a great amount of meditation and ponderance about the matter. I know where I stand on these issues. I know what I believe but much more than that, I know *why* I believe.
I'm not a man of ideologies. I loathe the notion that I of all people must have an ideology. I prefer to be known as a man of ideas. I realize that more often than not I've been called a conservative. That's the world's appellation for me. But I've never cared what the world thinks of me.
I know that where I stand on some things isn't the most popular. Just as where some people stand on their own issues, are not popular with me. To be honest, what some people believe in strike me as pretty horrifying.
But even so, where friendship and family are involved, I am not going to necessarily think any less of such a person.
It takes a LOT for me to be led to dissolve a relationship with someone on the basis of differences of belief. I'm not interested in that. To me, to come to that kind of an impasse is a great failure. It suggests that the friendship was less important than "must be right".
Am I right about what I believe? I am convicted that I am, just as I have to trust that others are convicted, too. My perspective about that is something that I had always known but it was while reading Atlas Shrugged that it gained clarity. That perspective being: I know what I believe and I have to trust that another knows what he or she believes. Let reality judge who is right. If I am right, and convince the other that I am, I count it as no victory for myself. If I am proven wrong, I count it as no loss.
I believe that some people in my life are wrong in what they believe. But I will NOT think any less of them for that. Not unless they come to adhere to something truly evil. And that hasn't happened much in my life, if at all.
I believe in God. I believe in God, Who among many other things is the author of reality. I would be a very poor adherent of that concept if I did not have faith that harsh though it may come, reality prevails in the end. I am an evangelist of reality. So who knows, I might be one who encourages others to consider some things that they might not have before. If I abandoned them, I will have abandoned the mission. And I can't do that.
I guess that all of this is a roundabout way of saying this: I can't diminish a friendship or put away family because of a difference of belief about something. That's not my nature.
And I would hope that no friend or family thinks any less of me for my own convictions.
GeekTyrant, one of my favorite websites, reminds us that this week is the tenth anniversary of the release of the trailer for Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. I will never forget that night. I was reloading YouTube every ten seconds, waiting for the trailer to publish. And when it finally dropped...
I guarantee you that I watched that thing at least a dozen times before going to bed. Oh sure, there had been the teaser earlier that April, but this was the full-blown serious look at what the first chapter of Star Wars's "sequel trilogy" was offering. And it was glorious! Everything about that trailer was spot-on perfect: the glimpses, the dialogue, the music... just completely epic.
Here it is if you haven't watched it in awhile (or if you've never had the pleasure of seeing it at all until now):
It had been seven years since the previous Star Wars film, Revenge of the Sith. That there could be a new movie for the saga was something many of us had given up on ever happening. And then in 2012 came the news that Episode VII was coming in three years.
That day was one of the happiest that we collectively had, in quite a long time. And that trailer for The Force Awakens reflected that. It really did herald the imminent arrival of a new Star Wars movie. Our dream was coming true. The most beloved mythology of the modern era was going to expand. It was going to keep going, on into the future. Indeed, it was going to be altogether possible that there would be no end to Star Wars, until the end of time. I couldn't help but think that I would not live to see every Star Wars movie, and there was some great comfort to draw from that. The way that grown men plant trees, in whose shades their great-grandchildren will play, though they themselves will never see it.
The trailer for The Force Awakens promised that. And more. And we could not see anything but something remarkable coming about, beyond our wildest aspirations. And that's what we got, right?
Right?
Let's get the obvious out of the way: the Star Wars sequel trilogy left a lot to be desired. It's easily the weakest of the three eras of the classic saga of the Skywalker family. For one thing it's painfully clear that there wasn't a grand design from the beginning of production. Now, there was a plan for the sequel trilogy. George Lucas had included it in the deal that he signed with Disney when he sold Lucasfilm and the related companies. But what that was, we'll probably never fully know. Kathleen Kennedy and the other Disney bigwigs abandoned Lucas's plans and instead went for something all their own. And odds are that in large part it was inferior to The Maker's design for the saga he created in the first place.
So there was no master plan, as Disney intended to execute. "But wait, Chris, did the original trilogy have such a master plan??" I'll grant you, that such a concise plot diagrammed out did not exist at the time of A New Hope's release. Lucas and Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan were writing The Empire Strikes Back by the seat of their pants. That it is arguably the greatest Star Wars movie of all time is testament to the vision that they came up with together. Their work on Episode V established the method by which all future Star Wars should be designed and carried out. That method carried over into Return of the Jedi. And when it came time years later to begin work on the prequel trilogy, Lucas already had the architecture established to go back in the saga's timeline and tell the story of young Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. And that worked beautifully, too.
The prequel trilogy had none of that. Or if it did, it was a vague semblance of an over-arching plot. Once again the writing was by "the seat of their pants". But there was never a solid plan.
My personal biggest beef about the sequel trilogy? It's how Supreme Leader Snoke was treated. The Force Awakens portended that Snoke was going to be a major villain. The new grand adversary for the next generation of the heroes of the saga. I loved Snoke as a character. I saw the movie three times in the theater and each time I knew Snoke was about to appear, I paid especially close attention. Snoke captured my imagination. Who was he? What was he? My theory was that he was going to be revealed to be the ultimate bad guy behind everything wrong that had happened in the saga. Snoke could have been the one who created the Sith themselves, for all we knew. Snoke was an example of Chekov's rule of drama: if you see the gun mounted on the wall in act one, it must be fired in act three. And I wanted to see that gun go off.
But as The Last Jedi showed us, that was not to be. Snoke wound up a wasted character. And I absolutely hate what came of Snoke in The Rise of Skywalker. Snoke deserved better. And we could have had that, if there had been a master plan in mind that was going to be honored by the filmmakers.
Just one of the many problems that I have with the sequel era.
The last time I had watched any of the sequel trilogy was probably about two years ago. I set The Rise of Skywalker playing for background noise as I worked on some writing projects one Sunday afternoon. I couldn't get through it. I got about halfway through the movie before realizing that I wasn't tuning in at all even peripherally. So I stopped the movie and instead started playing the Marx Brothers's movie Duck Soup: a good comedy for stimulating the synapses. And at the time I wondered if I would ever watch any Star Wars movie again, ever. Episodes seven through nine had practically ruined something that I had carried with me since the first moment I saw an Artoo-Detoo action figure, at four years old. Star Wars seemed to be something that for all intents and purposes, was dead to me from now on.
But something funny happened recently...
It was a few weeks ago. A couple of days before my book was published. For nigh on two months I had plunged myself into preparing every facet of what it means to bring a book to the public. Everything from going over the manuscript a dozen times over, to designing the cover, to porting the book to Kindle ebook format. If I wasn't eating or sleeping or working or playing with my dog Tammy, I was focused on getting the book ready. And in the end it was finally finished, ready for the printer or download on October 1st.
I was thoroughly exhausted. My brain was drained. Mentally I was a man poured out. The book had been submitted. It was finally out of my hands. It was something that would soon be in the possession of readers and hopefully there would be many of them and more to the point, I hoped that they would find that it was a book well worth reading.
So with nothing else to occupy my time with, without really comprehending why I was doing it, I put in my Blu-ray Disc of The Force Awakens. I situated myself on the sofa, not actually braced for one thing or another. Just needing to have some distraction from my being so wiped out from the book.
And before I knew what was going on, I discovered that I was liking the movie. An awful lot. Maybe more than a person should.
Suddenly I was transported back to that night in December of 2015, when I met my lifelong best friend Chad and his wife at a cinema in Raleigh, as we watched the first showing of Episode VII. And that was a wonderful night indeed, in every way. I left that theater and hit the highway for the two-hour drive back home and my mind was on fire about the new Star Wars movie. It had been everything and more that I had expected it to be.
Lo and behold, as I watched The Force Awakens playing in my living room, those memories came rushing back. And I appreciated anew how precious those were and why they were precious and it did indeed involve that being a good Star Wars film after all.
I decided that I wanted to keep the vibe going. And so I settled in to watch the next movie: The Last Jedi.
It is perhaps the most problematic Star Wars film ever produced. Thoughts of disappointment went through my gray matter, and I braced myself for the two-plus hours to come. I wondered to myself, "Why am I doing this to myself?" But I had started this by watching The Force Awakens and I had to stay committed to the agenda. I was going to watch the entire sequel trilogy, come what may.
Well. Well indeed...
As I've said, as we all know, The Last Jedi is the most issue-ridden chapter of the entire saga. But watching it with a mind absent discrimination, with refreshened eyes... so help me I found myself enjoying The Last Jedi more than I had before.
I was greatly surprised. Genuinely shocked, even. I was able to overlook its shortcomings and instead respect its strengths. And there are many. Was Snoke mishandled? Yes, I will always believe that for the most part. But his death in The Last Jedi was certainly a shock that very few people if anyone at all saw coming.
What I especially appreciate about The Last Jedi is that perhaps more than any other episode in the saga, it delves into the workings of the Force. The scene where Luke has Rey reaching out, feeling the world around her - cold and warmth, life and death - is absolutely beautiful. Not since The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980 had the Force been so metaphysically examined. I love that scene!
And then there is the fight between Luke and his nephew. Yes, maybe it could have ended better: with Luke living and going on to play a much bigger role in the next film. But as a duel between two Force-users, it definitely satisfies. I kept thinking while watching that scene for the first time that Luke was being awfully self-restrained. He was fighting by not fighting. Luke was being a true Jedi master, as we had never seen him before. Actually, this was the very first time that we were seeing him as a master at all. And it did satisfy, it really did.
I finished watching The Last Jedi much more forgiving about that movie. Definitely not perfect. But it's also not the train wreck that I had first perceived it to be (and maybe had come to believe it as being simply because other people were saying how bad it is). With renewed eyes, and a refreshened mind, it was to considerable length a film worthy of Star Wars.
My revisit to the sequel trilogy was two-thirds done. And so it was that I resolved to watch The Rise of Skywalker. Would the trend continue? Might I come to have new feelings about the final film in the story of the Skywalker clan? Or would the trilogy irredeemably collapse, to be forever stricken from being considered as a worthy chapter of the Star Wars saga?
Once more, I was surprised. The Rise of Skywalker held up much better than I remembered it doing.
The ending of The Rise of Skywalker is almost what I had imagined for most of my life would be the perfect ending to the entire nine movies mythology: the Skywalker family coming back to Tatooine, accompanied by the droids, with the twin suns above the horizon. So help me that's how I dreamed of the final scene of Episode IX all my childhood and beyond. And what we see in The Rise of Skywalker is darn nearly that. My biggest complaint about it is that it doesn't have Artoo-Detoo and See-Threepio in that scene: they were the first two characters we saw in A New Hope and it would have been fitting if they were two of the last characters we saw in the final movie. But I suppose that can be let slide.
Yes, The Rise of Skywalker isn't perfect. But some things about it aren't so bad. When I think of "somehow Palpatine returned", I remember that Palpatine did return, pretty much by the same method (cloning, Dark Side magik etc.) in the Dark Empire series by Dark Horse Comics in 1992: the very first Star Wars comic of the Expanded Universe. George Lucas seriously loved the idea of bringing the Emperor back, enough so that he gave trade paperbacks of Dark Empire to all the Lucasfilm employees as Christmas presents. So that particular idea isn't very alien to Star Wars lore. Of course, Lucas was also the one who suggested killing Chewbacca in the novel Vector Prime, so there's that too, but anyway...
When Episode IX had finished playing, I found myself thinking that the sequel trilogy wasn't too awful after all. It did pretty well, all things considered. The untimely death of Carrie Fisher no doubt detrimentally impacted the story. From what I've heard, the intention was that Leia was going to figure enormously into the final film. J.J. Abrams and his team should be given some credit: they did the best that they could do with the little they were given, and it's something to be thankful for that they had all that extra footage of Fisher left over from the filming of The Force Awakens to work with. It's not a "perfect" fit. It's a bit clumsy, if we are to be honest. But that can be forgiven, under the circumstances.
And that was my day re-experiencing episodes 7, 8, and 9 of the Star Wars saga. I went to bed that night, against all sensibilities, with my love of Star Wars re-ignited. It hadn't been wasted at all. I could call myself a true fan again. The "Star Wars shrine" in my living room - that displays among other things my copy of Heir to the Empire signed by Timothy Zahn, my Yoda puppet autographed by "Weird A" Yankovic, my personal lightsaber, and my beloved Chewbacca mug that my best friend from college gave to me - is again something I can be proud of having to showcase something from my childhood that I've carried along all this time.
The Force Awakens is an amazing film. And the next two movies, if not completely up to par with Episode VII, are more than passable on their own. They are Star Wars movies, with all the lumps and warts that come with that. Even A New Hope was considered by many to be more than a little ridiculous when it premiered in 1977. It has been more than forgiven for its faults.
I do believe, absolutely, that with the passage of time episodes 7, 8, and 9 are going to be better regarded than they are today. The weakest of the trilogy is easily The Last Jedi, but the rest of it isn't too terribly bad. The kids seem to like it. Especially young girls, who found a kindred spirit in Rey, and that can't be a bad thing in any way whatsoever.
I was astounded by how much more I liked these three movies than I had before. They are not perfect, but in the end they comprise what they are: a Star Wars trilogy. I can accept it. Just as I can accept the quirks and weaknesses of any of the other six Star Wars movies.
Give the sequels another five or ten years. I'll bet that in time the seventh, eighth, and ninth Star Wars movies are going to be as welcome into the canon as the rest of the saga. I have tremendous confidence that is going to happen.
