« I'm Out • Main • Hipster Arrogance/Cynicism »

December 02, 2003

Natural American Spirit

I suppose I should blog now, and give all y'all the low-down on thanksgiving and the haps.

But first, as Mr. Colrus recently pointed out, there's a new arts n' culture type mag starting in Chattanooga. You writer types should consider submitting some of your work there for publication. I think Mesh, Andy, and some others have hopped on the bandwagon. You should too.

Thanksgiving was great, hanging with my Aunt Sherry/Uncle Tom, Aunt Dee/Uncle Joe, and my Dad. We played alot of pinochle. When you grow up dirt poor like my family did, straight outta the depression-era Jonesboro, AK the migrating up north to get a job in the factories in and around Detroit, you tend to pour everything you've got into the little things you've got for entertainment. And for my Dad & his family it was card playing. Hence, they're a buncha viciously competative ridiculously competant card sharks.

April actually got a little wigged out at the intensity at one point, choosing to go into the back bedroom to read instead of watching the game. I guess I never really thought about just how...passionate we folks could be when playing cards. I mean, I was low man on the totem pole, having to pretty much learn the game from the ground up, and they were merciless with me. I didn't think anything of it, 'cause, well, that was my lot, my role to play in the game.

Anyways, by the end of the trip I was hanging with them fairly well, where loosing a hand was more of a product of the cards I was dealt (or wasn't dealt) as opposed to being a product of my own incompetance.

I wish I could express just how dang good my fam is at cards. I mean, they can sit there and pretty much tell you a few tricks into a game what people are holding what cards, what order those cards need to be played for which people to take which tricks to ensure that they'll make their bid etc. etc. etc. It's one giant puzzle they've picked apart so many times, so many different ways, they can do it in their sleep, or, in our case while swopping old family stories of Aunt A beating up Aunt B while Aunt C holds back grandma, or something about Great Grandpa Roe moving his whole family from the Cumberland Valley where he was working as a logger to Jonesboro, AK because he killed a man in self-defense, except the family of that man threatened revenge. Crazy.

I'm planning on one day writing a book about my ancestors/family. The stories there make a Faulkner novel seem like regular PAX channel programming. The stories of grace, forgiveness, and redemption though are staggering. I've gotta hold off on the book though, till certain folks in the stories pass away. Some things are just better left off the public docket till later.

Anyways, April and I are back. It was a great time. The drive was dang long though through the middle of nowhere Arkansas. We were in Morris' Tracker. It's back "window" was gone though, so by about 9:30 pm on the drive home April and I were freezing. Oh, the heater doesn't work either.