On 31 December, 1977, my mother, Margaret Rose Cameron Herlinger, married Rocco Antonio Emanuel, my step-father. In just a few days, it will be their 30th wedding anniversary.
In stereotypical Midwestern fashion, they've asked that no fuss be made. In fact, it takes nearly two weeks of greasing to convince them to allow us to take them to dinner.
Dinner is at a restaurant called O'Charleys near the mall. There's not a lot of cuisine in this deprived area, so we keep to the 'no fuss' request and go to what is more or less your run of the mill family restaurant.
We are no sooner seated than my mother sidles up to me and starts making recommendations. I can feel my fuse shortening and realise I'm going to have to shut up until I get a beer in me. I'm losing both grip and patience with my mother, and I feel bad about it.
But what can I do? I've been here more than two weeks - more time than I've spent in the state of Ohio since I left to live in Pittsburgh in 1990. What was probably simply an attempt to recommend something from the menu strikes me as my mommy trying to show her sonny boy how to order food. I snap and rather unkindly tell her I can read a menu myself.
My outburst makes me feel like an ogre, and my mother recoils a bit. She looks hurt, but she often looks hurt, and I never really know what will hurt her or has hurt her. I suspect this is just what happens between parents and their educated, self-making adult children. She's a generation apart, still hasn't a passport and has never left North America. She's shaky in planes and has a deep-rooted need to control her environment. Travel, even to the next county, sometimes panics her.
We're different now, even though we were regarded as very similar - 'two peas in a pod' my sister used to say - when I was a child. Then I grew up, went to school, came out of the closet, moved away and never looked back. I became who I am. This is the way the world, as I understand it, works.
Still, it makes me feel terrible, for I so seldom see her and know that I am her son. Mothers are strange creatures if you're not one.
I read somewhere that the struggle in families is greatest between mothers and sons. The first would like your relationship to stay the way it was the day you were born for your entire life; the second must wrest independence from a nurturing, comfortable source of original love. How can we not be at our mother's throats - and vice versa - at some point?
The incident passes, and good times return. I gain an understanding of the way things very simply are: It's time to get back to my life.
Now in the room in which I've been sleeping, typing this entry in bed with a notebook computer on my lap, in the quiet solitude of this little space at the top of the house where I lived from age 12 to 19, this place where I first learned to be human before I made myself forget it all and learned thereafter to be myself, I realise that I live in London, but this place and these people are and always will be, for better or for worse, home to me.
You can't go home, and you can never fully leave it. Knowing this somehow makes the struggle of being alive seem less taxing and grounded in something approaching the comfort of carefully considered reasoning.
I fall asleep envisioning a smooth, uneventful flight tomorrow back to the reality I've invented across the pond.
Saturday, 29 December 2007
Friday, 28 December 2007
Fifteenth day of Christmas, 2007 - Moooove Over
I'm up at 11:30a.m. Yesterday's shopping extravaganza took a greater toll than expected. Nothing happens at all during the day except tea, cookies and digital TV. The only other task I manage to complete is an internet grocery order, which should arrive four hours after I return to my flat.
My sister's got on the food bandwagon recently and invites us to hers for London broil. I'm not sure what London broil is, so I check Wikipedia. It's not a cut of meat but a way of preparing an enormous slab of a traditionally tough quadrant of beef, such as a flank steak or round steak. The meat is marinated, grilled and cut into slices against the grain. It is usually recommended that the steak be beaten to a pulp to tenderise it. Now THIS I'm looking forward to.
Mom, Rocco and I arrive at my sister's at 10 past six. Rocco asks if we're late. Mom and I laugh, and I say, 'Good one, Rocco,' for my sister is genetically predisposed to tardiness. Every family has at least one member for whom 'punctuality' is a four letter word. This describes my sister's gently warped lexicon perfectly.
Kathy's husband Jim is sitting in his recliner in exactly the spot I last saw him. He works very early in the morning and is usually a goner by 9p.m. Jim is the household barometer and is camped out comfortably in his favourite chair, indicating at least an hour wait for dinner.
In the kitchen all guns are blazing. Kathy's got what looks like a cow in the oven and a pot of gruyere sauce melting on the stove. She's been watching the Food Network quite a lot recently, and her heroine is the 'make it in 30 minutes' cooking guru Rachel Ray. I've never heard of her of course, being absent from the country for seven years now. Cultural phenomena have come and gone in at least three waves since I moved to Britain.
The gruyere is in a bag and has come already shredded. Unfortunately, my sister's not that versed in things European and didn't realise that the words 'and Emmenthal' meant that there is also shredded Swiss cheese in the bag. The mixture is intended to be added to white wine and used for fondue. I stir the living hell out of the cheese sauce. The emmenthal works its way into the mix somehow.
At 6:30, dinner is served. Jim is in shock. Still he manages to cut short his respite and mosey into the kitchen, where mom, Rocco and I are already seated and salivating
Kathy hoists the beef off the broiling pan and into a serving dish as big as my back. Sauteed onions and mushrooms are piled on top, and we pour over the cheese sauce. The emmenthal has fallen out, as it does, off the heat. But the sauce has enough gruyere in it to make it full-flavoured and viscous enough to slide gently through the onions and over the steak. Kathy did warm us that her food forays are largely experiments. And how can one not applaud her for making the effort? Anyway, this effort's gone overwhelmingly well.
A half hour later, I feel the urge to moo wash over me. We're all stuffed to bursting with beef, onions, green beans, cheese sauce and scampis. My face feels as though it's turning blue from oxygen deprivation. Three glasses of Bordeaux deepen the dizzying effect. This is the most satisfying meal I've had the entire visit.
We chat for awhile longer, help with the washing up then drive home and pass out. It's the end of a perfectly relaxing day of quality eating and drinking. Mooooo.
My sister's got on the food bandwagon recently and invites us to hers for London broil. I'm not sure what London broil is, so I check Wikipedia. It's not a cut of meat but a way of preparing an enormous slab of a traditionally tough quadrant of beef, such as a flank steak or round steak. The meat is marinated, grilled and cut into slices against the grain. It is usually recommended that the steak be beaten to a pulp to tenderise it. Now THIS I'm looking forward to.
Mom, Rocco and I arrive at my sister's at 10 past six. Rocco asks if we're late. Mom and I laugh, and I say, 'Good one, Rocco,' for my sister is genetically predisposed to tardiness. Every family has at least one member for whom 'punctuality' is a four letter word. This describes my sister's gently warped lexicon perfectly.
Kathy's husband Jim is sitting in his recliner in exactly the spot I last saw him. He works very early in the morning and is usually a goner by 9p.m. Jim is the household barometer and is camped out comfortably in his favourite chair, indicating at least an hour wait for dinner.
In the kitchen all guns are blazing. Kathy's got what looks like a cow in the oven and a pot of gruyere sauce melting on the stove. She's been watching the Food Network quite a lot recently, and her heroine is the 'make it in 30 minutes' cooking guru Rachel Ray. I've never heard of her of course, being absent from the country for seven years now. Cultural phenomena have come and gone in at least three waves since I moved to Britain.
The gruyere is in a bag and has come already shredded. Unfortunately, my sister's not that versed in things European and didn't realise that the words 'and Emmenthal' meant that there is also shredded Swiss cheese in the bag. The mixture is intended to be added to white wine and used for fondue. I stir the living hell out of the cheese sauce. The emmenthal works its way into the mix somehow.
At 6:30, dinner is served. Jim is in shock. Still he manages to cut short his respite and mosey into the kitchen, where mom, Rocco and I are already seated and salivating
Kathy hoists the beef off the broiling pan and into a serving dish as big as my back. Sauteed onions and mushrooms are piled on top, and we pour over the cheese sauce. The emmenthal has fallen out, as it does, off the heat. But the sauce has enough gruyere in it to make it full-flavoured and viscous enough to slide gently through the onions and over the steak. Kathy did warm us that her food forays are largely experiments. And how can one not applaud her for making the effort? Anyway, this effort's gone overwhelmingly well.
A half hour later, I feel the urge to moo wash over me. We're all stuffed to bursting with beef, onions, green beans, cheese sauce and scampis. My face feels as though it's turning blue from oxygen deprivation. Three glasses of Bordeaux deepen the dizzying effect. This is the most satisfying meal I've had the entire visit.
We chat for awhile longer, help with the washing up then drive home and pass out. It's the end of a perfectly relaxing day of quality eating and drinking. Mooooo.
Thursday, 27 December 2007
Fourteenth day of Christmas, 2007 - A Boxing Day that's truly a knock-out
Boxing Day doesn't exist in industrious America, and people are back at work already today. I feel sorry for them, a bit, but I'm glad someone's working because I'm going to raid the shops like a high-seas pirate.
My mother drives me to my sister's. Neither mom nor Rocco can handle large crowds, so they won't be joining us. I hate to say it, but this is fine with me. I'm on a mission, and elderly parents in tow would only slow me down.
My niece and sister and I suit up and board our urban assault vehicle, a Saturn ASTRA 5-door XE. We head off like a SWAT team into the night. First and only port of call: The Eastwood Mall and surrounding shopping complex.
Kathy drops Tiffany and me at the JCPenney. It's not the most impressive shop in the mall, but it's bound to be more deal-heavy than anywhere else. I find two lovely knit jumpers made of high-quality cotton, normally $42 and on sale for $16 (GBP8). A Wenger 'Swiss Army' carry-on bag is the next foe to drop: SRP $100, cut to $40. I also get 15% off at the till with the printable coupon I've got from taking a customer survey on JCP.com. And like the assault on the salt marchers led by Ghandi to the sea, the beatings go on and on into the night.
My mom gave me a $50 gift voucher for Christmas to be used at Macy's. I find a Fossil wallet for $25 and am at a loss as to what to do with the other 25. Then my sister suggests a leather coat. I tell her I'm not good in leather. I grab a zip jacket to prove the point. I look like a retired university professor on his way to the local Harley Davidson dealer.
Kathy hands me a Claiborne lambskin zip jacket with a quilted Thinsulate lining. It catches me off guard and I try it on. Suddenly, I'm cool again. The jacket makes me look almost sophisticated. Almost. In any event, I'm falling for it.
I lift the right arm and read the price tag. My heart sinks. It's regularly $425. However, it's half price now. I ask the lady at the till if there's any other discount that applies today that doesn't involve open a JCPenney charge account. She grabs a photocopy of a voucher and takes another 10% off. They're giving things away today, all over America.
All in, including the balance of the store voucher, the jacket comes to about $175, or a slip over £85.
I'm dizzy with what can only be called a horny materialism. I'm high on an almost sexual wave of stuff. The next six hours are an orgy of Kenneth Cole jackets, Ecco and Nike shoes, Ohio sports team kit and more. And I'm only £300 lighter for the whole mess.
The dollar is in miserable shape. My old neighbourhood looks like Beirut in the 1970s - or 2006. The walls are crumbling, the social foundation is cracked. And yet these four glorious words are the only ones that come to mind:
God effing Bless America.
I return to my mother's house, battle-scarred and knackered, about 9:30p.m. My tendonitis is getting the better of my right arm, which is weighed down with swag. I take it all upstairs and don't ask any of the questions I used to ask myself when I was younger, such as 'How can you indulge like this when there's so much trouble, hunger, war and famine in the world?'
I pause for a second, attempting to reflect, then remember that I really need to arrange a Tesco grocery delivery and email my cleaning lady before going to bed.
I sleep like an overfed baby.
My mother drives me to my sister's. Neither mom nor Rocco can handle large crowds, so they won't be joining us. I hate to say it, but this is fine with me. I'm on a mission, and elderly parents in tow would only slow me down.
My niece and sister and I suit up and board our urban assault vehicle, a Saturn ASTRA 5-door XE. We head off like a SWAT team into the night. First and only port of call: The Eastwood Mall and surrounding shopping complex.
Kathy drops Tiffany and me at the JCPenney. It's not the most impressive shop in the mall, but it's bound to be more deal-heavy than anywhere else. I find two lovely knit jumpers made of high-quality cotton, normally $42 and on sale for $16 (GBP8). A Wenger 'Swiss Army' carry-on bag is the next foe to drop: SRP $100, cut to $40. I also get 15% off at the till with the printable coupon I've got from taking a customer survey on JCP.com. And like the assault on the salt marchers led by Ghandi to the sea, the beatings go on and on into the night.
My mom gave me a $50 gift voucher for Christmas to be used at Macy's. I find a Fossil wallet for $25 and am at a loss as to what to do with the other 25. Then my sister suggests a leather coat. I tell her I'm not good in leather. I grab a zip jacket to prove the point. I look like a retired university professor on his way to the local Harley Davidson dealer.
Kathy hands me a Claiborne lambskin zip jacket with a quilted Thinsulate lining. It catches me off guard and I try it on. Suddenly, I'm cool again. The jacket makes me look almost sophisticated. Almost. In any event, I'm falling for it.
I lift the right arm and read the price tag. My heart sinks. It's regularly $425. However, it's half price now. I ask the lady at the till if there's any other discount that applies today that doesn't involve open a JCPenney charge account. She grabs a photocopy of a voucher and takes another 10% off. They're giving things away today, all over America.
All in, including the balance of the store voucher, the jacket comes to about $175, or a slip over £85.
I'm dizzy with what can only be called a horny materialism. I'm high on an almost sexual wave of stuff. The next six hours are an orgy of Kenneth Cole jackets, Ecco and Nike shoes, Ohio sports team kit and more. And I'm only £300 lighter for the whole mess.
The dollar is in miserable shape. My old neighbourhood looks like Beirut in the 1970s - or 2006. The walls are crumbling, the social foundation is cracked. And yet these four glorious words are the only ones that come to mind:
God effing Bless America.
I return to my mother's house, battle-scarred and knackered, about 9:30p.m. My tendonitis is getting the better of my right arm, which is weighed down with swag. I take it all upstairs and don't ask any of the questions I used to ask myself when I was younger, such as 'How can you indulge like this when there's so much trouble, hunger, war and famine in the world?'
I pause for a second, attempting to reflect, then remember that I really need to arrange a Tesco grocery delivery and email my cleaning lady before going to bed.
I sleep like an overfed baby.
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
Thirteenth day of Christmas, 2007 - Christmas
We all lie in until about 9a.m., eat, shower and hop in the car. It's time to go a-visitin', Crimbo style.
First stop, about 40 miles away, is my step-brother Tony's and his wife Stacey's house in Stow, Ohio, near Akron, once the 'rubber capital of the world.' If you had a car in the 20th century, the tires (or tyres) probably came from Akron.
Tony and Stacey and their kids Payton and Rylan live in a lovely, quiet suburban street with a paper-shredder of a toy dog, the name of which escapes me. Stacey's parents are there. I haven't seen them since Christmas 1998. Her mother, Lorraine, is a nutter, so we get each other's jokes straight away. Gifts are exchanged, gallons of coffee are drunk and a box of Krispy Kremes disappear. Then we're back in the car, winding our way down to Kent, Ohio.
We visit Rocco's mother Rose. Rocco's sister Regina is looking after her today. Rose has alzheimers, but she still manages to kick out a couple good one-liners at my expense. I'm lucky that she does, and I get that sinking feeling that this may be the last time I see her. I haven't been to her house in over a decade, and I remember it well anyway.
Regina slips nicely into Italian-American mother mode and empties the fridge of lasagne, green salad, cranberry sauce (unusual for Christmas in America), an artichoke dip and crackers. We have lunch and Rose plays with a soft toy goat that sings that goatherd song from Sound of Music when you squeeze it's jaws together. It's funny for awhile, and each time she does it, we know she believes it's the first time. We talk around the goat.
Regina is an elementary (grammar) school teacher in Kent. She loves her work and has been teaching her students, in pairs, to knit. I think this is brilliant and wish someone had shown me how to knit when I was in the fourth grade (age nine or so). Then again, I wish someone would have taught me what APR means and how to shop for the best mortgage, but theory won out over practice when I was in grammar and high school. Boo hoo.
The visit goes well and pleasantly and we head back home. The only strife all day happens in the front seat, but it's not much, and I am learning to ignore all the unnecessary tensions that arise. It's not my business, I keep saying, but I know it's all in me and that overcoming it has been part of my life's major mental well-being project.
My sister gets off work early and we visit for a short while. Before we leave, I snag a bag of last night's leftover ham out of the fridge. It's really amazing ham, and I'm going to make an omelette with it in the morning.
It's not a bad Christmas at all.
First stop, about 40 miles away, is my step-brother Tony's and his wife Stacey's house in Stow, Ohio, near Akron, once the 'rubber capital of the world.' If you had a car in the 20th century, the tires (or tyres) probably came from Akron.
Tony and Stacey and their kids Payton and Rylan live in a lovely, quiet suburban street with a paper-shredder of a toy dog, the name of which escapes me. Stacey's parents are there. I haven't seen them since Christmas 1998. Her mother, Lorraine, is a nutter, so we get each other's jokes straight away. Gifts are exchanged, gallons of coffee are drunk and a box of Krispy Kremes disappear. Then we're back in the car, winding our way down to Kent, Ohio.
We visit Rocco's mother Rose. Rocco's sister Regina is looking after her today. Rose has alzheimers, but she still manages to kick out a couple good one-liners at my expense. I'm lucky that she does, and I get that sinking feeling that this may be the last time I see her. I haven't been to her house in over a decade, and I remember it well anyway.
Regina slips nicely into Italian-American mother mode and empties the fridge of lasagne, green salad, cranberry sauce (unusual for Christmas in America), an artichoke dip and crackers. We have lunch and Rose plays with a soft toy goat that sings that goatherd song from Sound of Music when you squeeze it's jaws together. It's funny for awhile, and each time she does it, we know she believes it's the first time. We talk around the goat.
Regina is an elementary (grammar) school teacher in Kent. She loves her work and has been teaching her students, in pairs, to knit. I think this is brilliant and wish someone had shown me how to knit when I was in the fourth grade (age nine or so). Then again, I wish someone would have taught me what APR means and how to shop for the best mortgage, but theory won out over practice when I was in grammar and high school. Boo hoo.
The visit goes well and pleasantly and we head back home. The only strife all day happens in the front seat, but it's not much, and I am learning to ignore all the unnecessary tensions that arise. It's not my business, I keep saying, but I know it's all in me and that overcoming it has been part of my life's major mental well-being project.
My sister gets off work early and we visit for a short while. Before we leave, I snag a bag of last night's leftover ham out of the fridge. It's really amazing ham, and I'm going to make an omelette with it in the morning.
It's not a bad Christmas at all.
Tuesday, 25 December 2007
Twelfth day of Christmas, 2007 - Christmas Eve
Illness and hospitals never sleep, and my sister has to work tomorrow, which is Christmas day. My niece is minding children until 4:30 this afternoon. That leaves us with no choice but to have Christmas lunch a day early and call it "Christmas Eve dinner."
I arrive at my sister's house in my nephew's car at around 6p.m. I could tell you all about the spiral-cut, honey-roasted ham; the boneless turkey breast roast; the endless bowl of prawns and red American cocktail sauce (in a nutshell, ketchup mixed with ground horseradish - it's delicious); the truckload of cheesy potatoes; the green beans in cream of mushroom sauce; the trays of cookies; the sticky toffee pudding I made this afternoon and thrust upon my unsuspecting family at dessert time. I could tell you all about that, but I'd rather tell you about the bathrobe.
A few days ago, I was wandering the shopping mall and found a terry Polo bathrobe. It is the bomb, and I fully intended to buy one after Christmas. But my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew pooled 20 bucks a piece and bought it for me. I opened it and nearly cried. There is no reason for them to spend their hard-earned money, for which they have so many essential uses, on a piece of luxurious ephemera such as this plush, poncey bathrobe that a self-centred, self-responsible and sometimes selfish, single, gay, quasi-bon vivant twat uncle who lives a near-fantasy life in merry old London can and should buy for himself.
There is no reason except that they love me and want to make me happy.
I do my best to contain my emotions, but it's clear I'm happier to receive this silly robe than I have been to receive any present I can remember. I feel important, respected, accepted and very simply loved for the Sex and the City wannabe, inane continent-hopping reflection of my father that I am. (Not that that's the worst thing I could be.)
All that's left to say is, thanks, guys. I love you all very much, and I'll think of you every time I wear my new robe, which will be, and this is no exaggeration, every stinking day until its tatters falls off my slumping, aged, liver spot-stained shoulders.
Now all I need is a pipe and slippers and a Bassett hound and I'm set for a stylish entry into middle age.
I arrive at my sister's house in my nephew's car at around 6p.m. I could tell you all about the spiral-cut, honey-roasted ham; the boneless turkey breast roast; the endless bowl of prawns and red American cocktail sauce (in a nutshell, ketchup mixed with ground horseradish - it's delicious); the truckload of cheesy potatoes; the green beans in cream of mushroom sauce; the trays of cookies; the sticky toffee pudding I made this afternoon and thrust upon my unsuspecting family at dessert time. I could tell you all about that, but I'd rather tell you about the bathrobe.
A few days ago, I was wandering the shopping mall and found a terry Polo bathrobe. It is the bomb, and I fully intended to buy one after Christmas. But my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew pooled 20 bucks a piece and bought it for me. I opened it and nearly cried. There is no reason for them to spend their hard-earned money, for which they have so many essential uses, on a piece of luxurious ephemera such as this plush, poncey bathrobe that a self-centred, self-responsible and sometimes selfish, single, gay, quasi-bon vivant twat uncle who lives a near-fantasy life in merry old London can and should buy for himself.
There is no reason except that they love me and want to make me happy.
I do my best to contain my emotions, but it's clear I'm happier to receive this silly robe than I have been to receive any present I can remember. I feel important, respected, accepted and very simply loved for the Sex and the City wannabe, inane continent-hopping reflection of my father that I am. (Not that that's the worst thing I could be.)
All that's left to say is, thanks, guys. I love you all very much, and I'll think of you every time I wear my new robe, which will be, and this is no exaggeration, every stinking day until its tatters falls off my slumping, aged, liver spot-stained shoulders.
Now all I need is a pipe and slippers and a Bassett hound and I'm set for a stylish entry into middle age.
Monday, 24 December 2007
Eleventh day of Christmas, 2007 - The past is a blast
My mother drove me to my sister's house around 4:30p.m. where I collected the keys to my nephew's car so that I can borrow it and drive to a bar called Buffalo Wild Wings in the Great East Plaza adjacent the Eastwood Mall in a town called Niles. There, at 6p.m., three friends from my high school graduating class and I will meet and try not to bore each other to death.
But first I'm charged with picking up my nephew Bill from the McDonald's where he works. I'm ten minutes late because there's no petrol in the car, and the first gas station I find along the entire stretch of burnt-out old West Market Street is on the edge of downtown Warren. The name on the station is 'McQuaid's,' the surname of one of my best friends and neighbours from my youth who will no doubt not be in attendance this evening at the wing bar. No one's heard from him since the first Gulf War, where he was toyed with until his mind snapped just enough to make him disappear, or so it seems.
My nephew and I discuss the folly of politics and the state of the American government, which brings us no end of laughs. I drop him off at home, the same place from which I retrieved his car only 30 minutes before. We do a lot of circular driving in my family.
I like Bill very much. He's not got a sentimental bone in his body, and every inch of him loves life and laughter in the moment and not a second longer. The car stops, he jumps out and waves goodbye. I shout a dumb joke at him. He laughs, of course, and then I'm off to rejoin the past.
As I drive, snow starts to fall. Three miles later, it's so heavy I cannot see more than about 20 metres in front of the car. I slow to 20 miles per hour in a 55 zone and try to find the road lines. Creeping down the exit ramp at Ohio route 46, I'm on the edge of a sort of highway panic and consider pulling the car off the road. I've not driven in yonks, let alone on what has turned into the wrong side of the road in a raging winter white-out. The other cars' lights reassure me, and I follow them.
I cannot see any structures along the highway and count about three lights before turning right. A snowy tug-of-war ensues with other drivers lost in the car park. We're circling the Home Depot, I believe, and I have no idea where the Great East Plaza is anymore.
Route 46 comes up again (speaking of driving in circles) and I take it to the right. Two inches of snow have fallen in 20 minutes, then, just as suddenly, it all stops. A few right turns and a dozen speed bumps later, I've got the wing bar in sight.
Marian Robison (nee Layfield) and Veronica Diles are the first there. I haven't seen Marian in 15 years. She doesn't look like a mother of three in her 40s. She looks like a woman with an uninitiated uterus of about 33. Veronica is thinner than the last time I saw her. Apparently, marriage is doing her some favours. I'm very pleased to see them both.
A few minutes later, Tom Gober arrives. He's looking very tanned. He's expanded his business empire to include a 2nd enterprise and has moved to Akron. He seems as relaxed and easy-going as ever, and he doesn't look as old as he is, either.
We order some drinks and spend two hours in those swirling sorts of conversations that only people who've known each other since they were in nappies can have. Then the Rev. John Jaros turns up.
John and I haven't seen each other in 15 years either. We were very good friends in high school, and I don't know where the distance came from. But it evaporated almost instantly, and he slipped right into the fray.
As much as I've been happy to see the back of northeastern Ohio, I'm almost wistful for carefree adolescence. These people were not just pals: they were, and are, true friends. I was a lonely gay boy, and these nutters, these ornery, drinking, swearing, wonderful goofballs, propped me up and prevented me from feeling hopelessly alone.
We keep at it until nearly 10:00 before the steadily falling snow outside and increasingly severe travel advisories on the television screens convince us it's time to go. John helps me sweep snow off my borrowed car (Note to sister and family: get a brush and scraper for Bill's car. Thanks.), and we intend to meet again this week before I return to London. We probably won't, but the expression of our desire is sincere.
The drive home is more like a crawl, but I feel safe, warm and buoyed up. I concede that, to varying degrees, I have been hiding from people most of my adult life. I also concede that this has been foolish.
But first I'm charged with picking up my nephew Bill from the McDonald's where he works. I'm ten minutes late because there's no petrol in the car, and the first gas station I find along the entire stretch of burnt-out old West Market Street is on the edge of downtown Warren. The name on the station is 'McQuaid's,' the surname of one of my best friends and neighbours from my youth who will no doubt not be in attendance this evening at the wing bar. No one's heard from him since the first Gulf War, where he was toyed with until his mind snapped just enough to make him disappear, or so it seems.
My nephew and I discuss the folly of politics and the state of the American government, which brings us no end of laughs. I drop him off at home, the same place from which I retrieved his car only 30 minutes before. We do a lot of circular driving in my family.
I like Bill very much. He's not got a sentimental bone in his body, and every inch of him loves life and laughter in the moment and not a second longer. The car stops, he jumps out and waves goodbye. I shout a dumb joke at him. He laughs, of course, and then I'm off to rejoin the past.
As I drive, snow starts to fall. Three miles later, it's so heavy I cannot see more than about 20 metres in front of the car. I slow to 20 miles per hour in a 55 zone and try to find the road lines. Creeping down the exit ramp at Ohio route 46, I'm on the edge of a sort of highway panic and consider pulling the car off the road. I've not driven in yonks, let alone on what has turned into the wrong side of the road in a raging winter white-out. The other cars' lights reassure me, and I follow them.
I cannot see any structures along the highway and count about three lights before turning right. A snowy tug-of-war ensues with other drivers lost in the car park. We're circling the Home Depot, I believe, and I have no idea where the Great East Plaza is anymore.
Route 46 comes up again (speaking of driving in circles) and I take it to the right. Two inches of snow have fallen in 20 minutes, then, just as suddenly, it all stops. A few right turns and a dozen speed bumps later, I've got the wing bar in sight.
Marian Robison (nee Layfield) and Veronica Diles are the first there. I haven't seen Marian in 15 years. She doesn't look like a mother of three in her 40s. She looks like a woman with an uninitiated uterus of about 33. Veronica is thinner than the last time I saw her. Apparently, marriage is doing her some favours. I'm very pleased to see them both.
A few minutes later, Tom Gober arrives. He's looking very tanned. He's expanded his business empire to include a 2nd enterprise and has moved to Akron. He seems as relaxed and easy-going as ever, and he doesn't look as old as he is, either.
We order some drinks and spend two hours in those swirling sorts of conversations that only people who've known each other since they were in nappies can have. Then the Rev. John Jaros turns up.
John and I haven't seen each other in 15 years either. We were very good friends in high school, and I don't know where the distance came from. But it evaporated almost instantly, and he slipped right into the fray.
As much as I've been happy to see the back of northeastern Ohio, I'm almost wistful for carefree adolescence. These people were not just pals: they were, and are, true friends. I was a lonely gay boy, and these nutters, these ornery, drinking, swearing, wonderful goofballs, propped me up and prevented me from feeling hopelessly alone.
We keep at it until nearly 10:00 before the steadily falling snow outside and increasingly severe travel advisories on the television screens convince us it's time to go. John helps me sweep snow off my borrowed car (Note to sister and family: get a brush and scraper for Bill's car. Thanks.), and we intend to meet again this week before I return to London. We probably won't, but the expression of our desire is sincere.
The drive home is more like a crawl, but I feel safe, warm and buoyed up. I concede that, to varying degrees, I have been hiding from people most of my adult life. I also concede that this has been foolish.
Sunday, 23 December 2007
Tenth day of Christmas, 2007 - Bake a behemoth batch of biscuits
It's cookie day. My sister, before she became a nurse and started working 70 hour weeks, used to bake a brazillion Christmas cookies every year. And because she wasn't making nursey money, which is much nicer in the US than in the UK, she gave trays, bags and boxes full of them as Christmas presents.
In honour of my visit, she's suggested we stir up a few batches of sweet holiday cheer, and I'm jittery with anticipation. I borrow my step-father's car today, and we hit the supermarket, which is called Giant Eagle. (My niece works there, safeguarding and entertaining the children of busy shoppers in the Eagle's Nest. See what they did there?) We also stop at the Aldi. I'm surprised to find Aldi in the US, let alone in Ohio. I"m even more surprised to find out it's almost exactly the same. Weirdly, it's also the only place I've seen since I got here that stocks a truly international wine selection. I grab a bottle of Bordeaux as we snap up baking ingredients.
All in, we've gathered around $100 worth of sugar, butter, vanilla, chocolate and butterscotch morsels, molasses (treacle), nuts, coconut etc. We heave it onto the kitchen table.
I spend the next four hours sipping 50/50 coffee (half decaf, half caffeinated) with Bailey's and rolling buttery (and/or peanut buttery), sugary balls in my hands. Each one needs to be rolled in white sugar and placed on a baking sheet about three inches (7 cm) from its neighbours. The chocolate chip cookies are applied to the sheets with the 'two spoons' method. The chocolate drop cookies need a Hershey's kiss deposited in their centres within a minute or two of coming out of the oven, then they're carefully scooped off the sheets and placed gently on my sister's miracle, stackable cooling racks.
My mother turns up about half way through, and we form an impromptu cookie manufacturing centre the efficiency of which rivals that of a Mercedes Benz plant.
My sister gives me a thank you card from my niece. She's customarily written notes to everyone who came to her graduation. 'Sorry it all got a little insane,' she wrote, 'but you didn't think we'd let you come all this way without giving you a little real-life entertainment, did you?'
We're all doing the best we know how, and some of us are even succeeding.
The cookies are strewn about. There's something like five dozen of each of seven types of cookies by the time we finish. Stacks of them are tucked into every corner of the kitchen. We've sampled at least half of one of each kind, and we're all in a sugar slump that coffee can't cure. My mother is the first to go home.
My sister's kitchen looks like Dresden after the fire bombing, but she doesn't mind that I can't go on and won't hear of me staying to help with the washing up. She's an angel and I realise again how much I love her.
I drive home via the local truck stop on Route 5, where I'm looking for some chewing gum. Forgetting where I am, I ask if they have any Airwaves. The woman behind the counter gives the customary forehead wrinkle. I apologise and grab some Extra, explaining that I grew up just down the road but now live in England.
Her eyes light up. She gasps and takes my hand as she tucks the change into my palm. "You're so lucky. I envy you so much. Please take me back with you!", she laughs.
I roll over the bridge crossing the swollen Mahoning River, past the abandoned, farmed-out fields, the vast marshlands that dot this floodplain and fill the place with mosquitos in late spring, and past the small, rickety houses that shelter impoverished families. "Please take me back with you!" I would if I could. I really would.
In honour of my visit, she's suggested we stir up a few batches of sweet holiday cheer, and I'm jittery with anticipation. I borrow my step-father's car today, and we hit the supermarket, which is called Giant Eagle. (My niece works there, safeguarding and entertaining the children of busy shoppers in the Eagle's Nest. See what they did there?) We also stop at the Aldi. I'm surprised to find Aldi in the US, let alone in Ohio. I"m even more surprised to find out it's almost exactly the same. Weirdly, it's also the only place I've seen since I got here that stocks a truly international wine selection. I grab a bottle of Bordeaux as we snap up baking ingredients.
All in, we've gathered around $100 worth of sugar, butter, vanilla, chocolate and butterscotch morsels, molasses (treacle), nuts, coconut etc. We heave it onto the kitchen table.
I spend the next four hours sipping 50/50 coffee (half decaf, half caffeinated) with Bailey's and rolling buttery (and/or peanut buttery), sugary balls in my hands. Each one needs to be rolled in white sugar and placed on a baking sheet about three inches (7 cm) from its neighbours. The chocolate chip cookies are applied to the sheets with the 'two spoons' method. The chocolate drop cookies need a Hershey's kiss deposited in their centres within a minute or two of coming out of the oven, then they're carefully scooped off the sheets and placed gently on my sister's miracle, stackable cooling racks.
My mother turns up about half way through, and we form an impromptu cookie manufacturing centre the efficiency of which rivals that of a Mercedes Benz plant.
My sister gives me a thank you card from my niece. She's customarily written notes to everyone who came to her graduation. 'Sorry it all got a little insane,' she wrote, 'but you didn't think we'd let you come all this way without giving you a little real-life entertainment, did you?'
We're all doing the best we know how, and some of us are even succeeding.
The cookies are strewn about. There's something like five dozen of each of seven types of cookies by the time we finish. Stacks of them are tucked into every corner of the kitchen. We've sampled at least half of one of each kind, and we're all in a sugar slump that coffee can't cure. My mother is the first to go home.
My sister's kitchen looks like Dresden after the fire bombing, but she doesn't mind that I can't go on and won't hear of me staying to help with the washing up. She's an angel and I realise again how much I love her.
I drive home via the local truck stop on Route 5, where I'm looking for some chewing gum. Forgetting where I am, I ask if they have any Airwaves. The woman behind the counter gives the customary forehead wrinkle. I apologise and grab some Extra, explaining that I grew up just down the road but now live in England.
Her eyes light up. She gasps and takes my hand as she tucks the change into my palm. "You're so lucky. I envy you so much. Please take me back with you!", she laughs.
I roll over the bridge crossing the swollen Mahoning River, past the abandoned, farmed-out fields, the vast marshlands that dot this floodplain and fill the place with mosquitos in late spring, and past the small, rickety houses that shelter impoverished families. "Please take me back with you!" I would if I could. I really would.
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