Just scanning a couple of old photos for my upcoming high school reunion, and thought I’d share one that I’ve always particularly liked. Real tough guy, wasn’t I? For the record, that’s my first car I’m sitting on, a 1970 Thunderbird that was about the same size as the Starship Enterprise. Well, maybe not that big… maybe the size of the Reliant. Either way, I wish I still had it. And yes, I am wearing a ZZ Top muscle shirt. Hey, give me a break; it was the Awesome ’80s, after all…
The title line says it all: after nine weeks of chemotherapy, Shadow, the Bennion Family Dog, is cancer-free. His veterinarian checked several lymph nodes around his body today and found no sign of abnormalities. My parents’ big gamble worked, and, needless to say, we’re all breathing much easier tonight.
Moving forward, he will continue to receive chemo for several more weeks, just to be sure, but the vet assured my mom and dad that he’s responded as well as any dog she’s ever seen, and he’s got several more years ahead of him. He passed through the whole ordeal with very few problems, aside from picking up a few pounds as a result of the prednisone that was used to shrink his swollen glands. (I suspect the vast amounts of ice cream my folks have been feeding him lately might’ve had something to do with it, too. Time for this border collie to go on a diet!)
My parents have been surprised and very, very humbled by the support they’ve received from their friends (and even a few people who aren’t so friendly) in the local antique-car scene, and I myself would like to say thank you to everyone who took the time to leave a comment here on Simple Tricks or to e-mail me personally. Yes, Shadow is only a dog, but in our family, dogs are people, too, and your compassion has meant a great deal to me.
The pulp-fictional Shadow knew what evil lurks in the hearts of men; the Bennions know what good lies there as well…
I received an e-mail this morning from Jeff Farr, the president of Bingham High’s Class of 1987 and organizer of our upcoming 20-year reunion. Sounds like he could use some help!
I’ve forwarded his message on to all my former classmates for whom I had e-mail addresses, but maybe there are some more of you lurking silently here that I don’t know about. If you’re one of those, please read on, and then do what you can to spread the word…
[Ed. note: Read the first part of this long story here.]
Fast-forward to just a couple years ago. Nearly three decades had passed since the Great Dirt-Pile Fracas. The Crazy Lady was now living alone after losing a second husband and seeing her kids move away — far away, in a couple of cases. Both she and my father had mellowed somewhat, enough to speak to one another occasionally with some degree of civility, although both of them still tried to keep their distance. But even with such limited contact, it started becoming obvious that something strange was happening to The Crazy Lady. She was becoming… well, nice. Sickeningly sweet, in fact. If she saw my mother out in the front yard, she’d cross the street to complement her on her roses. If Dad was trying to repair that decrepit old whiteboard fence across the front of the pasture just well enough to get through one more summer, she’d come ask him if he wanted a cool drink.
This behavior was… unsettling. It was extremely out of character for her, and it put my parents on guard. They thought at first it must surely be some kind of Trojan horse gambit that would inevitably lead to another fight. But no, The Crazy Lady continued to be nice and no attack ever came. Someone — Dad, perhaps, who has learned a great deal more compassion than he used to have — suggested that maybe she was lonely, or that having her children all run as far away as they could get had taught her a lesson. All too soon, however, we started to see other symptoms. And we recognized them for what they were.
Once, when I was a kid, my father got into a years-long feud with one of our neighbors over — I kid you not — a pile of dirt.
The neighbor in question was a widow who lived across the street from us and had a reputation for being irrationally mean. My folks have told me many times how she used to chase her children around her front yard, beating them with a broom; obviously, this was in those bygone libertarian days before the government was empowered to send out its Welfaremobiles to collect unfortunate children. In any event, the grown-ups on my street did their best to avoid confrontations with her, and I — who at some point had started thinking of her as “The Crazy Lady” — avoided her altogether.
The Great Dirt-Pile Fracas actually began with a real-estate deal. There was an empty lot next door to The Crazy Lady’s place, a lot which belonged, as best as I can recall, to one of her in-laws. The in-law had never done anything with the land, and The Crazy Lady had somehow, over the years, come to think of it as hers.
Then my father bought it, and all hell broke loose.
Just a little PSA for any fellow Bingham High School alumni who may be reading: the Class of ’87 Twenty-Year Reunion is now only one month away. Details here.
I know many people, perhaps even most people, look back on their high school days with a mixture of disgust, embarrassment, unforgotten hurts, and lingering regrets, assuming that they look back at them at all and haven’t long since dealt with it all in therapy and moved on with their lives like normal, well-adjusted grown-ups. I, however, am a sentimentalist and a nostalgic (in case you haven’t noticed), and the twisted, incredible truth is that I enjoyed my time in high school. Oh, I had my fair share of teenage angst and difficulties — trouble with girls and bullies and self-confidence and all the other crap you see in cynical, darkly funny movies written by tragically ironic hipster types who smoke too much — but I also had good friends (most of whom I still see or hear from occasionally) and a cool car, and I emerged from the ’80s with a lot of fond memories.
All of which means that, even though I have yet to formally decide whether or not I’m going to my reunion, the odds are very, very good that I’ll be there on September 8th. How about you?
As you may have surmised from the title of this entry, today is The Girlfriend’s birthday. Neither of us are all that keen on birthdays anymore, on account of having had a few too many of them for comfort, but, darling, I hope this will be a good one for you anyhow. I also hope you won’t think your presents suck. You’ll be receiving them in a few hours.
In the meantime, allow me to embarrass you with this classic image from your past:
When I think of you, baby, this is the image that often come to mind: you engaged in one of your favorite pastimes — napping — with a stuffed penguin…
A few of the things that’ve grabbed my attention in the last couple days:
After a long stretch of crazy-making days in which the temperature topped 100 degrees and the humidity hovered somewhere around “Sahara,” the skies finally started taking pity on us poor Salt Lakers earlier this week. It’s rained on four successive evenings, but the first three nights saw only tentative overtures to last night’s symphony. Some areas — like The Girlfriend’s apartment complex — got pummelled by hurricance-style thundershowers and hail, but here at the Bennion Compound, it was simply a good, steady downpour, exactly the sort of cleansing, nourishing rain I’ve been craving for ages. It was accompanied by a constant spectacle of lightning that would’ve made Nicola Tesla squeal with delight, and roars of thunder that were loud enough to feel in your belly. I love storms like that…
I’m not one to get all gooey over news of someone successfully procreating, especially someone I don’t personally know, but I thought Telstar Logistic‘s “press release” this morning was both clever and funny:
PRESS RELEASE
TELSTAR LOGISTICS LAUNCHES NEXT GENERATION BRAND EXTENSION
Genetic Technology Yields Robust, Scalable, Cute New Life
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – 25 July, 2007 Telstar Logistics Genetics Systems, working in collaboration with the Biological Imperative Group and Evolutionary Optimization Inc., is proud to announce the successful launch and deployment of our newest brand extension, Miel Avril Lappin.
…
A state-of-the-art newborn, Miel is equipped with the latest onboard diagnostic and maintenance technologies, including fully autonomic respiratory, circulatory, and waste-disposal systems, as well as pre-installed grasping and suckling subroutines. A built-in acoustic alarm alerts the executive team when ambient conditions are sub-optimal, and the user interface is calibrated for maximum cuteness.
He goes on in that vein for a bit; it’s worth a glance and a chuckle. I especially liked that bit about the acoustic alarm for sub-optimal conditions…