In putting together my posting of the goings-on of December 2008, I realized how odd and eclectic my lifestyle can at times be. Of course, I wouldn’t change anything about it, but I wanted to point out the complete opposite ends of of a three-sided spectrum that some of these events represent: from a drunken fiesta with wild associates, to a gathering of vintage film geeks, to the family party of a ninety year old great-uncle, it’s hard to tie these events together in any way, shape, or form…other than the fact that they all occurred in the merry month of December.
Yes, I can and do generally go on and on about how fast December gets here after Halloween and then how fast it then proceeds to fly by as we all make Christmas preparations, but it has become so passe to talk about the rapid passing of time that I’m sick of hearing it and saying it. So once it arrived, I just held on tight and tried to get as much done as I could before the Christmas deadline.
Work was a bit hectic right from the get-go as we opened up three stores within two weeks – Price Hill on December 3, a Hebron, Kentucky Marketplace on December 4, and the new store in Lawrenceburg, Indiana on December 11. I actually skipped the grand opening at Price Hill so I could concentrate on the next two openings. I spent the nights in Holiday Inns on the 2nd and 10th in preparation for early morning arrivals at opening stores located so far from home. Once these grand openings were done (these three made a total of five in a month’s time), it was a great relief to be back to business as usual at work.
On December 4, I got the bad news that Denise’s cat Stymie had died. Denise was forced to make the difficult but humane choice to have him put to sleep. His kidneys had been failing and he was down to five pounds, so the sad time finally came to say goodbye. You might recall that Stymie was originally my cat that I gotten in 1995. He had had a full life of thirteen highly-mischievous years.
This is most likely Stymie’s last photo - taken on August 1, 2008
The first weekend of the month saw a lot of activity, beginning with the inaugural meeting of The Chimp tent of the Sons of the Desert in Cincinnati on Saturday, December 6. As a former member of my Dayton A-Haunting We Will Go tent, Gene Sorkin decided to continue the legacy of our area by heading up a new chapter to bring Laurel and Hardy film screenings back into the public. Although it will be difficult for me to make too many of the future meetings, I certainly wanted to be there for the first one to pass the so-called torch to Gene.
After a bumpy, yet humorous, start where no one could figure out how to work the video projector (he was using a Mac rather than a normal DVD player), we all enjoyed a round of shorts that included the cartoon Hollywood Steps Out, Our Gang’s Beginner’s Luck, and L&H in Big Business, Hog Wild, and Dirty Work. Like she had done at a couple of my meetings, Cincinnatian Joan Chrislip was on hand to play live keyboard accompaniment to Big Business. She is simply amazing and I was so glad that she agreed to play at the meeting.
The meeting of twenty people was a success and I hope it is indicative of future meetings of the tent. There was a nice cake, door prizes, and plenty of snacks to keep everyone entertained as they socialized between films.
Cake honoring the inaugural event
‘Unstaged’ photo of me passing the torch to Gene
Gene chats with me while I enjoy my soda
Bruce and Joan Chrislip chat while I enjoy my chips (see a pattern here?)
Group photo of about 75% of the meeting attendees
It was on the way home that things got messy. I was chatting with my friend Bob Satterfield on the phone when all of the sudden, it felt as if I was driving over uncharted land, my car bobbing up and down and shaking. Turns out that I had a flat tire. I pulled off the road in a parking lot near the Dayton Mall and investigated. Not only was it cold and dark, but it was also raining. Tried as I did to get the car jacked up to replace the flat with the spare, I did not have the skill or patience to get it done in that kind of weather, so I called my stepdad Bob to come and help me. More than an hour after I first had pulled off the road, he got the spare tire on, with no help coming from the policeman who came to investigate what I was doing in the lot of a closed business.
After it was all over and I had traded cars with Mom so Bob could take mine and have it fixed, I decided I needed to stop off and meet Heidi and her friend Jen at Scor, a pub in Bellbrook for a much-needed beer. It was nice to hang out with them for a while after the stressful evening, but naturally that almost went completely sour when they nearly got into a fistfight…with each other! Now I like a good catfight as much as the next guy, but by that time it just helped to solidify the after-L&H evening as…another nice mess.
As we started the next week, Heidi visited on Sunday the 7th to watch Leatherheads on DVD. I was also just finishing up The Addams Family series DVD and moved on to the first season of WKRP in Cincinnati, followed by my DVDs of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. This is part of my quest to watch every episode of every ‘good’ sitcom that is on DVD. See? Eclectic.
Throughout the weeks of December (which saw temperatures bobbing up and down, occasional sun and occasional shower, but never snow…at least any that stuck), I was not only working at work, but also preparing for Christmas with (mostly online) shopping. After the Lawrenceburg opening on the 11th, I took a much-needed day off (which made up for the Saturday I worked at Kenwood) on Friday the 12th. That night Heidi hosted a small party at her house which ensured that I wouldn’t be getting anything productive done for the next couple of days.
Her friends Megan, Jason, and Cierrah all came over and brought along Jagermeister and Red Bull – for a Jager Bomb concoction – and a bagful of Jello shots. Needless to say, I was out until about 5am that night and had almost no sleep going into Saturday. How old am I again?
Me with Heidi’s friend Megan
Megan, Cierrah, and Jason get wild when the music starts
Heidi looks innocent, and yet…
Scraping the last drop of the Jello shot
Things were a bit more subdued on Saturday the 13th as Mom and I met up with Grandpa and Diana & Tom and we all went to the 90th birthday party of my Grandpa’s brother Duane. He had turned 90 on December 9 and is currently living in a nursing home in the Carriage Inn Nursing Home of Dayton, so this is where we held the gathering. There were good snacks, cake, and beverage on hand, but what was most interesting was seeing some of Mom’s cousins who were there. Duane and his wife Norma were both there along with their children Bobbie and Mike. Mike had flown in from North Carolina.
With Duane, who refuses to smile. When you’re 90, you have a right to make that call.
Diana and Mom with their cousins (Duane and Norma’s children) Bobbie and Mike
Way back in 1984, after my Mom’s cousin Bobbie had separated from her husband, she began spending a lot of time with our family. My parents and her would often go out and many times Bobbie’s daughter Becky and I would be left to babysit my sister Denise and her brother Charles. So after being with them so often, I got to know and enjoy the company of my second cousin Becky, who was just a few months older than me, as our parents did their own thing. And oftentimes as kids of twelve and thirteen do, we would make a game out of sneaking some of their beer back to my room during the picnics and such that we all attended.
This only lasted about six months or so and then everyone kind of went their separate ways again. I had seen Bobbie at my Grandma Murphy’s funeral in 2006, but I don’t think I had seen Becky since those days in the mid-1980′s. So it was nice to catch up and meet her husband and three kids, one of whom came to liked to call me ‘cousin’.
Duane and Grandpa, two generations removed from mine
Mom and Bobbie, the next generation
And still further down the tree, me and my second cousin Becky. A picture of us together as babies can be seen here.
As my three-day weekend ended, I decided that I better get my butt in gear and start working on our annual family Christmas newsletter, which I first began on the evening of Sunday the 14th. Although I did little else after work for the next four days, I still think it was remarkable that I met my goal of completion on Thursday, December 18.
The newsletter will be coming up next…
I hadn’t heard that Stymie died. I’m so sorry to hear that, but Stymie really lived a long life for a cat and was loved by Denise (and you)!
Thank you for putting in the pictures of Uncle Duane. I didn’t reconize him; I had to read to find out who it was. He’s changed alot since I saw him last at mom’s funeral.
Bev
December 21st, 2008
Sorry to hear about Stymie.
Dave Chasteen
December 22nd, 2008