Hey, Pop. I haven’t talked to you in a while, and I just want to say hi and see how you’re doing. I know you’re doing well, though. Continue reading
Author: robbievance
The Perfect Birthday Present
I completed my 41st year on the 30th of last month. Birthdays are usually a big event when you’re a kid. There’s cake and ice cream, presents from all your family members, parties with your friends, and you get to feel special for moving ahead and leaving all those other kids behind until they catch up to you at some point in the next year. Continue reading
The View From Nicky’s Seat
The following is a Facebook post from Nicky Williams Dexter. She shared her daily reality and it gripped me. She and I share the struggles of FSHD yet we have different experiences. I’m reposting this with her permission. If you’d like to contact her, she accepts all friend requests from folks interested in FSHD. I encourage all of you to drop her a line of support on Facebook. Continue reading
The truck battery didn’t last, but the friendship did
On June 2, 1992, my family moved from Louisville to Brandon. I met a few kids that first summer before school started, but when band camp rolled around a couple weeks before the first day of school, I got a jump start on making friends. So, on my first day of high school, I wasn’t totally lost. There were familiar faces peppered throughout the student body. Little did I know that I’d met my best friend throughout high school on the first day of drum camp. Continue reading
The night my chair tried to kill me
One particular Wednesday night in March of my 30th year, I was at my parents’ house sitting at a table in the living room while working on my laptop. They were at church, and I was there by myself. It had been raining for several days and was still raining. I could hear the fat drops as they pelted the roof above me.
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Stennis Flag
She’s Alive! She’s Alive!
…continued
Several weeks after the rage of getting conned by a con man faded from the front of my brain, I met Mr. Roy. He was a nice, white-haired gentleman who worked the sign-in table at my voting precinct. I’d heard Martin say on many occasions he had to go see Mr. Roy to get paid for some task he’d helped him with or that Mr. Roy was letting him store his tools in his shop or some other guano. When my wife nudged me and told me who it was, I struck up a brief conversation with him about Martin. He responded with a blasé attitude and wasn’t too interested in getting involved with anything Martin related. So, I voted and left feeling let-down. I couldn’t understand why anyone who knew Martin wouldn’t want to gab about what a road apple he was.
Breaking Martin News!
Just as I was about to call it a week at work and head out for the weekend, I got a call from the Warren County DA’s office in regard to a 3-year old case against a homeless guy to whom we’d given some food, but not Martin. Martin stole my lawnmower. This guy stole a Honda scooter from my garage. The case has dragged out for numerous reasons and been nothing but a nagging irritation to me up to this point.
I Lost a Lawnmower, But I Gained a .357
…continued
Shortly after the blessing of the balls and Martin’s mother’s funeral, he showed up and started working off the money I’d given him by mowing my grass that he’d been neglecting. Being the resourceful chap that he was, he also started using my lawnmower to cut other yards up and down the street. A few days after starting his new business, he even asked me if it was OK that he was using my lawn equipment. Even though it was a little out of sequence, I had no problem with the deal. I figured it was a way that I could help him out without it costing me more than a gallon of gas every so often.
The preacher and the… orbs.
(…cont’d)
Over the next few days, Martin’s attitude seemed to improve in spite of his mother’s death, and we assumed that someone must have put up the money to get his mother’s body released to the funeral home. He didn`t come by to attempt to chip away at the pile of work we`d paid him to do that he hadn’t done, but he called regularly to give us updates of his whereabouts and daily activities. However, we didn’t mind his scarcity because a tornado of restless energy tagged along with him whenever he came around, and I think we were exhausted just from his awareness that we were alive.
