Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to December 1, 2008. December, traditionally, is a month of strange and very odd things. It marks the 24-day annual return of Borris the Christmas Porpoise, makes me remind you to go visit Sammy the Christmas Snake, who has been lonely in his box for a year, and it also happens to be my little brother’s birthday.
Tommy is now 19, and something about this seems very wrong.
I remember the day he was born quite well. It was Friday, December 1, 1989 (not December 0, 1989). I was being my standard, annoying loud self, making lots of noise about not wishing to wake up and go to school, when Mom went into labor. They managed to throw me on the bus, then she went to the hospital.
The day was relatively normal and boring, until I came home.
Obviously, Mom wasn’t around, so my x-Aunt Katherine met me at the house after school, and drove me to her place, which, in my opinion, was much more fun. Aunt Katherine and Uncle Jim had lots of fun things to play with, like a Casio SK-1 keyboard (one of which I got for Christmas that year), and a Nintendo Entertainment System. Plus, they lived in a huge house with lots of room in which to play around and get lost. They always have, since Jim works in Real Estate. Jim and Katherine later divorced, and Jim married another Kathy. I’ve been known to slip and call her Katherine, and she doesn’t like that much… Anyway,
The idea was that I’d stay there with my Aunt and cousins for a couple of hours, after which point, my late Grandfather would pick Ryan and myself up after work, and we’d both stay at their place for the weekend. This was another fun place to hang out. I particularly enjoyed the garage.
The alternative was staying at home with Dad all weekend while Mom recovered in the hospital, which, to me, was a boring prospect. Wait… it still is! Don’t get me wrong. My Dad’s an awesome person, but… he’s Dad!
As you’ll surely know by now, plans almost never quite come to fruition. My Grandfather picked us up and drove us to their house. However, we were only there for about ten minutes or so when the phone call showed up, announcing the arrival of Thomas C. Perdue, Jr.
About an hour later, my brother and I, along with Pawpaw, were at the hospital to check out the new person.
Of course, Dad was already there, and, instead of going back to spend a relatively fun weekend with my brother and grandparents, I was taken home by… Dad! No! An entire weekend with just Dad for company! Waaaaaaaah! Needless to say, I made a lot of noise about that, but no one seemed to notice or care.
So, the following two days dragged on… and on… and on…
At this point, for something to do, my Dad showed me how to dial a rotary phone. We had push-button phones in the house, but the phone in the master bedroom was an old General Electric Rotary carbon phone which Dad bought in the mid seventies, which I still have. Trying to dial out from it on my modern VoIP system is pointless, but it’s still there. Interestingly enough, the house got it’s first cordless phone for Christmas that year, a rather nice sounding Panasonic phone that ran on 46.93 and 49.83 MHZ… Anyway, I wanted to call the hospital and talk to my Mommy, but Dad sensibly didn’t give me the phone number, thinking that I would have done exactly what I would have done, calling loads of times during the day and being my annoying five-year-old self. Of course, Mom didn’t need that, but who cares? My privileged position as the youngest brother was suddenly usurped. Didn’t I deserve some sort of compensation?
I remember a Sesame Street Christmas special airing on PBS that Sunday morning, December 3. It was the one where Cookie Monster kept trying to write letters to Santa, and he kept getting distracted, eventually eating what he was using to write with, I.E. pencils, paper, typewriter… Neat noises!
Finally, that Sunday afternoon, Mom was ready to come home from the hospital with the new crying brother-type-thing. I remember distinctly going to the hospital with Dad in Mom’s 1984 Mustang with 104.1, WTQR on the radio, playing Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.” As far as I can remember, this was the first time I’d ever heard that song. Yeah, I know, it was released in 1980, but hey, I was five!
We finally made it to the hospital to retrieve Mommy and Tommy, at which point I played with the buttons on the hospital beds, because it was fun. I always made it a point to do that when I was little, whenever possible.
It was at this point I learned that Tommy was blind, just like his two older brothers! How cute! I was hoping he could see, so that, when he was older, Ryan and I could use him to our own ends, but alas, this was not to be. Oh well, a house full of blind idiots is always fun.
A new little brother now existed in my life, one that, for the first couple of years of his existence, apparently enjoyed to hear me play the piano. If I started playing, he’d shut up until I stopped, then he’d cry loudly until I started playing again. So, for the next couple of years, I didn’t play the piano much, opting for my keyboard with headphones, so as not to annoy myself. Yep, always the selfish idiot, that’s me!
Growing up with Tommy around was certainly interesting. He is classified as semi-autistic, and has obsessions with wind chimes, and anything that can ding, really. When he was smaller, it was bowls, cans, pots, and other metallic resonant things. It wasn’t uncommon to walk into his bedroom to find tons and tons of cans on the floor, in the closet, on the dressers, and everywhere else. Replace cans with wind chimes, and you’ve still got the same situation today. He knew all his cans. Usually, the can would have a picture of something on the can, which someone would describe to him. A particularly evil one was “the goose can”, which found it’s way in everyone’s way more often than any other can. It was warped, had sharp edges with tape holding it together, and really needed to die!
There were also such evil things as “the ding bowl”, “the dish pan”, and various other bad utensils that, likewise, really needed to die, and eventually did. The Santa Clause Can, the Currier and Ives Can, and something about teachers and whiskey? I can’t remember that one… Tommy’s teachers probably did want to indulge after a session or two, though. I couldn’t exactly blame them, really.
Now, he’s 19, out of school, and as tall as I am, though a good deal smaller. It really doesn’t seem like he’s been around that long, but such is life. The passage of time is cruel and un-yielding, and does bad things, good things, and neutral things. Basically, a lot of things occur simply due to the result of the passage of time, and, unless things are altered, not much can be done about that… Um, no, I think I’ll just quit.
Despite my being rather broke, Christmas shopping has begun, meaning I will soon be even more broke.
I placed a bid for a lot of three Shure SM85 microphones on Ebay. I only wanted one, but all I could find was a lot of three. The bid went over $130, which was still more than I wanted to pay for three mics, two of which would have probably been resold anyway, so no more SM85’s for me. I’d really like a matching pair of them, though. The only matching mics I have now are the Cad M179’s, and the cheap, but surprisingly nice Behringer XM-8500 dynamics. Oh, I do have those two MXL-603’s, but they’re not quite consistent with each other, so I don’t really consider that a true match. The two uni-directional capsules sound slightly different, and the omni capsules for the 603’s are well-matched, but they’re a bit peaky, although they’re very clean. Shame about that, really. Could have been a really nice cheap Jecklin Disk/Naiant replacement. I’d still like to find a set of Audio Technica AT-3032’s or 4022’s for a good price, but that will have to wait. More pressing things to atend to now.
Oh well, gotta post this before the day is over. Have fun, and 73’s while you’re at it.
