Hello Darkness My Old Friend…

FEATURED POSTS

April 10, 2017

IN THE DARK OF THE NIGHT

I grew up in a low-light community. It wasn’t designed to be a low-light community and it wasn’t called a low-light community – it just was one. There was one street light on one corner of each block in my neighborhood of dirt roads and run-down houses. It was unfortunately, the longest block in the world.

I knew this because I would come home on the streetcar when I was 7- or 8-years-old after going to the movies downtown and have to walk that one dark block to get home. It was a long time ago, when nobody was undone by a boy that age being out after dark by himself. I was basically a free-range kid, back before “free-range” became a term or a controversy.

It wasn’t as though I was coming home late in the night, but in the winter, it got dark early. My problem was that I loved the horror shows – Frankenstein, Dracula, the Invisible Man, and the ever-popular Werewolf franchise. I couldn’t get my fill.

But of all the scary movie characters, the scariest of all for me was the Mummy. The Mummy was not fast, in fact he was really slow. You could easily outrun the Mummy. But he never stopped. You could run like Hell, but you couldn’t slow down. You take a nap, you wake up, and here comes the Mummy. You run into the store for a Moon Pie and a Nehi grape soda, you barely take a bite and here comes the damn Mummy. The Mummy wasn’t fast, but he was relentless.

My mom knew how the horror movies scared me, but she also knew how much I loved them, and she gave me the standard mom advice. “Remember, it’s just a movie.”

I tried to remember that. I would get off the streetcar, look down that long, dark unpaved street, take a deep breath and tell myself: “It’s just a movie.” There are no such things as vampires or werewolves or mummies.

Then I would start walking, over the creek where the alligator lived and into the darkness. At the beginning, I would be OK, but as I neared the middle point between lights, and the night got darker and more foreboding, my imagination would suddenly kick in, slap the bejesus out of my courage, and I would start running for home.

I would always arrive flush and out-of-breath. My mom would pretend she didn’t notice, and she’d ask how was the movie, and I would tell her it was good, Mom, really good.

That was obviously a long time ago. Now I live once again in a low-light community, and I like it. You tend to forget after years in the city what the stars look like on a clear night. Country folks take the darkness for granted. If you have lived for years in the city, you rediscover it, and there is a comfort in dark streets and the feel of the night.

It’s not just the darkness. There is the twilight that precedes it and the dawn that ends it. I love the neon and glitter of the city. But the nightly shift from sunshine to twilight to darkness is a joy to rediscover. And this time around, I’m not even afraid.

Mom was right. Who’s surprised?

— George Lee Cunningham

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News

April 17, 2024

Minor Character

Sometimes I feel like a minor character in one of those really long James Michener historic novels. I’m one of the guys they check in on a couple of times during the course of the book and one more time when he finally kicks the bucket. In truth, that suits me just fine. I don’t want to be one of the major players – those guys who lie, cheat, sleep around, make a lot of money, kill a lot of people, and then then suffer a tragic death on Christmas Eve. I just want to be me – plugging along, having some fun, loving the same woman for years, and then quietly passing away.

March 25, 2024

Cereal Killer

I have almost given up on cereal. As a younger man, I loved a sugary treat. As an old man, who has to watch his diet, I find myself checking labels on everything. Sugar is the enemy. For instance, Cap’n Crunch – a former favorite of my wife – contains: Corn Flour, Sugar, Oat Flour, Brown Sugar, Palm and/or Coconut Oil, Salt, Reduced Iron, Yellow 5, Niacinamide, Yellow 6, BHT, Thiamin, Mononitrate, Pridoxined Hydrochloride, Rioflavin, and Folic Acid. My choice: plain old Shredded Wheat. Ingredients: wheat and BHT (a harmless preservative). Not a taste treat, but at least I’ll live to tell about it

Highway Memorials

Driving across country nowadays, we notice a growing number of roadside displays – flowers, crosses, and ribbons – marking the sites where people apparently died in traffic accidents. I do understand mourning the passing of somebody you love, but I’m not sure I see the point of putting a display at the place along the road where they died. Even sadder is the fact that flowers wilt and highway trash piles up around the displays, making them just another sad reminder of life cut short.

December 5, 2023

Love Motives

I often tell my wife I love and adore her, mainly because I do and also because women like to hear the man in their life actually say the words. But during one conversation I had to confess that some times when I say it – especially when she is irked and giving me the deadly silent treatment – I am also reminding myself of that fact so I don’t start yelling and slamming doors. Is that so wrong?

Being Mortal

I am officially an old man. Sometimes I forget, then I look in the mirror and there it is. The truth is that life has its limits, and that is how it should be. There are new generations coming up, ready to step up and take our place. They are welcome to it. If you have reached old age, you have made some blunders in you life. If you think otherwise, then you are indeed a fool. You can warn the new generations about the mistakes you made, but they are oblivious. This too is as it should be. It’s their world, and it’s on them to screw it up for the generations to follow, just as we did for them.

Good Deeds

There is a saying that no good deed goes unpunished. It’s mostly – but not always – true. The problem with good deeds is that most people who do them expect to be appreciated. In actuality, good-deed recipients are more often resentful about it, rather than grateful. Nobody likes being the person who has to rely on the good will of others. So do good deeds for your own sake – because it makes you feel better, not because you want to be feel appreciated.

Recreational Bitching

Did you ever notice that some people – maybe more people than not – like to complain about everything? In the summertime, it’s too hot. In the wintertime it’s too cold. Health care is too expensive. Young people are too rude. Old people move too slowly. There ought to be a law against anything and everything that might make one unhappy. It’s recreational bitching, and we all do it to greater or lesser extent. Maybe once in a while, it might make sense to listen to how we talk and how we think. Most of us are just doing the best that we can.