Last Taps for Daddy
Vanessa's Daddy passed away Monday after fighting emphysema and pneumonia. Her Mommy passed on last year at this time, June 2 to be exact. When I talked to Vanessa this morning, I told her how sorry I was but that now Daddy and Mommy were together again. She agreed.
Daddy was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army for almost 30 years. Like my own daddy, he was a career military man who wore the uniform with pride and served his country selflessly. They were both fine men and they're missed. How fitting that Mr. R. was called home on Memorial Day. How deserving.
Godspeed, Daddy. I know you and Mommy will enjoy your new life together in Heaven and I'm sure that MY daddy will be thrilled to have an Army buddy to share war stories with. Don't worry about The Little Angel and the rest of your family here -- your own kids (them) and the rest of us, their friends, who adopted you and Mommy. You helped us grow into the strong folks we are now. So go on, rest.
Thanks, y'all
To all our servicemen and women, past and present, and their families: Thank you for your courage, honor, dignity and sacrifice. We appreciate and love you. We do.
All the best to you this Memorial Day.
It goes on
People have been asking themselves why we are here long before I was born. But shouldn't the question really be "Does it even matter?"
Disconsolation
This week, I just don't like people. Next week it could be okay again but this week, no.
D.I.Y.
One of my former bosses had it right on: If you want something done, and done right, you don't ask for help. You do it yourself. You count on you because you know that when it comes right down to it, you can depend on yourself. You can never really know that other people are going to come through in the clutch, even if you thought they were the type.
She did tell me that I was the exception to her rule and that she always knew that she could count on me to handle the jobs she needed done. And I've never forgotten how honored I was to hear that. But other people don't care and why can't I ever remember that?
Easy way out
All I've really wanted to do each day when I got home from work this week is go to my room, lie down on my bed and be as alone as I feel.
Fast times at FPK
While the job I have now is the best "professional" job I've ever had (not to mention the only "professional" job I've ever had), the single BEST job I've had was working as the assistant manager at the Turtle's Records & Tapes three miles from my house.
If you grew up in ATL, you remember Turtle's. That hippy-dippy logo lettering? Those funky, shiny, heavy fake gold-looking gift coins emblazoned with the smiling half-stoned turtle mascot that were grooved like a record? That wiggy dark green and blindness-inducing yellow colorscheme screaming at you in all our stores? The silver turnstiles right AT the front door for... hell, even I don't know why? And oh yes -- THE quintessential Turtle's experience: Double Stamps On Wednesdays.
You know how we rolled. We unlocked the cassette drawers JUST for you (such precious stock, cassettes!) and diligently restocked the record bins when you couldn't be bothered to put that Ramones album back and you stuck it in with N.W.A. We knew Dr. Dre and Dee Dee wouldn't care, but our district manager would. Best of all, you never cared that we blatantly hung out behind our neon yellow front counter right by the cash register (and, natch, the stereo) throughout our entire shift, hardly bothering to venture onto the green-carpeted sales floor to ask if you needed help. We KNEW y'all needed help -- just not with buying records.
Some of y'all ripped us off and that sucked but most of y'all loved us and helped us threateningly stand over punk would-be shoplifters because we were YOUR neighborhood record store. Also, those discounted movie rentals we spotted you helped. Remember that time when we wouldn't give the one guy a refund on that fake cassette he tried to say came from our store? (Yeah -- like, NO receipt and the cover ink was still wet from the Xerox machine.) When we said "Oh HELL no!," but in a much nicer retail-ish way, he THREW the tape at my coworker's head and you yelled out "KICK HIS ASS, STEVE!" Right in front of a line of Grateful Dead ticket buyers. Steve never forgot that moment and I didn't, either. It warmed our hearts. Scared the hippies, but touched our souls.
Working at Turtle's all those was like having our own grimy personal hangout stocked with CDs, cassettes and records and aside from the fact that our store never EVER made a profit -- OK, there was that one Christmas when we made a little money and our manager took us all out to eat at Red Lobster, which was cool -- we loved that place. We loved that store. We knew everything about it and nobody disrespected our store. We hung out there after hours. We said we hated coming in to work some days but we lied. Good old Store #11.
Now some independent urban music store has moved into our old space and it's not right. Do they know about all the old smashed LPs up in the ceiling that are there because we used them as frisbees when we got bored on long, hot summer nights when we kept the front doors open even though our managers just hated it when we did that? Because we did that. We did that all the time.
Fries with that
Tomorrow I have a job interview.
For my own job.
It's complicated. Kind of stupid. But mostly complicated. I won't bore you with the specifics.
I hope I get my job.
