Revelation

  

As part of one of my New Year’s resolutions, I joined a bible study group at my church.

 

Four studies were offered: The Mass, The Timeline of the Church, Mary, and The Book of Revelation. Which do you think I chose? Your humble author, devourer of science fiction and weird esoterica such as Nostradamus, and aficionado of historical mysteries? That’s right; I signed up to do a deep dive into the Apocalypse.

 

We meet on Monday nights from 7 to 9. So far I attended two sessions. We’re working with a study guide published by Ascension Press. The classes start with an hour reviewing the questions from the workbook out loud; these vary from simple listings of the various items we read in the current chapter to speculation on what God is speaking to us through them. Then we watch an hourlong recorded presentation by the author of the study workbook. It covers not only the text of the Book of Revelation, but the historical, cultural, biblical, and spiritual context of the themes we encounter. There are about 25 of us in the group, one-third men and two-thirds women, ranging in age from mid-30s to one in her late 80s. I’m about the median age. So far I’ve found it warm, welcoming, and extremely interesting and informative. I expect to be an expert in the final book of the New Testament when the study ends in ten weeks.

 

In the days leading up to the first class I felt a little weird. The last college course I took was nearly thirty years ago. Apart from a few classes for my IT certifications around the turn-of-the-century and my eight-week H&R Block tax preparer course in 2016, this is my first foray into formalized group learning in a long while. I must admit, auto-didact I claim to be, there’s nothing like a group setting to hold one’s feet to the fire. Plus, I am learning from my classmates. All are nice people, all are the sort of Catholics who put their faith into practice, so I quickly overcame any nerves midway through the first session.

 

Already I am loaded with stats and trivia. But I am wondering whether I would share that here or, if so, how much and what exactly? While recapping every session might be overkill, I think I’ll post some “highlights” midway through and an evaluation when it finishes at the end of March. And maybe some odd or inspiring things I come across here and there. There is a “homework heavy” aspect to the preparation before a sessions (15-20 minutes daily), so I don’t want to burn myself out. I am, after all, still reading other non-religious books voraciously, as well as working and parenting full time, walking as much as possible, etc.

 

I’ll have to give it some thought. But I’ll definitely post something, and continue to write and publish here when the spirit moves me.

 

Happy (End Times) readings!

 

Haunted 70s

 

Is there an English word for fun and terror? A word that contains elements of both, yet transcends the pair? Something like the German schadenfreude, I guess, though funterror (pronounced with the accent on the last syllable, i.e., fun-ter-ROR!) doesn’t seem to pack the same punch as what it’s meant to convey.

 

I write this because a few days ago I was comparing childhoods with my not-so-little Little Ones, trying to convince them that my childhood had this degree of funterror (fun-ter-ROR!) that I hoped I was able to institute into their lives. Now, I realize this sounds downright, well, insane, but, trust me, for a kid when the fun in funterror slightly outweighs the terror, then it’s completely a thousand times worth it.

 

But I don’t think the degree of funterror I experienced in the late-70s as a tween compares to what our kids experience nowadays. Haven’t really thought deep about it, but I think social media has something to do with it. Removing the fun, that is, and jacking up the terror. Closely followed by the Internet, where with a few clicks in a few minutes any exciting and fascinating unexplained mysterious phenomenon can be swiped away of all fascination.

 

These musings prompted me to write up a list of all the terrifying fun I had from 1977 to 1980. I called it “Haunted 70s”, and here is an edited list:

 

The creepy woods behind my house …

The rumor at school of that chopped up body found in a cardboard box behind the woods in my house …

Snippets from the news: Love Canal, 

Three Mile Island, Jonestown …

The death of John Lennon and first hearing “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” …

The “lonely tree” in the neighbor’s yard, leafless in the fall moonlight, right outside my bedroom window …

UFOs everywhere …

Sasquatch everywhere …

Will Skylab fall on me or my house? …

Building models of monsters … Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula, the wolfman …

Movies: The Blob, The Fly, The Omen, The Exorcist, The Legend of Boggy Creek …

Certain Star Trek episodes – the Horta, Landru, 

the flying pizzas …

The 001.94 section of the library where my mother worked …

The Hammer horror films shown on the ABC 4:30 movie after school …

Chariots of the Gods and The Man Who Saw Tomorrow …

The Son of Sam killings in the news …

The Salem’s Lot miniseries watched right before we slept alone in the basement …

The Jesus Tree at Fordham University …

The Night Stalker watched late at night on our little black-and-white TV …

In Search Of with Leonard Nimoy, especially the bigfoot and flying saucer episodes …

The episode of the original Superman where the little bald aliens look in the open window of the boy’s window (a personal nightmare for single-digit me) …

 

There, those’re just the ones I feel comfortable posting semi-anonymously. One day I hope my not-so-little ones will come up with lists of their own. And we can all share together outside at night around a roaring campfire …

Ten Years Back

 

A post from May 5, 2014:

 

Ah, it was a cool early Saturday morning, particularly – no, exceptionally – clear and crisp.  The air felt lighter, and instead of breathing in the new season, it breathed me in.  The wife and girls back home were frantically preparing for a family obligation while I, already freshly showered and in my Sunday Bests, motored off to run a few quick errands.

 

I pulled into a shady spot at the library parking lot.  Rolled down the windows, reclined the driver’s seat by twenty degrees.  The library would not open until ten o’clock this glorious morning, and I had the empty parking lot to myself for forty minutes.

 

I opened A Stillness at Appomattox, and as if stepping through some weird spacetime portal I was on those Virginian fields, convoying with the Army of the Potomac as it rushed feverishly to beat – unsuccessfully – Robert E. Lee and his forces to a sleepy crossroads town called Spotsylvania.  And a few pages after that, poor old General John Sedgwick of Grant’s Sixth Corps, known affectionately as “Uncle John” to his troops, was tragically killed by a sniper’s bullet, shot below the left eye, after bragging to his flinching subordinates that those Confederate sharpshooters hidden in the faraway trees “couldn’t hit an elephant from this distance.”

 

I put the book down and studied the blue cloudless sky, fragmented and framed by budding tree leaves, and appreciated ever the more this spring day commune.

 

*****

 

How much can change in a decade!

 

Now I live 1,500 miles away in a hot, arid environment unlike the northeast. My girls are no longer in grammar school and kindergarten – my oldest daughter is studying in Italy and my youngest just returned from her job – her first “on the books” – at a coffeeshop. I work three days from home and commute the other two to an office building adjacent to the Dallas Cowboys practice facility.

 

Back then I’d worry about how to pay for roof repairs or a new paint job to keep my home from assuming the position of worst house on the block to worrying about how to pay for two college educations and a retirement creeping ever so closer. I’m healthier now in ways I was not back in those day, but I am also unhealthier in other ways I thought not about in 2014.

 

But – I am still a reader.

 

And – I have another one of historian Bruce Catton’s works staring balefully from a stack behind me: Mr. Lincoln’s Army, technically Book One of the trilogy that ended with the book I read ten years ago, A Stillness at Appomattox. It’s been calling out to me patiently and incessantly for several weeks now, but I’ve told it in no uncertain terms that I must read through my Clancy phase first. So, perhaps, I will get to it by summer’s end in another great synchronous echo of time that seems to loop back in forth in my life year after year.

 

Ten years ago today I had pulled into a shady spot in a library parking lot. Today I have a similar semi-secluded spot to escape for an hour or so here and there and get some reading and thinking done. The more things change, the more they stay the same …

 

Easters with Chuck

 

We had a nice, relaxing Easter down here in Texas, our third. True, we miss the old traditions, dining and family visits back in the northeast, but down here I’ve turned the holiday into one of recuperating and recharging. My faith has been growing stronger these past few years, due in part to some combination of circumstance, the church we joined, and some spiritual practices I’ve, er, been practicing. So that angle is covered. I focus on trying to wring some inner strength to take on the next day and keep on keeping on.

I’ve been taking Good Friday off since I’ve been down here. In the past with my girls we’d visit the darkened church and return home to watch The Passion of the Christ. But due to scheduling beyond my control, my oldest daughter was six thousand miles away in Ireland and my youngest was with my wife for six hours at one of those giant Texas fairs Texans are so fond of having.

I decided to watch Ben-Hur by myself then. It’s been sitting on our DVD pile for almost a year since I found it at a thrift shop for $2. I’ve always wanted to get the girls into it, or at least experience it, the same way we do when we watch The Ten Commandments every Easter afternoon. But such was not to be the case. Which was all right with me. I stretched out with a blanket and popped the DVD in and watched it nonstop – three hours and forty-five minutes of Judah Ben-Hur obtaining his vengeance upon Messala and encountering Christ several times throughout his life.

Sunday afternoon, for something like the twelfth year in a row, we watched Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. True, it felt off because Little One was not here, but it was still enjoyable. We can anticipate somewhere around 75% of the lines before their spoken and a jaded Patch still enjoys the dated – though spectacular at the time – special effects.

Bottom line is I spent nearly eight hours with Charlton Heston this Easter weekend.

Which got me to thinking … how many movies have I seen with this guy in it? I remember him a lot when I was a kid – he seemed to be in so many awesome science fiction flicks. He was confident, boisterous, in-charge and non-nonsense and even a bit hammy. Even with a jaunty scarf around his neck trying to figure out what that weird flaky food is made out of.

... Soylent Green is ... ?!?!?!?!!!

So now I had to pull his filmography and go through it. Turns out, to greater or lesser extents, I’ve seen Mr. Heston in 15 movies.

The most viewed one is, obviously, The Ten Commandments, clocking in at about 15 viewings. Ben-Hur I’ve only seen about five times or so. That’s it for the epics, though there are a handful more of his I’d like to watch and will have to put on my Saturday afternoon viewing list.

The fun part of his filmography are all the films I devoured as a kid. First of all, The Planet of the Apes. I must’ve watched that a dozen times, if not more. Channel 7 ABC was always having a “planet of the apes” theme week of 4:30 movies. I watched it with the girls when they were single digits and I even watched it with Little One a few months ago – at her suggestion – before she went abroad. The sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, has a Heston cameo in the last 15 minutes of the film, so I count that too.

The Omega Man was another favorite – eight times – as was Soylent Green, though the latter to a lesser extent – four times. My friend once called me up to tell me Omega Man was on, just after telling me about it when we were hanging out earlier in the day. And though not strict SF, I watched the movie Earthquake a bunch of times too in the late 70s.

A pair of military themed Heston movies were always on HBO in the late 70s and I watched them as much as I could: Midway and Gray Lady Down. Probably ten times, for each. After I met my wife and began my cinephilia, we watched Touch of Evil, The Big Country and The Wreck of the Mary Deare, each a single time and all needing another viewing. Touch of Evil was particularly memorable. That goes on the Saturday list, too.

Rounding out my 15 are films in which he has small parts, In the Mouth of Madness and Tombstone. I watched Madness about a year back but haven’t seen Tombstone in about 20 years, though when it came out I saw it at least a half-dozen times.

But getting back to my family’s Ten Commandments tradition: in some bizarre way Charlton Heston has become the Voice of Easter for me. I am fine with that. We get some confident, in-charge no-nonsense hamminess in some very riveting, wholesome and enlightening entertainment. I think when the girls ask me what I want for Christmas this year, I’ll say, “Nothing more than my girls so sit and watch Ben-Hur with their dad!” They’ll laugh and say no way and buy me a book and a record, and I’ll say, “Just wait ’til next year!”

 

2024 Batting Average

 

It fluctuates somewhere around .800 and .850.

 

Not bad.

 

This has nothing to do with baseball, by the way. It has everything to do with New Year’s resolutions.

 

Now, I love the idea of setting New Year’s resolutions. Not so much practicing them, though. Usually, if I’m lucky and dedicated enough, my resolution will last past the first weekend of the New Year. Maybe a whole week, week-and-a-half. Then, poof, it vanishes into the ether from whence it came.

 

Not so with 2024’s batch. In fact, I’ve had so much success I’ve been hesitant about tooting my own horn for fear of jinxing myself. But since I don’t believe in jinxes and such, I’m here to tout my resolutionary success in these electronic pages.

 

I made four resolutions on December 31st, after ruminating on them for some time. Two dealt with my physical health, one a stubborn habit I’ve had for a long, long time that I feel is time to go, and a third is a spiritual discipline I’ve been interested in and now have taken up.

 

These last two, the stubborn habit and the spiritual discipline, I am keeping under wraps for the time being. But I have been taking daily actions, daily practice, and so far I am batting one thousand on these two important-to-me issues.

 

The second two I’ll publicize.

 

First, everyone’s favorite New Years resolution (after going to the gym but in the same vein) – lose the excess weight.

 

I’ve been 25 pounds over my ideal weight for at least a decade, maybe longer. Sure, I can lose five pounds with effort, but then I gain it back a few weeks later. Eighteen months ago I lost ten pounds for my awesome doctor down here in Texas, kept it off for a month, and gradually put it all back on.

 

As of this morning I am minus-7 from my January 1 weight. And really just by cutting back on seconds, portion-size, and grazing. Still eating the same stuff, but less of it and less frequently. Three pounds a month. Not bad. At this rate I’ll hit my goal around Labor Day.

 

The second “physical health” resolution I came up with was – to give up soda. And I have! One thousand percent batting on this issue. In the past I’d average 1½ or 2 sodas a day. A dozen sodas a week, something like 650 eight-ounce cans of Diet Coke and Diet Dr Pepper a year. After reading so much bad about soda consumption over the years, I’ve finally stopped. Haven’t had a can or bottle in nearly ten weeks.

 

So I’m batting .850 regarding my 2024 New Years resolutions. Some points off for cheating and zig-zagging on my weight loss promise, but otherwise perfect with the other three.

 

Pray for me!!!

 

Mr. Kipple Goes to Budapest

 

All right. It’s time to get this off my chest. It’s been sitting there over four decades, since I was put a poor confused lad navigating the mean streets of middle school. True, many years have gone by where I haven’t thought one iota about this, but it is also true that, from time to time, it does revisit me and haunt me.

 

In 1980 Mr. Kipple was my social studies teacher in eighth grade. He was a fun, young teacher, small in stature but a student favorite, fairly easygoing and innovative. For example, he assigned us seating in reverse alphabetical order, a fantastic novelty for me, whose last name begins with an a followed by a c, who sat in the front desk on the left or right in 99 percent of my classes. He had a friendly, curious demeanor, kept us laughing, and gave us unique projects over the course of the semester.

 

One of the more basic “fun” projects was for each student had to select any city, anywhere in the world, to research and prepare a report about it. For some bizarre reason – or maybe for no reason at all – I chose the Hungarian city of Budapest. And for a less bizarre reason, I attacked this project with my usual modus operandi – I waited until the last minute. After burning some midnight oil the night before it was due, I had the horrifying realization I didn’t have enough material.

 

Remember, this was a quarter-century before the internet. We did our research in the library. Not having access to a library at 10 pm on a Sunday night, I was at a loss of what to do. So I fudged some facts, small things, little items I think would fall between the cracks and would not be caught by Mr. Kipple. After all, he had 29 other cities to visit via his students’ reports.

 

A week or so later he bounced around class excited to talk about our reports. They were all very, very good, he noted, very interesting and informative. We’d be tested on the information we were about to discuss and review that afternoon.

 

Can you see where this is going?

 

He had a huge checklist he wanted to go over based on the “cool stuff” he gleaned from our research. Thank God he did not make each one of us stand up and read them. Instead, he picked on random people and complimented them for this piece of information, that factoid, this legend, that myth, this stat.

 

Then he called my name, and studying the paper in his hand, asked me if Budapest really did mean “the land at the fork of the rivers in ancient Magyar.” I turned white as a ghost and gulped and nodded. With a faraway look in his eyes, Mr. Kipple uttered but one word: “Neat!”

 

Now, Wikipedia tells me that the etymology of “Budapest” has something to do with the merging of two names, Buda and Pest, both probably Roman Empire names either of ancient rulers or fortifications. Less certain is that idea they derive from the Turkic word for “branch, twig” and the Slavic word for “cave.” That night in 1980 when I was stumped for facts, I noticed that the Danube ran through Budapest, and thought that “the land at the fork of the rivers” would be a great translation.

 

I lied academically for the first of only two times in my life. I felt awful. But the worse was to come. Later in the week we were tested on the class review of all our city reports, and two-thirds down the page was the following question:

 

22. This city derives its name from the Hungarian phrase “the land at the fork of the rivers”: ______________________ .

 

Oh no! Not only have I deceived my teacher, but through me twenty-nine of my fellow students were also fed and learned falsified knowledge, even though they may have promptly forgot the origin of the word “Budapest” over the subsequent years and decades.

 

Unlike the other time when I faked my way through an essay exam on Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, which I made amends for by actually reading the novel 20 years later (and a half-dozen other Dickensian works since), I do not see how I can restore balance over this deceit. So, suffice it to say, this is my mea culpa. I can only hope that it was never a secret dream of Mr. Kipple’s to vacation in the Hungarian capital, and if it was, hope that he was never laughed out of a tavern in that noble city for disrespecting the origin of its name.

 

Me and Gru

 

A strange thing happened to me last night. I wound up watching the computer-animated kids movie Minions: The Rise of Gru, all by myself, alone, in a 500-seat movie theater blasting the film at 120 decibels.

How did I get here, I wondered, stretching out and reclining in my seat.

Well, a little backstory.

My daughters are separated by four years, born in 2004 and 2008. The oldest, known as Little One in these pages, graduated from high school in May and is now about six weeks in to her college education. She lives on a campus about a 40 minute drive from my home. Far enough but not too far. She’s been home three times, but we expect the times we see her to shrink in frequency as she makes new friends at her school and stays more and more weekends there.

All fine and good. We encourage her social development as well as her intellectual, physical, and spiritual. It does, however, have a negative impact. Her younger sister, just starting to navigate the hell that is high school as a lowly freshman, misses her terribly and facetimes her just about every night.

Now, Patch, as my youngest is known here, keeps herself busy. She has a couple of challenging AP classes. She also works two part time jobs: She referees U10 soccer games (boys and girls) on Saturdays, generally 11:30-3, and she is becoming a more and more in-demand baby sitter. I think she’s pulled down something like $400 since the end of summer doing these things.

So she’s busy, but she’s lonely. She does make friends easily, but finds so many of her classmates flakey. There’s a girl a few blocks away that she hangs with, maybe every other weekend, and they go thrifting, go to the mall, things like that. But she misses the constant constant of her life, her big sister.

I have been consciously trying to bridge this gap in her life. I’m her study buddy for algebra and biology. We plan on walking together evenings when the thermometer dips below 80. We started a new tradition: Thursday night movies, her choice. And what she chose to begin with is the animated series Despicable Me and its sequels, as kind of a comforting bit of nostalgia from her younger years.

Which I found I enjoy. I’m a big Steve Carrell fan, and I like the whole Bond supervillain aspect of the films. We both chuckle at the minions. I bought her a stuffed “Bob the Minion” for her birthday two weeks ago. We sat in the upstairs apartment of our home watching Despicable Me, Despicable Me 2, Despicable Me 3, and our favorite, Minions. Last week we settled back and prepared to watch the final installment to date, Minions: The Rise of Gru.

To our horror it was not available to rent! On all these damn apps I have on my TV – Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Hulu, you name it, none streamed this film for rent. Sure, being a 2022 release, you could buy it for $20. But I don’t like buying these streaming movies, because unless you have a physical item in your hand, you don’t really own it. So we exclusively rent the flicks we watch.

Patch was heartbroken. Instead we decided to start on the next sequence of films, her Halloween animated series selections, and we watched Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride. But the unfinished minion business sat heavy on her heart.

The Mrs., not ever wanting anything to sit heavy on her daughter’s heart, did some research, and she located a theater twelve miles away that was still showing the film. She immediately bought tickets for Patch and me for our next Thursday night movie night, which was yesterday.

So she was excited all day. I was working at home, all caught up as the month ended, and she was studying all day for Friday tests. I made us some scrambled eggs for dinner and then we headed off. Found the theater with plenty of time to spare. These theaters today! There was a bar in the lobby, and in the theater itself the big fat chairs reclined, a big red button on each you could press for food service.

Anyway, since Minions: The Rise of Gru was released nearly three months ago, July 1, we didn’t expect a packed theater. However, once we walked in and went to our center seats, we realized that we were absolutely alone! I did a quick calculation – 25 rows with 20 seats in a row – and realized that we had a 500-seat theater to ourselves. So exclusive! Never had this happen to me before, and I’ve been to at least a hundred movies in my life. We kicked back, made bad loud jokes, booed most of the trailers, and then settled in to the main event.

Halfway through, Patch had to use the rest rooms. So she took off, leaving me there in the cavernous darkness, assaulted by the A.D.D.-tinged visuals and booming sound effects. To be honest, she left during the funniest part of the film. I was laughing out loud.

I realized what a crazy, strange world I live in. I would never, ever, ever have told you a few weeks ago that I’d be by myself (even if for only ten minutes), alone in a movie theater, riveted to a movie screen and giggling with childlike innocence.

Such is the state of my existence halfway through my sixth decade of life.

 

A Proustian Exercise

 

As a young man I struggled once to claim my earliest memories, and after more than a little bit of thought, I arrived at two. Interestingly, they do not involve people. They are primarily visual and interior. And they happened a long, long time ago. By my reckoning the Beatles had just broken up. Nixon was still unfamiliar with the word, “Watergate.” We were at Half Time of the Vietnam War. The AFL had just merged with the NFL.

In the first memory, which I think is the oldest, I am lying in a crib looking up at the night sky and I see a bright shooting star flashing overhead. Long, slow, with sparkling contrails. That’s my initial feeling, but it is plausible I am a toddler on the balcony of the apartment my parents rented and I could have been watching fireworks.

In the second, I am leaning against the bottom part of a wooden fence, the kind made by laying horizontal beams into slots in the horizontal posts, and before me is a massive field of wheat grain, blowing gently yet very sublimely in the wind. It’s a gray day and this field seems to stretch onwards forever, the ground undulating as it fades into the distance. I recall myself fascinated with this scene. But it could have only been three- or four-year-old me at the fence enclosing our small, weed-infested backyard at same apartment complex.

I dunno.

Anyway, there is a famous French writer name of Marcel Proust. Famous in literary circles, that is. He is primarily known for writing a multi-volume “biography” entitled In Search of Lost Time, in some translations. The style of these books was very unique up to that point: extremely centered on self, on his feelings and impressions, very, very focused on minutiae in a grasping attempt to get at something beyond normal, everyday experience. Something kind of like all of us being sleepers sleeping through life, and such a Proustian examination is meant to create a change in our consciousness of experience.

Or something like that. I’m far from being an expert on Proust. More of a novice’s novice.

I do know he spends inordinate amounts of time and pages on simple, singular experiences. Ten or twelve pages on how he sleeps opens the first volume. Then, later on, he devotes another eight or ten on trying to get a kiss from his mother as a young boy before bed. A hyperslow approach to reality that is at complete odds with current, contemporary, twenty-first century life. (And that appeals oh so much to me.)

Anyway, I thought it would be an interesting idea to try to apply such a Proustian approach to these two early memories. Really, really delve into them: what was I seeing, thinking, feeling? Why sight, but no sound? What were the pinpoint details that have eluded me this past half century? What is the meaning behind – and beyond – these memories? Why them? What was the feel of the wood of that fence? What was the temperature of the air? Why did I believe I was lying in a crib? Was that firework – or meteor – so bright and so yellow and so close to me I felt that I could reach up and touch it? And by all this, come to excavate what they have done to me and for me, stretching out an echoing across the decades, me as an adult?

I’m thinking this would be a good warm-up to my Grand Project. I beginning outlines after compiling pages and pages of notes and plan on starting writing January 1st (to follow a similar pattern to the first book I wrote). If anything good comes from it, who knows? I might publish an excerpt from it here at the Hopper.

Birthday Weekend 2022

 

Well, I am pleasantly exhausted. Another Hopper birthday has come and gone.

For the past fourteen years, however, my birthday has been eclipsed by Patch’s. Hers is the day before mine, and traditionally (and at my request) the focus of the dual birthday celebrations have always been on her. This year’s was no exception.

Patch’s birthday fell on Friday. Sadly, she had to attend school. But happily, the Mrs. was able to pick up her older sister at college and bring her home for the weekend. So we had a full nuclear family in attendance for the festivities.

Me, I worked some extra hours so I could get out early on Friday. While the wife was gathering up the no-so-little little ones, I clocked out of work, tidied up the house, ran a few quick errands, picked up a last minute gift, got home and showered. As a family we drove down to Dallas for dinner – Patch wanted a ramen noodle place, and that’s where the best ramen noodle place happens to be located. We ate a delicious meal in an authentic Asian restaurant (the bar had the TV flatscreens glued to the NASA channel). I did my admirable best against a menu of which I had no idea what to expect, it being basically anglicized Chinese. But whatever I wound up having, it was fantastic. As was everyone else’s.

We motored back home for Patch to open her gifts. Everything seemed to be a hit, and it was mostly makeup and skin care, some shoes, some Hello Kitty paraphernalia. I got her a Bob the Minion stuffed doll, because she and I’ve been bonding over the Minion movies on Thursday nights, a favorite animated series from her youth. We broke out cake pops for dessert and then watched one of her favorite shows together as a family.

Saturday was my birthday. I started it off with the mowing of the lawn. Not a tradition, and not something I was honestly looking forward to, but the two-week mow cycle fell on my birthday and, well, I’m an admitted slave to routine. Besides, Patch was refereeing some morning soccer games and Little One, the collegian, was sleeping until 11. “Dad,” she said, and she might have been serious, “try to mow as quietly as possible.”

At noon we picked up our stolen-and-retrieved Honda CRV! Seems okay, with no real damage to the body or the engine. Then we returned the rental car, and then the ladies were off for some “thrifting” (i.e., last minute gift shopping for me) while I was free for the afternoon. I picked up some lunch and had a quick Facetime chat with a buddy from New Jersey, then headed home to my temporary Fortress of Solitude.

Over the past four years I’ve been granted the birthday wish of watching a science fiction movie distraction-free on my birthday. It started with The Day the Earth Stood Still, and was followed by Dune, Forbidden Planet, and, last year, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This year I felt something different was in order, and I selected a World War II flick, the three-hour ordeal known as The Longest Day. I had watched snippets as a kid and tried to get through it maybe fifteen years ago, but only made it a third of the way in. This time, over a sumptuous meal of buffalo wings, I watched it in its entirety and enjoyed it, genuinely touched at a few scenes.

Little One and her mom made me a perfect, juicy steak with asparagus and mashed potatoes later for dinner, then I opened my presents. They truly outdid themselves! I’ll discuss my birthday haul tomorrow. Afterwards, we had some cheesecake (well, I did, the girls not being fans of any cuisine that combines the word “cheese” with “cake”), and watched some more TV as a family. One thing we’ve been into off-and-on over the past two years is Dateline with Keith Morrison. These true-crime shows appeal to my oldest, Little One, as does that incredibly lined face of its white-haired host. The ladies all went to bed and I worked my way through a George R. R. Martin longish short story in my reading chair under the lamp for an hour or so.

Started Sunday off with a nice long walk to burn off those chicken wings, steak, asparagus, mashed potatoes, and cheesecake. We all went to Church, then Patch had her mom drive her and her friends out to the mall while I drove Little One back to college. After her laundry was finished, of course.

All in all, a great Birthday Weekend!

Grade: A+

2021 Best-Ofs!

Is it time already, everyone’s asking, for the 2021 Best-Ofs?

Yes, kids, it is. It is indeed. And in a whirlwind year I’ve had only a few moments to relive the past twelve months, the ups, the downs, the highs and the lows, the awesomenesses and the could’ve should’ves. Yes, it’s the end-of-the-year post where Hopper evaluates the best (and the worst) of the past year. At least as far as his normally random, esoteric and highly selective interests go.

So, without further ado, let’s hear the winners (and losers) of each category …

 

 

Best Book, Fiction:

Sharpe’s Waterloo, © 1990 by Bernard Cornwell

This deserves its own post. Sharpe’s Waterloo is my first foray into world of Napoleonic soldier Richard Sharpe. A world completely devoid of political correctness and thus completely alien to our current culture. Author Bernard Cornwell has written twenty-four such novels over the span of thirty or forty years. Each novel is a stand-alone, yet all form the chronology of the dangerous toxic masculinity of Sharpe. I’ve read three so far this year, all A-plusses, but this, being the first, gets the award.

 

Best Book, Nonfiction:

Pearl Harbor: From Infamy to Greatness, © 2016 by Craig Nelson

A great, page-turning read that really, truly, honorably goes into depth into what happened on December 7, 1941 in the Pacific. Lots of detail, lots of trivia, lots of hair-raising turns and inspirational motivational stories. I loved it and will probably read it again in a few years.

Runner-up: The Physics of Immortality, © 1997 by Frank J. Tipler

One of the longest-lived books in the On-Deck Circle, making its first appearance 24 years ago. Finally read it for a different perspective of, well, immortality. It’s a physicists-version of life, death, and all that matters, all the big questions. Satisfied yet did not satisfy me, and begs for another re-read as I probably understand half of what I read. Not sure if I will, the whole life-is-too-short thing, but I am definitely pleased I climbed this Mt. Everest and it did give me lots of new ideas to chew over.

 

Worst Book:

First Lensman, © 1950 by E.E. “Doc” Smith

Not really “worst,” in the sense that I don’t waste my time on bad books, but I did read the fifth book in this series years ago and had some fond nostalgic memories of it. So I decided perhaps the first book, which I read during the most turbulent times of our move southwest, would take my mind off its troubles for a more innocent time. But I never got into it, and I think it’s because of the “Asimov problem” I have: every character acts and talks like it’s the 1940s, only it’s supposed to be 500 years later.

 

Best Movie:

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Watched this one earlier in the year with Little One, and then a second time with Little One and Patch. All of us love it. I think it strikes a perfect balance – not too cornbally Steven King, not too violent or gory (except for one terrible scene), somewhat epic in scope, and does not destroy the legacy of the original characters from The Shining, Little One’s favorite movie. Yeah, it hit some diversity cringe, but overall it was the best movie I watched this year, with the caveat that I did not watch many original movies.

 

Most Disappointing Movie:

The Many Saints of Newark (2021)

I think I am not alone in saying we were all looking for more Tony Soprano and less, if any at all, of Dickie Moltisanti. Good gangster flick that doesn’t quite make it into the classics. I hope the poor performance does not stop a second movie featuring on Tony’s rise into the mob.

Runner up for Most Disappointing Movie: Bird Box (2018)

Yeah, too much wokeness in this one. Perhaps 80 percent PC and 15 percent stupidity. An even better way to spend your time is to watch that youtube kid’s video on how to beat the monsters in Bird Box – what refreshing clarity and intellect packed into 10 or 12 minutes.

 

Movies Seen in an Actual Theater:

Just one, A Quiet Place 2. Not as good as the first, but definitely worth a watch. Would make a great back-to-back pairing with the first one for a horror night movie party.

Best Music:

Listened to a great variety, I have to admit, but nothing new and / or groundbreaking. Revisited all my old classic rock, all my old classic classical, plus some jazz fusion stuff I’ve chilled to in years past. The few original musicians or genres I explored did not leave any deep impressions. Only “new” thing I can recall is the last Van Halen record, c. 2012, with Dave, a CD of the Van Halen family modernizing the band’s old demos from the 70s. I listened to it a bunch of times back in October.

  

Best TV / Worst TV:

Not really a year of TV watching. At the beginning of 2021 the family re-watched the entire Office series, which never gets old, and since then we’ve been working our way through Hell’s Kitchen season re-runs on Youtube video. For myself, I had no new shows and thus didn’t waste too much time via the bube tube.

 

Best Youtube Channel:

Dunno. Kinda watched a lot of true crime stuff, particularly Dr. Todd Grande’s channel, and a lot of stuff on the Chris Watts and Jodi Arias cases. Still watching movie reviews, like Off The Shelf Reviews and Red Letter Media, as well as Critical Drinker and Hack the Movies. Watched a bit of historical channels, especially on WWII, but they require more concentration.

 

Moments of Creativity:

Wrote another album. By my reckoning, I now have three album’s worth of material. No lyrics, just somewhere around thirty songs more-or-less complete musically. A long-term goal is to buy a multitrack recorder and get these songs down on tape, with me playing all the parts save drums.

 

Best Podcasts:

(tie) Dr Taylor Marshall and Valuetainment

 

Other Internet Picks

Started following a few people on Twitter. Not sure as to the wisdom of this. Mostly – 99 percent – of it is griping. Griping about something – politics, religion. May stop this though I try to follow the more positive and less poisonous folks

 

Phases:

Selling the Old House / Buying the New House / Moving halfway across the country / Getting acquainted with a new state

Movie watching phase (primarily Stephen Kings) with both girls pre-move

New job in corporate

World War II

Electric guitarsmanship

The Napoleonic Wars

Sharpe Novels

Minor excursions into the Lord of the Rings, the JFK Assassination, Saucerology, New Thought, Classical Greek literature and mythology

Lifting, Walking, and Keto (mainly second half of summer)

 

Best Phase:

All – or None! – of them!

Bahahahaha!

No, seriously, it was a good year, despite being one of the more erratic ones. A hopper like me craves stability, so here’s to some stability in 2022!