Golfing and truck spoilers: A reflection of youth

04/09/12
Today, shortly after D went to work, I called my brother, Donnie, and we decided to golf at Olde Dutch Mill.  Hit some good shots, including a brilliant 200 yard 3-wood, to within 8 feet.  Left the putt short, like a frail woman.  I also took six shots in a row out of a firm sand bunker.  You'll see that I blog a lot about golf.  Most people find that to be boring as shit, but I don't.  It's my blog.  Piss off.

However, the day AFTER the golf is where I found my greatest mental challenge.  We decided to head out to Lake Milton to see my Aunt Margie and Uncle Don.  This is where I spent most of my summers from the time I was 12 until I was 17.  Five summers.  Not really a long period of time, as adult me can confirm.  But, to kid me--it was an eternity. 

As soon as we got there, it was quite noticeable that things have become very cluttered at the lake.  My aunt and uncle now reside in my grandma and grandpa's old trailer.  Since they're both gone now, they just kinda have it as their own.  My aunt, a pack-rat of legendary proportions, has now filled three sheds and a full trailer with random shit.  Some of it means a lot to her--most of it, she doesn't know it's even there, truthfully.

The yard, where Donnie and I would play wiffle ball, now seems so minuscule.  It's amazing how the years shrink the world.  This place used to pretty much be one step below Municipal Stadium in size, when I was 12.  I thought I was Eddie Murray or Kevin Mitchell.  I think I wanted to be a black guy with facial hair when I was 12.  Probably thought girls couldn't resist a black dude with a stache.  That might STILL be my belief.  I dunno.  I let Donnie use the fat red bat back in the day, because he was four years younger--and I was convinced he had mental damage then.  Now, I'd make that bastard use the skinny yellow bat.  Of course, as I told him earlier, he'd just foul tip three balls over the trailer and down the hill--and our games would be over.  Just like old times.

We talked to my aunt and uncle for a while.  Unc is falling victim to Alzheimer's, and his memory is fading.  The strange thing is, he knows it.  He acknowledged, on several occasions, that he wants to keep forcing his memory to work, so he doesn't have to go to a home or something.  He's such a wonderful man.  He flirts with young girls a lot, which is funny, and creepy.  It's funnily creepy.  But he really has a great spirit.  My Aunt Margie now sports a wig, just like my Mom Bailey (her mother, my great grandmother) used to do.  But she's abrasive, and earnest.  She used to force me to do homework every night.  Like, not just mine.  She'd CREATE more assignments for me.  She was a teacher AND a nurse at the same time, and you just don't fuck with that.  As a kid.   Or ever, really.

But, if it hadn't been for her, I'd probably have a job where I carry boxes or get greasy.  She's the first person that clued me in on the fact that EVERYTHING I could ever want, I could get through learning.  She made me skip kindergarten. She made me read.  She made me do math.  I mean, she FORCED me to always want to learn, even if I didn't want to.  Does that make sense?  No.  I guess not.

But, with my brother and his wife (my FAVORITE sister-in-law), while eating fried shrimp, I'm pretty sure I was moved by a shattering epiphany.  Life is almost over.  Like, standing on that porch, seeing my grandmother's Indian pipes and puzzles, covered by a static dust--she's so long gone, and it feels like yesterday.  All the tomorrows I had hoped for--it seems like it was two weeks ago--became yesterdays ten years back.  Being there, with my little brother--who was 12 last time we stayed there.  He's a 30 year old man.  And I'm older than THAT.  It felt like we never left.  My aunt and uncle, soon, will celebrate their 66th anniversary.  Just the other day, I told Erin I couldn't believe we've already been married over six years.  I'm sure my Uncle Don, even smothered in the milky haze of his failing memory, can remember saying the same kind of thing to my aunt once THEY had been married six years. 

And, for him, he probably only feels like he's blinked twice since then.  And it's all in his rear view.