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• The best landmarks have a dramatic story from the person's past that not many people know about.
  
  When I was maybe a year old, something happened that was to change the course of my life radically. I was living in the Philippines, having been born there at Clark Air Force Base, where my father was stationed as a doctor. My father and mother were flying back there, returning from a vacation in Hawaii. The plane was a small, single engine aircraft like a Cessna, and my father was piloting it, having learned how to fly at the Air Force Academy. They were the only two people on board. Suddenly, the engine started having trouble. My father went through normal procedures, trying to figure out what was happening. The engine then stopped. At the time, they happened to be over the ocean and they plummeted down, slamming into the water. There were no parachutes on board. There were no life jackets, either. They both got out of the plane before it sank and started trying to keep afloat. My mother was frantic. She was not a good swimmer and kept clutching desperately at my father to keep herself above the surface. He tried for a while but could not tread water with her panicked hold on him. Eventually he had to push her away. And she did not make it.
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  As he was telling me this story 14 years later, the first time I had ever asked about her death, tears were streaming down his cheeks. I couldn't bring myself to ask if she screamed at him, begged him to help her. I couldn't ask if he watched while she sank beneath the waves. I couldn't ask how he swam all those miles to land. But I wondered, and I wondered how such a thing might affect a man and haunt his dreams.
  
  My dad remarried a couple years after my mother's death. She was the sister of one his medical school buddies, and apparently she was very good looking. Dad was finding it difficult to look after two small children (my older brother and me) alone and I don't think the courtship took very long. She was Mom to me - I had known no other that I could remember. She treated us a little weirdly, but I didn't really know that at the time. My father was busy working most of the time, the life of a surgeon. The housekeepers they hired took care of us most of the time. About the only time I interacted with her was when the family went out to eat or to visit someone. I learned to be seen and not heard at the dinner table and around the house. I learned to make my own breakfast quietly in the morning, knowing that my noise in the morning woke her up. I learned to avoid being around when she came home, or I'd be lectured or told to go do a chore. There was not a whole lot of physical contact, except when she wanted to grab me by the arm, or poke me in the chest.
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  Years later as a teenager, realizing that it was strange not to have physical contact with your parents, I asked her to give me a hug. She looked at me askance, as if I had asked her to do something inconceivable. For some reason, I never wondered what would have happened if my biological mother had lived. Would I have been changed by the difference in affection? Would I have been so introverted? For someone with a rich imagination, my mind was remarkably silent on this subject.
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  I lived in my world of books, learning morality, compassion and the way of the world from them. I passive aggressively didn't do my chores. I had my brother to provide human company and I got surrogate affection from the dogs we had while growing up. I never hated her, though, only wanting affection from her and good attention, maybe even a real conversation where I wasn't afraid she'd yell at me.
  
  The news of her death came while I was finishing up boot camp. I was 19 years old. I was called into the Company Commanders' office and they asked me to sit down. She had died of a heart attack. I cried when they told me. I wasn't sure if that was something that was allowed in uniform but I was unable to stop myself. Later, walking into the shower in a surreal stupor, it dawned on me that she was dead. I could go home without worrying about her yelling at me. I didn't have to be afraid anymore. Laughter started bubbling out of me because I felt so relieved.
  
  Another guy who was in the shower said, "You're standing there laughing? Your mom just died, man!"
  
  "She was my stepmother," I corrected.
  
  I have made the distinction clear in my mind ever since.
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• A secret is often revealed..
  Long ago, in the time of Baldar, when Lalo was using the screen name Eddie Whiteshoes, before Papa Moose had become a character in a book, when people still knew how to make dobies and the funny was plentiful, there was a young man who went by the name Cedrios. He spoke fervently of music, particularly Rush (the band) and Joe Satriani, spun tales of who he was and what he did and made people loathe the word "dichotomy". One thing was for sure - he had screen names. Lots of 'em. After pretending they were not all the same person for a while, he got bored and revealed his trickery. People were a little upset. They asked him why he would do such a thing. He said he was a psychology student and that he'd been studying them. That really made them upset. Turns out he was just a pre-law student going to PLU and he had made the whole psychology thing up. Hatrack recovered, but never really trusted screen names they way they had.
  
  Why am I bringing this up now? Cedrios happens to be my younger brother, Kevin. I don't really have an explanation for what he did. I didn't know it was going on before he broke the news to everyone, though I was on the board at the time under the SN Amontillado and sensed that the multiple SNs were all written similarly and seemed familiar to me. I have already mentioned that he's my brother to several people, mostly at Kamacon, and the reaction was pretty gracious. The only reaction I'm still worried about is Leto II's (aka GreNME). He seemed kind of...emotional...about Cedrios.
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• Shamelessly dropping the names of other members, especially popular ones, ensures responses.
  
  I'm sorry, Ralphie, just like in Lalo's landmark, you already knew the big secret. So did TomDavidson, BannaOJ, Frisco, Ndra, T_Smith (and thus I assume mack knew) and evil celia60. I don't think I mentioned it to Narnia, Shan or Zotto!, though I'm not sure it affected them much. For the record, it's my influence that started Kevin listening to Rush (the band) and Joe Satriani.
  .
• The connection with Hatrack is emphasized.
  
  I share a lot of similarities with the people here. I was really into books when I was younger like Shigosei and others here, I don't hold grudges just like Zevlag doesn't, I was in honors and AP classes, like most of the people on Kama's gifted thread, I'm somewhat of a Grammar Nazi like Jon Boy, I really enjoy sandwiches like saxon75, I like to argue semantics and exactness like Dagonee, I enjoy talking about science like rivka and aka, I love Rush (the band) and The Princess Bride like Jim-Me, and I really love Calvin and Hobbes like, well, Hobbes. I'm sure there are many more connections to many of you and I hope to discover new ones along the way. For now, just accept my thanks for the entertainment, hospitality and community you have shown me.

Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sep 2003  |  IP: Logged | 

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I love Rush

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I had to decide if you meant Rush the band, or Rush Limbaugh, but finally decided on the former....


FG

Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003  |  IP: Logged | 

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having learned how to fly at the Air Force Academy...at the time, they happened to be over the ocean...there were no life jackets, either.

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Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged | 

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for him to betray her memory now in order to make you feel sorry for him or make you think he is so brave or wise is absolutely unacceptable.

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Posts: 1170 | Registered: Jan 2003  |  IP: Logged | 

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returning from a vacation in Hawaii. The plane was a small, single engine aircraft like a Cessna

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Posts: 2655 | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged |