January 16: Fondly Remember, End of Long Week, Nostalgic Fairy Tale

Thinking about [his son] Robert, Ives would always fondly remember those evenings he spent in 1948, at the Art Students League on West Fifty-seventh Street, where he took classes several nights a week.  After a day freelancing, he'd walk in and sit in the back, his sketchbook, charcoals, and pencils set out before him...

If Mr. Ives' Christmas is about anything, it's about nostalgia.  Ives is always fondly remembering better times, happier days.  The majority of his time is spent thinking about his dead son, trying to recapture every last moment of Robert's life.  These remembrances bring him a great deal of comfort, but, in the end, they also cause him a great deal of suffering.  By trying to keep his son's memory alive, Ives is slowly smothering any chance of happiness for himself and his wife.


I'm a pretty nostalgic person myself.  There's a reason why my Christmas tree is still glowing in the corner of my living room and my favorite TV show when I was younger was The Wonder Years (aside from the fact that Winnie Cooper was really cute).  I enjoy tripping down memory lane.  The present is always so complicated, and the past was so much simpler.  Granted, I'm indulging in a little bit of what they call "retrospective falsification."   That means I'm sort of editing my memories.  Leaving out the bad parts, and focusing solely on the happy ones.  It's sort of like eating a pizza but picking off the anchovies.

It has been a very long week.  Late nights teaching.  Early mornings working.  I'm beat.  I just finished snowblowing my driveway and cleaning my bathroom.  Writing this post is the last thing I need to complete before I can put my head on a pillow.  Of course, I'm thinking of simpler times when my daughter was a toddler, how she would lie in her bed and listen to me read Charlotte's Web or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, hanging off my every word.  (These days, I'm lucky if I get more than a grunt in the morning when I drop her off at her school bus stop.)  Of course, I'm completely ignoring the mental illness and sexual addiction that almost ended my marriage.  That's the power of retrospective falsification.  Every memory is a happy one.

Once upon a time, an old man lived near a lake.  The old man was so old that every member of his family had already died.  The old man was quite alone in the world.  He spent his days staring at photo albums, remembering the better times of his life.

The old man eventually died and went to heaven.  As he was standing at the Pearly Gates, the old man met Saint Peter.  "Saint Peter," the old man said, "how come I lived as long as I did?'

Saint Peter shook his head and said, "We forgot about you."

Moral of the story:   Winnie Cooper was really cute.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.

See what I mean?

January 24: Telling Stories, Once Upon a Time, Friday's Tale

Fairy tale time...

In some ways, Charlotte's Web reads like a fable.  Something that Aesop may have told, had he lived on a farm in the United States in the early part of the 20th century.  I mean, there's talking pigs and spiders and sheep and cows and geese.  And, really, the whole book is a lesson in loyalty and friendship.  The book even ends with a kind of moral:

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

 Charlotte herself tells tall tales for Wilbur sometimes.  One night, she spins a yarn about her cousin who catches a fish in a web:

"Once upon a time," she began, "I had a beautiful cousin who managed to build her web across a small stream.  One day a tiny fish leaped into the air and got tangled in the web..."

So begins an epic battle between spider and fish that rivals anything Homer wrote about Troy or Odysseus.  It's a great story.


Human beings love stories.  We live for narrative.  When family members get together for holidays or birthdays, we drag out our favorite memories, tell the tales, adding details, making them funnier or sadder or scarier.  A brother chopping wood who misses the log and slams the ax into his foot.  An infant daughter who pees in her father's face the first night she comes home from the hospital.  A grandmother in a nursing home who sings everything:  "I wo-onder how Helen Je-ennings is do-oing?  I haven't se-eeen herrrr is a lo-ong time!"  Great stories.

I think that's why I like blogging.  I can share my stories, good or bad, happy or sad.  (Sorry for the bad rhyming.)  I want to leave some kind of record of my days and thoughts.  Things that my family and friends can read.  I know I'm not the most interesting person in the world, but that's not the point.  The point is to communicate, put myself out there.  Tell people I love them.  Thank people for their kindness. Let people know about a worry.  Let people know about a joy.  Maybe make a new friend.  That's the point.

You know, once upon a time, a lonely old man lived on the edge of a vast green sea.  The old man's wife had died.  His children lived half-way across the world.  Nobody ever came to the edge of the vast green sea to visit the old man.

So, the old man began writing notes every day.  He put the notes in bottles and threw them into the waves of the vast green sea.  He wrote, "Hi, I'm lonely today" and "Hi, I had Rice Krispies for breakfast" and "Hi, I've been constipated for three days."  Every day, a bottle went into the green waters.  Every night, the old man went back to the beach to see if anybody had sent him a bottle in return.

One night in early January, the old man went to the beach of the vast green sea as he always did.  There, bobbing in the shallows, was a bottle with a message inside it.  Excitedly, the old man splashed into the water and grabbed the bottle.  He took out the cork and removed the paper inside.  He opened the note and read:

"Get high speed Internet from AT&T for only $19.99 a month!"

Moral of the story:  junk mail pisses me off.

And Saint Marty lived happily ever after.