LARGETONY Blog

Bigfoot. The Loch Ness Monster. A shooting star. My butt crack.

Things you rarely see.

Not because I’m a top.

Because I’m a painter. Not a plumber.

I’ve kept this on the down low because I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. But, yesterday I got the news.

I’m published.

It’s something I have always dreamed of. I just dreamed that it would be for my writing.

In hindsight, I’m wonder if it was the right thing to do. But, I guess there’s no turning back now. You can’t get a hard pecker back in your britches any easier than you can get toothpaste back in the tube.

So, I might as well embrace it. I figure some of you would run across it in a dirty bookstore, anyway.

If you want to get a peek at the layout, click here.

A year ago, two of Granny’s girlfriends joined her for a little birthday brunch.

How things can change in 365 days. One friend is now on lock down in assisted living. The other has passed away. But the African Violet I gave Granny is thriving and now three times the size it was.

Today, Granny is 91. The beginning of her tenth, and by all probability, her last decade.

Like the African Violet, she’s still here. She’s no bigger and I’d hardly say she’s thriving. But, she is surviving.

For her birthday, a meme in her honor:

50 Things About Granny

1. She was born in 1917
2. The U.S. entered World War I a week later.
3. She was born in Atlanta, Ga.
4. She was born into wealth.
5. She was the third of three daughters.
6. She had no brothers.
7. She was a debutante.
8. Her lavish coming out was during the Great Depression.
9. Some time during college, she met my Grandaddy. He was not college educated.
10. Granny was six years younger.
11. She was first attracted to him because he was a good dancer.
12. Her parents would not allow her to marry my Grandaddy because he was not of position or money and was a moonshiner.
13. In 1938 she married him anyway.
14. Her parents never spoke to her again.
15. She remained friendly with her sisters until they died in the 80’s.
16. She had been raised Methodist, but attended Baptist Church with Grandaddy.
17. In 1939 she got her teaching certificate in Tennessee because she could not afford the private college she had been attending in Georgia.
18. A year later, she lost her first child during birth.
19. In 1941, she began teach high school English. The next few years many of her male students left for war after graduation. Several never returned.
20. In 1945, she gave birth to her first son.
21. In 1946, she and my Grandaddy bought the house we now live in. It was built in 1928.
22. Some time before 1950, she miscarried a child.
23. In 1950, she gave birth to her second son.
24. She became unexpectedly pregnant a few years later, and in 1956, at the age of 39, gave birth to her first daughter and last child, my mother.
25. She took the unpopular stance in support of integration of schools.
26. Although she knew how to drive, she got her first license in th 60’s.
27. Her middle child was killed in a car accident in 1968. He had just finished high school.
28. Some time in the late 60’s, her oldest son was married.
29. In 1969, she became a grandmother (my cousin)
30. She began wearing wigs in the 1970’s.
31. In 1971, she forbade my mother from marrying my father. My mother did it anyway.
32. In 1972, she had a second grandchild (my brother).
33. In 1975, her oldest son died in a work-related accident.
34. That same year, her spirit was renewed with a third (and last) grandchild (ME!).
35. In 1977, she retired from teaching.
36. Around 1980, she began working part-time at the county library. She stayed there until 1993.
37. In 1990, she lost her third child (my mother).
38. Later that summer, she convinced my father that I should live with her and my Granddaddy until I finished high school. My brother had graduated that year.
39. The first thing she did was replace the twin beds in the room that was to become mine with a full-size. It’s an antique, and I still sleep in it.
40. She tried to teach me piano. I was bored by it and failed. I now regret it.
41. She tried to teach me to dance. I was clumsy and shied away from it.
42. She taught me how to cook.
43. She taught me how to write.
44. She lost my Grandaddy in 1998. That was the same year I moved back in (I had left after high school) to help take care of him.
45. That was the last time she drove a car.
46. She is 5′-2″
47. Her gray hair was once brown.
48. When she gets mad, she’s fearsome.
49. She likes to watch Oprah and Larry King. (I hate them both.)
50. She has out-lived everyone in her family except my brother and me.

I often wonder what granny is thinking about, sitting on the back porch or sitting in her chair. These days, she seems more and more confused or unsure. I guess when you’ve got 91 years stored away in your head, it’s not always easy to access and some of it it bound to get misfiled.

Whatever you’re thinking, Granny. I hope it’s making you happy. Especially today.

Happy Birthday!

This is my typical blogging attire.  That’s right.  I always wear socks when I’m blogging.

I never mention my lower limbs much. (Well, two of them, anyway).  Other than being long they are pretty average.  And they really aren’t all that long for somebody 6′-3″.  Most of my height is in my torso. The attorney is just the opposite.  Most of his 6′-5″ is legs.  But, he’s fairly long-waisted, too.  I guess when you’re that tall, nothing is really short.

I sleep next to the window.

I don’t know whether its because I can look up into the sky at night or that I look up into the sky at night because I sleep next to the window.

Either way, I sleep next to the window. And I always have.

I think that when I was a very small kid, I did it to escape. Because, when you look straight up, you see nothing but sky. Even in your periphery.

When you look straight up, you lose everything around you. You’re no longer where you are. Where you are is no longer.

I often needed that as a kid: for where I was, to be no longer.

In time, both my parents were dead and I moved in with my grandparents. I was no longer where I had been and where I had been was no longer.

I didn’t plan it that way. Or wish it, when I would look into the sky at night. But, evidently the universe had to collect, in some way, on making my night daydreams come true.

Last night there was a bright moon. Not full. Waning, I think. Even the moon was no longer where it was.

It took me so that where I am was no longer. It took me to the attorney. I wondered if the moon lit up his room the way it did mine. Was he looking straight up into the sky on the same moon? If the moon had been a giant mirror and we had super human vision would would we have been able to gaze at each other?

Probably not. He doesn’t sleep next to the window.

Plus, I doubt he ever feels the need to escape.

I don’t sleep well. I never have. And when don’t sleep, I look out the window up into the sky.

What if the universe takes that as a sign to collect again? That I no longer need to be where I am.

Granny is not doing well.

It worries me. So, I don’t sleep.

And I look out the window up into the sky.

People often debate over what eggs and rabbits have to do with Easter. The general consensus is that is a merging of the Biblical account of the death of Christ and Pagan fertility celebrations.

But, it is (perhaps) much simpler than that.

It was no secret that Jesus had a magic trick or two up his voluminous flowing sleeve. (He liked to call them miracles. But, then, so does David Blaine.)

There was the healing the blind. The turning water to wine. Impressive stuff. The only way he could top that and retain his title as the Hebrew Houdini would be the greatest disappearing act ever.

“For my next trick, I will need common household vinegar, food coloring, and an oxygen tank.”

So, they roll the stone aside on that Sunday morning, and no Jesus. (If it isn’t a trick and you really mean to entomb somebody, do you open the door?)

A baking cake may not rise if you open the oven door, but Jesus did.

Instead, out pops a rabbit with colored eggs. (Magicians and rabbits…coincidence or precedence?)

One egg for each disciple. (And you wonder why eggs come in dozens. It’s not like they come out of chickens that way.).

Yes. Jesus had forgiven them and dyed for their (our) sins.

NOTE: One egg was still white. It had denied him. And another did not cook through. It had betrayed him.

NOTE #2:  To Jay: Of course he appeared for a year afterward.  He had to take his bows. You never heard of holy men taking their bows?

DISCLAIMER: This is humor and is not meant as a judgment or comment on any-one’s religious beliefs or dis-beliefs. Hopefully it is taken in that spirit and I have not offended anyone. I hate that I feel like I have to put a disclaimer on humor, as I like to think most people are smarter than that. And most probably are. But for the few who may not be, no harm intended. Whether you are Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Sleestak, I hope you have a wonderful Sunday with family and or friends.

Anniversary plans always go a little wrong on TV shows.

Fred buys Wilma a piano for their anniversary and it turns out to be stolen. Ricky gets a female friend to hold Lucy’s anniversary pearls and Lucy thinks they are having an affair.

And so how it goes in real life sometimes: Tony plans a private afternoon in the mountains with the Attorney and he keeps getting cock-blocked by circumstance.

Even though it bounces around from year to year, I look at Good Friday as sort of an anniversary for me and the Attorney because we first met on Good Friday in 2005. It was a year and a half before we met for the second time, but I had a good feeling about him (but was afraid to act on it) from the start. So, as far as I’m concerned that Good Friday was really the Best Friday.

In honor of that Good Friday (which was also in March that year, so I’m close) and taking advantage of a day when we were both off work, I made plans for us to hop in his convertible, drive to a secluded mountain spot, and have a nice little picnic.

First wrench in the plans: The NCAA Basketball tournament schedule is announced and Tennessee is playing at 12:15pm. Right in the middle of our trip. I didn’t know what to do. Anniversaries come every year. But Tennessee’s men’s team making the tournaments (and with a high seed) don’t.

I didn’t want to cut the day short and be home by noon to see the game. I didn’t want to wait until after the game to start the day. And I didn’t want to cancel my plans. The Attorney kept a cool head said we could take a radio along and enjoy the game while we enjoy our lunch.

So, we met Friday morning and headed off to a secret place I know. The top was down, the lunch was packed, and a portable radio was on the tiny back seat. Everything was perfect.

Perfect until I found out that the road to my secret place has been blocked off since I was there last.

No big deal. I knew another secret spot. Unfortunately it turned out to be a spot that, judging by the 3-4 families there ahead of us, was not so secret anymore.

I knew of other places, but there was no way we would get there in his sports car. I realized we should have taken my truck. Not as sexy and romantic, but would have gotten us away from the rest of the world. Finally I did figure out a place where we could securely park his car and walk a bit further.

And so we did.

We found a little clearing by a creek bed and set up our day camp. Blankets. Food. Cooler. Radio. And us. What more could we need?

Radio reception.

After attempting a walk through the creek (the water was waaaaaaaay too cold still) we decided to dial in the pre-game. But we couldn’t get a strong enough signal. At least not from the station we needed.

Neither one of us was going to be able to stand not knowing how the game was going. I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again: Anniversaries come every year. But Tennessee’s men’s team making the tournaments (and with a high seed) don’t.

So, on to plan “C” (or is it really like “E” or “F” at this point?)

We didn’t want to lose more time hunting for a spot that got reception . It was too close to tip-off (game start time for you non-ballers) to drive home and watch it on TV. Once again, the attorney came through. His suggestion: hit the interstate and find the closest motel with cable TV.

And so we did. (Not the closest motel. Not sure we would have come out of it alive, whether it be because of a slasher or some flesh-eating bacteria that was no doubt being bred there.)

I can only imagine what we must have looked like: An older man and a slightly younger man in a ridiculously expensive convertible checking into a motel in the middle of the day with no luggage. But the clerk didn’t seem to take notice or have a problem. Nor when we checked out about four and a half hours later.

We sat on the bed, eating our Italian sandwiches (ham, prosciutto, salami, pepperoni, provolone) and pound cake (home made) watching the Vols win a poorly played game. A little making out during halftime, a little more and a nap and shower after.

That was our hot piano. Our secret pearls. Our Good Friday.

Maybe not the best Good Friday. But a good one nonetheless.

That Good Friday of 2005 will probably always be the best, because with out it, there would not have been so many good ones to follow.