Monday, March 30, 2009

You CAN go home again, you'll just need a map

Had to go to a funeral this weekend. Never a comfortable thing. Oddly, the funeral was in my old stomping grounds of Warner Robins, where I lived the first 8 or so years of my life. A couple of funny observations:

-I still remember my way around the town. We got lost. I took a wrong turn. It was at night so most of the places were closed. My wife spotted a closed store and said, “Roses. I wonder what that place is.” Well it turns out I knew exactly what Roses was. I used to get Star Wars action figures there when I was a kid. And it was still there. I said, “If there’s a Krispy Kreme up here on the right and a movie theatre on the left, we’re in Macon and need to turn around.” Turns out they were still there and we were in Macon. Not bad for not having been in that area in 25 years or so.

-Byron, which is the area I spent the majority of my time, looked completely different on the outside but was exactly the same on the inside. Something is off about that area. I mean that in a great way. That area is off like I’m off. I stopped by a Target to get some sinus meds and everyone in that place was not quite right. This culminated into this obese young boy with thick glasses walking up to me and saying, “Hello, sir” and that was it. These are my people. My weird, the hills have eyes-like people.

-I got lost several times while I was there. I brought no instructions other than some hastily scribbled stuff on the back of a daily calendar page. So stuck in the middle of nowhere (central Georgia is sort of a geographical anomaly like that, in that you’re always in the middle of nowhere) and unable to find a gas station to ask directions, I saw a little bar called “Friends” with nothing else around it. It was packed. I told my wife to stay in the car and lock the doors and wait while I went inside. This incident echoed a similar time in Ireland where we got lost and I stopped at a bar for directions.

Anywho, I went to the bar and asked the bartender for directions back to the interstate. She said, “It’s too loud in here,” because it was karaoke night, “let’s go outside and I’ll tell you.” Now I thought the bar was one of those ones where the bar area is lower than the seats around the bar. So I waited for her to step up from behind the bar but she never did. She was exactly that height. Probably about four feet tall. And dressed as a catholic school girl. Reminded me of the Britney Spear’s “Hit me baby one more time” video if the vertical hold on your TV was screwed up. Anyway, she got me back on the interstate. For a tiny person, she was very pretty.

-While driving through Macon, I drove past a bar called 8 Ballerz. 8 Ballerz featured airbrushed pictures of Eazy-E, Snoop Dogg and Too Short out in front of it. It was pretty shocking. All I could manage to think was “Why Too Short?”

-Ritz soda. I’ve never seen it anywhere else but Byron. I used to drink a Ritz soda (they come in all sorts of flavors) that was Pina Colada all the time. It had little floaty bits of coconut (maybe) in it. It was SUPER sweet. Anyway, stopped off at a convenience store (I’ll tell you a story about that store next) and they still carried it! I couldn’t bring myself to have one again, though. It is a creepy looking drink, all murky with bits floating in it.

-Stopped off at the last convenience store I went to when I lived in Warner Robins (which sold Pina Colada soda). I was 8 or 9 the last time I was there. All of our stuff loaded into my grandparent’s farm truck, I was very upset to leave Georgia for Florida. My mom said I could get a comic book from this store while we were fueling up with gas. I loved Iron Man so I grabbed the latest issue of it. It was set during Christmas and Tony Stark (alias Iron Man) was a horrible alcoholic and spent the whole issue pretty much staggering around the town. It was DEPRESSING. Iron Man wasn’t even in the damn thing. And that’s what I read on the way to Florida at 9 years old.

Well I checked to see if they still sold comic books but they didn’t. They did sell Big, Black and Beautiful, though. If only my mom had bought me that way back when. What a different trip that might have been for me.

-A shout-out to my mate Daniel who has moved on from this mortal coil. He was my wife’s cousin. A really cool cat; very animated and excited and intense in the best possible way. He loved writing and music and landscaping and movies. I really liked talking to Daniel at AC’s family gatherings. He was just jazzed about everything he was into and was a freaking whirlwind. He always wanted to talk to me about making films and screenplays he was writing. Met a bunch of his friends this weekend and they were all such nice dudes. Very befitting of a guy who had a lot of soul, sometimes a troubled soul, but always a good soul. He loved intensely and was loved intensely. RIP.

3 comments:

Will said...

Sorry to hear about the loss, Matt. My least favorite part about being a grown up is the fact that the frequency which which I attend funerals keeps going up.

Also, your Iron Man story is the saddest/funniest thing ever.

Will said...

Sigh. That should be "with which." A "which which" sounds like a Nabisco treat.

mmyers said...

I agree completely. Too many dang funerals.

I must have read that comic 10 times on that car trip and never touched it again. A six hour trip with only one comic?? Come on!