The bullshit version of the story involves some crap about the short period of time before one makes a commitment to a career and a family...and then some English department, deep fried and Flannery O’Connorized spiel about the Southern aesthetic. The truth is that I didn’t know what I was doing, but I thought it was fucking fantastic that no one could tell me to stop doing it. I wanted “Life’s Rich Pageant”, not the “Little Miss Horseradish Pageant”. (Collinsville, Illinois is the Horseradish Capital of the World and The City with that Weird Catsup Bottle Water Tower. When these two claims-to-fame are combined, the result is a slightly better than Red Lobster-caliber cocktail sauce of culture. It’s good, but it’s not THAT good.)
I lived in Athens for 15 years. It was amazing… until it wasn’t. By 2009, it was time to go back to the ‘ville. My father had died suddenly. My brother had signed a ten-year lease for a VERY small apartment in a VERY gated community. My life had sort of careened all over the place, and I had settled in to watch it all from a ditch somewhere. It was time to go. My mom was alone and missed her grandson. Besides, she would be able to help us out. I could go back to teaching. I could start over. It was time.
It’s about a ten-hour drive from Athens to Collinsville. It took me at least a year and a half to make the drive. On March 22, 2009, we walked into my mother’s shrine of a kitchen to find a greyish molten blob in the middle of the floor. She had, you see, tried to dry out the newspaper in the oven…like you do… and then she forgot about it until she smelled smoke. She tried to throw it outside, but since it was ON FIRE, it kept burning. She got scared and dropped it, melting the linoleum or whatever crap flooring they had selected without my input.
She was doing crazy old people stuff. It was good that we were home.
The comedy of horrors that results from living with a preschooler and an old(er) person was evident from the beginning:
“Little kids and old people sure like nightlights.” – March 23, 2009
I realized that the only way to survive was to write it all down.
On March 29, 2009, I posted:
“Today's "Science Projects By Grandma": Move a heavy safe using a beach towel. Solution: Remove Grandma and beach towel from room. Move heavy safe. Smile.”
The Gummer Chronicles were born.
Oh I love it. You are really a good writer my friend. I will keep an eye on this and the happenings in the Ville. You are too much. Love ya Deb
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