The plane banked slightly to the left, and the man with the wandering elbows sitting next to me shifted for what seemed like the ten thousandth time since we took off. I grumpily rearranged myself in my center seat and tried to turn my attention back to my book. Since the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince two months ago, I had been trying to push through the confusing opening chapters which referenced the previous installment constantly. Eventually I resigned myself to the fact that I had read the earlier book too long ago and too quickly to have retained enough of the detail; facing two lengthy traveling days, I decided I’d be better off re-reading it before starting on the new book.
As it turns out I was able to tear through The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince between the two flights and was glad I’d decided to re-read the fifth book first. I lifted my eyes from the page and peered over Nik’s shoulder and out across the Midwestern landscape, noting the dimming afternoon light. Traveling west to east is always a strange proposition because the time changes make days feel brief, almost ethereal, like the time that passes in dreams. We’d left home early, around seven and had merely driven to the airport, boarded a plane, rushed from one terminal to another during a layover in Phoenix and now approached our destination, having only a couple of Diet Cokes and a handful of salty snacks to show for the trip.
Night had fallen completely by the time we rolled into our destination town, iPod cranking static-y tunes through the rental car’s miserable excuse for speakers and while the clock showed something after nine in the evening, it still felt like the day was young. We were greeted with expected enthusiasm by my family as we entered my parent’s home. Hugs and smiles and cries of welcome passed around, but it didn’t take long for the star of the show to absorb everyone’s attention. Joel is, if you haven’t been following Scott’s site, my nephew.
Ignoring the fact that he’s far cuter than any other child I’ve encountered for a moment, he is also a lot of fun. He’s wiggly, energetic and curious as he loves to stand (at only five months) with help, and dislikes hanging around in one place for too long. In fact, he gets downright grouchy if you try to just sit around with him as he is much more interested in observing things, touching stuff, practicing his grasping technique and promptly shoving everything he gets his little hands on into his mouth.
After Scott, Sara and Joel departed, Nik and I played a new game with my folks called Chrononauts which, aside from being a bit complex to start with, is pretty enjoyable. Being two hours behind the time indicated by the clocks in my parent’s house, I stayed up after everyone else had retired for the night. I read The Order of the Phoenix some more and reflected on the curious nature of home. I’ve never lived in Missouri, never stayed more than a few nights at my parent’s house there and they’ve even replaced most of the furniture and possessions we had when they were still back in California. Somehow, it still feels comfortable there… it’s like a curious familiarity that is undeserved except in the hands that put it together. Eventually I succumbed to the day’s travels and fell asleep myself.
Thursday my brother, my dad and I went out for some golf.
You must understand the significance this event had for me because I have been a staunch opponent of the game of golf for a long time. My problem with golf is not the game itself. Games are, as has been well established here, a sort of passion of mine. Considering that golf is less a game of skill (not unlike bowling, darts or pool which technically qualify as sports under Dr. Mac‘s Sporting Definition but are hardly among the more athletic examples of qualifying activities) it may seem odd that I have had to endure probably fifteen years of occasional raised eyebrows and up through outright badgering from other golf-afflicted friends and acquaintances. It’s probably not so odd then to hear that my problem is more with golfers than golf itself.
I’ve had this notion—perhaps deserved, perhaps not—of golfers and therefore golf itself as an arrogant, pretentious pastime that smacks of elitism, decadence and cronyism. The occasional cry of sexism or racism directed at clubs whose primary purpose is the pursuit of golf has done little to help. Yet I’ve been evaluating this notion for quite some time now, especially as I’ve renewed my interest in tabletop, board and role-playing gaming. Role-playing in particular has also suffered from a bad reputation perpetuated by ignorance of the actual mechanics and poor research into the actual execution of a game. A few bad apples have also poisoned the well, so to speak, for those who neither warrant nor deserve the scorn, prejudgment and occasional fear sparked by being branded a “role-player.”
I figured it was just as bad, if not worse, to perpetuate the same injustices toward something else, especially considering my firsthand experience on the other side of the fence. The fact of the matter in terms of games is simply this: They are what you make them. If one chooses to be an elitist golf jerk, wafting reeking racism, class-ism or sexist piggishness chances are one could just as easily do so with tennis or bridge or (ahem) iPod ownership. Golf is not the problem. People are the problem.
Anyway, there was little chance of me turning into a snooty prig considering our “Discount Golf” course of nine 3-par holes in which I scored a 66 (that’s 39 over par for the math-impaired) and the fact that I have a marked habit of tipping off the top of the ball and skipping it bouncing across the ground as though I were skipping a stone over a lake’s surface. In spite of my ineptitude, I found the game (and the driving of the golf carts, especially the manic power slides my brother and I practiced at each and every hole) quite enjoyable—to the extent that I would certainly like to go back and try playing some more, perhaps with a few trips to a driving range prior with someone who knows a thing or two and might teach me not to be an embarrassment. While there was little shame in a small course in a state I don’t reside in on a Thursday afternoon where the only witnesses were my close relatives, I would not care to subject myself to the shame of playing that way around people who are, no matter how you look at it, probably protective of their chosen hobby and essentially armed with blunt implements.
Friday Scott and Sara dropped Joel off with his grandparents and the four of us set out for a day together. I’ve met Sara on several occasions during her fairly lengthy courtship with Scott but it struck me later that this last week was probably the first time Nik and I have really gotten a chance to know her as a person rather than a sort of abstract concept (“My brother’s wife,” for example). I’m pleased to report that she is an exceptionally kind, funny and warm person which is not something that particularly surprises me—my brother may be a bit spacey at times (although I noted with some alarm that fatherhood has drastically enhanced his maturity level) but no one can reasonably accuse him of being dim nor a poor judge of character.
We went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant where, much later I realized, they served me something that was not remotely close to what I had ordered. I’m pretty positive that I ordered a chalupa and enchilada combination plate but what they served me was a tostada and a chicken quesadilla. Obviously since I didn’t notice until we were out of the state entirely, it wasn’t a big deal and the food was good in spite of the miscue, but it was a little odd. After lunch we went bowling where I broke 100 (105) in the first game and barely cleared my golf score in the second game.
Bowling, golf, pool and darts are all examples of games that I’m terrible at. I’ve even managed to pinpoint the cause which is that they all rely on a certain ability to adjust some mechanical motion and maintain consistency through that motion over repeated attempts. Consistent motion is not my strong suit. I never hit the cue ball the same way twice, I don’t throw a bowling ball with anything that resembles proper form even though I’ve been taught how to bowl “the right way” by at least a dozen people since I was rather young. Games that feature speed and reflexes are much more suited to my particular set of physical (cough) skills which is why I am better at ping-pong, volleyball and raquetball and the like than I’ll probably ever be at the others. It’s not really a complaint, just an observation.
For dinner Scott, Sara, Nik and I went to a restaurant located near the University of Missouri (Mizzou if you please) which features the most unique but delectable appetizer I’ve encountered in a very long time. Envision thinly sliced green bell peppers, lightly battered and fried with generous amounts of black pepper and piled on a plate. Then sprinkle powdered sugar over the rings and serve. Odd? Absolutely. Delicious? You’d better believe it.
I had an Ahi Tuna and Pesto sandwich which was also very tasty and afterward we retreated to Applebee’s for dessert where Nik and I shared one of my favorites, Apple Cheesecake Chimichangas. If you haven’t tried these, I urge to stop reading right now and go find your local Applebee’s restaurant and order one. Now. The remarkable thing is that Applebee’s doesn’t make much else that I particularly like, dessert or otherwise. This one dish almost makes up for the incredibly average rest of the menu. Almost.
On Saturday Scott and his family had to go up north for his weekend job leading worship service at a church up there. We met them at a country-style restaurant for breakfast (real mid-Western biscuits and gravy are something everyone should try at least once before they die) and some more time and pictures with Joel. We sadly said good-bye to them and headed back to my parent’s place. My dad and I lounged in front of a parade of college football games, including the amusingly pathetic loss by Oklahoma to Texas Christian University. We spent the afternoon remarking in a rather smarmy manner about various things including how lame it is for teams to play these gimme games (USC versus Hawaii? Cal versus Sacramento State? Come on now…) and why Florida International (which I could have sworn was an airport) was playing. I postulated that it might be the airline worker’s pickup league or something. Shock of all shocks, it wasn’t televised so we never got a chance to find out.
Later in the evening my aunt and uncle stopped by with my cousin’s baby boy who is slightly older than Joel. He’s a cute little guy and being somewhat older he is close to talking and walking and his activity is a little more focused on task accomplishment (versus Joel’s sort of spastic motor skill experimentation). As the night wore on and they packed little Levi up to go home, the typical air of resigned melancholy settled over the house. We played Tripoley for a few hours (a fine game that blends poker and rummy, by the way) but with a long day including church in the morning and the day o’ traveling approaching, one by one people drifted off to bed.
I stayed up a little later, as usual, reading distractedly and trying to find some comfort in a house that, while oddly familiar, is still not “home.” My sleeping issues are typically exacerbated by changes in environment so I lay on the couch and listened to the night. I thought about my brother’s lament that he sometimes finds it hard to connect with people he meets that are his age, wishing abstractly that Nik and I lived closer to where he and Sara were. It’s strange how when we were growing up we were constant playmates, spending endless hours setting up our toys, pretending to be space pirates or whatever, playing sports and getting on each other’s nerves. Yet there was a long period of time where that was just what happened because we were brothers but at least I never sat down and gave much thought to the idea that he might be one of my best friends, too. Despite being similar enough in disposition and personality to have a lot in common it was always an abstract concept that brotherhood is frequently equated with close bonds. As I stared at the ceiling and finally felt the weariness of the week weigh on me, pulling my eyes closed and drifting into that in-between state that isn’t quite sleep and isn’t quite waking, I decided that it was lamentable that we ended up living far away.
My dreams were odd and scattered, and I woke confused as Nikki was up very early, sick with unexpected cramps. I never quite got all the way back to sleep, and with a long day of travel ahead of us, I said my sad farewells to my parents in the parking lot after church. I often grouse that they complain about how little we see them considering they were the ones that all moved away. Somehow I felt this time that there was something else going on. Perhaps it feels again like change is on the way, and things aren’t going to be the same forever. Whatever it is, I think people just do what they feel they have to do, go where they feel led, and hope that somehow the end result is enough caring and supportive people surrounding them to make them feel human and connected. Sometimes you have to give up some things to gain others. It’s not ideal. It’s just… life.
A few hours later I stared again out the window of the plane at the tiny lights below making a patchwork of dots and lines against the black expanse of ground, invisible except for where the orange lights touched it in little pools unable to fully reveal the detail from this distance. I closed my book, now finished, and glanced over at Nik, who tried to nap with semi-success in the uncomfortable seats crammed tightly together for maximum profitability. Somewhere down there is home, I guess.
Whatever that means.
