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boromir9277

My name is Aaron. There is a lot I could tell you, but to begin, my roots are in Provo Utah. I graduated from PHS in 1986 and two of my three kids also graduated from PHS and my youngest will in two years.

Did you see Napolean Dynamite? I'm the loser that moved from Oklahoma to Provo High School who made up stories about past girlfriends and was never willing to get close to anyone except a kid who committed suicide after highschool graduationl. BTW, have you ever wondered what Napolean did after he graduated from High School, he joined the army and got married before his twentieth birthday and had three kids by the time he turned twenty-three. Oh yeah, I danced like a freak too, but never in an assembly. Yep, just like Napolean or that other dance-freak in Hitch.

I'm tall with red hair that sometimes curls up. What does Napolean look like at thirty-nine? He's a fat dude with a beard, wears shorts a lot, vans without socks and prefers plain colored t-shirts or a cool MASH t-shirt picked up at Wal-Mart on clearance.

Education? Sure. English creative writing/tech writing at UVSC, but it has taken twenty years to only get as far as my junior year because life occured in the form of my wife leaving me and our kids in 2002 to pursue a life with someone who wasn't a carreer telemarketer.

It may be possible for my kids to graduate from college before I do. Once a looser, always a looser right.

Right, but with qualifications. Some of my poetry has been published and my oldest has committed to go on an LDS mission after fall semester at UVSC where he's on the dean's list.

While walking today, I started thinking about some of the problems that exist in the Society of Mormons. First, I say the Society of Mormons because this category describes those who are Utah Mormons, but not necessarily LDS. The compartmentalization that I'm talking about refers to how the Relief Society often does not assist single mothers with young children or how they never concern themselves with single fathers who have full custody of their children. I and two friends of mine with similar situations have yet to be visited by the Relief Society in our respective wards even though other families have been reached out to when they were having financial difficulties or problems with health or just needed someone to watch their kids on occasion.

I know it might not be possible or comfortable for people to take an interest in others, but in the five years since my ex left me and my kids, no one other then the elder's quorum has ever inquired about us. No member of the bishopric or any other auxiliary. I haven't often had callings since my ex left even though I'm active and have a temple recommend and have always had one (sure, I might not have talents that can be used in my ward, but I can at least be the Sunday School Secretary or something). The young men's association and the young women's association often does not follow-up with my kids, inform them of activities, or just visit to see how they are doing. I do not know why, but I guess it is because for some reason my family has violated some type of boundary, someone's idea of jurisdiction.

A similar issue exists with demographers: everyone must fit into some type of classification and that person's standing in society is based on this classification. People and society in general have picked up on this need to classify, to label, to positivize who and what a person is. And so people who do not fit easy descriptions, boundaries, or jurisdictions either do not exist, are lying in some way, or are simply not seen or perceived. This is a function of the Society of Mormons as opposed to the church. Mormons (LDS or not) need to classify and set boundaries like everyone else, but still it happens. This is simple function of society in general, but doesn't this behavior imply some type of reliance on the natural man, reliance of typical human behavior? Isn't this something the church has said that we are supposed to not do?

I wonder.

It's terrible what they say.

It's not true.

They don't mean it in a bad way.

His name is DeLand. Same last name as me. They gave me his father's name; my middle name: Ross. DeLand is grandpa's name. Grandma calls him D. Everyone else calls him Grandpa D.

I hear it all the time.

Hey, you're just like Grandpa D.

I don't know where they get it. I'm over six foot, I don't wear Depends, and he smiles way too much. I have red hair and until they started him on Zoloft his hair was jet black. It still is; his roots're jet, but buried under all that snow, you would never know.

Grandpa D? There's snow in his eyes.

I find it hard when they say I'm just like him. Mom replies the wicked take the truth to be hard when she walks by going for refills and back to the porch to watch the fire.

He's fifty-five years older then me and I don't remember the depression or Roosevelt and he's never been to Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Hong-Kong, Seoul, Pusan, Frankfurt, Munich, Paris, Nice, Maui, San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C. or Vegas and I grew up in the military. He only knew the military for a few years during World War II when they drafted him. I enlisted and he grew up in Detroit and has seen more of blizzards than I could ever have, but I can tell you everything you would ever like to know about the snow. The Eskimos know two hundred words for snow. I know only one: snow, but I know more about it then they do.

There's snow in Grandpa D.'s eyes.

I look backwards into my mind and all I see are glimpses through blizzards. And I can see the snow in his eyes. Same last name as me, but he has no idea where it comes from, but grandma and Aunt Kitty did all the research and they know we come from a loch west of Sterling called Awe, but he doesn't know.

He has snow in his eyes.

I know where I come from and I'm terrible at bowling. I wouldn't be able to tell you a thing about fixing a car or the manufacturing process, unions, the Tigers, the Lions, the riots, white flight, or the Big Three. I don't need a tape recording of train whistles to fall asleep to. I need a fan and a fish tank bubbler.

I've never seen snow in my eyes. A mote. A beam. Possibly even a twenty-foot long two by four. Two even—one for each eye.

I don't care if we both like Ella Fitzgerald, Al Hurt, and Dizzy, he hates Zep, Billy Idol, Brian Setzer, Billy Joel, and Primus.

I hear it all the time; you're just like Grandpa D. When I saw him last, he didn't say anything to me or anyone except when he asked: so what happened to Shawn Bradley? But he couldn't remember Shawn's name.

There's snow in his eyes.

I told him he used to play for the Mavericks, but I can barely tell him. I don't keep track of sports. I don't follow it. I look at books all day and forget them overnight so I have to read them again in the morning. Grandpa D. only reads one book over and over again. Over and over again. He has read it even more often then I read Dickens or Yeats or Joyce. Combined. He doesn't remember it, so he reads it again after taking out his hearing aid preferring the silence.

And the snow.

I quit smoking before he did. I never liked cigars or beer. I preferred Hennessey and Tequila, but I quit on my own without being told to. I've never heard him swear, but then I don't swear in front of family, just strangers and twerpy sales clerks at Barnes and Noble, Wal-Mart, and the college book-store. He never went to college, so know one knows if he'd ever curse out professors or fellow students. He hates poetry except that bit in Nephi Nibley pointed out to everyone about rivers, valleys and grey hair.

Mine's red. Grandpa D.'s is snow-covered jet.

One of these day's I'll need a hearing aid, but I won't wear it. I don't wear the glasses I'm supposed to and I never smile unless I have to or something's funny or interesting. They had to tie Grandpa D. to remove his teeth, but mine got knocked out in a bar fight I started.

Coming in, Uncle Ted looks over at us watching the TV that's not making any noise but that's blaring the news about radicals blowing themselves up and O'Riley ridiculing someone for their stupidity and all he can tell me is that the mountain's still burning.

Yep. It'll be burning tomorrow too and when the cheatgrass's gone maybe it'll burn down Saratoga Springs, Eagle Mountain, and Lehi. But nothing will stop the snow in Grandpa D.'s eyes and I'm going to get a job in Alabama or Texas where it never gets cold.

My dad's name starts with D too and so does my brother Danny's. Mine starts with an A. My oldest's name starts with an A as well, but no one tells him he is just like his dad. You're just like grandpa, they tell him. My dad. Both of them can spell, remember everything, speak at least three foreign languages and I see ocean in their eyes. My daughter's lucky. She's not like me, my dad, her brothers, or Grandpa D. Everyone tells her she's like her uncle. Hey, you're just like Ben; don't join the army; they don't let girls in the Special Forces. She doesn't care and laughs it off, but I know she's saving up to buy a Browning singleshot boltaction the second she's old enough. There's surf in her eyes.

There's snow in his eyes, so they had to put him on Zoloft. They had to make him a nicer person. The diapers? Well, he is old.

How do they know? I'm a crass, megalomaniac, middle-aged student and my wife left me for better company and Grandma stayed with him and not a one of you sees snow in my eyes regardless of the stories I could tell you and as far as I'm concerned, you are the one's with the problems. One of these days, someone is going to develop medication for passive-aggressive disorder that'll keep all of you from smiling.

So, what happened to that basketball player? Yeah, he's rotten Grandpa D. On his mission he was constantly giving interviews to reporters from Australia, Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong. Hardly ever went tracting. What a freaking' dweeb.

Really.

There goes that smile; the snow blizzarding his glasses and freezing his breath. Everyone's outside watching the Ochres burn down and cooking smores and I'm in the living room talking to an old man in diapers wearing a lavender polo, slacks, old man socks, and loafers, who's Zoloft won't stop smiling, and the snow won't stop falling and one of these days after he's gone they'll have to dig him out before they can bury him in and I'm going to wear sunglasses so dark everyone will forget my eyecolor.

Hey.

Yeah.

You're just like Grandpa D.

Uh-huh, can you see the snow is his eyes? Didn't think so. Slacker. You can't see it in mine either, so kiss off.

the first is when
it passes overhead
or to the left
or to the right

the second when
it smashes, bangs
into concrete
unforgiving walls

the third is when
it whispers
into grass and weeds
lost and forgotten

the forth is when
it pierces the flesh
destroying structures
like a mushrooming bullet

You know, I feel wierd. My kids have been at a Ward Youth COnference for a couple of days and my house is just empty. I'm not used to the vacancy of the walls or the heaviness of the air. It is just strange.

Yesterday, I spent the evening at my parents. My uncle and Gradparents were there. They were having one last todo before driving back to Detroit (which I'm sure they are doing now--that or finding a motel someplace). My uncle is a year younger than me (mom says its proof we're LDS--my youngest sister is the same age as my oldest son) and his kids are a lot younger than mine are. They were bummed that my kids couldn't come to the dinner.

It was nice to talk to them, but if this is what life is going to be like after my kids completely move out (my daughter is going to Michigan State in the fall and in January my oldest is going on his mission), life is going to get very boring.

The summer cherry near
the trunk, passed over by
the pickers and the birds
is firm, fat, and tastes sweet.

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God's love be with you

Spoken:
Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Lift-off

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare

"This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much (she knows!)
Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear....

" am I floating round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do.?

I totally love this sone. When I was a kid, I would think about it all the time. I love the Peter Schilling version. It has been a long time since I've thought about it, but today during the "word association game" I remembered it. What a rush!

I've grown up a lot since the song first came out and I do not feel as lonely as I did then, as every teen-ager did. It is such a sweet tune and I'm glad it was there to think about.

Aaron the Ogre

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