Lindsey and I arrived there shortly after noon on the Monday before Thanksgiving, and my wonderful mother was there to pick us up. What my wonderful mother did not do was find her way out of the airport in a timely fashion. We scuttled about for 25 minutes or so, turning around several times and proverbially tracing our proverbial steps until I directed her according to the proper signs. This seemed to foretell a trip of almost certain calamity, but alas, it was not so. The calamities were much later. Namely, the 22nd and 29th of December. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We began our trip to the motherland with a visit to Bloomsburg University, a nationally and internationally unknown and unrecognized member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. Some have called it a glorified toilet on a hill ("some" meaning "I", just now). But hey--they've fancied the place up a bit. And really I can't complain because there are 3 people working in BU's English department who will be largely responsible for my acceptance to graduate school, should I actually get accepted. What I'm saying is they fucking well better be responsible for getting me accepted. Anyway, the lovely Lindsey got to meet these 3 crazy old coots from the English department, who I'd been discussing ad nauseam since they started drafting my recommendation letters. (For more details about these folks, please see my next post, Profiles of the Professorial: A Digression.) Lindsey and I sat in on classes, discussed the "pedestrian" nature of popular music with Dr. M, and got soused with Dr. R, who was kind enough to only grope Lindsey a few times, and even then only lightly.
I kid the man. He's a good guy.
That night, while Lindsey was being fondled by an English professor in his late fifties, I managed to catch up with fellow Southern Columbia High School graduate Graham Williams, who is now a well-respected chef at Russell's in Bloomsburg. More importantly, he introduced me to Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant when we were kids. How two 5th graders managed to not only hear but also like that song is beyond me, but I gladly celebrate it as one of childhood's many wondrous anomalies. Sort of like how my old friend Nick Leshock managed to beat the shit out of my brother--who was 3 years older, 6 inches taller, and probably 70 pounds heavier--after my brother broke our "no shots to the face" pillow fight rule.
Since no trip to eastern central Pennsylvania would be complete without a trip to the Wayside, we figured we'd turn up for their weekly "Yuengs & Wings" special. The Wayside Inn is a slightly mangy establishment in the infamous anthracite "coal region" (I use the term pejoratively) adjacent to my hometown. I don't know that the Wayside actually takes in travelers overnight, so I'm assuming its name is borrowed from the slightly more famous Longfellow Wayside Inn in Massachusetts. (Let me add here that the thought of beds at the coal region Wayside is nearly enough to make me swear off sleeping for life.) At this local establishment, Lindsey got to meet some of my old schoolmates, including Ryan Coleman, who is now teaching, coaching, and balding. I kid the man. His intelligence and acute sense of irony leave him, as ever, near the top of my list of the Most Delightful People to Hang Out With. He has also been known to blow smoke up my ass about the songs I write, which admittedly does not hurt his ranking.
And of course, there was Chad.
Chad Edwin Leisenring, known in national and international entertainment circles as Chad Evans--or, to some, "El Guapo"--is a radio DJ for 94KX in Sunbury, PA. He was a year ahead of me in school, and was a constant theater arts, basketball, and Applebee's companion. He was also recently one of 4 finalists in the running to be the new DJ on the Ellen Degeneres show. Alas, he lost out to someone even hipper (read: lamer) than he is. Though an unremittent megalomaniac and shameless ClearChannel whore, Chad does exude a certain charm which renders him quite fun to be around. I kid the man. He has been and always will be one of my very best friends. Later in the week, he would join Lindsey and I for a Bloody Stabbings marathon, which is another story for another time. At any rate, Chaddy liked Lindsey so much that he kissed her on the cheek when we saw him again over Christmas. It was cute. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.
Christ. This is getting long, isn't it?
Later in the week my dear chum Ben came up from Lancaster to visit. Ben and Lindsey and I, along with my parents, went to dinner at Reichart's Mardi Gras in Danville, a New Orleans-style Cajun joint that has long seen my parents as weekly regulars. At dinner, I may or may not have become a bit too aggressively opinionated, as is my wont, whilst discussing the obnoxious concert goers that my parents and Lindsey and I had encountered at the Dylan/Costello show in Nashville earlier in the year. C'est la vie. Riding home in the backseat of my mother's Rav 4, Ben and Lindsey and I were treated to another time-honored Wilson family tradition--the Saying of Something Really Rude To My Mother By My Father--after her hand accidentally brushed the stereo's volume knob, causing a frighteningly intense increase in decibels. After she had adjusted the volume back to a more suitable level, my father turned to her and quipped, "You're even more retarded than I remember." Were my mother not immune to his barbs by this point, I would have found this abhorrent. As it was, though, I'd have to say it was not without its own demented charm.
At last, Thanksgiving Day. The parents' house was aflutter with joyful preparation for the afternoon meal. As per tradition, my father and I prepared the ingredients for the greatest stuffing the world has ever known. This year, the lovely Lindsey Lou became an official participant, and my mother only had to remove a few extra cups of celery and onion that my father had unwittingly overdiced. We had a delectable meal with my parents, my grandparents, and my brother Rick, along with his charming girlfriend Mickey and her delightful 14 year old son Shane. Here we all are on that auspicious occasion:
Dad, Mom, Gram & Pap, Shane, Mickey, Rick, Lindsey, Me.That night, we were paid a visit by my mother's sister (my dear aunt Sylvia), her boys Jamie and Scott, and her husband Art. Art is a wonderful man who inherited the unfortunate lot of being a New Englander in a geographically inexperienced family, and is therefore left with no choice but to humor us when we call him "Aaht." My mother insisted on a picture, as is her wont, of Chad, Lindsey, my cousins and I in the living room. It looks something like this:
Jamie, Scott, Me, Lindsey, Chad.Well, that just about wraps it up. The next day (Friday), Dad drove Lindsey and I to the Harrisburg airport to catch a flight to St. Louis, where we would (among other things) participate in the most obscenely cold game of flag football in the history of the United States of America. This, and much more, in 2007 Holiday Retrospective, Part Tw0: Thanksgiving in Missouri.
I see that you've shimmied your way to the edge of your seat.
