Chris Kim A

Just so you know, I’ve been wishing Mr. Truman “Happy Birthday” for quite a long while now, but I’m just being neighborly.

We moved to Independence in 1967, into a house that was in the neighborhood between Truman’s home and the Truman Library.

In the first few years, it wouldn’t be unusual to see Mr. Truman out for a walk in the neighborhood. And for several years, it wouldn’t be strange at all to run into Mrs. Truman, or their daughter, Margaret, at the local Kroger grocery store — on one occasion, I recall Margaret was having a time with one of her kids staying seated in the grocery cart.

Mr. Truman also went to the same chiropractor we did. One afternoon, as he was leaving the doctor’s office, he looked down at me and my brother playing on the waiting room floor.

“Are these boys for sale?” he asked our mom.

“Some days, Mr. President, they’re for free!” Mom blurted, her face immediately turning bright red, realizing what she had implied to the former President of the United States about her two little angels.

Meanwhile — I was very excited about the prospect of getting to live in the big Truman house and hanging out with Mr. Truman, and was sorely disappointed when Mom didn’t close the deal!

Fifteen years ago this evening, I got to catch Dan Hicks and The Acoustic Warriors performing at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, where I had seen (and would see) him perform several other times. In fact, he’ll be there in a couple of weeks on March 1st, back to being billed as “Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks” from the old days.

The “Acoustic Warriors” changed personnel slightly from time to time, but the music was always all Dan, and he was always his usual, consummately effervescent self. His performances were always very fun and entertaining, like his music—upbeat, quirky and clever—musically as well as lyrically.

How to categorize his ‘style’ of music? That’s always a tough call, since it simultaneously includes elements of several genres: folk, rock, country, jazz, pop, swing, jump…it’s just not that easy to describe or pigeonhole into a familiar ‘type’.

A few years before this show, I saw him at the cozy cabaret once known as the Cinegrill at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel (alas, it is no more). We got to the hotel about 45 minutes early, parked in the hotel parking and walked through the lobby toward the club. There wasn’t much activity in the lobby at all as we approached the lounge door, only a guy sitting on one of the padded benches reading a newspaper. The closer we got, I realized it was Dan, himself, relaxing with the paper for a few minutes before the show. As we passed, I said a quick, “Evenin’ Dan.” to which he replied, “Yup.”

Inside the club, I could see why he was spending some time in the empty lobby. That place is tiny without a bandstand, and with Dan (no small guy) and 3 other musicians, it was a bit tight. There wasn’t much of a crowd, either, for whatever reason. We’d gotten there early to get a good seat, which turned out to be almost anywhere. I’ve only seen him in small venues, but this was a very small, intimate setting. And, of course, a most excellent performance.

Back in the 90s, Dan kept a mailing list of his fans, and would (personally?) send out post cards when he would be appearing in your area. The front would almost always be some original artwork of Dan’s, usually something kind of crazy or silly. Hmm, I know I still have them, somewhere in the archive, but not handy enough at this writing to include here. They will be forthcoming in another post, once I run into them again, promise.

 

The used-up, former roll of packing tape was still in the dispenser, its replacement sitting right next to it, on the ready. Close by, another smaller, disposable tape/dispenser still had plenty left on it before needing to replace the roll in the larger unit.

Most of the (now) empty roll had been used up in the last move a few years ago.

The loud, distinctive sound of the adhesive side ripping free from its wrapped self-restraint isn’t a particularly pleasant sound, anyway, but it appeared to be an extremely unpleasant one for my cat, Spot. Quite likely, it was the combination of the sharp, daggar-like noise of that sound along with my heightened emotional state hustling to get things packed for an unplanned relocation that had as much to do with his reaction—but clearly, it was a much-less-than-pleasant experience for him, overall.

That subsequently presented a bit of a problem every other time I would use the dispenser. He would put his ears back, gazing at me, wide-eyed, with a bit of panic slightly coloring his furry countenance. Since circumstance had required he be an indoor cat from the time I’d gotten him as a kitten, I always tried to at least give him the most consistent best experience that being stuck living with me could offer as often as I could.

So, keeping in mind that he likely associated that sound with a complete upheaval of his confined reality, I tried to at least give him some assurances every other time that wasn’t the case:

“It’s okay, Spotty, we’re not moving. Not today, little buddy. Well, not that I know of, at least.”

When we moved into this place, I promised him that I wouldn’t put him through it again. In all fairness, though, in the eighteen years he and I were together, I only put him through that reality upheaval twice (quite thankfully for both of us).

It’s been nearly two years since his passing, and this old, used up tape roll core has been sitting on the corner of my drawing table, waiting for the recycle bin—much like the bit melancholia that I’ve left adhered to it. The process of grieving the loss of my mom a few months before his became intertwined with grieving his loss along the way.

Understanding that it is a process, however, has been surprisingly useful in practice, as it turns out.

Being patient with it (the process, the loss, and myself), while trying to be sternly earnest about doing what I can muster to move myself forward beyond it has been an understandable challenge over these last couple of years. It feels as though I have much more patience for others in this way, than I do with myself. Having the tremendous blessing of loving family and friends’ love and support has been a great facilitator in maintaining the useful perspective that it is just a part of my experience, and is not the sum total of it.

Now that I’ve encapsulated it in this documentation, perhaps I can move on to up-cycle it in a project, or at least send it along for recycling. Either way, it’s on its way up, along with my attitude (and maybe even my outlook), which has been due for a major overhaul/up-cycle quite long enough.

And, ironically, I’m at another major point where circumstance and opportunity may be conspiring for me to relocate once again—and very likely all the way back home to Missouri (finally, just as had been the plan when I moved to spend a year in L.A.). The difference being that this time, it will be my idea, and as much on my terms as I’ve left possible. It will also be more than 30 years or so later than I thought it would be.

Huh. Maybe I’m more patient with myself than I thought.

To get things rolling, I thought it serendipitous to start off with a show from 28 years ago this very day: L.A.-local heroes “X” performing on campus at UC Santa Barbara.

Back in those days, it was easy enough to catch them around Los Angeles, but I was dating a girl who was going to school there at the time, and there weren’t always a lot of big date things going on around Goleta and Isla Vista, so this was quite a bit of a treat. Funny, I can’t recall who opened — either The Dream Syndicate or it might even have been Dave Alvin (or even both). That I retrospectively place Alvin there may just be a mind-mash of concurrent events, since he would replace X-founding-member Billy Zoom a year or so later.

What I absolutely do remember quite distinctly, however, is that by about halfway through X’s set, we’d been moshed out of our great stage-side spots to about halfway back in the auditorium. I saw a dark shadowy something fluttering over the heads of the crowd from in the front of the stage, and it wasn’t until I felt a hard thud on my chest and heard the glass tinkling on the ground that I realized 1) it’s coming toward me! and 2) Crap! it’s a beer bottle! As much as we were having a great time, it seemed like maybe it was time to call it a night before the chairs started flying next.

Something else that came to mind thinking back on this show — up until that weekend, I had been taking the Greyhound Bus up on Fridays from Santa Monica to spend the weekend with her a couple times a month, and take the return bus Sunday night. What dawned on me when I scanned the ticket stub for this show was that this would also have been the first weekend I would have driven my brand-new Isuzu I-Mark (the “ChrIsuzu” I still drive today) up to show off to the girl and her girlfriends.

(As a token tangentially-related factoid, it may also interest you to note that singer Katy Perry was born in Santa Barbara exactly 8 months after the day of this show.)

At the very end of today, it will have been a full year since Mom quietly and peacefully passed away, or “was called to Glory” as she frequently liked to say.

“It’s the Glory shining down” was how she had described the beautifully majestic, natural atmospheric optical effect known as ‘crepuscular rays’ to us when we were kids, explaining that that was how her mother and grandmother had described it to her as a child. It is no wonder, and perhaps now very fitting, that I always think of her when I see this wonderful effect of nature. Heaven opens a bit to shine down its Glory, and it will forever more remind me that she is smiling down on us, safe in the arms of her Savior, singing praises in the Choir Fantastic.

Her unrelenting faith — no, trust — in God and absolute assurance that she was moving on to a better existence were her daily testimony and witness to all with whom she had contact. Not through pious, evangelical speeches, but through simple, everyday loving acts of thoughtfulness and kindess that she extended to the world around her. This was her story, and this was her song: praising her Savior all the day long — to borrow appropriately from the old standard hymn. Being a channel and example of the Love of Christ was something she did as easily and automatically as breathing.

Bringing joy to people, through conversation, laughter, song, a meal, a card or a phone call was how she devoted her time and energy. Of course, there were those with whom she did not agree, and she secretly suffered idiots to the best of her genteel nature, but she loved nearly everyone from her seemingly limitless heart. Those she couldn’t like on her own, well, she prayed to love them as Jesus already did. She still might tell you what was on her mind, but in her heart, it was always love, and that was never in doubt. This lifelong example and practice is the legacy which she left us, and the manner of living in which she tacitly, but earnestly, instructed us.

As much as the preceding 5 years since her initial diagnosis of 6 months had had my brother and me holding our breaths and awaiting the inevitable, neither of us had any idea what to expect for the year following our loss, either as brothers, or as individual sons. Through this year of the “firsts” without her (first Valentines Day, first Easter, first Mother’s Day, etc.), the anxiety of expecting her passing moved to the anticipation of a surprise attack emotional meltdown, but it has been thankfully peaceful over all.

Without question, I miss her daily, and quite often deeply. There have been several ‘sneak attacks’ of sadness, and there are bound to be many more, I’m sure, but I remain convinced that she is always with me, with all of us, whose lives were blessed with her presence, persistence and steadfastness.

Sitting with Mom as she appears to peacefully and comfortably sleep, it is very difficult to articulate the intensity and diversity of thoughts, emotions — all very disjointed and incomprehensible. The decline of her health has been rapid and irreversible, and it seems impossible that she’s not just resting and recuperating and that everything will just go back to normal.

The truth I so earnestly am trying to keep hold of is that her body has truly lost the ability to recover, that the Mom I can’t let go of has already moved on, that this part of the process of living, while inevitable for everyone, never really gets any easier to walk through — nor should it, when it involves a parent.

I know I will move both through and past this portion of the journey, never completely alone, but with the courage and strength of God the Father, the presence of my brother & our family, the deeply heartfelt thoughts and prayers of friends.

It is my privilege and my choice to stay with her earthly body until it is no longer useful to God or to her. I know she will always be with me, and I with her, and in the next part of the journey, the next dimension of experience, we all are already together.

Ah, Little Debbie! Few things have been as consistent in my life as the Swiss Cake Roll queen, Little Debbie. I think I was enchanted by her depiction on the box before I’d even ingested the delectables in the box. In her girly bonnet, she kind of looked like someone that would be in my Sunday School. Somewhere along the way, I learned that the owner/proprietor of the McKee Baking Company had named the line of snack cakes after his granddaughter (Debbie), and that we are about the same age. I used to wonder if her friends had a direct line on all free Swiss Cake Rolls they wanted, which was just idle thinking, since there was little chance my family would be moving to Collegedale, Tennessee in the foreseeable future.

It seems for a time, the treats were only available regionally (in the MidWest), and after I’d moved to California, I would bring 2-3 boxes back to L.A. every time I’d go back home for a visit. Fortunately, they finally started carrying them locally, and I could stop being a Swiss Cake Roll mule for my transplanted midwestern friends.

Kim A Gallery :: Other Drawings :: DevilDebbie.

Here’s the thing: I’m as shocked as the next that I’d end up having anything at all to do with computers, let alone have them play such a utilitarian and seemingly seamless and natural role in my everyday life.

In fact, there was a fair period early on that I was relatively convinced that computers and such could well be the gateway to perdition (frankly, I’m still not completely unconvinced, especially on days I get to help with the one Windows machine we have at the office).

When I was in junior high school, my grandmother bought me a DIY binary computer kit, with little spring contacts, bridge wires, little incandescent light bulbs, and sliding switches. I’m pretty sure there must have been a manufacturing defect in some part of the device, as I could never get it to appear to function the way the instruction manual indicated that it should. Computers: 1, me: 0

It’s also important to keep in mind that back in my high school days, portable hand-held calculators were just becoming affordably available to the average family, and were typically verboten in class. The computer “lab” class was a DECwriter connected to some machine that ran enough BASIC to program the printout of a big green-bar paper banner. However, to even get that close to the machine, you had to have made your way through Calc and Trig, and my loose grip on math skills got derailed somewhere early on in Algebra II my sophomore year. Computers: 2, me: 0

It wouldn’t be until I had moved to California and found myself in the position of operations manager for Pacific Bell’s paging services vendor that I would finally break through my old notions as SysAdmin on the 3b2/400 mini mainframe from AT&T that ran a solid System V Unix. The score was about to even up, and even a turnover would seem plausible…

For most of my adult life, Converse’s Chuck Taylor low-tops have been my standard non-sandal footwear. While I prefer the unbleached canvas ones, I’ve had to settle for bleached white on occasion. Rarely (as in almost never), will I buy my low-Chucks in any other color or trendy style (that double-tongue thing, that laces sewn down thing) — for me, shoes are those things you put on your feet to protect them from poop and sharp things on the ground, not particularly a statement of fashion or anything in particular. As you can see, I’ll wear my Chucks thoroughly before replacing them.

Which brings me to the point of my query — each time I start out a new pair, I puzzle over how to begin the laces: over or under? In the box, the laces are decoratively laced through the eyelets, and here, over does look better, but as you may know, the laces are rarely functional from the factory, and must be redone from scratch. To be fair to both camps, I alternate from pair to pair (the shoes depicted are from two different pairs), but am curious how others go about getting their Chucks’ laces started.