BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

February 20th is one of those really, really momentous days in history…

Some of you may remember, and by the same token, some of you may simply be too young to remember. You may have read about it in history books, but that would be as close as you came to touching it…

So, what am I rambling about?

47 years ago, on February 20, 1962, Astronaut John Glenn left this earth, and returned safely,  aboard a Mercury Space Capsule, dubbed Friendship 7. In doing so, he became the first American to orbit the earth.

Just for the record, Alan Shepard was the first American Astronaut in space, aboard the Mercury Capsule Freedom 7, in May 1961. The distinction of first human being in space was earned by Russian Cosmonaut, Yuri Gegarin aboard Vostok 3KA-2 in April 1961, beating out the US by nearly a month.

Those of you who know me, or have been following my blog for some time already know of my fascination with the space program. Even those of you who became readers of Brainpan Leakage only recently, are probably aware of this fact if you have been following the Mahwage series of entries. So, my apologies for spewing space trivia at you… It’s just one of those things.

Still, taking all of the above, and more, into account, I suppose NASA and our space program have been major landmarks for some of the most important events in my life…

• The Challenger Disaster and that fateful job interview that led me to meet, and eventually marry the love of my life, E K.
• Apollo 11, the first manned mission to land on the moon. This would be when my teachers in elementary school suddenly realized I was academically way ahead of the curve. I believe what tipped them off was me walking into class with a detailed scale model of a Saturn V rocket I had built from scratch out of things I found around the house… (As in, I had no plastic modeling kit, just junk, pictures, and my imagination.)
• And, yes, among other things, February 20, 1962…

You see, I have to admit I don’t clearly recall Astronaut Glenn’s historic orbits around the earth. At the time, I was in a small town called Fulton, Kentucky, and I  was somewhat preoccupied with being slapped around by a doctor, as I ventured naked,  screaming, and kicking into this world.

Yeah, today is my birthday. I awoke this morning to a Friday  just like any other Friday. Cleaning litterboxes, taking out the trash, getting my wife off to work, my daughter off to school, starting laundry, making calls to order parts for the kitchen faucet that elected to break at an inopportune moment, and even sitting down with a cup of coffee to get some other work done.

But, today, in addition to that work, as  gift to myself I have spent my time piddling around on the Internet instead of tossing words at an upcoming novel… I mean, after all, it’s my birthday. I should have a little fun, right?

Ever since last evening I’ve been receiving numerous emails from folks, countless postings on my Facebook wall, and even on my Myspace comments, all wishing me the best for the day and the year to come. I thank each and every one of you for those kind thoughts. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to send me those notes, because I am the first one to admit that I am terrible about doing so myself. I get a bit preoccupied and often forget about such things, especially since we didn’t really make a big deal about birthdays in my family. Still, I want you all to know that I appreciate it.

Late this morning, I was even rousted from my comfortable chair here at my desk by someone pounding on my front door. To my surprise, when I answered it a lady presented me with the flowers pictured above… A gift from Samantha Beaty and 13 Magickal Moons, my favorite bookstore, (and bookstore owner), for signings, workshops, and even just plain visiting. I have a ton of friends there. Too bad they are in Virginia and I’m here in Missouri or I’d drop by and have a few drinks with the crew.

A few days ago, I received a delivery from my touring buddy, Dorothy Morrison. She sent me a bottle of booze, go figure.

But, seriously, she knows I happen to be a big fan of Maker’s Mark, so she and her husband sent me a “patriotic” bottle of the fine Bourbon.

She also made me promise I would open it and drink it… I said I would, but I’m not going to get in a hurry about it. I already have some Bourbon open, and besides, the red, white, and blue bottle looks pretty good up there on the shelf.

Knowing my penchant for  odd T-Shirts as well, the box included one of those too. It is emblazoned with a furry critter and labeled with an easily recognizable stylized script, proclaiming him to be “Hairy Otter.” You can expect to see me wearing it at an upcoming gig this spring / summer / fall…

…And who knows what’s in store for this evening. I couldn’t help but notice that E K laid out a bunch of leather items, stiletto heels, and such like before she left  for work this morning… Just kidding… Fact of the matter is, the poor woman had a horrid tension headache when she headed out, so I figure she will be the one on the receiving end of  the attention this evening. She’ll have to get all “Evil” on me some other time… And besides, like I said, birthday’s aren’t that big a deal on my side of the family, so we usually just have a quiet celebration with a few close friends, some stir-fry, and a whole mess of Sushi. I’m afraid that won’t be happening tonight, due to schedules and such, but we’ll be taking care of it in the near future… Tonight we’ll probably just sit around and watch Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse, and Numbers… Maybe I’ll even toss back a quiet Bourbon or two to celebrate…

And, so, here I am… This old farm boy is another year older, officially and everything. Whether or not I am any wiser remains to be seen…

On that note, Tammy Jean, a good friend of mine sent me an email a bit earlier, wishing me well on this day… In my response to her I discovered an interesting mathematical anomaly. I mentioned that my brain still felt 25, but that when I get up in the morning my body feels every bit of 72.

Those were just the numbers than happened to roll out of my brain, for whatever reason… It wasn’t until I did the math that it made an odd sort of sense…

You know, what with 72 minus 25 being equal to 47…

I wonder if there is a similar calculation for that elusive wisdom?

More to come…

Murv

Part 2 of 12

Continued from: Mahwage: What’s A Nice Girl Like You…

As I said previously, our story actually begins, for lack of a better starting point, on January 28, 1986, the fateful day of the Challenger disaster…

By January of 1986 I had been out of a job for nearly 6 months. My position with American Home Video Corporation, (aka AHVC and VideoConcepts™),  had come into jeopardy the moment the then Tandy Corporation, (aka Radio Shack®, and now Radio Shack Corporation), had concluded a buyout deal and taken over the company. I was in middle management and, as many of you well know those are usually the first jobs to be purged and refilled. It’s more economical for a corporation to hire in cheaper help and train them from scratch rather than to keep paying salaries that have increased throughout years of service and try to re-train people who are already set in their ways under the old regime. It makes sense from a business standpoint. It doesn’t make it any easier to swallow though…

And so, there I was. Jobless and pretty much penniless. You see, I had been caught up in the “credit craze” of the early 80’s. Sign here and get a $1000 credit line… No money down, no payments for 6 months, $2500 instant credit… Just show us a valid driver’s license and a current credit card, and you too can have a credit line with us…

Now, this wasn’t a HUGE problem when I had a job. I am truly a responsible person for the most part, (But, I do have my moments, just like anyone else). I pay my bills and have no desire to be beholding to anyone for any longer than I absolutely must… However, since I had been caught up in the craze, I was single, had a great place to live where the rent was cheap, (see previous blog “There I was, Sitting By The Pool…” January 23, 2009), I had overextended myself. A new car, (because I desperately needed one), was the biggie, but then there were a lot of toys… Video camera, TV’s, Stereo, Computer Gadgets… I could go on and on… With income, I could pay my bills and have some pocket money. Without income, my savings dried up very fast, and unemployment simply didn’t meet the basic needs. I started falling behind in my bills, collectors were calling, and I wasn’t having much luck in the “finding a job” department.

While I had been in Sales/Sales Management with my most recent job, I had also kept my finger in the electronics repair end of things. That was really my first love… well, second actually, because writing is my first… and it was something I was very good at doing. However, the job market for techs was a bit depressed at the time, so I had taken the sales position with AHVC. Well, here I was a couple of years and a handful of months later, and the job market for techs hadn’t seemed to become any better. So, I was looking for either one – tech or sales, anything would do, although I preferred tech.

Well, I finally received a callback on my resume… The company was known as Crazy Dave’s ComputerTrend. (I just looked for some info about them on the net so I could provide a link, but didn’t find much of anything, probably because they went under a long, long time ago.) In a nutshell, ComputerTrend was a Midwestern chain of discount computer resellers. What we called them back in the day was a “computer whore”… What that meant was they undercut everyone. They even sold systems below cost in order to increase volume and make up the profit on the back end with  high margin accessories. They had radio commercials that sounded like an advertisement for a monster truck rally… Literally… An artificially excited voice screaming about the great deals you could get on MacIntosh computers, IBM computers, Epson printers, and so on… Their catch phrase, believe it or not, was – voice one: “But how much is it?” excited voice 2: “It’s cheaper than a toaster!”

Yeah, a toaster. I have no idea, so don’t ask me. The only thing we ever called a toaster in the computer biz were some of the old external drives, and back then they weren’t exactly cheap.

So, obviously, ComputerTrend wasn’t my first choice in jobs, but by this time I was desperate. The bill collectors were starting to get nasty, and I was willing to take just about anything involving a paycheck, even though said paycheck was likely to be, and definitely was, far, far less than I had been making before…

Moving on, the day came for my scheduled interview, January 28, 1986.  I was set up to be at the Olive Road location around noon that day. I rolled out of bed early, went through my normal routine, showered,  futzed about with a B B S I was running at the time, got dressed for the interview, then kicked back in front of the TV with a cup of coffee to watch the space shuttle launch.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with my love of the space program, I was born on 2/20/62 – the day John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. His Mercury space capsule was christened Friendship 7, and legend has it I came very close to being named John Glenn Sellars. At any rate, the space program has always held a special interest for me.

Well, quite obviously the rest of that shuttle launch is sad history… Roughly 73 seconds into the flight an “O” ring failed and Challenger disintegrated, killing the seven crew members and plummeted bit by bit into the Atlantic ocean. I watched, like countless others, in abject horror as the scene played out before me on the screen of a 27 inch JVC TV / Monitor, (I remember that particular detail because it had been purchased from my previous place of employment)…

Then came the words, “Flight controllers here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction. We have no downlink… We have a report from the Flight Dynamics Officer that the vehicle has exploded.”

I was devastated. At that point I literally considered calling the ComputerTrend Store and seeing if I could reschedule my job interview. I know, that sounds a bit melodramatic, even to me. But, at the time I was in a state of shock, as were many others. And being such an avid follower of the space program, the disaster hit me very hard.

However, I also had a sense of responsibility. I knew I needed to restart my income, and soon. The job market had been softer than a marshmallow in July and I realized I couldn’t risk losing this opportunity. Little did I know it was about to become a life changing opportunity in more ways than simply a paycheck.

I gathered myself, spoke to a few folks on the phone who were just as shocked as I at what had happened with the Shuttle, then donned a tweed sport coat and headed out for my interview. I did, however, make an obvious geek statement: I wore a black armband. Fortunately, the interviewer watched the news and was enough of a geek himself  to appreciate it.

As stated earlier, what I really wanted was a tech position, but they didn’t have one. So, I interviewed for a floor sales position. While I had the necessary qualifications for the job, I was later told that what clinched it for me was my tech background. Some of the veteran sales folk at the store had already heard about my resume, and were all about having a “personal tech” on staff with them. You see, the St. Louis tech center for ComputerTrend serviced three separate stores, and while it was actually located just across the parking lot from the Olive Road location, the techs there had their hands full already.

So now, I was gainfully employed. Well, as gainfully as I could be under the circumstances…

Two weeks into my new job, life took yet another turn. I was finally able to shake loose from the other salespeople who had me doing tech support for their clients as well as configuring the hardware they had sold. I needed to sell something myself if I was going to make anything besides base draw salary. So, I worked the floor and almost immediately  sold a system.  I wrote it up and arranged for the customer to take delivery the next day since he wanted a custom configuration. Then I set my schedule so that I could visit the tech center the next morning. You see, the tech center wasn’t just where the repairs took place… It was also the warehouse, and I needed to obtain the components I had just sold in order to put them together.

Now, I have to add in a side note here: I had been told all about the tech center when I started on my first day. As it happened, there was a young lady working there named Erin. All of the men at the store were constantly panting over her, and rightly so. She was a good looking blonde with an ample chest. She was also an absolute sweetheart… Therefore, since I was male the other guys included me in their tellings of lustful fantasies over this young woman. I can still remember hearing repeatedly, “Just wait until you see Erin…” Well, I did. She came by the store a few times, and I had occasion to go by the tech center a few times, myself… However, I didn’t have the same reaction to her as the rest of the men, not because she wasn’t perfectly lovely, because she was, but, she simply didn’t affect me the way she did the rest of them.

Well, as it happened, I also knew there were more folks over at the tech center besides Erin. There was a man by the name of Phil, and I had the opportunity to meet him as well. Very nice guy. But, there was also another woman by the name of Kathy – she was the manager. We had not yet crossed paths because she was either out sick or on vacation whenever I happened to be over at the tech center. So, since I was hoping to eventually snag a position as a tech,  I asked the salespeople at the store about her. Their response was, “Dude, watch out for Kathy…  She’s a real bitch…” Thing is, they were serious…

Okay, they had worked with her, I hadn’t, so I took them at their word. Obviously this Kathy person was someone I needed to give a wide berth if I valued job, life, and limb…

Back to the story…

I arrived at the store early that day so I could run across the lot and pick up the components I needed for the sale I had made the evening before. Now understand, we are talking in terms of a large shopping center so it wasn’t right next door or anything,  therefore I drove my car over in order to be able to load up the boxes and take them back to the store proper. I entered the foyer of the tech center which had a wall blocking the windows so that you couldn’t see into the back area where the techs were working and stock was stored, a bit of a security measure I suppose. Proceeding inward I rounded the corner in hopes of seeing Phil or maybe even Erin, since I already knew them… Besides, I really didn’t want to come face to face with this psychotic, misanthropic bitch named Kathy. I had enough to worry about with bill collectors and the like breathing down my neck, so I didn’t need a manager type to decide she hated me and get me fired.

But, when I made the turn and looked up from picking my way through stacks of boxes, there was no Phil or Erin in sight. What met my eyes, however, was an absolute vision…Yeah, be warned, this is where it gets Hallmark Channel™ sappy, because I remember it as vividly as if it was a color picture hanging on the wall in front of my face right this very minute…

There, perched on a stool in front of a tech bench, and working on an I T T Xtra P C Compatible C P U, was this petite woman. She had shoulder length, brown hair that held just a minor hint of auburn when the light caught it just so.  Her complexion was a pale ivory, with a few freckles here and there. She was wearing a white blouse, a black and red horizontally striped button down sweater, a black skirt with a hemline that came to just above her knees, and black leather, mid-heeled pumps. Her legs were crossed casually and ladylike. She had a tech manual open on one side of the C P U while wielding a screwdriver in her hand. She turned slowly and regarded me with a flat, “Yeah, what the f*ck do you want?” kind of expression tweaking her delicate features.

She was, no doubt in my mind, the Kathy Monster I had been warned to avoid.

But, much like my reaction to Erin, I had a completely different take than the other folks about this petite dynamo. I did not wet my pants and flee from the tech center as had been predicted by the veterans… No… I stood there and began to sweat as my heart started pounding in my ears. My knees felt like Jello and my feet felt like bags of wet cement. I know I began talking, but I couldn’t possibly tell you what I said… I suspect it was something on the order of incoherent babbling because the Kathy Monster simply sat there staring at me like I had lost my mind… Eventually, I managed to get myself together and pick up the items I had come to retrieve, all the while having a hell of a time taking my eyes off this woman. I think I even tripped and stumbled once or twice, effectively making myself look like an even bigger idiot than I already had with my nonsensical blithering.

By the time I returned to my car with the components, and was preparing to shuttle them back over to the store, my heart still had not settled. It was bouncing around inside my head, and blood was rushing in my ears like whitewater rapids… I felt lightheaded, and even giddy with excitement. I think I sat in the driver’s seat and glazed over for several minutes… After a healthy measure spent trying to make myself stop hyperventilating, I asked aloud this simple question:

“What the f*ck is wrong with you, Sellars?”

I didn’t have to wait for an answer because it was already sitting on my shoulder, bludgeoning me in an attempt to get my attention. In that moment it became crystal clear…

I had just fallen in love.

More to come…

Murv

… NEXT:  Mahwage: Money I Don’t Have…