One Ring To Rule Them All

The band is gold, thin and simple. The dings and dents of a thousand collisions line the sides. It was in a simple box that I found while cleaning the other day, about the same day that my mother's mother (Esther) had taken a turn for the worse with her health. Esther is 88, in hospice care in an industrial room that has seen life and death for decades, and without that ring, she likely wouldn't be here. And neither would I.

Inside that ring, which now sits on the pinkie of my right hand, is the following inscription:

L.G. to C.C. June 26 - 26

Over 90 years ago, a few summers before the Great Depression, my great-grandfather Leo Glover popped this ring on the finger of my great-grandmother Caroline Currivan. I don't remember much about Leo, as I only knew him as an invalid, taken care of by Esther until his passing. There were rumors that he was offered a spot with the Detroit Tigers, but that farming in Fowlerville was much more lucrative at the time, so he stayed on the farm instead of the baseball diamond. After his death, he left me some money for my education, money that I squandered on teenage pursuits.

I remember more of Caroline, she who would have me stay with her as a child for a few summer days in her Lansing apartment, she who would let me cook as many Smok-y Links as I could eat, she who bought me toys like Godzilla and Shogun Warriors. Later, as her personality and memory eroded in dementia, she took residence at the same facility where Esther is currently spending her last days. By all accounts, the love between Leo and Caroline didn't last long, but it's nice to have a memento of a time, from what we now call the "Roaring Twenties" (that I doubt roared much in the fields near our state's capital), where part of me comes from. May it always stay gold.

Comments

NBC -- Never Believe Contracts

Whatever side you're falling on in the recent NBC late-night "deck chairs on the Titanic " shuffle, you have to admit it's been good comedy for all parties involved. While Letterman and Craig Ferguson have been sharp (especially Letterman, who has been gleeful in his "I told you so" vitriol), the best bits have come from Leno and O'Brien. Evidence: It's hard to follow all the angles here, but two things are clear: NBC violated Leno's contract (guaranteeing the 10pm slot), and NBC didn't violate O'Brien's contract (which made no time slot guarantees). So it's not hard to see who the loser here will be. O'Brien won't get the show he wants, Leno will step into a hollow echo of his past success, and tens of millions of dollars will be up in the air. Only Jimmy Fallon will continue to gestate his talent relatively unmolested, and his security is merely a function of the low expectations of his time slot. Meanwhile, CBS (a

"The Silver Gun" by Robert Palmer (1983)

I mean...Urdu? Seriously, Urdu . On an already eclectic and worldly album -- Pride , from 1983 -- "The Silver Gun" closes a chapter in Robert Palmer's career by singing a song about a horse in a language spoken daily by over 100 million people. The liquid bass line and propulsive electronics set out a bedrock for Palmer to ping phrasings rather out of place in Western music, askew astride even the peripatetic minimalism of the rest of the record. Somehow, in the middle of Michigan's Appalachia, I had this on vinyl a few years before the CD era officially commenced. It was an album of effort -- even the cover, a pointillism-and-bronze work, had Palmer's head barely above the water -- but the stitches didn't show to my pre-adolescent eyes and ears. In a career marked by zigs and zags, Pride and "The Silver Gun" were most certainly Other, and for a kid that felt like he didn't belong much of anywhere, it was nice to have those discrete feeling

"I'll Drive You Home"

Upon reflection, I’ve had a fortunate life in the area of work. As a freshly minted teenager, I would visit Evergreen Park Grocery and dream of someday working there like my father did, and at the age of 14, I got $2/hour to live out that dream, such as it was. From there, I yearned to try other occupations, from record stores to teaching, and I’d be chuffed to tell Young Erick that both of those things happened in due course. ( Oh, and Young Erick, one of them got you to meet David Bowie, and one of them got you to own houses and cars, so I’ll let you ponder on which one was better. ) I even got to DJ a bit here and there, and while it never hit the heights of a professional radio gig, it was certainly better than the summer I played preset cassettes on my boom box for a nerd camp dance while my unrequited crush stayed in her room. What I never crossed off my professional life list was acting, either regular or voice, but while I still yearn for that big breakthrough -- seriously, ask

THIS is a CLOSE-UP?

Search This Blog