The Yeager Road Diaries: The Madness of King George

My dad's name is George Calvin Eason. He has been my dad since my mother married him in 1974. He's been a good dad and a bad dad... but he has been my dad without fail. Dad is a self made man. He taught himself to read in a one room house in rural, South Georgia. Dropped out of school when he was 12 to support his family and went back and got his GED on his own. Everything he has he earned with his own sweat. When I was little I used to call him King George (he never got the historical reference).

Over the years my dad has mellowed a lot, he and I have grown closer and he has come to finally respect me as I have come to respect him. I think he really came to know what I was about the first time I built a computer for him. Dad is a mechanic and really appreciates and respects anyone who works on cars well... Computers are like really complex cars to dad... *smile* So now (in his eyes) I am the Sam Memolo of computers.

Dad made a pleasantly unexpected appearance this weekend to do some Christmas shopping and to visit with me, mom and Shell... (Which is why I missed 's party... and deeply apologize for that).

Dad has become quite the character over recent years. Last year I bought him a DVD player and mom bought him a High-dollar VCR in hopes that it would motivate him to finally buy a new TV... One year later, still no TV. So while he and I were shopping this weekend, I helped him choose a new TV that we will shop for this January. It's like having children older than you... *laugh*

Dad has some strange shopping ideas:

• If you spend 45 minutes finding a parking space closer to the store, you saved time:We managed to resolve this little piece of Eason folklore by taking my Truck. Despite the fact that dad DID point at a few empty spots, we managed to get things done without wasting time on parking spaces.


• If you buy someone a present, they will be disappointed, so give them cash : Last year I took dad shopping for mom and Shell and he did an excellent job. When Christmas day came he gave me $100.00 and a sheepish look. *smacks forehead* This year after guiding him to the places and the things that interested Mom and Shell, we traded partners and Mom took dad to buy my Christmas. I am determined to tech this man to be responsible and buy things for others, without fear, if it kills me.


• Christmas is an excellent time to convince his son that his bigoted, back-woods, emotion-driven Attitudes are correct: Dad thought it would be a good time to support the stupid notion that domestic partners do not deserve death benefits because they aren't next of kin. After he saw my sweet, condescending smile, he knew he was beat. All I said was: "Wouldn't Shell deserve survivor benefits if I died?" (Dad adores Shell). He hemmed and Hawed and said "Yes." And then I said: "The does it really matter what sex the partner is? How does it harm you? Does it affect you in any way?" He smiled, looked up at me sheepishly, shook his head 'No' and changed the subject.


• Time with family means time watching football: Rather than vegetate in front of the tube, dad was hauled from mall to mall and mall to restaurant and out to Lake Lanier... he was forced to have fun.

I love my dad; He is, in many ways, an emotional, older version of myself, and that is not all bad. He has a way to go in many areas of his life, he is learning to mellow and to not be so judgmental and to be a good father, a wise man and a worthy king of his castle and slowly the madness dies; the madness of King George.

Shopping with Miss Phyllis

I love my mother. I, being a southern lad (we're all momma's boys), feel a great attachment to my mother (even since that cord thingee fell off). She is fun and not what you'd expect from a woman 62 years young. She drives little white Camaro for goodness sake!

My buddies (especially Mr. Burt Moody) call her "Miss Phyllis" in a typical southern way. She was, in many ways, mother to myself and all my childhood friends. She hauled us around before we could drive and she was always around with pound cake and cookies at the most opportune moments.

Mom showed up over at my place this morning to let me know she was headed out and to find out if I was free to tag along.

You see, recently, she opened a new bank account and wanted me to have access to it in case "something happened". As a compromise I suggested that she put me on the checking account and to get a check-card in my name and have her carry around in HER purse so that if "something happened" that I could use it for whatever she needed... Thus, all the responsibility and none of the awkwardness of me having access to her money.

So, this morning we went to the bank to get the check-card finalized and then we decided when hadn't been to wal-mart recently enough... I bought a present for and some blank tapes for tonight's episode of Buffy while my dear mother attacked the VHS new releases like a rabid wolverine.

Welll... what's a trip to the store without lunch?

Like lightning we struck the Mall food-court, leaving no survivors... two chicken sandwiches died for our ravenous and un-natural (ok, entirely natural) hungers...

No trip to the mall is complete without a jaunt to the Candle Store. After an olfactory sampling of the merchandise, two more presents for Shell went into the bag and the strange and surreal call of the book store could be heard.

As I stalked the fiction section, Mom perused the "Atlanta" section with a gentility found only in "Women of a certain age". She lamented the loss of Lewis (Louis is a Yankee's name) Grizzard and praised the talent of Celestine Sibley and the book "Dear Store" (about the old Rich's building mom worked at in her youth)...

As we left, our booty secured, she smiled and squeezed my arm and told me she loved me. In that moment, the years melted away and I was 10 again... Shopping with Miss Phyllis

The Yeager Road Diaries: The Mood and the Dude

In the early summer of 1977, I and my parents moved across town to a little 3 acre single-story ranch on Yeager road in Douglasville, Georgia.

I was 12 years old and we moved in three days before the end of school... That was trauma enough for anyone. That summer was not particularly interesting. I got the nickname of "That Kid that is always mowing the lawn" in the neighborhood. You see, when we moved in the grass was about 3-feet high; I push-mowed the whole three acres... It took about two weeks. A little movie called "Star Wars" came out that summer and I went to see it with my elementary school friend Trey Lambert after my parents and I returned from our vacation in Florida.

Somewhere in all of that I met Burt Moody.

Burt was a little guy with a head full of wavy, sandy colored hair. He was 9 years old and he had a baby sister named Debbie. The Moody family lived on a gravel road that bisected our property and a small Farm that belonged to Bill Moody (Burt's grandfather). No one ever saw Burt's dad, he worked at the Bulk-Mail center for the post office and came home at midnight every night. Burt's mother was a wiry little woman full of love and nervous energy. Her name was Tommie-Lou and she made the best biscuits in Douglas County. At our house she was known as "That woman who drives to the store every two hours". My mother used to joke that if we charged Tommie-Lou a toll at the stop-sign that we could have paid our house off in a month.

Somewhere in the years that followed, my parents and Burt's parents became great friends and Burt and I became as good a friends as two boys of such disparate ages can be.

When Burt started High-School, his mother asked me to give him a lift each day... And truly, that is where our friendship began. It seems strange, looking back, that our TRUE friendship began as our respective childhoods were on the verge of ending. But we made the most of the hours we had.

I look back and it seems like I've known Burt for a million years... And in many ways I have. Because somewhere in those years we became more than friends... we became brothers. Girls, Cars, Drinking, Smoking, Movies, Gaming, Teen-Age Heart-Ache, Joy... we shared it all.

The summer of 1982... Those words fill me with a strange nostalgia. If you said those words to me... To Burt... to Terry Lewallen, Shaun Rossman or Keith Barron you would see a strange smile cross our faces and a moment of silence as our minds drift away to the 90 days that we spent nearly every waking hour together...

After that it became complicated. Jobs, College, the Military, Marriages, Divorces, Anger and Pain... In the end, it was only Burt and I... and even that paused for a moment in time.

There are a million stories I could tell you. I could tell you of the time that Burt and I drank Jack-n-Coke till I puked while Keith watched and wagged his finger. I could tell you of the Camaro-Brothers. I could tell you of Burt and his (then) girlfriend arriving at my home and the FBI... And all of them would take a million life-times to tell.

But, this is today's story. When I divorced, Burt and I grew apart. I left much of my life behind, risked it all, for good or ill to live a different life. A few years ago, Burt and I re-connected, we spoke and the conversation picked up where we left off and the years melted away... to 1982.

I spent a good part of this last weekend talking to my brother Burt. We talked about where he is and how he got there. We talked about the philosophies that guide our lives and where his heart dwells now. And I was 17 again... The tears of memory struggled at the corners of my eyes and the ache of 20 years pulled me back to the hours that we both cried: the hour I thought I would leave for Florida and never return, the hour that two girls (who matter not at all now) broke our youthful hearts, the hour that we buried his mother...

My father told me a lie when I was 16 years old. He told me that no friendship lasts forever... he was dead wrong...

Now I sit here and watch the words spill out of me and across the page with a pain and a love and a loss and a gain. We shared music this weekend. We shared a pain in the heart and a need and a friendship and I, for one, am going to hold those hours close and make the frequency of those pleasant times arrive more often. I missed my Brother in ways I could not comprehend. And I think he did as well.

There was a summer... the summer of '82 when they called him "Mood" and they called me "Dude" and the music of the 80's played in our cars and in our hearts and in our eyes and we were young... and now we are not so young... but the music still plays... and the Camaro-Brothers ride again on the back-roads of my mind...

The Yeager Road Diaries - Moving day and the man I am becoming

That fall morning morning I woke up and went and helped my mom finally finish moving into her new apartment. This has been a long process because my mom had been driving over from Alabama a couple of times a week to paint and move a small load of boxes.

First, a bit of background is required:

I was born in London in 1965. My mother and my "Father" divorced when I was about 3 years old and we came back to the states to live with my grandparents. My grandmother and grandfather were great people and they loved me very much. My grandfather was my personal hero and I have spent a lot of years trying to be the kind of man he would want me to be... so much so that I even once wrote an entry called Chasing Roy, that summed up where I am with that. When I was 6 my grandfather died... I was as devastated as a 6 year old can be. Two years later, my mom met and married George, a man 5 years younger than her. He was a big bear of a man with a beard... He's the man that I call "Dad"... because though he may never be a hero to me, he has always (for good and bad) been my Dad...

Dad and I have been adversaries more than we have been friends. He has two sons that are very much like him. I am not like him. He was always very physical where I was intellectual, he was never very demonstrative where I am the huggy-feely type. And... (as he and I learned the hard way) he is a 'Hot' fighter (he loses his temper) and I am a 'Cold' fighter... (I hit a man with the idea of making sure he stays down.)

We found out which is better... we don't discuss it... it was a moment that never happened.

In 1990 my mom and dad divorced. That drove a bigger wedge between us. Dad and I became enemies. However, Mom and Dad are just weird, over the years they have become like a married couple that live in different houses and don't have sex...

So, somewhere in this mish-mash of emotion, dad and I made peace and came to respect each other and then kind of became friends... and then one day... he told me he loved me... I was 33... It took 24 years for him to say that.

You see... somewhere he realized that his two "Biological" sons are never there when he calls. They never come see him, they never call -- I, however, the "bad son" have always been there.

So, years after meeting him, we are now friends.

Now, If you have stayed with me thus far, let us go back to the beginning. That day, we moved my mom's last load of stuff.

She got a small Ryder truck and her friends loaded it in Alabama and I convinced her to hire some people to unload the truck. On Friday I told them to wait on the movers and not touch a thing.

When I got to Mom's new place, Dad had unloaded the dryer and hauled it upstairs because it was "in the way". The movers had arrived and I told dad to get out of the way and not to lift anything else or I would "Kick his ass". I paused. I had never actually ever said anything like that. He smiled and said: "Once upon a time you wouldn't have been able to..." It was weird, he seemed proud.

The movers did a fast job and we tipped them (I mention this because it never occurred to my parents to do so).

We assembled beds and Book-cases and mom's curio cabinet. We put her TV and entertainment center together and hung heavy pictures and mirrors. We assembled her computer and peripherals.

The day flew by. We went out to eat as a family and came back to finish some work.

Finally I saw Dad standing on the landing alone and mom went out to talk with him. He was crying... Dad never cries. I think he realized that after years, Mom was through waiting on him. Now HE had to do the chasing, if he wants her in his life.

I left around 9 o'clock. I was exhausted, but it was a good kind of tired. I left because the big stuff was done and because I think Mom and Dad needed time alone. Dad hugged me a lot and I kissed his cheek and he told me he loved me. It wasn't as awkward as it sometimes can be.

When I got home I watched the Braves game and just drifted into those regions of thought that come after hard work.

When I went to bed, I stood in front of the mirror and looked at the few gray hair I am getting in my beard and at the small collection of lines around my eyes and I saw my Grandfather and my Dad staring back at me.

I could think of much worse people I could become than the man they helped me be.

The Yeager Road Diaries: Hot summer nights

I was born on an American Air Force Base on the outskirts of London, England. May 7th, 1965. Immediately realizing that the stork dropped me off in the wrong location, I moved to correct that and took my mother with me (in case I got lonely). I touched down in Atlanta in 1968 and ever since I have, like a salmon to his spawning grounds, returned home... to Georgia.

I'm a Georgia boy, I guess I always will be, no matter where I roam... and I've roamed a bit. Should I ever leave this place and reside somewhere above the piedmont and beyond the black pines of my home, I will more than likely be known as That fellow from Georgia. My accent and farm-boy heritage will never allow me another indicator. And I'm ok with that.

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, something came up and I had to go into work. I mounted my ebon steed and drove the six or so miles to my place of business on the streetlight illuminated ribbon of Peachtree. The weather was warm and it was nearing last call for the Buckhead crowd. I preened a bit as I was eyed by a pair of Buckhead betties as they passed me and then slowed down for a second and third look. The driver's side window was down and the air conditioner was off and my mind drifted back to my youth.

When I was a teenager I used to drive the country roads of, then, rural Douglas County in a dark green 1969 Camaro. The windows would be rolled down to combat the heat that was ever present even in those hours between midnight and dawn. The strange chill of a wind that struggled between summer heat and midnight cold would whip at my hair and blow across my face as the car climbed past 70 on the two lane black-top. I had no destination, no origin. I only existed in that moment and that moment was pristine.

When I left the office it was after 3 am and I only had six miles to crawl home... but that same wind found me and stirred the cobwebs of my memories along with my hair. I drove the long way home.

Sometimes you need to drive the long way home.

Chasing Roy (with apologies to Kevin Smith)

This weekend during my long discussion with my mother, I first made mention of the fact that my father and I were very much alike and that I could empathize with his feelings.

I realized that there was something about my father that failed to fulfill him, that he was trying to live up to someone's expectations, someone unknown to me and to my mother. I said: "I understand that feeling, he's chasing someone, I don't understand who, but he's chasing someone just like I'm chasing Roy."

Roy Holstein was my mother's father. He was a hero to me, and in many ways he still is. He was veteren of the second world war, a husband and a father long before I was born. And after my birth he became everything to me. He protected me from an abusive father, paid my bills, raised me. He taught me to build, to shape, to drive a nail. He taught me responsibilty, he taught me courage.

Everyone respected and loved my grandfather. He was a real life hero every day of his life. And for 30 years I have been chasing Roy. He died when I was 6 years old and left a hole that I never allowed anyone to fill, because it was hold suited for a colossus, not a man. And for every day of my life I have tried to be like him, tried and failed. Because I never understood that he was a man. I think now I do. And I think as a byproduct of that understanding that I know who *I* am...

I'm not who you think I am... I can promise you that.

I am a liar and a cheat and a hundred dreads and terrors in the night... I am what you are afraid your children will become. I am. I am what your children will become. I am you...

I am a father and a son... an honest man and a hero to someone small and a friend to someone afraid. I am everything you hope your children will become. I am. I am what your children dream of becoming. I am you.

We are all liars and cheats and heroes and honest citizens and friends to those who need us. We are all guilty of the same sins in lesser dimensions and we all triumph over small and pointed victories when we surprise ourselves with a kind word or a moment of justice. We are all children of a blind, out-of-control world that is to busy to want forgiveness.

I am a man. A man with too much pride and too little kindness trying to remember why we are here... and hoping we will all find that answer together. And I am still chasing Roy... but I am finally catching up...

Feeding the White Dog

So. Yesterday. Not so good. Then the night came...

She picked me up at 7:15 from work and she had a new ultimatum in her palm top. I sat in the passenger's seat and read two pages of acusations and invective. Then we sat in silence.

We got home and went to our room and I made her sit on the bed. And I began to preach. I have never... in the 3 years we have been together, raised my voice. I did last night. I explained and outlined where all her fears and paranoia was wrong. Showed evidence to destroy her false accusations.

Then I told her everything. Every hidden element of 36 years of my life. I told her about the 36 year old woman who took my virginity when I was 14. I told her who she was and what she was to me. I told her about all the dark things that happened in my life... and I told her why I tell everyone I know that I love them... and explained what 'I love you' means to me.

I told her about burying my grandfather when I was 6 and my grandmother 10 years later. I told her about burying Bart and Jason and Leslie and BJ. I told her about burying Matt after the Gulf and I told her about burying Bobby in texas... and I told her my REAL terror... the one that I refuse to admit... That if you love something... it will die...

She cried. I cried. And she told me things about her life that I never knew. We talked about our past, our sex life and ... thankfully, our future.

Once upon a time I promised her forever, forever is a big fat lie. Promise today, because that's all you have.

Today there is a weight off of both of our chests. Today the sun is a little brighter. Today, we are good. Today, my other friend Bobby is beating Lymphoma. Today is a good day. All we have is today.

There is a Native American story that says: There are two dogs that live inside of me - a red dog and a white dog. The white dog wants me to live for that which is good; the red dog wants me to live for that which is evil. They fight each other all the time. But I know what to do - I feed the white dog and I starve the red dog.

Feed the White Dog
Hoka Hey

The Yeager Road Diaries - Remembering the Redhead

Morning never comes as a shock on saturdays, unless I think that it is monday. Today I woke up knowing what day it was. That is more than many can say. The subliminal whirl of a fan accented the waking. Wash. Shower. Shampoo. Rinse. Repeat. Brush. Brush. Comb. Smile. Take Vitamin. Smoke. Breathe. Wake.

I went to the OK cafe where everything is OK 24 hours a day. I thought of a woman I loved... love still (though the romance I dreamed of has long since left). She is a long way from me now. And in recent years I never took advantage of the closeness, only bitterly blamed time and space and emotional distances that I, myself, created. So I ate the sweet-potato chips and maytag bleu cheese burger and I drank the chocolate malt with extra malt. And I remembered when we were inseperable. And I remembered the christmas I wanted to tell her... and I remembered the lead singer of the cure and I remembered smiling while my heart broke. And then I smiled at the thought of two cats (that were fixed) trying to mate. I remembered laughing and talking and thought about how she can make me so mad and how she could make me smile. And how, in her way, and in my way, we love each other still...

I bought DvDs and a NIC while disco that should have stayed dead moved the middle aged white men to dance in place. I bought new shoes at 80% off as a store owner's dream disintigrated and unruly children tussled and unruly adults vied for the scraps of a businessman's dream. I drove past all the old places. Places I lived, places I worked, places I dreamed and places I died inside while no one knew who I was or why I was there. I watched the hookers on Ponce and the students on North and noted the very near ages of the groups and became melancholy.

The DvD is spinning up and my mountain Dew is warm and I would die to be alone for five minutes just to remember who I am... but that will have to wait for tomorrow and I know it...