when i was a kid, i always wanted to hang out at my friend’s houses instead of my own. other moms let you play video games into the wee hours, and in the morning you could watch cartoons while eating <quote-01>fruity pebbles or lucky charms<quote-01>.
william, you’re too close to the television, i need you to scoot back, my mother says as she passes between the two on her way to the outside fridge. it’s christmas, and i’m helping her with dinner. sarah is out with the dog, and the rest of the family is spread around the house. william, i’m not gonna tell you again. she walks past him, <quote-02>costco pies balanced on her forearms<quote-02>. is sarah going to need a snack before dinner? she asks me as she unloads the pies. nah, i think she’s good. / i’m sorry, nicholas, give me a second, she says, heading back to my nephew. if you want to watch your show, you’re gonna have to move your body further away from the television.
mom, gosh, leave me alone! i might have barked back as a kid, but then it would be dad’s turn to discipline. he couldn’t care less where you sat in relation to the tv, but he’d be damned if he was gonna let you be the reason his wife later turned her frustration toward him. imagining the roles reversed is good for a chuckle: debbie working the crossword, unflappably shooting off a terse and <quote-03>effective admonition<quote-03>; a busy-bodied anthony rapid-firing weightless commands into the air as he markedly completes the day’s tasks.
she stands there, holding her ground. she’s calmer with william than she was with me. she’s not frustrated; she just needs him to scoot back. <quote-04>he finally concedes a few inches<quote-04>. thank you, william. it’s not good for your eyes, sweetheart. sit on the couch if you want; it’s more comfortable.
after dinner the adults play cards while the kids take turns using the spare bedding to sled down the carpeted staircase. i figure they’re gonna have to find another activity when i notice the edge of the stairs taking on some of the green dye from my childhood comforter. i’m surprised when my mom shrugs her shoulders. it’s ok, she says. she exhibits a calm warmth. time with them is just too precious.
i got something that’ll get it out, my dad affirms with a touch of annoyance, his eyes in his cards. <quote-05>i take the comforter away. there are plenty of other blankets<quote-05>.
back at the card table, our mom mentions that she never had friends over when she was a kid. like, because you weren’t allowed to? my sister and i ask. no, we could, she says. we just never did. we’ve heard tell on separate occasions from both her older sister pam and her younger brother bill jr. how the three of them would huddle together in the closet when their dad returned home from work. grandpa, evidently, had a volatile temperament. i think it was just too embarrassing for us.
born in oklahoma city, debbie grew up in oxnard, california, where her father bill owned a machine shop and her mother georgia kept the books. around the time debbie married her first husband, <quote-06>rebecca’s father<quote-06>, her parents moved nearer to pam in <quote-07>camarillo<quote-07>. as such, my sister, our three cousins, and i spent our summers alternating between camarillo and upland. julia was my sister’s age, aaron mine, and matt right in the middle.
when i was eight or nine, however, bill sold the machine shop and bought a cattle farm back in oklahoma. some of my fondest childhood memories are from the summer weeks i spent out there with pam’s boys--just us and our grandparents. <quote-08>these must have been nice breaks for our folks too<quote-08>, what with my sister off at her other dad’s, and julia, well... who knew where julia went. not to the farm with us, that’s all we cared about.
it was mostly open field, the farm, but to us it felt like a great wilderness. plots were sectioned off by steel-poled fences, barbed wire, and rows of tall trees. there were six ponds of various sizes, and the larger ones were overpopulated with perch and bass. you had no time to relax after casting your line; as soon as the bait hit the water you had yourself a fish. we were taught how to drive the atv--my introduction to the clutch mechanism, years before the manual transition in the ford ranger--and allowed to set off and explore on our own, occasionally venturing out onto the dirt roads of the <quote-09>town<quote-09>. hanna, oklahoma: population less than 500.
that first summer, after a brief but thorough lesson in firearm safety, <quote-10>grandpa<quote-10> gave us the code to the gun safe. i practiced opening it over and over again, the clicks of the black dial and the silver numbers. there were two <quote-11>semi-automatics<quote-11> that were off limits, but the single actions were all fair game. confirming your theory, murph, that <quote-12>if there ain’t a train or a cowboy<quote-12> i ain’t interested, my favorites were the 22mm pistols with the revolving chambers. they were heavier than they looked in the movies, louder than the rifles of the same caliber--what with the shorter barrels--and much harder to aim. we’d line up empty two-liters for target practice or take aim at lily pads in the ponds. birds were off limits, but aaron picked one off the fence anyway. <quote-13>i remember returning to look at its tiny body throughout our stay, horrified by the maggots that eventually filled its hallowed chest<quote-13>.
everyone in hanna grew watermelon. we ate it all throughout the day. grandpa would hack one open down the middle lengthwise, then hand us each a steak knife and <quote-14>let us go to it<quote-14>.
if you want to tell whether a cow’s pregnant or not, do you reach in through the butt or the vagina, <quote-15>grandpa asked us around the campfire<quote-15>. vagina, matt said. that’s right, grandpa confirmed. now we knew. important knowledge too, what with red around. red was the bull. he’d saunter up to the fence when we entered an adjacent plot and wait for us to come over and scratch his head. i can feel his coarse, orange hair, the hard bone of his forehead. big red: the docile bull.
i never understood it, my mom says, and neither did grandma. she hated that farm, hated being away from her kids all year, her kids and the grandkids. / well, we sure loved our time out there. / oh, i know, i know you did.
georgia’s lungs began to bother her in oklahoma. the basement was covered in mold, the walls of the house filled with it. a few years after buying, bill was forced to sell. it was all the same to rebecca and julia, but <quote-16>matt and aaron and i sure were bummed<quote-16>. bill lost money on the farm, but he didn’t care. i guess it’s what they mean when they say folks want to return to their ruts, my mom says, her accent coming through.
they moved to a retirement community in sun city, arizona. those were some hot christmases. culs-de-sacs fanned a pastel swath of rock yards, each its own distinct, pale desert shade. this is the image that came to mind when my father recently mentioned getting rid of their lawn in rancho. which shade will he choose, i wonder. pueblo sand? sante fe tan? weathered saddle, perhaps.
bill died in sun city, died from colon cancer on a hospital bed in his living room. georgia and all of their kids were present. even julia and her fiancé came to help out for a while at the end. bill was a big man, but so was marcello. he helped him to the bathroom and helped to clean him. marcello had manners for days. it was yes, sir this and you’re welcome, sir that. he even used the opportunity to ask bill for permission to marry his granddaughter.
grandpa, what would you do if i married a black man? a young julia once asked, basketball on in the background, complete with bill’s offhand racist commentary. i’d get my gun! he barked. (gasp) mom! did you hear what grandpa said?! he said if i married... / leave it alone, julia! pam barked back, as if julia, happening upon the bird aaron had shot, had brought it into the house to get him in trouble.
bill gave marcello his blessing and asked that they plan to be wed soon. so that he could come to the wedding, julia likes to imagine. she loved her grandpa very much.
in the final days, the family took turns resting. pam was asleep in georgia’s bedroom when bill finally passed. it happened fast, and things were hectic. she was, understandably, upset that no one came to wake her up.
the last time i saw my grandfather was <quote-17>in 2004<quote-17>, during a similarly warm christmas at my folks’ house in rancho. his once thick head of gray hair had thinned to about what mine is now. it was combed straight back, though he used to part it on the left. it glowed a blue-white. i thought it was beautiful.
bill jr. stayed on with georgia in the years following his father’s passing, the beginning of a long decline in his mental health. in the end, he stole nearly every penny left in his mother’s name. no one in the family will speak to him anymore, far as i know.
rebecca’s other dad moved his family to virginia around the same time grandpa moved grandma to oklahoma. she loves how sarah is from virginia. it’s so pretty there, she always says. before the move, rebecca left for her other-dad’s in oxnard every other weekend. they were allowed to do whatever they wanted over there. she had a step-brother who smoked cigarettes and stole stuff and a pregnant step-sister. there was also a second step-brother who listened to rap music and acted black one month and decided to be a skinhead the next. she’d come back and tell me all about it. they watched r-rated movies and ordered pizza all the time. i was missing out.
my first r rated movie was with matt and aaron in oklahoma: the terminator. the second one had just come out, and the first one was on tv. they’d already seen both, of course. matt demonstrated with grandpa’s lever-action shotgun how arnold’s single-handed twirling reload was, in fact, possible. yeah, the second one is way better, aaron said. but you do get to see her titties in the first one. / really? titties? i thought. <quote-18>i couldn’t believe my luck<quote-18>. i was worried what my folks would do when they found out and surprised how easily my cousins suggested we just not tell them. it’s tv, so they’re gonna cut out all the nudity anyways, said matt.
those weekends rebecca was in oxnard were the ones i’d spend with tom. uma thurman would go on to take her top off for the two of us countless times. we debated taking the vhs of dangerous liaisons to my place but then thought better of it. we built domino rallies in the dining room and had water balloon fights in the front yard. in the backyard we’d play tetherball. whatever my house lacked, it made up for with tetherball. the white pole consisted of three lengths that locked together with stiff metal buttons. you had to set it up and take it down every time you wanted to play, lest the rust get to it. if the grass had been neglected, you had to search around a bit for the hole. but <quote-19>anthony did it right<quote-19>, digging deep and surrounding the base with cement, the pole as sturdy as those permanently installed on the playground. the shallow slope of our backyard allowed for height-handicapped positioning when playing an adult or for kicking the shit out of the ball from the high ground when you were alone and angry.
i suppose that’s part of what makes a place good for hanging out: permission to be angry.
my mother was visibly upset and finally left the room, followed by my sister, but only after my father, without voicing his discomfort, removed himself first. it was a holiday afternoon in sun city. we were sitting in the living room after lunch, football or fox news on the tv. grandpa had been relentlessly insulting grandma over something trivial, something none of us can now recall. she cheerfully continued to reassure him that he was misremembering whatever it was that had upset him so and that there was no need for him to be raising his voice. it was dumb grandma this and stupid grandma that.
i remember sitting alone at the end of the couch finishing <quote-20>east of eden<quote-20> after everyone else had gone to bed.
there was another episode i remember from when i was real young, from when they were still living in camarillo. the four of us had hurried to leave, as if for our lives, a towering demon of a man, fists to the heavens, driving us from the house. he kept using the word rebuke. i rebuke you, he said over and over again to my mother. she wept in the car. clueless and frightened in the backseat, i asked my sister if mom and dad were getting a divorce, assuming she’d know better than i. what else could the horrible news have been that drove grandpa into such a state? no, we’re not getting a divorce, my father assured us, his eyes on the road.
i later learned from julia and uncle bill that my mother had gone through a period of therapy with an analyst whose methods they questioned. julia and uncle bill both have degrees in psychology. new memories of abuse were brought up for my mother during these sessions. i’ve never asked her about them, and she’s never offered, but evidently, her siblings were suspicious of the claims. i now believe it was these accusations that were made known to her father that day--whether directly or indirectly, i’m uncertain.
regardless, it’s troubling to imagine them in there, those three kids in the closet, in the dark amongst the shoes, listening intently for which version of their father will be coming home. and there’s no disagreement among them there.
these days georgia refuses to speak of bill. she talks about her first husband instead, and quite often. his name was earl. she was prohibited from ever mentioning earl, but now that bill is gone, it’s as if earl was all there ever was. he was a rear gunner, shot down in germany. the pilot survived; earl did not. he was buried abroad then excavated and moved to a cemetery in long beach, california.
sure, i got you. where you guys from? i ask, reaching into my pocket. i must have had an audition--<quote-21>no other reason for me to be in times square in the middle of the afternoon<quote-21>. oklahoma. / oh nice, my mom was born there. where ‘bouts? a smoke on the walk to the train is a good first step toward exorcizing the role you’ve worked on for days as if it were your own. i give them two, one for each of them. little town in the middle called hanna, she says. you can imagine my surprise. he hands her the lighter. you’re not gonna believe this, but my grandpa was the mayor of hannah for a few years back in the early nineties. i spent my summers there with my cousins, shooting guns and eating watermelons. they’re not sure if they believe me. it’s also possible i’m misreading them. watermelons, right? you guys are, like, famous for your watermelons! he takes a drag. i mean, not really, no. we got some watermelons, sure, but it’s our weed we’re known for. best in the state!
<pull-quote>costco pies balanced on her forearms<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Are you telling me Debbie Webber doesn't bake her own pies?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>effective admonition<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>What made them effective? What was the threat? Why did you buy it?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>tone of voice. a sternness. we’d get spanked on the rare occasion, so it’s possible that loomed in the air.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>he finally concedes a few inches<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Point, Debbie.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>ha. poor grandma debbie. facetime on the phone is all debbie gets these days. kids, grandma’s on the phone, come say hi, rebecca shouts. which grandma? emily barks from the background. the one that makes us wash our hands all the time and always brush our teeth? hilarious. she really misses mom, my sister tells me.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>i take the comforter away. there are plenty of other blankets<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Laughing so hard here. Holy fuck, are you crotchety.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>rebecca’s father<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I always forget you two are half siblings.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>camarillo<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>That's by Paul's farm, right?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>yeah. just 15 minutes or so south.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Look at you go, Hoke!<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>these must have been nice breaks for our folks too<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I'm giddy even imagining such a time.<p-comment>
<p-comment>I remember staying the night at Tom's house--this was not something I enjoyed doing until junior high--and faking a stomachache to have my parents pick me up.<p-comment>
<p-comment>When they didn't answer at home, I was baffled. My parents don't go out, I told Mr. Capossela earnestly.<p-comment>
<p-comment>They were indeed at the movies: Dead Poets Society.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>tom and i did pretty good no matter which house we were at, but i preferred going over there, of course. although, i can imagine if your house was an option, it would’ve won hands down.<p-comment>
<p-comment>when a smell takes me back, 9 times out of 10, it takes me to tom's house.<p-comment>
<p-comment><p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>town<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>This is heady starter dough. I'll understand when you too retire to such a place.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>oh lordy. can i now? i love new york, but not when you’re out of work during a pandemic.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>grandpa<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>How much shit would Debbie have given Anthony if HIS parents had granted you such mind-boggling freedom?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>yeah, it’s possible. don and una went to church with us, so i saw them on the regular. they were pretty low key folk. best things about their house: american cheese, sunny d, and a big-ol’ set off lincoln logs. oh, and una’s fruit jams. although, we always had those at our place; she kept us well-stocked.<p-comment>
<p-comment>by fruit jams, i mean sick beats. yo! those jams is fruit, sunny d!<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>lol<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Also, no American cheese at the Webber's?! No grilled cheese sandwiches? No cheeseburgers? And, no, you can't have those things without American cheese.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>all cheddar and mozzarella.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>American cheese was something to flee and grow out of, for me. Interesting that you longed for such a cheese.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Don't get me wrong, cheddar and mozzarella are extraordinary cheeses with many delicious applications, but a systemic ban of American cheese seems seems downright, well, un-American. I hope Una plied you with grilled cheese sandwiches on butter-fried white bread during these visits.<p-comment>
<p-comment>I also hope, Hoke, that you have rehabilitated yourself to enjoying American cheese in its proper place. I remember, for instance, your diatribe against shitty deli sandwiches--decidedly not American cheese's proper place.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>the american cheese on the five guys and the shake shake burgers is for me a highlight.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Amen. Any other cheese on a burger means other uncommon toppings, as well. Pepper Jack? Guac and Aioli. Cheddar? Fried onions, BBQ sauce, and Bacon. Swiss? Sauteed mushrooms. Blue Cheese? Steak sauce. Umami Truffle Cheese? Umami Truffle glaze.<p-comment>
<p-comment>God bless all these burgers. But "cheeseburgers" they are not.<p-comment>
<p-comment>You get the idea.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Well argued, both of you. I actually never thought of cheeseburger cheese as American. There, yes, it is perfection. Deli sandwiches, no.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>semi-automatics<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>As I read this, I am setting down the phone between water pistol shootouts with Abram on the lake house dock here. I’m conflicted about introducing guns and shooting people as a normal thing.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>if there ain’t a train or a cowboy<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>It’s hard to think of those two icons as innocent parts of the American west scenery, the childhood stories we received in toys and cartoons, any longer. I feel like white America is having a long overdue return to shared memory. That is, not just the white man’s stories, but a shared memory with the rest of nonwhite America: like, where those images are still the hardware and front guard of a pretty terrifying occupation, genocide, and hunting down any local resistance. I know it’s a Debbie Downer move to pull here, but the personal memory we are excavating as friends this summer feels parallel to the larger memory work our culture is doing. For some it’s cathartic and needed, for others, annoying and threatening.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>i enjoy the economy of the imagery combined with the harshness of the terrain—how everything one owns can be packed up and strapped atop the back of a horse—the cleanliness of narrative, singular objects with clear uses: the tin coffee mug, the tin plate, the gun, the boots, the saddle, the hat. in this age of the buffet, i think we all long for this economy in one way or another.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>This contrasts sharply with Proust's layered and long-winded brand of modernism. But what would you expect from a person who never had to worry about surviving, whose very existence was always comfy if not decadent (MORDERNism, after all).<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>i remember returning to look at its tiny body throughout our stay, horrified by maggots that eventually filled its hallowed chest<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Still wrapping my brain around Wuck, of all my friends, having a working knowledge of firearms.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>let us go to it<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I can see Debbie rushing back from the kitchen with a melonballer, napkins, and great big bowl, a bit deflated. I know she wasn't there. But I still can see it.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>hahaha. indeed. she’d pass ‘round the napkins, bare minimum. then seeing we’re using our hands, head back in for backups.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Did you spend much time with Debbie Webber, Murph? You seem to have internalized her anxiety, responses, and very presence.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I try to keep Henry James's advice to would-be storytellers always in mind: “Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!”<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>You'd make old Henry proud.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>grandpa asked us around the campfire<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Suddenly Dave Velasco's stories of you from childhood sleepovers make more sense.<p-comment>
<p-comment>Next time you're in town, Hoke, ask him to tell you the one about Wee Wuck and Late-Night Cinemax: "Enough of these titties! I want bush!"<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Like the sound of cracking open a can of coke: unleashing the repressed desire of an evangelical kid. Always lovely.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>matt and aaron and i sure were bummed<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>How many summers did you get? How long each time?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>for sure 3, possibly 4? the first trip was with the fam--with mom, dad, and rebecca--and at least two other trips were with the boys. couple weeks maybe?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Sounds like a kind of heaven, bud.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>in 2004<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>This would have been a month or so after I quit my first long-term subbing gig--right in the middle of teaching CATCHER IN THE RYE to sophomores, I think.<p-comment>
<p-comment>There's a picture of all of us dancing from the back of Kristen's VW Cabriolet in the parking lot behind The Sunrise Café on New Year's Day from this holiday season, I'm pretty sure.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>find it!<p-comment>
<p-comment>is it the holding of the timeline or the fitting of memories like so many jigsaw puzzle pieces into it that’s so satisfying? a perfect relationship of ideas for the starter/recipe metaphor, i would think.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>The simultaneity of it all is what does it for me, so the jigsaw, I think, more than the greater expanding timeline.<p-comment>
<p-comment>I sent you both a brief video of my skate tonight; I caught myself thinking about where you each were at that late hour--asleep, no doubt: Hoke in a strange bedroom in Idaho, you at home in Brooklyn, relegated to a sliver of the bed beside your sprawling, pregnant wife.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>what a perfect little clip! your shadow emerging into frame as you pass through the glow of the streetlights above, then dissolving away into the pavement ahead—the painted speed limit of 35 signaling well enough your age.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Someone with more technical acumen than I might be able to turn it into a pleasant little loop.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>for sure. although i might prefer the desire to re-hit play.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>i couldn’t believe my luck<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>How fast your tastes evolved after this! Card-carrying bush man, after all.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>if you're again referring to a young dave velasco and me finding bush on matthew isa's parents' cinemax subscription, i cannot confirm the story.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>You serious, Clark?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<pull-quote>anthony did it right<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I'd expect nothing less.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Your appreciation for your father's thoughtfulness and thoroughness is really moving, Wuck. To me, at least. Murph’s shared appreciation makes it even warmer.<p-comment>
<pull-quote>east of eden<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>What year would that make it?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>sophomore, i would think. might have been the summer instead of the winter holiday. there was one drive to sun city that included either picking me up or dropping me off at lake havasu.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>The only time I was in Havasu with you was Spring Break senior year. <p-comment>
<p-comment>Hoke and I drove back with Grapey. He was driving so slowly on the way there that we made him get out to let Hoke drive. As I was already sitting shotgun, he got in the back. On the way home, he didn't even object, just got right in the backseat from the get-go.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>That's right, cuz you didn't have your license yet. Man I love that memory: "That's it, Grapey, Hoke's driving. You sit in back of your own car. Let's roll."<p-comment>
<pull-quote>no other reason for me to be in times square in the middle of the afternoon<pull-quote>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>You never just get that crazy urge for a slice of Sbarro?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>nah. the midtown chains survive on you folks.<p-comment>
<p-comment>it’s hard to imagine even a nostalgia-lover like yourself ever getting that urge after living in new york for any length of time. if it was round table, i could see it, but sbarro?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Like, wow, Hoke.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>have i insulted a sbarro fidelity? or forget one i used to declaim?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>To think I thought too highly of you to go with Bubba Gump Shrimp.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>hoke voodoo me his gullibility?<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Maybe it's more like a tragic infectious disease than voodoo, Wuck.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
Static and dynamic content editing
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
How to customize formatting for each rich text
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
Static and dynamic content editing
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
How to customize formatting for each rich text
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
What’s a Rich Text element?
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
Static and dynamic content editing
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
How to customize formatting for each rich text
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
<pull-quote>fruity pebbles or lucky charms<pull-quote>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Oh man, do I love me some sugar cereal.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>Bro, "sugar cereal?" Weaponized conservative rhetoric is what that is.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>That's what our family called it, and I stand by the genre name. Sugar cereal: as opposed to the standard or healthy kinds. Sugar cereal is indulgent, straight-up delights floating in a bowl.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>If sugar were people, you’d have sex with the ones your family employs for minimum wage at their morals factory then pass legislation making it harder for them to vote. You have some serious work to do with your attitude toward sugar.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>My attitude? I love not only sugar but especially sugar cereal! I'd take two bowls of Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Cocoa Pebbles over any dessert. Cake? Pie? No thanks, you got some Lucky Charms? That's my adoring attitude toward sugar cereal.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>All I’m saying is that if you examined the culture from which this term emerged, you’d no longer use it.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>I can't tell if you're being serious or not.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-wuck><avatar-wuck><author-name>Wuck<author-name>
<p-comment>i hear your argument, murph, but i sense a sort of falstaffian, life-loving embrace of pleasure in hoke’s use of the term.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>I don’t disagree. Nor do I question his intent, just his unthinking use of a term he admits is inherited. I bet 99 out of 100 people who use the term “sugar cereal” are voting for Trump in November.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-hoke><avatar-hoke><author-name>Hoke<author-name>
<p-comment>Fine. Change it to "candy cereal." Or some families call it "Saturday cereal." They all work for me. The point is to celebrate the special stuff that packs childhood joy.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>
<avatar-murph><avatar-murph><author-name>Murph<author-name>
<p-comment>If you start calling it “candy cereal,” we aren’t friends anymore.<p-comment>
<hr><hr>