Yesterday, the temperature hit 102 degrees. It’s actually been trying to break over 100 for weeks, and now it has.

It’s been so hot that our boys don’t want to play outside. They don’t want to ride their bikes, push their scooters, or swing on their playset. And we don’t blame them. Hell, walking to get the mail out of the mailbox is uncomfortable.

And the humidity? 110%. Good God, y’all, this is brutal.

I don’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but a couple years before we had children, Cowgrit and I spent a week in Arizona during the week of July 4th. . . .

— I just checked my archives, and yes, I’ve mentioned this before. In fact, I was about to completely repeat what I had previously written on August 10, 2007. So, well, go read that and we’ll call this a post for today.

Bullgrit

I spent all day last Saturday with my brother. During that day, even with all the family stuff going on, we managed a good deal of just him and me time. It’s been a long while since we had such a chance.

Every time we get this kind of opportunity to catch up with each other, I realize just how much he doesn’t know about me. Most of what he “knows” about me is far out of date, or is extrapolation from the few times we’ve gotten together in our adult lives. The old info he has about me is 20 years past or more. The extrapolations are based on rare visits that are, by definition, highly unusual situations.

For instance, he thinks I dress up for work — slacks and button-up shirts. (I think the only reason he doesn’t include a tie in my attire is because I’ve said in this blog that I don’t wear them.) He even commented, “You’ve always dressed like Dad, even when you weren’t a dad yourself.”

Wha-huh?

(Lest anyone think this particular comment bothered me — it didn’t/doesn’t; it does surprise me — let me say I’m only singling in on this because it is the easiest to illustrate how wrong it is.)

I think this idea that I used to dress in slacks and button-up shirts is based on: the last times brogrit ever saw me “at work” was when I was working in electonics retail back in college.

I think the idea that I currently dress in slacks and button-up shirts is based on: he apparently thinks that working, now, in a “professional office” environment means one dresses up “professionally.”

My daily attire is now what it has been for most of my life: jeans and t-shirts. Even at my office. This is the standard for most places I’ve worked over the past many years. Every once in a while I need to wear something dressy, (up to a suit and tie), for some rare customer meeting. But that’s an exception, far from the norm.

How brogrit has seen me dressed on a weekend, (the usual time when we manage to get together), is pretty much how I dress Monday through Friday, too. It never dawned on me that he thought my weekday attire would be different.

And even when I worked retail in college, (and waited tables in high school), I didn’t dress “like Dad” when I wasn’t at work. But I realize, now that I think about it, that was how brogrit saw me when he visited me in my college town. He’d come into town, and stop by the retail store to see me. When I got off work, we’d go hang out somehow, and I’d be in my slacks and button-up shirt. (The tie would be removed.) But that’s just because we’d leave directly from my work.

So, based on the usual situation that he saw me, (at retail work), during my college days, and based on what he must see of other folks who work in “professional office buildings,” I can see how he would think I dress up normally.

But this is an example of how he doesn’t know much about me and my life, really. If he has this totally erroneous and backward vision of something as mundane as my normal dress, think of how many other ideas he has wrong about my life. Every time we have our little get togethers, it’s revealed how much he really doesn’t know about me — at least the me in the past 20 years or so.

Bullgrit

It just dawned on me last week, after driving to work on my current route for six months, that I go vaguely by the comic book shop I’ve mentioned before. So this week I decided to drop in one day on my way home from work.

I wasn’t really looking for comic books, actually, I was interested in maybe picking up some old D&D book; nothing particular, just anything missing from my collection. I entered the store and the two guys up at the counter greeted me. The guy on the customer side of the counter was a young kid, maybe 16, maybe younger, (probably younger). They guy on the employee side of the counter was maybe 20.

I returned their hellos and then turned onto the aisle where I previously had seen a shelf of old D&D books. I stood in the area for a minute, looking around, not finding the books I expected, and then the teenager walked up beside me.

“The best graphic novels are all over on this side,” he said, pointing to some shelves. He added a comment that I didn’t catch.

“I was looking for the old D&D stuff,” I said. “It used to be in this area.”

“Oh,” he said, “that’s all back here.” He waved for me to follow him, and he took me to the back of the store. “This is where I buy a lot of my D&D material,” he added. Actually, he added a lot more — he was a talkative kid — but I wasn’t really paying attention to his jabber.

I’m not a real sociable guy to start with, and I was in the store just to look at some old books, in peace and quiet. I may have come across as rude with the kid. I just tuned out most of his talking. When we were standing before the shelf of gaming books, he pointed out, “I’ve been thinking about getting that set of second edition. I bought . . . ,” I wasn’t really listening.

I saw the AD&D [1st edition] Oriental Adventures book that I’ve been wanting for a while, but the spine was damaged. I took it down, looked through it, and found it also had a bit of discoloration in the pages. I put it back on the shelf. The kid was still talking.

He was a nice guy. He just wanted to talk about something he was interested in. Sadly, though, he was chatting up a guy who’s just ass enough to not really care.

He pulled a pristine AD&D1 Fiend Folio off the shelf. “This is the worst cover art of any D&D book,” he said. The way he said it, he was just continuing his chatting, not really being mean.

I just replied, “That’s the first D&D book I ever bought.” That’s true. It was the first D&D book I bought after the Basic D&D boxed set game. It’s a treasured part of my D&D collection, although I didn’t make my comment in defense of the cover art; I just said the first thing I thought when the kid showed it to me.

The kid froze for a moment, then put the book back on the shelf. He turned and walked away, and banged himself on the forehead with his fist. Damn, I’m an ass, I thought. He was just trying to chat, and I made him think he offended me. He hadn’t offended me, (because he hadn’t meant to offend me), even with a negative comment on one of my favorite books.

Alone, with peace and quiet at last, I continued looking through the gaming books. I found the boxes with old Dragon magazines, and started flipping through the oldest issues. The oldest Dragon I own is #68, December 1982. In the box I found a #62 and #55 for cheap. (There were a couple of older mags, but the marked price was too high.)

I took my choices up to the front of the store, but before checking out, I looked over the selection of new comics on the front shelves. (There were a couple more guys in the store at this point, college age guys — the state college is literally across the street.) Nothing on the comics rack jumped out at me.

I heard the kid and the employee talking about Magic: the Gathering. Is that still in print, I wondered. The employee introduced the kid to Feldon’s Cane. “For one colorless mana!?” the kid exclaimed. He’s pure gamer geek, God bless him.

I took my two magazines up to the counter, and the employee rang them up on the register. I handed over my debit card, and the kid looked over at my choices.

“You’re buying back issues of Dragon?” he asked. I smiled and nodded. “Do they still publish Dragon?”

“Not in paper form,” I answered.

The employee quipped at the kid, “These issues are older than you are.”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling, “number 55 is . . . about 1980.” (It’s November 1981.) I didn’t add, Your parents were probably still in puberty when this was published. I was liking the kid. He was interested and enthusiastic. I can’t fault him for being sociable; it’s a good thing. I felt bad for being a surly old man.

With the purchase complete, I picked up my old magazines to leave. As I started walking away, I turned back to the kid to say, “And you’re right. That cover art on the old Fiend Folio is kind of bad.”

I don’t really think the FF cover art is bad, per se. It’s a very different style than is in vogue nowadays. I might not care much for the style, myself, if it didn’t have a strong nostalgic tie for me. But I threw the kid a bone to make up for being gruff earlier.

Bullgrit

I like to play music while I drive, and I’ve been using family travel time to introduce my boys to my old 70s and 80s tunes. So now, every time we load up in my car to go somewhere, the boys tell me what songs to play and in what order.

Stuff they like and request first every time we get in the car:

Heart – Magic Man
Heart – Barracuda
AC/DC – Back in Black
Duran Duran – Hungry Like the Wolf

Suprising, to me, they don’t care for Wild Boys by Duran Duran.

“Dad, play Magic Man, Hungry Like a Wolf [sic], and then your song,” they tell me. “Dad’s song” is Love’s Theme by Barry White. I’m not sure exactly how that song became known as particularly my song — all the songs are from my CD collection.

I couldn’t get either of them interested in any Waylon Jennings music. They haven’t taken to Rick Springfield, either. Calfgrit9 likes She Blinded Me with Science by Thomas Dolby a little, but Calfgrit5 isn’t taken by it at all, so it doesn’t get played unless I call for it, myself.

I’m still trying to figure out exactly what attracts them to certain songs. They do seem to like rock and roll, and not country or bubblegum pop. Although, Calfgrit9 used to like, (he said it was his favorite), A Horse With No Name by America, when I played in through my cell phone. But I don’t have that song on CD in my car, so we haven’t played it in a long while. And even though they really like two Heart songs, they’re not interested in others — like Crazy on You and Straight On.

I’m thinking that getting them interested in particular music is more a matter of attaching the song to a particular activity the first time than a matter of the qualities of the song itself. Then every time we do the activity, (like just riding in the car), they want the designated music to go with it.

This concept has some serious implications for psychological manipulation. I’m not sure if this potential power, in my hands, as their father, is a good thing or a bad thing. I’m not sinister, but I do have a sense of humor.

Bullgrit