Scintilla13 Day 16 (The Final Day)
We bet there was a story you wanted to tell that didn’t line up with any of the prompts. Write it anyway – and use it to write a one or two sentence prompt that others could use to tell a good story of their own. Then, share it with us, if you’re comfortable.
Most aspects of my college life were either forgettable, or something I wish I could forget. God forbid those should be the best years of my entire life, as they are for so many people.
There were, however, certain highlights of my college experience. Things that even today I miss. Some of them, like theatre, I have been able to replicate in non-college life. Others, there is just no way to replicate. At least, not without many resources that I lack.
One of those things is having a radio show. But this is not a story about radio, so hang with me.
My freshman year of college I somehow convinced myself to go to a meeting for prospective radio hosts on the tiny college campus I attended at the time. It meant talking to people and such, and getting lessons on the equipment. But I did it, and it became the highlight of each week. “Basically Music, with Ty Unglebower” aired Wednesday nights from midnight to 2AM. (I loved such a graveyard shift. I asked for it in fact.)
After a year, I left that college. A year or so later, I was starting college at what would end up as my alma mater. That too wasn’t the best of experiences, especially earlier on. But they did have a radio station, and I was able to bring “Basically Music” back on the air, all be it on a different air, at a slightly earlier time slot.
The first year I did it, loved it, and was satisfied. The mix of my own personal eclectic but softer music library, sprinkled with some commentary and random thoughts from me here and there. It was a focal point of my creative life. More important to me even than some classes.
Then came the second year of the show.
I’m guessing it was about halfway through the first semester. I was attending my dorm’s periodic open mic gatherings, where I would read some poems once in a while. Afterwards a woman who had been there came up to me, and told me she listened to my radio show. This got my attention, you see, because that had happened maybe four times ever at both colleges combined.
Yet it was also memorable because of how intelligent, witty and considerate the woman was. And the things she told me proved she did in fact listen to the show, instead of just saying she did.
Over the next few weeks, I’d see her passing in the hall, or on the mall or whatever, and she’d usually have something bright or something sarcastic to say. Some inside reference to a previous conversation. Or something about the show.
I found her deciding to eat at my table at the cafeteria a few times, where the conversations about the show would continue. (As would the theft of my french fries, which I assumed she knew I could see.)
One day she asked me to play a particular song on the show that night when she saw me. I agreed, and asked her if she had any of her own music she wanted me to play. I don’t recall the exact album,but she did bring me a CD to my room at some point. (Probably October Project, but I can’t be certain.) And I played it on the air that night.
Several weeks, requests, and dropped off CDs later, I asked her one night if she was free to actually come down to the station to see how the show went behind the scenes. She agreed, and I gave her the “grand” tour of the closest sized station. The five buttons I had to know in order to broadcast, and the little sheet of paper where I kept records of what I played. She said it was interesting. I wondered if she meant it, but I invited her back the next week, possibly to actually speak on the air. That is to say to be an actual guest of the show. She agreed.
Her first appearance went well enough, though she had to be reminded that when we conversed on the air, nodding in response to my questions was not adequate for a radio audience.
She couldn’t make it the following week, but asked if she could come back and be a guest in two weeks. I agreed, and she did. When she did, she brought her entire collection of CDs with her, and “Basically Music” that night was a mix of my collection and her own.
She did the same thing the following week. And for several weeks afterward. Eventually I actually started to leave her in charge of the station for a few moments while I left to use the bathroom. (This was a highly illegal move. Much against policy.)
“If something happens, just do something,” I told her that first time, despite her being slightly nervous about what could occur.
Nothing ever did occur though, even though I would give her the same advice, word for word every week. For you see, she showed up there with me to do the show virtually every single week for the rest of my time at college over the next two years. She was promoted from perennial guest to co-host by the end of the first year. (Also illegal, as she had not gone through the proper training to be a co-host.) Once she was even the host on her own, as I had a rehearsal for a play. (Probably the most illegal thing I let her do.)
But I trusted her. Reason being, somewhere along the way between all the shows, and the requests, and CDs, and stolen fries she had become one of the best friends I would ever have.
Or have even now. Though I haven’t seen her in person since our final college day together, her importance in my life has not at all diminished. I can see a framed picture of the two of us in the station as I type this.
We don’t agree on everything, of course. Don’t think that every moment we have known each other has been without friction or conflict. (Though none of it horrendous.) But that is one of the many lessons of her in my life…that I can not only accept and tolerate people with different value structures in a legal sense, but can sometimes embrace and love them in a spiritual sense as well.
I often joke with her even now about she was the only person ever to successfully just talk her way into my life, and insinuate herself into one of my creative endeavors without being invited. What is not a joke is that the trajectory of my life forever changed because of her arrival in it. For the better, naturally. All because I did a radio show, and she heard it one day.
My prompt: Talk about how someone other than your spouse entered your life casually, but ended up being of great significance to who and what you are.
Scintilla13 Day 15
Tell the story of how you got the thing you are going to keep forever. Include an image in your post, if you can.
This mug has never held a beverage.
I was in college when I got it. I had been sick, quite sick for several days. Sick to the point of asking people to check on me periodically.
Few people did. I’m sad to report that often in college when I needed people the most, even many of my friends were elsewhere. I still struggle with forgiving certain people.
But not the one who gave me this mug.
She did in fact come to check on me at one point. I was still in bad shape, and she asked me if I needed anything from anywhere, as she was headed to the grocery store. I thanked her, but told her I was pretty stocked in medicines and such. She left, and I took my 100+ degree temperature back to bed.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t move from the spot for a few hours. Not until another knock at my door stirred me from my quasi-stupor. It was the same friend again. In both of her arms she carried a small office sized waste basket which was filled to overflowing with cough drops, sleep aids, a bottle or two of water, even some cup of noodles.
And, the mug you see in that picture above.
I protested. Mildly, as I had no energy. But she deftly averted my protests and placed the whole package on my dresser, told me to feel better, and left.
Over the next few days I did use several of the items in the care package. I didn’t get around to using the mug. I already owned a mug for the times I drank hot beverages, and that wasn’t often.
As I recovered, I put some of the things away for future use, (God forbid I end up as sick as that again in the near future, I thought.) The mug sort of sat there on the dresser though.
Once I was myself again, and could think clearly the following week, I decided that such a heartfelt gesture deserved more than to collect dust, waiting for the all too rare cup of tea, (and the never to happen cup of coffee.)
The medicines I could use. The trash can would of course hold trash. (And still does in my bathroom to this day.) Food was eaten. But the mug…
It hit me later when I opened a drawer on my desk, and heard pens and pencils rolling around. I grabbed them all up, and searched the room for some strays, and placed them in the mug. My reasoning was that even if I never drank anything from it, the mug would still be used, frequently, as a place to always know where to look for my pens and pencils.
And so it was that I was rarely had to search for a writing implement for the rest of college. Or any time since then, in fact. This picture was taken just 15 minutes before I wrote this post; I still use if for the same purpose I did all those years ago. I don’t think it has been void of a pen or pencil since the first ones I ever placed in it.
The friend who gave it to me is still in my life. She is, in fact, my “cousin”… made an honorary member of my family by Ty Declaration not long into the Facebook era when we found each other.
I plan to keep the mug forever as one of the top proper gestures of friendship I’ve ever received.
Will I ever drink anything out of it? I don’t know. I do drink tea more often now. I may have to consult with my cousin, to see what she thinks. But then where would I put my pens and pencils?
Scintilla13 Day 14
We exert control over ourselves and others in many ways. Talk about a time when you lost that control. This can go beyond the obvious emotional control into things like willpower, tidiness, self-discipline, physical prowess – any time that you felt your autonomy slipping away.
I really can’t say my very autonomy has slipped away because of anything I’ve done, even if it could be classified as losing control. That’s an extreme I hope to never experience.
That being said, I suppose like anybody, things get if not out of hand, than at least out of the fence as it were.
I threw a trashcan across my house when the Washington Nationals blew a huge lead in the final game of the National League Divisional Series last year. (I’m still not happy about it to tell you the truth.) Laid on the car horn uselessly for a solid minute during more than one highway incident. Abandoned a new morning exercise regime just after a week. Things like that.
But the one I think about often is from 2004. The first (and only) time I sought elected office. A last nod towards a political future I had thought I’d been meant for since the age of 12.
I lost. Badly. Truth be told I knew winning was unlikely my first time out, but it was the treatment I received from voters that bothered me most. People insist on having their voices heard, their needs met, sometimes even their asses kissed, (okay, more than sometimes) when it comes to voting someone into office, and than have the audacity to mock, jeer at and vilify those who are running for said offices. A smug test, I suppose, to see if those who want to be elected are willing to be pissed on by the very people they’re helping. It’s a lousy metric.
Much of the attitude towards elected officials is justified. But until someone is elected, they at least deserve a bit of consideration, I say. Ask questions certainly, but keep your assessments as to the “hopelessness” of my campaign to yourself. I was, honestly, treated better by my seven opponents in that primary election than I was by some voters.
Or by organizations, none of which ever returned my calls or emails when I wanted to come speak to them. I suppose I wasn’t rich enough for their tastes. (And these were Democratic organizations.)
As I watched the returns on local cable access, (at home, with no friends attending and no family to speak of bothering to show up, save one), it became clear I was not only losing, but coming in last. (The guy who won being someone who still called natives of Japan “Japs”.)
The experience soured me not only on politics, (which had mostly left my system by then anyway) but also on my home county. I live in not only a Red county in an otherwise deep blue state, but also among some of the more selfish demographics out there. Rude. Insulated. And as I learned from the campaign, cynical. Mean-spirited.
The day after the election, I got an email. One like many. It wasn’t an especially nasty email. They liked the way I had answered some questions in the paper. But (and I paraphrase) they said something along the lines of “don’t think someone like you has a chance in these parts”, and I lost it, so to speak.
Self-control would have dictated I just say, “Thank you,” or say nothing. I didn’t. I wrote the voter back and told them that as of midnight, I was no longer a candidate for office, and therefore no longer subject to her platitudes, and that she ought to mind her own business. Something like that.
I’m pretty sure later that day I closed the campaign account, so I never got a response, and wouldn’t have read it if I had.
My human autonomy was intact, but the response was not me. Or, not the me that is usually front and center. Not the truest me. It was the me that came about as a result of anger, frustration, disillusionment, fatigue and disgust over the experience of my campaign conspiring. At that moment, her comments, which again while a bit careless were not nasty, were a final straw on a camel’s back.
Do I regret this? I do. Of course I do. I have no idea where the woman is now, of course. That was almost ten years ago, and I didn’t keep her name. If she is still around, I’m sure she thinks on my name with distaste, if ever she sees it. She may even come out with her story and a copy of the email when I become famous. Who knows? But if they are out there, and they happen to read this, I do, all these years later, apologize publicly. (Though I regretted my temper in private only a few days later, and have ever since.)
Scintilla13 Day 13
Post a photo of yourself from before age 10. Write about what you remember of the day the photo was taken. It may not be a full story—it may just be flashes of event and emotion—but tap into the child you were as much as you can.
The above picture is of me somewhere between the ages of 4 and 5.
My family and I were camping during Halloween weekend. This was my costume.
I have an unusually keen memory. I remember details, conversations and incidents that friends and family members have long forgotten. Yet even for me, the time of this picture resides at near the edge of coherent recollection.
It could be that I would have remembered this costume, regardless. It’s difficult to say. However I know the main reason I remember it now,is because my late father (who died only a few short years after this) helped me put it all together. Or put it all together for me, as it were.
Dad was not a particularly creative man. Decent, honest, reliable, handy, all of those things. But creative? Not really. So looking back it’s particularly amusing that he played such a role in something like a costume.
It may be his hat that I’m wearing, I’m not sure. But I do know that it was Dad who applied the make-up to my face. (You can probably tell from the picture that someone with zero experience in such matters was responsible.)
The most vivid memory I have of that weekend was standing there near the camper while my father’s huge, callused , always somewhat petroleum-scented hands brushed across my face after he’d dipped his thick fingers into the 50 cent face paint set that he’d probably bought right there at the campsite. (Or that Mom had bought and asked him to apply.)
I remember hearing him mutter to himself as he experimented with how to make a good beard and mustache, sounding like an artist approaching an actual painting. I can see him leaning back every few seconds (and possibly squinting) to view his handy work before applying more. And I remember him smiling or at least grinning for most of the time he did so. He was not a cold or mean man but like myself he wasn’t always the most outwardly expressive individual, so the grins of satisfaction I have no doubt were genuine.
Truth be told, it is probably the most tactile memory of my father that I have. One of the few distinct memories I have of him touching me. Not because he refused to do so, but because I have so few memories of my father of any kind. Those that I do have are usually what he looked like, what he said. (Though not how he sounded when he said it…my memories of his voice are mere threads.) But nothing compares, really, to the recollection of my father, happy, and at leisure applying make-up to my face with his own hands. Sadly no picture of that moment exists, but thankfully this one, of the end result, does.
Scintilla13 Day 11
Write about an experience you had that was so strange or incredible, it sounds like it could have been made up.
When I was in my senior year of high school, my mother was driving us home one evening from somewhere. We traveled down US 15 in Maryland (something we don’t often do) and when we came to the point about halfway between town and where we lived, we saw that they skill was filled with scores of multi-colored spheres.
I remember having read something about a hot air balloon festival a few weeks before, and though I thought it had already occurred, I speculated that that is what we were seeing. (Though far more than I thought any festival could accommodate.
I also thought it strange that they were all perfect spheres, as opposed to a tear-dropped shape of your standard balloon. I wasn’t sure a balloon shaped like this could fly, but since I saw so many of them doing that very thing, I assumed I was wrong. (Though it also seemed weird that they were all the same shape.)
Solid colors for some. Stripes of different colors for others. Still others seemed to have shapes.
We dipped into a small hill in the highway, the view of the horizon temporarily covered by the road. As we drove over the crest of the hill…nothing.
They were gone. Not further away, and not fewer of them, but 100% of them were gone. Not a trace. In 20 seconds, the sky was clear again.
Mom and I looked at each other, and after a brief discussion to determine if it might have been the light on the windows that caused it, (we quickly determined it was not), we allowed ourselves to be dumbstruck.
“I’m thinking it wasn’t hot air balloons,” I said. I stand by that, as no balloon could vanish that fast.
We checked the paper for weeks to hear mention of the incident. But as we were the only ones on the street the whole time, I imagine we were the only people to see it. Impossible as that seems to be.
In the years since, I’ve not even come across a story that sounds similar. It was just many colorful spheres in the sky, and they vanished as soon as they were out of sight.
It remains one of the oddest things I have ever experienced.
Ty Unglebower 