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Today was a cold, rainy day.
Today was also a day in which I recalled -- quite fondly -- afternoons spent standing at a convenience store at the corner of Jackson and Watkins*. It was 1990, and I was going to Snowden Junior High. I had to wait until after 330pm for the bus that would run past the end of my street to get home.**
Back then, I had precisely one (maybe two) expenses: heavy metal cassettes and fantasy books. I was in eighth grade, and my aunt had bought me two novels that would ultimately seal my fate: Darkness and Light by Paul B. Thompson and Tonya C. Cook, and Shadowdale by "Richard Awlinson" (a pseudonym for Scott Ciencin). The first was Dragonlance; the second was Forgotten Realms.
I loved both of these worlds, but I loved Dragonlance most of all. I absolutely bought into the "save the world" storyline. The characters, from gruff old Flint, to young leader Tanis, to the irrepressible Tasslehoff, all became boon companions. We spent so long together back then, that I feel like we still know each other today, despite it being several years since I last read a Dragonlance novel.
At the same time, I was discovering metal. Not hair metal, but metal. I was beginning to explore the more obscure metal acts (and some not so obscure). I was already a fan of Iron Maiden, especially their releases "Piece of Mind", "Powerslave", and "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son".*** I also discovered Crimson Glory's "Transcendence". Of course, there was Dio's "Holy Diver" and "The Last in Line".
Then came that one fateful day. It's a day lost to the sands of time, because I can't, for the life of me, remember it. That fateful day, I read about Helloween, and decided that I'd love to see what they were about, despite never hearing a single thing from them. It ultimately led me to K-Mart, and a near brush with petty theft.
While I'm much older (that was 22 years ago!), I still think back to that convenience store and that corner fondly. Even though my mother had just left for California and the neighborhood bully had taken to waiting for me at the bus stop on occasion, I had an island of peace and happiness in those books and those albums, that I think I'm still searching for 22 years later. The days weren't always cloudy and rainy, but they were my favorites for some reason. Perhaps, since it was cold and wet, folks left me to read more often than not? I guess I will never easily remember, and frankly, it's not that important. What is important is how those memories make me feel.
Today was also a day in which I recalled -- quite fondly -- afternoons spent standing at a convenience store at the corner of Jackson and Watkins*. It was 1990, and I was going to Snowden Junior High. I had to wait until after 330pm for the bus that would run past the end of my street to get home.**
Back then, I had precisely one (maybe two) expenses: heavy metal cassettes and fantasy books. I was in eighth grade, and my aunt had bought me two novels that would ultimately seal my fate: Darkness and Light by Paul B. Thompson and Tonya C. Cook, and Shadowdale by "Richard Awlinson" (a pseudonym for Scott Ciencin). The first was Dragonlance; the second was Forgotten Realms.
I loved both of these worlds, but I loved Dragonlance most of all. I absolutely bought into the "save the world" storyline. The characters, from gruff old Flint, to young leader Tanis, to the irrepressible Tasslehoff, all became boon companions. We spent so long together back then, that I feel like we still know each other today, despite it being several years since I last read a Dragonlance novel.
At the same time, I was discovering metal. Not hair metal, but metal. I was beginning to explore the more obscure metal acts (and some not so obscure). I was already a fan of Iron Maiden, especially their releases "Piece of Mind", "Powerslave", and "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son".*** I also discovered Crimson Glory's "Transcendence". Of course, there was Dio's "Holy Diver" and "The Last in Line".
Then came that one fateful day. It's a day lost to the sands of time, because I can't, for the life of me, remember it. That fateful day, I read about Helloween, and decided that I'd love to see what they were about, despite never hearing a single thing from them. It ultimately led me to K-Mart, and a near brush with petty theft.
I was there with my father and younger brother. I was just casually looking at various cassettes in the "cheap" endcap there, when a name jumped out at me. "Helloween: I Want Out -- Live" proclaimed the spine. What I felt then is not something that I can say I've felt often, nor can I even say for sure I've felt it ever since. I had this overwhelming, terrifying desire to have that tape. I was so sure that I had to have it, that I was prepared to steal it. That is completely out of character for me, even now.Those cassettes, along with Helloween's two "Keeper of the Seven Keys" albums (and the aforementioned "I Want Out -- Live"), became my soundtrack for the numerous books I read while at that bus stop. Even now, if I hear a note from one of those albums just so, I am whisked back to when I would stand there, pumping batteries into my cheap-ass Walgreens knockoff Walkman clone, turning page after page after page of whatever I could get my hands on that had dragons, swords, magic, and heroes.
Looking back at that event with my 36-year-old eyes, I believe that what I was feeling was that undefinable sense of "this is part of you; take it up and realize more fully who you are on your path".
At any rate, my personal ethics won out, and I decided that I'd ask my father for it, first. Then, I thought, if he says no, I'll steal it, but at least I tried to do it right.He said yes (which is odd, given his fundamentalist attitude toward most things). As the cashier rang up my father's purchases, I whispered to my brother what I'd been thinking. That's when the cashier looked over at me and commented too. I don't remember what she said, but it amounted to "now you won't go to jail".
While I'm much older (that was 22 years ago!), I still think back to that convenience store and that corner fondly. Even though my mother had just left for California and the neighborhood bully had taken to waiting for me at the bus stop on occasion, I had an island of peace and happiness in those books and those albums, that I think I'm still searching for 22 years later. The days weren't always cloudy and rainy, but they were my favorites for some reason. Perhaps, since it was cold and wet, folks left me to read more often than not? I guess I will never easily remember, and frankly, it's not that important. What is important is how those memories make me feel.
| * -- | Interestingly, it was a year earlier that I sat at that same bus stop with my friend, Richard Grimm, and saw what the inside of a D&D box set looked like, complete with dice and crayon. Fascinating, yes? |
| ** -- | A little more than a year later, I learned that the OTHER bus I could have taken would have dropped me off maybe half a mile from my home. Sheesh. :) |
| *** -- | Ironically, I never really cared for "Somewhere in Time" back then. Now? I love it to pieces. I can only blame the circumspect possibility that the sci-fi theme of the album cover turned me off, because my love was firmly fantasy. |
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