Bad George and Other Blasts From the Past

A busy week it was. Hardly unexpectedly, I received a call from my former boss, asking if I would care to put in a few hours per month freelancing, since, without me, they're pretty much up to their ears in alligators. It's actually a welcome opportunity to keep doing a job I know and enjoy. Plus there's the extra bucks, which can't hurt. I also made considerable progress on Georgia: The Haunting of Tate's Mill. I can see the light at the end of this one.

A few new, local geocaches came out this past week, so I put in a couple of rigorous cache hunts — one in the dumping rain that so waterlogged me that I still have water in my shoes. Friend Old Rob and I shared in the first-to-find, so that made us both smile real big.

In Martinsville over the weekend, I discovered a couple of folders that contained scads of school papers and artwork by both my brother and me, which my mom had saved. I had no idea these existed. Some went back as far as kindergarten. The image you see upstairs there is a pen & ink rendering of my great-uncle Herbert's place in Gainesville, GA, which I drew sometime in the 1980s. My aunt Dot made it into the cover of a greeting card. Perhaps my favorite discovery among these treasures was an unfinished class drawing from second grade. Written on it was the following exchange between my teacher, Ms. Jackson, and me:

Mark: "Sorry I did not get throu. Goarge botherd me."

Ms. Jackson: "Please try to finish your work in the morning. You do not need to talk to George."

I remember George well. I haven't seen him since early in elementary school, but I did find him online. He is apparently an attorney over in Winston-Salem.

Many of my old drawings were plenty violent, with Indian massacres, knights battling on castle towers, dinosaurs and other monsters chowing down on innocent passersby. Some were a bit nicer. There were drawings of my family traveling in an airplane; a pretty decent rendering of my dog, Patty; and a number of reasonably well-rendered space rockets. Below is a drawing I made in third grade, which I thought was actually pretty cool.

On Saturday, I rode up to Rocky Mount to hunt a few caches. It was pretty chilly and very windy for most of the time I was out and about. The couple of hides I found at the Franklin County Parks & Recreation Center on Sontag Road proved simple enough. But at Waid Park, I turned a medium difficulty hike into a rugged and fairly risky venture by doing what I tend to do best: plow straight ahead from point A to point B, damning the torpedoes in the process. I ended up skirting a lengthy portion of the Pigg River, the banks of which were steep and treacherous, and from which a bad step would have had disastrous consequences. Fortunately, I managed to maintain my footing. Once past that little obstacle, I found myself negotiating some hairy inclines and dense, difficult woods. But again, I prevailed, and, soon enough, had the cache in hand. As one might surmise, I felt the effects of this little outing pretty severely a little later. However, once back at home, a fine dinner and some wine with Ms. B. made for a comfortable, relaxing evening.

This morning, friend Natalie (a.k.a. Fishdownthestairs) and I headed down to Siler City, where we knocked out a few entertaining caches we both still needed.

Ms. B. and I are currently working our way through Twin Peaks again, from start to finish. The craving was upon both of us, and it's been quite the treat, since I haven't watched it with her for about a decade. And she'd never seen the third season (The Return), which we just started this evening. She's not the devoted David Lynch fan that I am, but she's been enjoying it so far.

For the coming week, I'm hoping to reach the end of Georgia: The Haunting of Tate's Mill. I'm definitely ready to get this one out to the publisher and into the hands of readers.

All righty then. Get on with you. Peace out.

My first-grade rendering of a United DC-8, circa 1966

Cowboys and Indians having a bad time of it, from my kindergarten days

Fire at Camelot! One of my third-grade drawings