Memorable Memorial Day Weekend

Never do I forget what Memorial Day is actually about. Every year, I welcome the reminder to reflect on how those who gave their lives in the service of our country have helped shape the quality of life I enjoy every day, regardless of the trials and pitfalls that being alive inevitably brings. I expect few of us have not known someone, or multiple someones, who died in the country’s service. As a student of history, particularly military history, I believe it is paramount to understand the ideals and sacrifices made by those who have come before us.

That said, I feel no compunction about relishing life and the opportunities for joy on this day — or any other, for that matter — and this weekend has offered a welcome respite from numerous stressors, most specifically the brutally sad job of dealing with my mom and brother’s deaths. The resolutions for both estates are progressing in their ways, and the depth of grief, if not truly diminished, is generally more manageable than it was for some long time. Still, this is the hardest, most stressful time of life I’ve ever known, and the accompanying fatigue, both emotional and physical, has at times thrown me for unexpected loops. Add the stressors of the pandemic — now somewhat lessening, thank Yog, since I opted to bear the unthinkable risk of taking the COVID-19 vaccine (yes, that is a dig at you, some of you unconscionable fucks) — and it is fairly safe to say that, at the very least, life is not boring.

As for My World and Welcome to It, I did something on Friday evening I haven’t done in ages: stay up till the wee hours watching movies without falling asleep halfway through. These days, I tend to be vigorous until about 8:00 p.m., zonk for an hour, then get a second wind that lasts until about midnight, give or take an hour. But for whatever reason, the other night, 20-year-old Mark saw a resurgence, and somewhere around 11 p.m., I started John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness, which I have not seen in at least three decades. It was about as I remembered: intriguing in its way, but not nearly as polished or engaging as Carpenter’s films that came directly before or after. Once Prince of Darkness was over, undaunted by fatigue, I took to searching the Roku for something entertaining and, eventually, settled on Splinter (2008). This one struck me as the perfect late-night (roughly synonymous with “drive-in”) horror flick. This ran until damn near 3:00 a.m., at which time I contemplated starting something new. Alas, by then, the old body had begun to argue. I shuffled off to the bedroom and slept till almost 9 the next morning, which is not an “Old Mark” thing to do, not by a long shot. Generally, I am up far earlier, despite my most fervent hopes, wishes, and dreams.

Saturday morning, a couple of new geocaches awaited my attention, one of which was dedicated to friend Old Rob (a.k.a Old Rob), placed by devious friend Ms. Fishdownthestair (a.k.a. Natalie). This one took some serious hunting, in difficult terrain and oppressive heat and humidity. But find it we did, and thus earned the ever-dubious first-to-find honors. Afterward, I found another of Ms. FDTS’s new hides before returning to Casa di Rodan. Toward evening, Brugger and I drove Burlington way for another nice cache, and then we settled ourselves for wonderful dinner at Simply Thai in Elon. Following, we watched the 2009 remake of The Taking of Pelham 123. We had just watched the original, an old favorite of mine, a while back, so we wanted to compare. The new one wasn’t bad, not by a long shot, but it remains inferior to the original 1974 classic.

American Gothic, the Creeple People edition

Yesterday, the No-Dead-Weight Irregulars — this weekend’s incarnation comprising the aforementioned Old Rob and Ms. Fish — headed to Winston-Salem, first and foremost to put the finishing details on my brother’s house so that it can be listed on the real estate market this coming week; secondly to hunt geocaches. Most happily, we avenged a couple of DNF (Did Not Find) attempts from a while back, and we discovered a loverly trail system in historic Bethania that includes an old mill and a scenic, serene graveyard dating back to the early 1700s. We had lunch at Village Tavern in Reynolda Village, which has, historically, been one of our favorite destinations for mealtime on geocaching days. The food was its typically good self, but service was S.L.O.W. beyond the bounds of reason, considering the place appeared to have more than adequate staff for the number of patrons. Now, I am willing to give any establishment the benefit of the doubt for the occasional unsatisfactory experience, and given the number of places needing help, I wonder if there wasn’t some training of new folks happening at the time. That being the case, I am very understanding of the situation, and I just hope things will improve. No, Village Tavern has not struck out with me, not by a long shot.

This morning, a single Old Rob cache lurked out on the Owl’s Roost trail near Bur-Mil park, so Ms. FDTS and I met at 10:00 a.m. and hiked out to it. We managed to find the little bugger after a relatively brief search. Then we headed over to the nearby Palmetto Trail so I could perform maintenance on one of my really old hides (“No Dead Baby Jokes, Please” [GC2YVWF].

And that brings me around to where I am. Remember why Memorial Day is what it is; get yourself vaccinated, if you haven’t undertaken this ungodly monstrous risk; and try to treat your neighbor better than I do. That can’t be very damned hard.

Old dude’s playhouse? Old dudes will play, after all.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter.

Old feller with one foot in the grave

No wonder the British lost; Cornwallis’s road peters out after just a couple of hundred feet.

A Different Kind of Day, Week, Month, Year...

I think it’s safe to say that, for me—and probably for about every person on the planet—every day during this pandemic period feels different from anything we have ever perceived as “normal”: it’s a little weird; sometimes frightening; always stressful, sometimes overtly, sometimes subtly. Brugger and I are fortunate that, at least for now, we are still able to work from home, so we are not facing truly desperate times, as so many of us are. This could change tomorrow, or next week, or next month, but I have become somewhat more adept at living each day for what it is rather than looking at every potential dire thingummy lurking around the next bend, which has been my typical modus operandi. So, Ms. B. and I are trying to make the best of each day, take every measure to keep ourselves free of COVID-19 cooties, and basically live for life—responsibly and with care for our neighbors. There are way, way too many people refusing to take this global situation seriously, and I am afraid they are the reason we aren’t going to see appreciably better days anytime soon.

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and some of the restrictions in the state have eased a bit (which means that a huge percentage of the population is out there gathering and celebrating as if COVID-19 is a thing of the past; damned fools). Last night, Ms. B. and I had our friends Terry and Beth over to my place, where we gathered (at a very suitable distance) under the canopy tent I had picked up a while back for this year’s Oktoberfest in Martinsville, which may or may not actually happen. We all supplied our own wine, wine glasses, appetizers, and such, and we ordered pizza out from Marco’s Pizza, which is our favorite pizza joint around here. The evening turned out to be pleasant beyond pleasant. I trust our friends had a nice time.

This morning, a couple of new geocaches came out in High Point, so I set after them and snagged FTFs (first-to-find) on both. The cats and I have been hard at work on a new short story (see “Country of the Snake,” Friday, May 22), but I’ve spent so much time editing out cat words that, this afternoon, just for shits and giggles, I set up my home office outside under the canopy. It was muggy as hell and the mosquitoes were plentiful, but the fan blowing and a good dousing of bug spray kept things tolerable out there—although I think a couple of the little bastards got through to my feetz. Damned bloodsuckers. I put the cats to work researching stuff for me. You can guess how that went.

A little while ago, I managed to get the canopy back inside just before the big thunderstorms set in (which are dumping something fierce right about now). And tomorrow, barring really nasty weather, there is Memorial Day geocaching on the docket. Here’s hoping. And please, do remember what Memorial Day is actually all about. Try asking yourself: are you conducting yourself during this bad spell in a way that honors what so many members of our armed services fought and died for? If you’re protesting wearing masks, mocking people who do, willfully ignoring social distancing, and otherwise denying that we have a true crisis through which we should all be working together, I would say the only thing you are honoring is your own petty, selfish ego. This is especially egregious for those of you who claim to be Christians. I know an awful lot of you who fit this shameful bill.

Do better. Please.

Hey, look! Brugger has tamed the wild beast atop her head... at least for the time being.

Research assistant researches

Droolie impersonates stuffed tiger, emphasis on “stuffed.”

Strange Magic

I grew up going to Myrtle Beach, SC, in the summertime, and I count many of those trips among the highlights of my youth. For the most part, I still enjoy getting down there when the opportunity presents itself, although several times in recent years, the increasingly massive influx of humanity into that particular geographic space has been so freaking overwhelming that it's sucked the joy right out of any number of potentially good times. When our friends Gerry (a.k.a. BigG7777) and Bridget (a.k.a. Suntigres) invited Kimberly and me to join them on a Myrtle Beach trip over Memorial Day weekend, the opportunity to go sounded thrilling, but I found myself apprehensive about facing the inevitable holiday crowd—especially since it was also time for "Black Bike Week," when several thousand bikers descend on the Grand Strand. I have no problem with bikers per se, but that additional number of human bodies seemed bound to push the beach's temporary population into my personal red zone.

What, me worry?

The trip down on Friday afternoon was certainly pleasing for the Geocachers in the vehicle (that's three out of four, ladies and gentlemen). Along the way, we stopped for several fun hides, discovered an incredible BBQ restaurant in a little town called Chadbourn, and had an all-around fun time swapping Geocaching stories (well, three out of the four of us did). As we approached the SC state line that evening, all of us expected to encounter significant traffic, even on the back roads which our host Gerry knew from his frequenting the area. But there was almost none. And for those of us who have experienced massive traffic backups getting to the beach, this felt like a godsend.

It only got better.

Gerry's place is in North Myrtle Beach, in a somewhat tucked-away resort area, so while it wasn't directly on the beach, it offered just about every amenity we could desire and proved perfect for our slightly more introverted crowd. Still, we opted to take a late-evening jaunt into the town proper, and here we did discover plenty of bike parades, rowdy revelers, and wall-to-wall human party favors, but it all proved enjoyable, especially a little foray into the more mellow Fat Harold's Beach Club, where we got to watch people who know how to shag shagging the night away.

Saturday, the lot of us started out relatively early, and the three Geocachers in the crowd made a most invigorating morning out of hunting caches—all without sending Kimberly into a murderous rage, and I know this because she did not murder any of us (she actually seemed to be enjoying herself, although I doubt she would admit any such thing). For lunch, we found surprisingly good food and drink at Margaritaville at Broadway at the Beach, with expensive but delicious margaritas all around and a bison burger that almost rivaled the fare at Ted's Montana Grill, which has historically served the best bison I've found. After that, we sampled (and purchased) some decent jerky at The Beef Jerky Outlet, sampled hot sauce at The Pepper Palace (which offered some good stuff, though it hardly singed my palate), and sampled wine (some quite excellent) at The Coastal Wine Boutique, close to Gerry's place.

"The Hurricane" at Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville

Well, I kind of had to.

To top off our outing, we took helicopter rides. Gerry and Bridget went up in one, while Ms. B. and I went up in another (no, I didn't actually drive it). I had never flown in a helicopter before, so it was an all-new experience, a 20-minute excursion a thousand feet above the Grand Strand. It made me exceedingly happy to fly past Regency Towers in south Myrtle, where my dad owned a time share condo, which our family used from 1977 to 2000, during which time I don't think I missed a single summer visiting. The experience was a bit more edgy than the usual jetliner flight, especially the dives and banks, which at one point elicited from Ms. B. a rather cute scream (it really was). A treat indeed, one I should not mind experiencing again one day. The flight, I mean, not necessarily the scream.

For dinner, we sought out and found Brother Shucker's Fish House—some delicious fried grouper bites and oysters on the half shell for the old dude—and then we returned to our hosts' place for an evening of enjoyable banter and frolicking.

Regency Towers, our old time-share condo, can be seen in the center of photo

Looking down at the Grand Strand from a thousand feet

Early on Sunday, which was Gerry's birthday, the three Geocachers in our party went out Geocaching before Ms. B. even saw the light of day, though she did rise shortly after we left and spent a happy morning working on some pen and ink art—one of her favorite activities—which turned out quite beautiful. Once back at the resort, we went out to the pool to get in some swimming and bathing (and in Ms. B.'s case, some serious sunburning), then returned to the condo to share in some celebratory wine and song. And oh... was there ever wine and song. Enough song, at least, to clear the pool area of non-birthday-celebrating guests. This is as it should be.

After this, we piled into one of Gerry's golf carts and hauled ourselves down to Empire Fire Mongolian Grill for a fiery imperial Mongolian dinner, and then down to the beach, just before a significant squall came around. We managed to get back to the condo without getting totally soaked, and there we treated ourselves to Deadpool and Strange Magic, the first being an adult-oriented, occasionally raunchy superhero movie, the latter being a cute kid's musical. Both entertained us immensely, why, yes they did.

Something funny is happening here.

Happy Ms. B. on the way to Empire Fire Mongolian Grill

This morning, we had to pack ourselves up to leave—in a driving rain at that—but before hitting the road, we hunted down and killed a monster lunch at House of Blues, which proved a fine send-off. Good beef brisket, nice atmosphere, and excellent service, I've gotta say. Despite the water, we did claim another handful of caches, and arrived safely back home this evening.

A whole long weekend with minimal crowds, decent weather (at least until today), and company that can't be beat. Perfect hosts, this Mr. Birthday and Ms. Suntigres, and I hope we have another chance to share a trip together. I can at least guarantee that we'll be sharing another Geocaching outing in the nearest of futures.

Suntigres and Mr. Birthday on Friday evening at Duck's Nightclub in North Myrtle Beach

Bridget and Gerry, conched out

A cute lady getting sunburnt everywhere but on her head

Old dude in front of the House of Blues bar, a portion of which once belonged to Al Capone

BigG7777 and Suntigres, hosts extraordinaire

Love.