DL4:TNG (Prologue To DYERS EVE REVISITED)
A Note From The Publisher
WARNING: Contains Strong Language
May Not Be Suitable For Younger Readers
June 11th, 2009.
Roadwork on Memory Lane Department--Avast, Me Homies! Welcome back, after WAY too long. I find it ironic and slightly depressing that with both a laptop and a smart phone I spend so little time working on my passion and pet project. Well, hopefully the time has come to change all that. I don't know what it is, really. Maybe I was being too ambitious. Striving to deliver excellence seems to have been too big a load to carry, I suppose. It has recently dawned on me that if I simply aggregate all the Facebook notes, Myspace bulletins and random product reviews I post here and there around the Internet, that would pretty much comprise a typical and satisfactory issue of Dateline 4:20.
I'm sitting here in front of the laptop, with the DL4 Livejournal page open in front of me, yet I'm typing these words on the Sidekick. Lazy much? Anyway, the only real reason I'm posting this entry is to let you guys know I'm not dead and I haven't abandoned ship. It's been fifteen years this year since my first great digital undertaking, "Facts and Faults," a journal I used to keep on my old Windows 95 desktop (or was it the GeoWorks OS back then?). This year being the 15th anniversary of that old computerized journal had me thinking. Why not give the present-day incarnation a facelift? I've always shied away from embracing the standard "blog" format in favor of presenting a product that more closely resembled what this publication was when it used to be printed out on paper for public consumption (which you can download via the links in our 2008 Christmas issue). Now that we're "live" on the Internet, the only real requirement is quality. I've always been my own toughest critic. If I relaxed my standards, I'm probably the only one who'd notice. In any case, I just wanted to get you guys updated on what's going on here at our end, and let you know there are more great things in the works for the remainder of the year. In case you were wondering, the entire "Facts and Faults" journal does exist now as a painstakingly reconstructed PDF Document, unfortunately however it exceeds 50MB and as such I cannot upload it without making some adjustments. I really hope that in the future, I'm willing to go ahead and actually type on the laptop, because pounding this out on the Sidekick is frustrating as all hell. Keep your fingers crossed that the many good things I envision for this great publication soon come to pass, and check back here frequently for updates. You can add the Dateline 4:20 RSS feed to your browser's "live bookmarks" bar to keep tabs on us at-a-glance as we blog our way through the Summer of 2009. At this point I've quite had my fill of the LJ-for-Mobile experience, so until next time, you stay classy, New York!
October 2nd, 2009.
As it turns out, I didn't blog my way through jack shit.
Well, that may not be entirely true. If you consider the many photos I took this summer, I suppose I've been keeping pretty good records after all. Most of it's posted on Facebook, and as I mentioned if I'd take all the content I've uploaded to that site and put in even a fifth of the effort over here, I'd have a halfway decent publication. The fact is that 2009 has been a pretty busy year for me. Most of it's been good news. A new truck, a couple of intense adventures, some new friends. Sometimes webmasters, site administrators, or online journalists may have to take time off from the digital world to address the pressing concerns of real life. In the long run I guess that's fine, since it gave me an opportunity to reflect on things we've been discussing recently. I'm up later than I'd hoped right now, but it seemed important to check in and finally post this note that I began writing several months ago. I'm not making any mission statements or announcing any changes to the site. I prefer to let the content speak for itself. The past year has indeed been a time of adventure and of personal growth, but by the grace of God, the life I lead is an ongoing series of adventures and personal growth. What I want you to take away from all this is that I'm not gone, this site isn't dead, and I'm hoping to go live with a new issue sometime in the near future.
What I'm really looking at right now is a more thorough examination of something I got into last year, in an article titled "An Open Letter." At the time, I'd only just reconnected with the person to whom that letter was directed, and as it turned out she de-friended me for no apparent reason on Christmas Day. I'd last spoken to her in 1994, and I never forgot about her or the experiences we shared at summer camp. For fifteen years I wondered what had become of her, and carried with me the sense of unfinished business arising from the way things turned out all those years ago. When I wrote the article, I hadn't fully walked through the memory of those long-ago days, and the exact sequence of events, not to mention the leftover feelings and sense of urgency, had become clouded in my mind. It's been almost a year since my heart leapt into my throat the day I found her on Facebook, which also means her birthday is coming up soon. I can assure you I'll never forget her birthday, that's for damn sure. So I figured under the circumstances, in particular a recent event of which I'll speak more in another paragraph or so, it might not be a bad idea to revisit the entire process and see if I can't put these demons to rest once and for all.
I mentioned the old "Facts and Faults" journal. I hadn't yet uncovered that document at the time I wrote the "Open Letter." F&F was written in the days and months immediately following...please bear with me...the original Trail Of Tears raid in 1994. It's a little hard to explain it in what was supposed to be a short, simple article just announcing my not-dead-ness, but I'm going to have to try. Back in '94, there was a weekend at camp that began with a coed, which led to a raid, which led to a bust, which led to some drama. At the time, I was listening to Metallica's "And Justice For All" pretty regularly, and the lyrics to the last song on the CD, "Dyers Eve," were like some twisted letter home from camp penned by a nihilistic and troubled child. Thus, I began to refer to that time period, and that night in particular, as Dyers Eve and the name stuck. This year, in fact this past weekend, I made a sort of pilgrimage back to camp for an amazing and thoroughly enjoyable, drama-free reunion. During my time there, I had an opportunity to retrace the path of the journey I took that night fifteen years ago. As I was describing the process of re-enactment, I tried to compare it to other, more famous historical journeys that are sometimes faithfully re-created and all I could come up with was the Trail Of Tears. Ironically the name kind of fit, in the sense that it involves American Indians (because we all know that Summer Camp and Indian Lore go hand-in-hand), and in reference to the fact that this long-ago raid had produced quite a bit of anguish on my part (and this is in no way meant to disrespect the actual Trail Of Tears, which was a horrific tragedy). Thus I came to refer to the raid itself and its various way stations collectively as the Trail Of Tears. The "Facts and Faults" document contains some important details and insight into exactly how I was feeling at the time, and why. It would have been a great help to have found it before I wrote the Open Letter, but as I've said in the past (in fact, I said it in the Letter), everything happens for a reason.
You must understand that the years I attended this particular summer camp were some of the best summers of my life, and had without question a more profound effect on the person I've become than any other single thing I've ever experienced. I realize that may sound a little extreme, but hand to God it's the truth. That should tell you a lot, considering the magnitude of some of the adventures I've had the privilege of enjoying over the years. Also, I'd like to clarify that the girl to whom I wrote the Open Letter was, in and of herself, not so much the reason that Dyers Eve mattered, but rather it was the experience of meeting her, trying to see her, attempting to spend any time at all getting to know her, within the framework of being a 15-year-old kid at summer camp. The sequence of events surrounding my interaction with this person was what swung the majority of the weight; the person herself was little more than peripheral. It makes sense when you consider that more time was spent trying to see her to have a chance to get to know her, than was actually spent interacting with her. God, I hope that makes sense! I know in my heart what I want to say, but it's coming out all wrong. The experience of knowing her had the bigger effect on me than the person herself. It's kind of unfortunate, really. The way I remember it, she was pretty cool back then, even if she did ultimately turn out to be something of a lamer. For fifteen years I was under the impression she remembered a lot more of it than she later claimed to, in fact in 2008 she pretty much had next to no idea who I even was (or so she said). I don't fault her for that, after all, this is my journey, not hers. I'm going to maybe post quotes from our correspondence and from some of the messages I exchanged with a mutual friend of ours, ostensibly to clarify exactly what happened last year. It goes without saying that I'll be removing any names or personally identifying information. What's important is that you guys know what happened, not who did what and to whom. I'm not out to drag anybody through the mud. Lol, I think I dragged myself through enough actual mud for the both of us! Dragged, more like crawled, but at the end of the day it's all still brown and crusty.
I'm looking this over, and it seems to me that quite without meaning to, I've sat here and one-offed almost an entire issue. I really just wanted to give you folks a glimpse of what I'm hoping to put together in the future, but I guess that with me being me, I can't just allude to it without providing at least a little detail. Anyway, my point is that I now have the Facts and Faults document to refer back to, and while I'm still not sure if I'll be posting the document itself, I certainly intend to be quoting the everloving shit out of it. Now that I've had the chance to actually retrace the physical steps I took on that long-ago night, as well as to follow the route I would have taken had the raid been successful instead of ending the way it did, I've been able to get a few things sorted out in my head, places, time frames, and so forth. This should make it a little easier to really discuss the whole thing with objectivity and - dare I hope - a measure of clarity. I remember a little bit more than I did about who was involved and at which point, I remember where I went and when, and I've revisited the actual locations both in daylight and by the light of my little 21-LED flashlight in the darkness. It was even on a Saturday night, just like the original.
I understand that there is a vast gulf of difference between 1994 and 2009, and I have no problem accepting this. I'm not sure if that was even clear last fall when I wrote the Letter, but I'm hoping to reinforce for you that revisiting the past, or paying homage to it, is most certainly not the same thing as being stuck in it. The fact that as I'm writing this I'm listening to a playlist based on music we listened to at camp that year doesn't contradict this in the slightest. The person I am today simply wouldn't exist without the time I spent at summer camp, and I believe that deserves to be treated with respect, and shown proper tribute when appropriate. At this point in time, I feel that it is wholly appropriate to throw those doors wide open and step on through. Please come with me for the journey, if you wish. Your company will be welcome.
TO BE CONTINUED
Stay tuned for more from the fifteenth anniversary of the DYERS EVE Summer of 1994.