Past and Place
Hey.
Yesterday my Internet service had contracted a serious glitch, so I couldn't connect let alone post here. I spent that night in serious withdrawl. I hadn't felt so lonely in a long time. I spent a lot of my offline time attempting to satisfy my curiosities from my hard-copy library. Basically I was reading old Marvel New Universe comics (see http://www.geocities.com/tensen2099/New_Universe/new_universe_history_1.html ) and trying to figure out where I was when the events in those stories were happening. One of the selling points of the storyline was how rooted the concept was in the world we all know...it tried to take the reality angle that was already in Marvel's comics and move it a level further. Unfortunately, it couldn't compete with Marvel's existing world and only lasted a few years.
Luckily for my curiosities, I had hard proof of where I was at what points.
When the White Event came, I was nineteen years old, in my second semester at Saint Petersburg College (then St. Pete Junior College, http://www.spjc.edu/ ) taking only one course after burning out on a much higher workload that spring. As the Event happened late on a Tuesday afternoon, I probably would have been at my house in Spring Hill, FL or on my way back there from Clearwater after finishing Algebra Lab. Often I took roundabout routes back, as US 19 was often too busy for comfortable travel and the Expressway hadn't been planned yet, let alone built. My car at the time was a red AMC Concord station wagon, 1980 vintage. I can see myself pulling into the sand driveway of the yellow stucco ranch house, set well away from Peachtree Drive on pasture land that had once been part of a watermelon farm. I could have been late getting back to the house because of shopping I'd do in Pinellas or Pasco County.
Mom would be in the house, either writing or watching a talk show on TV. My brother would be over at his friend Jody's place to play basketball. Dad would still be on the job, a foreman at a small lumberyard owned by his younger half-brother. Big sister Lynn was away at college in Asheville. But me...I'd be pulling my briefcase out of the car, and maybe a shopping bag too--and have a front row view of the White Event...
Of course I'd never know here whether I'd have been any different there. The White Event was very random about who it rewarded--or cursed--and who it left alone. Would it have magnified my virtues or my madness? My mind or my body? My nerve or my soul? I'm still wrestling with those concepts.
Yesterday my Internet service had contracted a serious glitch, so I couldn't connect let alone post here. I spent that night in serious withdrawl. I hadn't felt so lonely in a long time. I spent a lot of my offline time attempting to satisfy my curiosities from my hard-copy library. Basically I was reading old Marvel New Universe comics (see http://www.geocities.com/tensen2099/New_Universe/new_universe_history_1.html ) and trying to figure out where I was when the events in those stories were happening. One of the selling points of the storyline was how rooted the concept was in the world we all know...it tried to take the reality angle that was already in Marvel's comics and move it a level further. Unfortunately, it couldn't compete with Marvel's existing world and only lasted a few years.
Luckily for my curiosities, I had hard proof of where I was at what points.
When the White Event came, I was nineteen years old, in my second semester at Saint Petersburg College (then St. Pete Junior College, http://www.spjc.edu/ ) taking only one course after burning out on a much higher workload that spring. As the Event happened late on a Tuesday afternoon, I probably would have been at my house in Spring Hill, FL or on my way back there from Clearwater after finishing Algebra Lab. Often I took roundabout routes back, as US 19 was often too busy for comfortable travel and the Expressway hadn't been planned yet, let alone built. My car at the time was a red AMC Concord station wagon, 1980 vintage. I can see myself pulling into the sand driveway of the yellow stucco ranch house, set well away from Peachtree Drive on pasture land that had once been part of a watermelon farm. I could have been late getting back to the house because of shopping I'd do in Pinellas or Pasco County.
Mom would be in the house, either writing or watching a talk show on TV. My brother would be over at his friend Jody's place to play basketball. Dad would still be on the job, a foreman at a small lumberyard owned by his younger half-brother. Big sister Lynn was away at college in Asheville. But me...I'd be pulling my briefcase out of the car, and maybe a shopping bag too--and have a front row view of the White Event...
Of course I'd never know here whether I'd have been any different there. The White Event was very random about who it rewarded--or cursed--and who it left alone. Would it have magnified my virtues or my madness? My mind or my body? My nerve or my soul? I'm still wrestling with those concepts.