It was Sunday December 23 and dad, David and I sat in a booth at dad’s local favorite Xenia coffee shop that served breakfast fast food style. Instead of having someone wait on your table, you bought your food at the counter like you would at McDonalds and took it back to your table. That way no need to tip, which dad always tried to avoid. That morning’s conversation was mostly about football, including Miami of Ohio’s upset victory over Florida in the Tangerine bowl Friday night, plus yesterday’s pro football playoff games. We distracted and medicated ourselves with vicarious game highlights, instead of acknowledging the sadness that our long weekend together was ending, and we had the long four-hour drive back to Ann Arbor ahead. Dad’s drive that day would actually be eight hours, since he had to turn around and drive the four hours back down to Xenia alone. At least he would have the playoff game between the Dolphins and his local favorite Cincinnati Bengals to listen to on the radio.

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It was Thursday morning December 20, just eleven days left in a very eventful year, and just some 100 days left until my nineteenth birthday. The thought of turning nineteen in April felt strange to me. All my teen years I had felt like an eighteen-year-old in waiting. That milestone was pretty much the age of majority, gaining one the right to vote, to drink, to smoke tobacco (if I cared to which I didn’t), plus the adult possibility of being drafted, and whatever decision I would have to make if that happened. But having achieved that iconic Alice Cooper “I’m Eighteen” thing, I really had no similar desire to get any older than that.

There was that iconic statement from a young activist, “Don’t trust anyone over thirty!”, that was often repeated by those above or below that age. I couldn’t tell you who said it, but it was really very provocative for people on either side of that divide. I had no desire to get that old, and somehow lose some real or imagined revolutionary cred. I had lived in that zeitgeist of almost, and then actually eighteen, for years now. Comfortably so apparently, and the thought of turning nineteen somehow felt like the clock would start ticking, and before I knew it I’d be thirty. Weird!

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I liked to hide. I liked to be in a place where no one could see me or find me until I wanted them to. A place where no one could tell me what to do, or even say that they liked or didn’t like what I was doing, like adults. I liked it the most when, from where I was hiding, I could see and hear other people but they could not see me. Then I could watch them without worrying about them watching me back. If another kid was hiding with me, that was okay, because they didn’t count. Especially Molly. I never wanted to hide from her.

Molly’s mom brought Molly over to play with me. Molly’s mom always wanted to talk about the baby in my mom’s tummy.

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Killins Gravel Company

“I’m going to drive the car to get fresh dirt for the backyard. You want to come along?”

I nodded that I did. I was excited. This was what he called “an adventure”.

My mom was still sleeping. It was early morning. The light coming in through the windows in my room was different when it was early. It was fresher and softer. I took off my pajamas and put on my clothes. Dad made me a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. We quickly ate and drank orange juice sitting at the kitchen table.

Outside the air was cool and quiet. The sun was a big orange ball just hanging there over the trees in the park. It was just hanging there over the trees and it was hard not to look at. Dad said not to look too long or it would hurt your eyes. That made the sun seem kind of scary. He put two empty trash cans in the trunk of our car but the top wouldn’t close so he tied it with a rope. He put the grown up shovel on the back seat. It looked kind of like my shovel but much bigger. I got to sit on the other part of the front seat of the car.

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It was Wednesday December 19, and my radio, coaxed me to a waking state, tuned to the rock station WABX. I heard yet again the title song from Bowie’s new album Aladdin Sane, the lyrics of the song’s chorus intrigued the Coopster in me…

Who’ll love Aladdin Sane
Battle cries and champagne just in time for sunrise
Who’ll love Aladdin Sane

“Aladdin Sane” sounded exactly like “a lad insane”, and I was sure that double meaning was intentional on Bowie’s part. Who would care about a young person with crazy, outside the box ideas? But what if that young person was in fact a wizard with magical powers. Might that provide a method to their madness? I had often been afraid to express some of the innate wildness inside me for fear people would ridicule me, see me as “a lad insane” as it were. Perhaps I needed more faith in my outside the box thinking!

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When I woke up this morning I could see out my window that it was raining again. I liked it when it rained. It made the house feel more like a fort where you were safe and “cozy”. That was the word my mom said. I liked being cozy inside when there was lots of weather outside. Bad part about when it rained was that I could not ride my tricycle outside.

I did go for a walk with my dad with our raincoats on. That was fun, but Molly couldn’t go because she wasn’t home. Everything was completely different outside when it rained. The weather was in control rather than the people. It was washing everything off.

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The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical version of the Cinderella story was the current production of YTU, in rehearsal for a January curtain. It was the first time since I met Angie and Lane three years ago that none of the three of us were in one of our theater company’s big musical productions. We were like alumnae now, moved on to other venues to pursue our continuing interests in theater. And with the departure of Robert this past fall, the theater company’s founder, and the recent untimely death of its musical director Tara, our youth theater group had acquired new adult leadership. YTU was now affiliated with the new Community High School, and CHS teachers Steve and Betsy, were playing the Robert and Tara roles. Beyond these two new adult overlords, most of the youth currently in the company were our friends and comrades.

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It was Saturday, December 15, and I awoke from my second night in my basement “lair”, as my mom was now jokingly calling it. My clock-radio had been tuned to the Rock radio station WABX last night and the music popped on. As I was wrestling myself into consciousness I heard that great lyric from the “Karn Evil 9” song on the new Emerson, Lake and Palmer album…

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
We’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside

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Back from our tricycle adventure, we went in the front door of Molly’s house. I loved the inside of her house. It had lots of furniture unlike mine. But what I really liked the most was that it had many more choices and places to go than mine, and every room was up or down from the other rooms, with stairs everywhere. Where our house was simple, Molly’s was “complicated”, a word I heard my parents use. I thought it was like the pirate ship in the Treasure Island book my dad had read me. The book had pictures of the deck and inside the ship.

Just inside the front door of Molly’s house was the first choice. You had to choose whether to go straight and up the stairs, or go right into the living room. I could remember right from left because my mom had told me to pretend I was throwing a ball, that was left, and the other side was right. Unlike our living room which was pretty empty, Molly’s had this big thing called a “couch”, which was like a giant chair for more than one person. It was soft and puffy, and great for climbing on, sitting on, and playing around on. There were also two big chairs across from it that were soft and puffy like the couch. Then there was a fence in the middle of the living room on the edge of this top part of the room that kept you from falling into the bottom part of the room. You had to walk down six stairs from the top part to get to that bottom part, which had a big shiny wood table and shiny wood chairs around it where you ate food and did other stuff. Or you could look down into it from the fence. It was like the back part of the ship in Treasure Island.

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I quickly learned to ride my tricycle a long way. My dad would take me out on what he called “adventures”. I liked it because he let me pick which way we would go and I could go as far as I wanted. But if I went a long way, it would be a long way back too. I also liked it because he would hang behind me or walk in the street, so I felt on my own and could pretend what I wanted to. He did come closer to make sure I looked both ways for cars before I crossed the street. On this day there were clouds, but the sun was out between them, and the air was cool and full of plant smells and energy that got inside me. I was ready for a big “adventure”.

I told my dad I wanted to see if Molly could play, since she had gotten a tricycle too. She and I got a lot of the same toys. While my dad waited out on the sidewalk by the street I walked up and knocked on the front door of her house. I was expecting her mom or dad to open the door, and I was all ready to not be shy and ask one of them if Molly could play. But it was Molly who opened the door. She said she saw me coming through the window. Her mom said it would be “perfect” if she came along, that Molly was “restless” anyway and needed to get out. I kind of knew what that word “restless” meant, and that was a good way to say how everything inside and outside of me felt too.

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