The Blackhole

When you’re born on Christmas, your life takes a backseat from the very beginning. (I wasn’t).

My Grandad is 89 years old, he lifts weights daily, drives a porsche, and is quite disappointed in the effect global warming has had on his winter hobby of ice skating. He told me he had to get ice skates all the way from Norway this year, because “you just can’t get speed skates in the US anymore.”
Grandad was a decorated officer in the US Navy aboard the USS Texas. During World War II, the ship sailed the South Pacific. The day the war ended, his ship was dry docked in Papua New Guinea amongst a fleet of US destroyer ships awaiting to invade Japan from three sides. The sailors heard over the wires that a large bomb had decimated the city of Hiroshima. No one had ever heard of an atomic bomb at that point in history, they didn’t find out until later what had really happened.

The snow blankets with dramatic effect. A stillness smothers and drowns everything out. Nature wins.

Canvas vans stomping slushy puddles and walks with joe frank to cleanse the spirit.

What else are you going to do in your home town? Later realizing that that was the movie theater that you saw Goonies at, kissed your first girl at, and god knows how many other first things at.

Grandad’s Diego Rivera drawing.