Vacation Thoughts So Far

I've been away on vacation and haven't had any time to write anything until now. So far things have been, well, different. We are spending two weeks with my mother-in-law and her husband, sort of. The original plan as it was explained to me was that since her mother's apartment was too small for all of us we would simply rent the downstairs apartment from them which is unoccupied. Where she lives in Pennsylvania there are a lot of houses that have been turned into apartments. Most of them are halved and then there are upstairs and downstairs apartments on both sides. That way a two-story house now generates more rent money and it's easier to rent out apartments than it is a full house.

As I said, their plan was for us to rent the downstairs apartment for two weeks. Then we would sleep on air mattresses and do everything else in the upstairs apartment. Only, the landlord wasn't willing to do this. No landlord approval means there is a major problem in this plan. Luckily a friend of my mother-in-law lives about a block and a half away. She graciously has allowed us to take over her living room and sleep on the aforementioned air mattresses. Even more luckily she has a daughter just a little older than my son and they have become fast friends. Not so luckily it is hot in the apartment and there is a neighbor who has a penchant for blasting music all hours of the day and night. Nothing is perfect in life and I just try and accept things for how they are.

What makes it easier is the knowledge that we cannot afford a hotel room for two weeks. Still, it will be nice when I get back to my routine and don't have to worry about intruding in the lives of another family. So what have we been doing with our time? We went to the Crayola Experience which our son loves. In fact, he loves it so much that we got annual memberships and in less than a week we've been there three times. We've been to a Peruvian restaurant where we met an unbelievable number of Peruvians that my wife knew in the brief time she lived here. We went to a Lebanese festival and watched some of their cultural dancing. There's been a visit to a comic book/record store, swimming at the Y as well as visiting family members.

Friday was a day trip to New York City. Now, you have to know that my wife and I differ greatly on vacations. If it were just me visiting I would have eschewed the touristic sites and gone into Brooklyn to find record stores to cater to punk, ska, metal and other indie music. I'd find a hot dog cart and later a pizza place. Then my visit would be a success. I'd also go to Red Bank, NJ and visit Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash (Kevin Smith's comic book store). But this isn't my visit, it's my family's visit and that means my uber-tourist wife gets things done her way.

First was the Statue of Liberty where we faced long cattle like lines, overpriced food and hot weather. Next was a drawing in the park that looked nothing like my son. A short subway ride later we exited and walked a few blocks and were in Times Square. Times Square was populated by teeming masses of idiots who walked as if they were the only people around. They texted and drifted along halting and stopping at odd intervals, cutting across or just plain stopping to gawk or take photos. I include my wife in these goings on. As I said, she is the uber-tourist and she lives for taking pictures of mundane things like getting on the escalator at Toys R Us (we've got one back home but it's only one floor). I have to admit I bumped and then shoved my way through a few knots of tourists just to keep up with my family and I'm not ashamed about it.

One thing that has been made apparent is that I couldn't live in NYC without the hate coming out. I'd find myself becoming very dark, cursing out people and getting into fights. Let me rephrase that, all of that would be true if I had to exist in the tourist areas of New York City. If I could be in normal areas I'd probably have no problems. As we were making our way to the Port Authority to catch our bus home I was insulted by a stereotypically rude New Yorker for no reason and yeah, my first retort was to simply curse him out and advise him to keep walking. A few minutes late of course I was able to compose the perfect rebuttal insult that would have left him grasping for thoughts but by then it was too late. I don't know, maybe that's his thing, being the rude local to all the yokels. Good luck with that life and all the anger you invoke.

We've been to Cabelas, an outdoors type of gigantic store where I got some cool shorts (no you can't get a picture of me in them). Today we went to Hershey's Chocolate World in Hershey, Pa. It's the one place where my son didn't mind my wife making him pose for pictures. Here's a tip for you though, don't put the chocolate that you just spent a lot of money on in the trunk of the car. I already knew this but was over-ruled. Now everybody knows after it was all turned into more of a liquid than a solid. We've got even more things on the horizon. A day trip to the beach, more family visiting, a trip to the laundromat and another record store that I've found here in Easton. There'll be more though, we're not quite halfway through our visit yet. I see my feet hurting more and my wife making me pose for more pictures with things I don't care about. The things I do for love.

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Father And Son Comic Book Day

My son turns seven at the end of the month so I thought it was about time to introduce him to the time honored tradition known as the comic book shop. He loves to read (takes after me) and he loves superhero movies like The Avengers and Spiderman so it seemed like a foregone conclusion that I should help to facilitate the connection for him. So off we went to The Comic Empire located here in Tulsa. We found a few cheap Marvel ones and a Sonic The Hedgehog and another whose name escapes me at the moment. We were just looking for something to get him started. I got The Walking Dead volume 19 as well as a few Judge Dredd issues from the 80s.

Truthfully I am out of my depth with comics. I read them a lot when I was a kid but that was a long time ago. A really long time ago. In the last five years or so I have gone to the library and read The Walking Dead volumes 1-18 and whatever they have by Kevin Smith. Tulsa County has a really good library system. I'll have to take my time getting back into this because I need to educate myself. Collecting comics isn't really something I'm interested in doing. I only want to acquire stuff that I'll  to read multiple times, basically I'll just like I do with books.

I did also have an ulterior motive to going to the comic book store. I've had a story idea running around in my head for a while now and at first I thought of writing it as a movie script but lately I've been entertaining the idea of making it a comic book. Problem is, I don't know any artists that have experience and/or interest in doing something like this. I had a good conversation with the owner of the store and found out from him that while there seems to be a lot of writers in this area there is also a dearth of artists. Still, I think it's a good idea and I'm going to try and see where it can take me. At the very least I can gain some knowledge about the whole process. Maybe the next time I get to go to Peru I can find some artists there because that's where this story will take place.

Afterwards we ended up going to the movie theater to see what was showing. As it turns out Captain America: The Winter Soldier just came out yesterday so we ended up spending way too much money to see it in 3D. I will say however that the seats at the AMC theater were pretty awesome even though we were in the front row. Basically it's rows of recliners attached to each other so it's like watching the movie with the comforts of home (and a lot more people). We had a pretty good time to say the least. Then it was off to get something to eat where my son could play and I could use free wi-fi to write this. All in all it was a pretty good time for a father/son hang out day. Every time we have one I try to do something different, the last time was laser tag and with summer coming I foresee more outdoor types of things.

However I also get the idea that going to the comic book store will be something that we'll be sharing fairly regularly. Some of my fondest memories from childhood were walking from the 9th street projects in Ironton, Ohio to the downtown bookstore where I could buy and trade comics. It was a more innocent (some might say ignorant) period in my life. Those days can never come back but I can take every opportunity to make this time in my sons life as good as it can get. Making these trips to the hallowed ground of the local comic book store is one of the best ways to do that that I can think of. Who knows, maybe later in the summer I'll also actually be able to make the pilgrimage to Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Red Bank, NJ. A boy can dream can't he?

Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.