It's hard to believe that there are only 730 days left until I'm 50, and trust me, the colonoscopy has been weighing heavy on my mind! But it's coming, and today I'm 48. The alien-probing can wait a couple of years.
May the force be with me..the same way it was with my parents on a May-night in '71. That is when my parents got (as Grannie Annie would make the frog's say), "In the mood," and I was created...well, begun. Started. Conceived in a womb. An unnamed Sperm (we can call him Butch) wiggled its ways into Momma's Fallopian tubes and Wola! Bryan Ripley Crandall!
I've always been nostalgic, but at this soon-to-be mid-point (I hope), I seem to be a little more contemplative than usual. Last night cooking dinner, I started to think, "Jeepers, 48 tomorrow," and after a day behind the laptop writing about Kwame Alexander (yes, I'm back to that - a chapter written two years ago launched 3 books, and my chapter goes into book 3 so I had to wait to revise), I'm looking to spend some time working on me. Well, I'll go for a run and bought a game called, "Frog Lips," where others have to try to kiss the Frog. I look forward to seeing others plan their lips on a giant frog poster.
In the meantime, here's 48 for 48. Phew.
- A start in Westmoreland.
- Childhood trips to and from Sherburne and Hamilton, NewYork
- Loch Lebanon: fishing, marshmallows, games, walks, twigs, books, and love.
- Victory gum ball machines during the days of Madonna plastic bracelets
- Ice Cream with Grandma Vera and hints we wanted diner food
- Waiting for Grandpa Ken to come home.
- Pageant of Bands
- Mr. Nu, Grampa Spence's jokes, Grannie Annie's creativity
- The Ripley Reunions and all the laughter (and all the booze and smoke)(Kim, Keri, Holly, and Jeff were so cool)
- Miss Twiggley's Tree
- Visiting Aunt Rena on the St. Lawrence's river, fishing, and watching the boats
- Star Wars, Caveman, E.T., 9 to 5, Bo Derrick in 10 (the first boobies)
- National Geographic nudies taped to the back of my closet door (they'll never find them)
- Laughter from having National Geographic boobies discovered by my dad - that's my boy!
- Peter-Boy, Mike Messina, Bobbie, Tony Ferrio, and Jimmy. Wiffleball, football, frisbee, pool games, board gams, Chief's games, Little League, and riding bikes
- Penn-Can Mall and Pavone's Pizza
- Don't get caught in Future
- Trips to Selkirk shores with the Marley's
- Casey's softball games and Cynderballz's band and color guard shows
- 9th grade idiot - why grades? Why not pass out trashed in a snowbank on a Sunday morning?
- First job at Spera's (lasted a day making hot-dogs) then at KayBee Toy and Hobby
- Better job at Sibley's, then Kaufman's, selling women's shoes and saving crazy amounts of money unusually for a kid at that time,
- Learning to drive. Driver's Education with Tammy Conway. All those trips to Price Chopper
- Taking over my dad's Nissan Sentra and naming her Cecilia before I was brought a Toyota Tercel I named Joan Popper, My Lil' Blues Traveler
- Freedom that came with a license, independence, parties, and responsibilities
- Knowing that Binghamton was definitely for me
- Prom with Kirsten, then 4 years of college with her, Matt, Mike, and Twippy
- Going to London as a 19-year old, meeting Carol Boyce Davies, Judy Liebman, Lena Weatherbee, Rachel Moriello, and Ted Simonin (guides that are still with me)
- Moving off campus with 7 other guys and holding our first college parties,
- Settling in a calmer house the year after with Matt, Ace, Craig, and the crazy girl who I absolutely loved and feared at the same time
- Knowing adulthood was coming and choosing a life in Louisville
- Two degrees, a career begun, Alice, Sue, the Louisville Writing Project and the most incredible students ever - a tale told over ten years
- Walks and talks with Sue - the mentorship continues: Vietnam Kitchen, the River Walk, a love of dogs, the tears that come when it's time to say good-bye
- Travel to Japan, Denmark, Cambridge, and the Bread Loaf School of English Experiences
- Working with the Kentucky Refugee Mission
- My Lucille - a gas-guzzling Ford Explorer with the works that I loved to death (replacing Ethyl Betty, my Ford Ranger, after Joan Popper died)
- A need to return to the 'Cuse: A doctorate degree, living on $12,000 a year and some savings, meeting the boys that would change my life forever
- Knowing my sisters and parents as an adult, and free-loafing off of them just when they were sitting down for dinner (what a coincidence, you have food and I'm hungry)
- Watching Nikki, Dylan, Sean-Man, and Jacob Charles grow up as much as possible
- The influence of the RLAC at Syracuse University - my doctoral fellows and the sages that mentored (and continue to mentor) me
- Choosing CWP-Fairfield as the next step and almost immediately meeting Chitunga, adopting him soon after
- Working with a team of incredible teachers who continue to grow CWP-Fairfield's programs with me
- Meeting Lois, then Pam, and realizing they were sisters. Losing Lois and having Pam say, "You need to be my lil' brother now." And that is who I've become
- Being welcomed by the Walnut Beach Crew and our silly weekend rituals (Leo, we will get a puppet party if it is the last thing we ever do)
- My own dogs: Juliette Catherine Allanna Madonna Potato-head Scrappy-Doo Olivia Dennis (phew), Baby, and now Glamis (not to mention all the other dogs central to our lives)
- Houses in St. Mathew's, Clarksville, Cicero, and Stratford (lucking out with the one on Mt. Pleasant)
- The boys, Chitunga, and all the pond creatures of yesteryear who continue to make me whole and centered
- National Writing Project friends, author friends, irreplaceable critical friends (the Pelican in Pensacola)
48 items in almost 3-minutes. It was eerily easy to do. 48 simple snapshots up to this point and all because my parents made me, and brought me into this world 48 years ago in 1972.
The milestones are many: 1990 high school graduation, 1994 college graduation, 1996/1998 graduate school graduations that I didn't attend, 2012, the doctoral graduation. Cousins and aunts and uncles, and The Hamptons, and a love of basketball, and the whacky, wild world that is currently what it is.
It's all so amazing and I'm a lucky son of a Butch and Sue. That is what I'm most thankful for. It's rather, "Wow," when I stop and think about it.
But now I'm heading out to find cherry-chip cake for my post-Valentine's Day birthday celebration. I will blow out the candle and eat the cake, too. Why? Because it is officially the Day of Me and I'm going out to celebrate.
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