Elevation of Memory begins in five...four....three....

I was driving home from Minneapolis.

If you've ever driven anywhere from Minneapolis, you would know that there is MINNEAPOLIS, followed by NOTHING. Lots of road. Lovely scenery at this time of the year, with the soybean green and whatnot. Some lovely small towns rise up on the horizon, get closer, and fall gently behind. Steeples currently outweighing the Golden Arches, as it should be in this grandest of all Lutheran worlds.

I was listening to the old voices on the radio. Voices of men done and gone, the first on the eighteenth anniversary of my birth; the next quietly a two decades later, and the last just about half a decade ago.

The Goons.

I chose to listen to those old British radio programs, because there has always been a comfort to the voices of manic idiocy that I first discovered by accident when I was but a wee bairn of 13. It was my treasure chest, that discovery; it was a kind of humor that I alone among all of my friends understood, appreciated, and I fell like Lucifer to the ground at the sound of those ancient music hall gags told over long dead wires; spent with the sound and feeling of laughter unlike I'd known before, and to tell the truth, not felt but a few time since.

The voices still make me laugh. Thirty seven years after the last time they were all together. And with that knowledge, I can't feel too much grief at the most recent passings. Some, yes. As you know, I'm not made of stone. I'm more of the consistency of Silly Putty.

Thanks to magnetic tape, and digitization, nobody can be truly gone.
And my memory is filled; and easily downloadable.

So.
Peter. Spike. Harry.
If you're listening out there in the great beyond, accept the thanks of a late coming acolyte, for the laughter and the knowledge that it's permissible to be a loon, even in this day and age of rank and file, eyes front, do-what-everybody-else-does, complicity.

And a story before I go.

When my nephew was but a toddler, he had the unfortunate experience to witness a broadcast of the THRILLER video. And of course, you all remember it; zombies and werewolves and such.

Well, my nephew FREAKED OUT. Crying, wailing, running in circles until colliding with something and then getting up and running again, all the time screaming, "NO MONSTERS! NO MONSTERS!"

He's twenty eight now, and I still torture him with this image. He's a good natured kid, which is fortunate for me; I'm pretty sure he could take me. Easily.

Well, some time passed after this meltdown, and I was babysitting him while his parents and his grandparents went out for a night on the town; and we were watching television, when a commercial comes on for an album of the Greatest Hits of Motown.

And they show a clip of the Jackson Five.

And Michael is like eight years old.

And my nephew looks, listens, and turns to me.

Eyes HUGE.

And it starts as a whisper.

"no monsters."

And in seconds, it's a tidal wave of sound and movement.

"NO MONSTERS! NO MONSTERS!"

And I'm scooping the child into my arms and walking him around the house, turning on all the lights and quickly changing channels, simultaneously attempting to be comforting and trying not to choke back the laughter....

How did he know?





Sigh.
And repeat.