Category: Memories

What a Cedric Believes (volume 1)

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Y’ever think back to your childhood and realize your understanding of some things was completely wrong? Me, too. Here are a few of the things I believed when I was a little ‘dric.

Hecklers

Thanks to The Muppet Show, I thought that a heckler was an old man who had a permanent balcony seat at a theater. More specifically, I thought hecklers were employees of the theater, and it was their job to make fun of the performers.

Electricity

I once believed that electricity had ingredients. I remember playing around my neighborhood, pretending to operate a power plant. I would scrounge around for whatever I could gather (usually just gravel and sticks) and throw it all into an imaginary machine. This machine would then grind up everything I had gathered, and I would stir it all together. Somehow, electricity was born out of this.

Mugging

Growing up in a small Nebraska city, I remember always hearing about people getting mugged in the big cities, especially New York. To me, this seemed like an oddly specific crime. Why? Because for some reason, I thought mugging someone meant that you physically pick someone up and throw them over your head. I wanna say Hong Kong Phooey had something to do with this misconception.

Writer’s Block

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For the last week, I haven’t felt like writing anything. Which is stupid…I used to love writing. I wrote loads of goofy shit when I was a lad. Not a wee lad, mind you. I never got into wee. And my ladhood was several years too early for me to be a Wii lad. But after college, my creative writing trailed off. In the words of Homer Simpson, “the weight of the world crushed my spirit.” After a decade and a half of not doing any real writing, I at least got a job where I had to give presentations and trainings, where I could toss in the occasional bit of humor. But it would be almost another decade before I would try to start doing actual creative writing again. And now I’ve been at it for about six months, and it hasn’t been easy. Quite often, I find myself reverting to factual documentation – no surprise since I spent so many years writing information security documents. On top of that, my whole mindset has changed – my thoughts used to be free-flowing and crazy (in a fun way). The craziness that I experience these days is not fun. But I think if I just stay on myself to do more genuine stream-of-consciousness writing, that will eventually bring back the freedom and openness (openity?) that I once experienced as a writer…a quarter of a century ago.

The Creek

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‘Tis a warm and windy Christmas day here in Charlotte. The kind of day that reminds me of “The Creek.” I use quotes because it wasn’t really a creek, but a simple drainage ditch whose “banks” had become forested over the years. Or what passes as “forested” by central Nebraska standards.

There was a fence running along the east edge of the narrow wooded strip we called “The Creek.” On the other side of this fence was a massive corn field. Like I said: Nebraska. I would walk with my dog, Skipper, along this fence until we reached “The Tree.” Actually, nobody called it “The Tree” but I feel like it needs a name for the purposes of this reminiscence. So I’ll call it Edna.

When we reached Edna, I would always unleash Skipper, and he would immediately vanish into the corn. I would climb Edna with a book in my hand, and spend my afternoon reading in a tree. Every ten or fifteen minutes, Skipper would emerge from the corn, checking to see whether it was time to go home or if his yard ape was still monkeying around in Edna.

I never understood why Skipper so thoroughly enjoyed running around the corn field. In retrospect, I wonder if he was just using the corn as cover, making me think he was playing in the field when he was actually just passing through the corn to get back into town. Maybe he was visiting some female dog(s), or robbing banks, or stealing cable so he could watch MTV.

In any case (except Roe Vs. Wade), I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Joyous Cedstice, or just a good week. Oh, yeah…and death to COVID-19.