Losing Neverland

Losing Neverland

I just watched “Finding Neverland” on DVD. It’s the somewhat fictionalized story of James M. Barrie and his inspiration for the story of Peter Pan. It got me to thinking about one of the most precious gifts God gave us as children: our imaginations and how most of us lose that gift as we “mature”. Thankfully, not everyone loses it or we wouldn’t have novels to read, plays and movies to see, art and music to enjoy, nor for that matter, supermarket tabloids.

When I was little, I had an imaginary playmate named “Bobo.” Of course I don’t remember much about Bobo, except what my mother told me about him. She said that she was doing chores in our house one day when she heard me outside talking to someone with a deep voice. When she looked out the window, she saw me carrying on a conversation with myself. I couldn’t have been more than three years old, but she and my sister, who’s 12 years older than me, swear that the voice of Bobo was completely different than my own voice. After some time, Bobo died in a motorcycle accident. I’m told that I tried to bring him back, but the relationship was no longer there and I soon stopped talking with him.

There are those who theorize that imaginary playmates are guardian angels, or as I choose to call them, “spirit guides.” The point is though, I grew a little older and my imagination was affected.

I had a vivid imagination when I was a kid. I wrote stories that were pretty good. I wrote, directed and acted in plays with my neighbor boys and the boys my mom babysat. One time, after watching an episode of “Superman” (not the cartoon) which featured a robot, I imagined that we boys could actually build one. Since this was in the early 1950s, and pre microchips and hard drives, the project was a pretty large stretch of the imagination. As it turned out, I had very little to do with the initial construction of the “robot.” One of the neighbor boys, Jim Bloom, came up with the concept of putting soup cans on my arms and Hi-C juice cans on my legs. My mother, who encouraged such flights of fancy discovered a couple of metal cans at her brothers diner that were just right for the head and torso. The last I heard, Jim Bloom was working in Boeing’s aerospace program in Alabama. He was the architect behind most of our more high tech projects, which included a four-story tree house and a club house with electricity and a trap door that let to an underground passageway which led to a subterranean room where we smoked purloined cigarettes. His twin brother Jack was more into the less imaginative world of sports. The last time I saw him, he was giving driver licensing tests in Wenatchee, Washington.

I think I first realized that I might have lost some of my imagination when I took a creative writing course my sophomore year in college. It seems that no matter what I tried to write, it just wasn’t good enough to get me past a grade of C.

I put what was left of my imagination to use in my radio career and my second gig at a country music station, my boss really encouraged me. Later, at other stations and with different bosses and different audiences, my efforts to let my imagination run rampant were frowned upon. After too many years of that, I decided my imagination wasn’t worth the hassle. I became a “time and temperature” jock. For a while, I was able to resurrect my imagination and use it to write creative radio advertising copy. It certainly paid better than being on the air, but I hated prospecting and cold-calling to make a buck, and I got out of the radio business altogether.

I felt very sad watching “Finding Neverland.” I couldn’t help but wish that I could go back to my own Neverland and play Cowboys and Indians using blackberry juice for war paint, scale the four-story tree house, crawl through the tunnel to the underground smoking room and be the tin can robot.

Goodbye Mike Hammer

I'm in mourning. Frank Morrison "Mickey" Spillane died today at the age of 88. His were the first adult novels I read -- "I the Jury" and "Kiss Me Deadly" when I was about 15 years old. Rest in peace Mick.

Ennui

I haven’t written much of anything for a while. I managed to catch a nasty summer cold from my wife a few weeks ago, and I’ve been feeling lousy up until about yesterday when my sinuses finally decided to give up a slimy brownish substance which I’m sure had been giving me a chronic headache for several days. But, I believe I’m on the mend, although I still have zero energy nor give-a-shit in my general attitude.

I did give an emotional response to a young man who telephoned me today with some kind of informal political poll. He wanted to know whom I was supporting in the state’s U. S. senate race; Maria Cantwell or her opponent who’s name I cannot remember (he’s a wimpy guy with a high-pitched voice who promises he won’t get involved in partisan politics if he’s elected. Yeah, right). I told him that I sure as hell was not going to vote for any Republicans, so I reckoned I’d be voting for Ms. Cantwell. Then he wanted to know if I knew anything about the Democratic challenger to Republican “Doc” Hastings’ seat in the house. I allowed as how I’d probably vote for anyone who might be running against ol’ Doc. I gave the caller one of my email addresses so he could send me some political propaganda about the local Democratic candidates. Since I take the writings of political public relations people (What? You thought politicians had ideas of their own?) about as seriously as Saturday morning cartoons on TV, I’ll probably delete most, if not all of it without reading it. Since the geographic area where I reside is predominantly ultraconservative Republican in its political makeup, I had kind of hoped the guy on the other end of the phone conversation was one of “them” and I was going to try and spoil his day by giving him my opinion of “Dubyuh” Bush and his ilk. Turned out he was of a like mind with me. Kind of disappointing.

Damn I’m bored! Maybe tomorrow I’ll get lucky and get some Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormon boys dressed in their black suits with white shirts ringing my doorbell. I could tell them I’ll let them have their say, but only if they let me expound on the Church of the Gooey Death and Discount House of Worship (give me an Amen) and how it relates to Native American spirituality and Extraterrestrial Transcendentalism first.

I believe I hear you saying, “Frank, get a life.”