Burning Down the Couch

 

I have not been blogging the last couple of weeks because I felt anything I may have blogged about was trivial compared to the tragic events happening in my community.  The situation has been heartbreaking and painful for everyone in the metropolitan St Louis area and our country.  I have been appalled by the violence and hate which has been perpetuate by the press landing on our city en mass as we have become the media event of the month.  I have stopped participating in the media blitz putting my attention towards the other things like my job, my friends, my family and my beautiful wife.  I am moving forward with the hope that others will as well.  Back to the trivia which makes my life worthwhile for me.

Today my beautiful wife wanted to take me to a vintage mall called The Green Shag Market(http://www.thegreenshagmarket.com/www.thegreenshagmarket.com/The_Green_Shag_Market_Home.html).  We had a great time and saw some fun things.  We were also impressed with the reasonable prices.  Everything was going well until I rounded a corner and saw this couch.  A black, brushed, upholstery monstrosity which was first couch I every remember having.

Who would think a couch could evoke such a torrent of toddler emotions, but it does.  My mother hated this inherited piece of furniture.  She hated it so much that one day she dragged the couch out of our house and into the field behind our house.  She then doused the couch with lighter fluid and set it on FIRE!  I remember watching the thing being consumed by flames while plumes of black smoke billowed heavenward.  It was amazing.  Periodically she would poke at the couch with either a hoe or a rake and it would send sparks flying.  Again, I say amazing. 

About the time the couch had burned down to a carcass of wood and metal my dad came home.  My brother ran to his car and said, "Mom burned the couch."  My dad walked to about 5 feet from the fire and gave my mother his head down, I am judging you stare.  He said nothing, but I am sure he looked at the skeleton of the still burning couch and thought he was lucky it was not him in that fire.

The burning couch was a seminal moment for me.  I learned that things can be burned and it stuck in my forming consciousness.  For many months after that whenever I was asked things like, "What did you do with your other shoe?"  or "Where are your manners?" 

I had a ready answer, "I burned it with the couch."  I used that answer so much my father forbid me to say it.  I started just saying I burned it.  This answer got even more awkward for my parents because I would say it in front of other people.  I remember one woman cautioning my mother about leaving matches laying around for children to play with.

Years later as a teenager I would hear the song, "Burning down the House," by the Talking Heads.  I would mentally change it to burning down the couch.  I have even used the line on my beautiful wife a few times.  Today as I rounded the corner at Green Shag and saw this couch I stopped dead in my tracks.  I pointed and said, "Natalie it is the couch, the couch my mother burned."  People started staring and she tried to move me along, but I couldn't let the moment pass without a photo and time to savor the memory of seeing one of its brethren on fire.

As ugly as that couch was, it left a life time of answers for me.  The next time anyone asks me where something is I can now say, "In the couch at Green Shag." 

Day 19: The Windmill

After her trip to Eminence Natalie spent the afternoon with me and we came up with a plan for our evening.  We decided to go get Debbie and go out to a local night club.  Okay, maybe night club is a polite way of saying bar.  Stanton, Missouri was and still is a tourist trap of a town which boasts the roadside attraction of Meramec Caverns.  Someone decided it would be the perfect place for a windmill themed restaurant.  On the weekend the restaurant bar cleared out a section of tables for a dance floor.  We were all over 18 and as long as we didn't try to order booze we could go there and dance.  Of course that also meant we would have to be doing our drinking before we got there.  We managed to get beer for Natalie and cheap wine for us.  By the time we got to the Windmill we were all a little buzzed.  I remember dancing and when they played Prince's "Go Crazy" all three of us got up and did just that.  We were loud and carefree forgetting about the rest of the world as we danced with abandon.

By the time they did last call none of us were sober.  I have said this before we were young women making poor choices.  We were lucky to make it home in one piece that night.  Natalie dropped Debbie off first and then was taking me home.  I was sober enough to know Natalie had no business driving any further that night.  It took some work on my part, but I convinced her to spend the night with me.   Part of me wanted her to stay because I wanted her with me and part of me was worried she wouldn't make it home in one piece.

I got Natalie past my parents bedroom and put her in my twin sized bed.  I could tell something was wrong and I kept trying to to let Natalie know it was okay.  I remember sitting next to her on the bed in the dark with my arm around her.  She wanted to talk and I knew I needed to listen to her.  After what seemed like an eternity she told me some of the things bothering her.  With her mind a little settled she finally laid down and went to sleep.  Once I thought she was asleep, I kissed her forehead and whispered, "Good night sweet prince," and went to lay on a palette I had made for myself on the floor of my bedroom.



The Stanton Windmill on Fire

One of the weirdest things about that night is The Windmill caught on fire sometime within the next year.  I tried to find a photograph of the building and only found one with it on fire.  I like to think it was all that wild energy we spent there that night just bounced around until it burned that building down.