For all you intrepid Bloggeristas here, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

The world here in Vanwall-land has changed so much in the last year or so, it's hard to keep things in some sort of order. We used to have a coupla little boys running around underfoot on Christmas mornings, waking us up at the crack of dawn - or even before - to watch them tearing into the colorful presents Chris and I had so carefully wrapped, some only the evening before! They were and are polar opposites: one blond, Brian, wisecracking, and a wrapping-trasher, ripping off the paper, ribbons, and bows to get right to the heart of things, almost as if he was afraid it would vanish somehow if he waited an instant more; the other, Sean, dark and saturnine, quietly and methodically disassembling each wrapping as if by some arcane instructions. They have always scoffed at each other's methods, and this only spurs them to be more exagerrated in their unwrappings, to the point where it's comical - just the thing to bring a laugh for a Christmas Day.

This year is different, tho - their other lives have begun to take precedence over our old ways. Both have girls, wonderful beautiful girls, who love them, and that simple fact has made a certain seperation from us inevitable. I recognize the signs of young love turning into a more serious, realistic relationship - the casual acceptance of the fact that two have become like one, without awkward moments and misunderstood glances - they are sympatico, and their easy physicallity when the they're snuggling on the couch when they think were not looking, or the way they just look at each other and communicate volumes in that short glance - I can see that Chris and I are now spectators, all our work leading up to this, and all our advice and guiding, (hell, butt-kicking sometimes!), has only gone so far, and now it's time to push 'em off without our training wheels, to balance along on two wheels for as far as they can go. They're both pretty athletic, so I figure they'll go pretty far with only a coupla door-handle scrapes and a tramlining-fall or two, and we hope these two wonderful young women will be there for them, but mostly, that both boys have learned they have to be there for their girls, too.

This has become evident this Holiday, as being with two families for all special occaisions is really an almost impossible schedule to maintain without stressing out, and even tho the boys have made a wonderful, extra effort to be there with us as much as possible, I'm kinda glad they've made decisions to be with their girl's families the primary objective this Christmas and New Year. Yeah, it's kinda lonely, and yeah, it's necessary - Sean is getting married in five months, and even tho he nominally still lives here, he has been spending most of his time with his fiance. This year we get a longer Christmas than ever, as the boys will be celebrating on different days, and then hitting the road to be with their other families. Sean's was yesterday, opening their packages with meticulous care, and that big sap and his fiance, Clarissa, went and bought us things even after strict instructions not to! Save it for the wedding, dammit! Oh, well, I got the brand new limited edition "Calvin and Hobbes" complete collection, and I was so floored I almost shed a tear. (That boy has my number - for Father's Day one year he bought me the Criterion Collection DVD of 'M' - yeah, I'm weird that way)

Chris had ordered some Pfaltzgraf china a few months ago, and two of the platters arrived broken - they were the last ones available, so she was pretty bummed. Well, Sean and Clarissa somehow found two replacement platters! This helped salve the empty-nest feeling when they left, and I guess we better get used to it - the realization that they've gone and grown up was never more stark than when we closed the front door after they left. Brian and his girl will be over tomorrow for their turn as "The Kids", with wrapping strewn about and then they're off, too. Neither couple will be here for our usual Christmas Morning dinner, sniff. I still see the two little boys, light and dark, loud and quiet, sitting on the living room floor surrounded by paper and toys. Christmas will never be the same after this year, I can see that, and I'm glad both sets of young lovers are making a fine effort to make it easy on us. Of course, this won't help Chris's seperation anxiety one bit. I'm pretty sure I can handle closing that front door again as they walk down the driveway to their car, but it'll be a little tough, I'll admit.

I really felt the loss of John Lennon this year, not just today ‘specially. Although I miss George as well, sadly, like he was so good at – he’s mostly in the background. John was the smart-assed one I remembered most as a boy - the seeming-rebel, the flippant interviewee, the smoldering Molotov Cocktail just before it blew. Lately, John’s legacy is under sharper attack, an attempted usurpation, by a bland and somewhat petty Paul, who seemed be to headed in this direction for years. Paul outta just face the fact that John was John and Paul…well, Paul is… Just Paul. He never reached the heights of creative form after they split, and John was obviously the missing factor. John Lennon, however, to me at least, seemed to be able to summon some kind of unearthly inspiration, almost more demonic than saintly, for sure, but something unreachable by the mere Paul McCartneys out there.

The night John was murdered, my young wife and I went to bed early, and we were just getting to the post-coital bliss part, when our clock radio suddenly turned on and the DJ was announcing John’s death! Just for record, this is one of the Twilight Zone times in my life – that damn radio had never done that before, and it never did it again! Brrrr. For a moment we both flashed back to the “I buried Paul” hoax thingie, it was too cruel to be true! But, dammit, it was so. We didn’t sleep very much – and it wasn’t easy for the next few days, as every minute something else kept the sad story going and going. I’ve never been a fan of Yoko’s, but she showed more class overall during that period than I expected. Somehow I hoped Paul wouldn’t continue his opportunistic ways, but this has sadly not eventuated. Guess I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but I don’t hold out hope – it’s bad enough Michael Fucking Jackson has the catalog, an abomination if ever there was one, but with George gone too, and Ringo halfway out there somewhere in the firmament already, good intentions will only be in short supply.

I mourn for John, my favorite of the Fab Four, because the Beatles were a major, major part of my growing up, and are still my preferred method to drown out any lesser or annoying song that attempts to run thru my head ad nauseum. One day when I was about 12, I heard some gawd-awful repetitive shit on the radio one too many times over the course of a day – the pop stations just couldn’t stop playing it no matter how I changed stations wherever I was, and it had its hooks in a lotta young girls, who only facilitated its spread with their tinny transistor radios at the ready. Payola, I s’pose, but back then I could only wonder who was so fucking stupid as to actually buy that shit. I found it popping up in my always-running-background-music that lives just behind my thoughts, and I was aghast – it was insidiously taking over my brain! It was like Bester’s “tenser, said the tensor” bit from “Demolished Man”, which I had just read, and man, I hadda kill that freakin’ tune or go crazy. The first Beatles song I had ever heard, or really noticed, and it had become burned into my brain in that first glorious instant, was “Please, Please Me”, still my single favorite Beatles song for its wonderful energy and joy. That little guitar and hamonica riff that leads it off was a perfect segue to a tune I could use to drown out any interloper with, plus it was one of my all-time faves, so I immediately swung right into it. It was a miracle! Instantly, I was mentally rocking along to the Lads’ almost unrehearsed sound, with the rising and falling signature riffs just blowing away the crap from the weak-assed pop stations! Salvation was a little Beatles magic song, and I still do it all the time. I bet I’ve run thru that tune in my head a skidillion times over the years, and even though I’ve other favorites that I use, “Please, Please Me” is still the One. The Beatles were so fresh when they made that one, it shows in the casually playful take on the lyrics, almost more raw than they ever were before or since, but pure Beatles, for sure. Paul and John sounded like they were grinning, and Ringo and George were playing looser than usual. This was as intended, I’m sure, but it was early enough to be free of the carefully managed effects in their later, extremely organized, assault on Western Society and Mores. It primed me and millions of others for a life-changing series of events that will never be repeated, sadly – we seem to be a bit retrograde nowadays. We’ll see, we’ll see. Perhaps another John Lennon will hook up with three other lads, and set forth with long strides and swashbuckling grins to change our world, and for the better, again.