nos·tal·gia
näˈstaljə,nəˈstaljə/
noun
1. a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

Nostalgia is a great way to escape the present. And despite a few half-hearted attempts at addressing the latest episodes of state-sponsored violence and racial disparity, your Narrator finds that refuge irresistible right now. A sharp observer with keen understanding and insight could make sense of recent events playing large in the news. I’m not that guy, so if that’s your desire, I recommend this recent piece from Ta-Nehisi Coates and this one from a year ago. He puts a bow on a package that too many people are afraid to unwrap.<fn>In fact, you really could just skip my meander down memory lane and deal with Coates. And I’ll say again: that Coates is not twice-a-week at the NY Times while mendacious hacks like David Fking Brooks and Ross Cardinal Douhat are gainfully employed is a fundamental crime. Never mind the demented harpy Dowd. But I digress.</fn>

I spent last weekend in Atlanta, mostly in the neighborhood we called home for 17 years. The photo up top is a peek down the garden path to the side of this place, our last home in the ‘hood before we decamped for the Swamp.

This former Sunday school building was our home from 2002 to 2006. We lived upstairs in a gorgeous loft-style aerie. Downstairs was home to the Center for Creative Aspiration, a 501(c)(3) arts organization that we established to host a variety of fun, rewarding, and indescribable experiences. See that landscaping? We did that. After we left, the grounds fell into sad disarray, but recent new owners have reclaimed the beauty.

Also, too…the church next door, which closed right after its 100th anniversary celebration in 2003, has been resurrected<fn>See what I did there?</fn> and is now home to a vital, primarily Africa-American congregation. Even cooler: the downstairs of the church is now home to a 501(c)(3) arts and music organization called HealiUm.<fn>That alone kind of makes this a My Favorite World post.</fn>

As much as I loved living at the CCA, it’s the Blue House that still has a hold on my heart.

The Blue House is a classic Craftsman built in 1907. We lived there from 1993 to 2002. The first time I walked in, I felt like this house belonged to me.

Standing outside last weekend, I still have that feeling. The current owners are terrific friends who moved from three doors down, because they also love this house. It shows.

The library is their addition. They’ve also restored the floors and much of the original detail. The yard looks even better than when we left. But they had limits.

A few years ago when I drove by they were outdoors and invited me in. As I walked in, I was wondering (and dreading) what they had done to cover the 360^o mural Judy had painted in the dining room. This was a very personal piece that featured idealized-but-recognizable versions of the two of us, our daughter (pre-Ben days), and our dogs Starr and Fira. So it was reasonable that the new owners would get rid of it.

Wrong. As they told me: “It’s part of the house!”

As I was going all verklempt<fn>Like I’m doing as I write this.</fn>, Liz invited me to look at the kitchen. It was gorgeous, completely re-done the way we would have done it. She waved me over to the door to the basement. And there, with a completely new and different paint job covering everything else, was the door jamb where we tracked the kids’ height with pencil marks…unpainted and unchanged except for the additions of their kids’ height markers and dates. They had re-painted everything…except for one side of one door jamb.

I said some quick goodbyes and thank yous and scurried out of there in time to save my meltdown for the inside of my car as I sat looking at this view of My Favorite House.

They weren’t home last weekend, but several of our old friends and neighbors were, and we held an impromptu street party, and while I was not wishing I still lived there, I was pretty well washed in the water and enjoying the warmth of both the memories and the present moment.

Both these houses represent some pretty significant moments in the lives of our little clan. Children arriving. Dogs departing. Concerts played and recordings made. Musicians of substantial and lesser renown from all over the world stayed here while on tour. The CCA hosted 18 guitar players for a 3-month stretch in 2003, thereby guaranteeing Judy an aisle seat in Heaven. Shortly after that, the California Guitar Trio moved in for a 2-week writing and rehearsing retreat. We hosted some great friends and their gang who had to flee Katrina damage, up to a dozen at one point.

Lots of good things happened there. And for a brief time last weekend, the memories of that time gave me a tremendous sense of comfort and understanding of my place in the world, both then and now.

And then I drove home, with plenty of time to reflect. And as I approached my current home of almost 7 years<fn>Ho-leee shit!</fn>, I realized that I couldn’t imagine a better place for me to live now than this one.

It’s no turn-of-the-last-century Craftsman. It does not boast a loft-style aerie with a 60-foot long and 10-foot wide central hallway.<fn>The kids kind of learned to ride bikes in there, and it was a great bowling alley.</fn> And it certainly doesn’t have room for 18 guitarists to visit the evening, much less bunk in for three months. But it’s a damned fine place to live a good life. Like anyplace else, whether that happens is pretty much up to me.

Ed Note: This is a bonus, unscheduled MFW. Be happy.

That beautiful couple in the photo is my treasured Stratocaster plugged into my latest Hero Board^TM.<fn>Micro POG→MXR Phase 90→Jetter Tritium overdrive→ Ernie Jr. volume pedal→ Big Muff Pi→ Nano Freeze→ Ibanez Tube Screamer→ TC Ditto. Enquiring minds &c. </fn> Today this combo aired out the studio for a couple of hours, their first day in the light in six months. Say hallelujah and amen.

Both the strings and the board layout are unchanged since the 4WAKO gig in September.<fn>Coffee is for closers. New strings are for in-shape hands. Soon.</fn> I’m getting back in trim for some rehearsals this weekend in Tallahasse, this ahead of a re-embrace of public humiliation in Atlanta in a gig or two later this month with my once and future compadre. As such:

[jwplayer mediaid=”721″]

Daylilies by RoboCromp, 2011

Also, too, these guys joined the fun.

Ain’t no more favorite world than This Favorite World.

When I was a wee sprite of 5, my parents took me to the 1964 World’s Fair. I honestly do not remember much of that day, but a couple of episodes stand out.

Leastly…

We rode the train from my grandparents’ house in Hartford into the city, with many transfers and such. <fn>In retrospect, I imagine this must have been a stressful day for my Southern born and bred parentals, having to negotiate for the first time the wilds of New York City and its bizarre underground choo-choo trains, with an easily distracted little boy in tow.</fn> On the train back from the big day in the Big City, I needed a bathroom so I was delivered to the on-train loo. When I flushed, the toilet opened and delivered my production directly onto the tracks. I was mesmerized, and flushed that damn toilet about twenty times to confirm my discovery. Satisfied, I emerged, and yelled the length of the traincar to my parents:

You can see the tracks!!!!!

They cringed, everyone else laughed, and I was confused by it all.

Luckily, we were travelling at full clip, allowing my effluvia to distribute across a greater distance. An early, formative event in My Favorite (albeit somewhat nasty) World.

But more epically…

Aside from the giant globe that still stands in Queens (see it up top), the only thing that remains in memory is the Sinclair Dinoland.

Way before you young whippersnappers had your hippity hoppity Jurassic Park rigmarole, we had life size dinosaur exhibits of our own. Sure, they didn’t move much, and they didn’t really make any sound. But we liked it that way!

The big feature of the exhibition was Sinclair’s mascot dinosaur, the brontosaurus. Oh, it was big, but it was gentle <fn>Eating only plants, not humans or Baby Jesuses or some such.</fn>, a friendly beast. Best of all, from a corporate imagistic / synergistic <fn>Anachronistic in this context, yes, but still reflective of intent.</fn> angle, the brontosaurus reminded us every step of the way of the benevolent goodness of our corporate betters who paid good money to advance science with no concern for their own advantage save to keep their corporate logo in our sights for an entire afternoon.

Why, I even went home with a plastic model of Bronto, molded in a machine before my very eyes!<fn>The irony of creating, and then owning, a replica of a dinosaur made out of actual dinosaur stuff went unremarked at the time.</fn>

It was warm to the touch for a long time after I received it, and I think I probably undermined its scientific accuracy a bit with my active little hands. My bronto pal always had a slightly crooked neck. Alas.

Oh, and how they loved them their brontosaurus. From the narration at the exhibit:

Sinclair uses the brontosaurus as a symbol to dramatize the age and quality of the crude oils from which Sinclair petroleum products were made, crudes which were mellowing in the earth millions of years ago when brontosaurus and other dinosaurs lived.

They make it sound like a fine whiskey.

Coincidentally, my maternal grandfather spent long years as a field agent (salesman) for Sinclair, driving the backroads of the South endlessly to spread the good word about Sinclair’s mellow crude. The Sinclair sign was a beacon for us, a family connection even when we were far from home.

We would get angry at the parents if they stopped at other stations, especially those animalistic demons from Esso.

We were less opposed to Texaco for some odd reason.

Alas, the brontosaurus was eventually decreed not a real dinosaur by actual scientists who get to decide these things. <fn>Just like those wankers who cut Pluto out of the planet club.</fn> And an entire generation of people like me were left bereft and crestfallen, our trust crushed and our dreams but a mere wisp.

“And so,” say the two or three readers<fn>I’m an optimist.</fn> who hung around this far to find out how in Hade’s Handbag this could exemplify My Favorite World, “how in Hade’s Handbag &c.?”

Well here’s how.

Science, and the stuck up sticky beaks who get to decide what we all are supposed to know, has changed its mind. At long last, the brontosaurus resumes its rightful place in the hall of reptilian behemoths! Excelsior!

And so today, the Unisphere is all that’s left of the World’s Fair, and Shea Stadium (you can see it in the background up top there) is gone.

But the brontosaurus is back, bitches. You can’t keep a good beast down.

My Favorite World.<fn>Not to mention, it should give Pluto hope for redemption.</fn>

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Or perhaps this happened again.

Or maybe this happened.

Oh well. Could be worse…