Roots, the 1st Installment

I find it to be frustrating that, while I am tilling my backyard or maneuvering my vehicle along the Interstate, I can reflect on experiences and philosophical ideas that would reside quite comfortably here amongst my ramblings but am sadly unable to recall said ideas once I am seated at my keyboard.

I had a friend in high school that was afflicted with Parkinson’s. My brother, after several pitchers of beer, once took it upon himself to convince my friend that the disease was “all in his head.” His cure was fairly straightforward and typical of the aggressive and drunken male: he would command my friend in a stern (and rather loud even for a bar) voice to stop shaking. This, of course, only served to exacerbate my friend’s condition, which, in turn, caused my brother to command even more sternly (and loudly). I was privately wondering which would occur first: my friend having a nervous breakdown, or other bar patrons wondering why they were being yelled at to “STOP SHAKING!!”

I was also rather embarrassed. My friend (Eric), at the time, was a 20-something year old kid, kind of quiet and shy. That is, unless he was acting out his main character in AD&D, at which point he presented himself as more daring and confident. It’s kind of like the difference between watching Martha Stewart decorate a mantel with laurels and watching Martha Stewart tear her shirt off, beat her chest and then tackle Steve from the Jerry Springer Show. It was a bit of a change.

Now, take Eric in his non-fantasy manner and sit him at a table in a public location across from my brother Mike. Mike is 6 foot 4 and weighed better than 275 back then. Apparently Fate decided to be cruel to the rest of us and endow Mike with several characteristics that make him most desirable to the women of my home state. Even fully clothed, sober and silent, he’s an imposing figure. Imagine him intoxicated (yet mercifully still fully clothed) and yelling at my already nervously-inclined friend.

I’m certain that Eric could easily identify with the figure of David facing a severely agitated Goliath; not a Goliath that is laughing at David, but one that thinks he’s helping to cure David’s medical condition by yelling at him in a bar. It’s also kind of like a kumquat screaming at an acorn to “stop being such a nut” in front of the other produce.

Did I mention that I joined the Army to get away from home?