by Tom Harvey
I’d like to thank the two greatest storytellers of our generation, Stephen King and Bill Bryson. Mr. King continues to entertain me–and millions of other Constant Readers–with his wicked storytelling ways. Mr. Bryson has, perhaps, written the best twenty four pages in existence (chapter twelve entitled “Out and About” in his book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid).
I’d also like to thank author and fellow Generation Xer, Rob Sheffield, and his two marvelous books, Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time and Talking To Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man’s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut.
Author William Knowlton Zinsser and his phenomenally helpful books on writing.
To my co-workers and friends at Soundpath Health. OK, I’ll list a few: Randee, Sadie, Diana, Bekka, Jeanette, Dawn, Vicki, and the rest of you! Need a Medicare Advantage product for your loved one? Check us out at soundpathhealth.com.
To Gloria Campbell of Sundial Press, LLC for her editing skills and Kirk Werner at itchydogproductions.com for his sound advice. Also, much thanks to Kris Dalbke Menneke, Davi Tavares and Kelly Gondek for their infectious enthusiasm.
Thank you to the gals at Bellevue Tropical Tan, both past and present (tropicaltan.net): Trish, Anna, Hayley, Brittini, and Nikki. I’ve been transformed from a whiter shade of pale to a golden god. (And thanks to Cameron Crowe for the “golden god” term.)
Thank you to my family–David, Lorne and Tricia–for letting me grow up into the person I am today. And the family that inherited the person I am now: nieces Hannah, Chloe, and Alli Kay, and nephew, Tommy. My father-in-law, Jerry Watkins. My sister-in-law and best mother I’ve ever known (outside of my own), Tamara.
To my mother, Patricia, who I miss with every breath I take.
To my uncle Harold, who was so full of passion–I wish I would have known him better during his lifetime.
To Grandma Bun and all the Walla Walla-based Harvey’s.
To my best friend, Odie Dwayne Miller, who will forever be my inspiration. The night after Odie died, he visited me in my dreams and said, “You should see what kind of deal I have now!” Thanks for checking in with me, my friend. If there’s Coors Light in heaven, I hope God stocks it in longneck bottles–just how you like them.
Thanks to God, for the taste of passion fruit and the smell of brown sugar. For blue eyes. For puppy breath and puppy teeth. For little sisters and big brothers. For nieces and nephews. For grandmothers and step grandfathers. For a mom who called me “baby” for forty years.
Lastly, why support the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation? 1) Christopher Reeve was Mom’s favorite actor and Somewhere In Time was her favorite movie, (and what kid doesn’t love Superman?) 2) My brother, David, suffered a spinal cord injury and if it wasn’t for a brilliant neurosurgeon by the name of Dr. Bahram Chehrazi he’d likely be in a wheelchair today, and 3) Odie wasn’t so lucky and suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury in an automobile accident. Paralyzed from the chest down, Odie died eight years to the day of his accident of multiple infections his body couldn’t shake off. Research and advances in spinal cord injury treatments–I’m all for that!
Potential chapters for future versions:
Death in the Ring
Two Superstar Athletes That Weren’t
Purple Reign
The Album of the Decade was a Thriller
The Band With the Name We Couldn’t Pronounce
The Roots of Rap
Hairbands!
The Material Girl
She Was So Unusual!
Look for my next book, currently in the works:
“Don’t Fight With The Garden Hose
and Other Lessons I’ve Learned Along the Way”
1 Himitsu Sentai Goranger was a Japanese show with English sub-titles. It was a classic Good vs. Evil struggle between five superheroes and any number of preposterous villains from the Black Cross Army. We called them the Five Rangers. They morphed into the Power Rangers in the States.
2 The fourth Goranger was the only female in the group. Her earrings were mini-grenades and she shot bullets from her molded breastplate nipples (you have to see it to believe it). How could an eight-year-old boy not love this woman?
3 Kirsten Vangsness sound familiar? Yep, she’s the actress who plays the character of Penelope Garcia on the TV series “Criminal Minds.”
4 Another Hawaiian TV show where one lucky kid in the audience crammed his hand in a jar of pennies and got to keep what he pulled out. What would that have been, all of fifty cents?
5 I define “smoked” as getting our butts handed to us–as in, dead last.
6 MTV’s first broadcast was August 1, 1981.
7 I obtained the ER records when I was in my early twenties. They are impressive and tragic to read.
8 In September 1982, seven people died after ingesting cyanide-laced Tylenol. This event led to a revolution in product packaging and tamper-evident safety packaging eventually became the standard. For more on the Tylenol murders, check out The Tylenol Mafia: Marketing, Murder, and Johnson & Johnson by Scott Bartz. Fascinating.
9 Source: Wikipedia.
10 Here they are for your education. Use a comma to 1) separate elements in a series, 2) after a conjunction to connect to independent clauses, 3) to set off introductory elements, 4) to set off parenthetical elements, 5) to separate adjectives, 6) to set off quotations, and 7) to separate city and states & dates and years.
11 The burgundy-colored Sperry’s were on sale–I couldn’t afford the really cool blue pair.
12 The USC Hellenes are the all female “official hostesses” of the University. I saw it as one nonstop party where tan, rich college dudes could hit on my girl.
13 Consisting of tequila, Triple Sec, sweet and sour mix, orange juice, and lime juice–an easy-to-drink, dangerous combo.
14 After striking out at my top three choices: UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, and Cal.
15 It is TRULY a miracle he didn’t die from alcohol poisoning.
16 I got a C in golf. Seriously? All we did was pitch range balls in the open field adjacent to the school. How the hell does a guy get a C doing that?
17 As if it was my damn fault!
18 Utter one word on camera and you have to join the union … and pay union dues!
19 But if you pause the basketball game scene, I’m the guy across the court in a bright blue Hawaiian shirt working the serious one-armed fist pump.
20 Dictionary.com definition: “a contemptible, incompetent person.”
21 How many people’s death certificates read, “Death by falling Pepsi?”
22 And I mean soiled in the truest sense-linens saturated in human waste of all kinds: feces, blood, urine, infectious ooze.
23 The autoclave was an oven-like contraption that, literally, baked blood, tissue, and everything else from red surgical bags into a steaming, ill-smelling, brown sludge.
24 Think of the scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when Mike Teevee shrinks himself.
25 Not an article of clothing, obviously, but I needed as many moves as I could get.
26 ALWAYS a crowd pleaser–not to be removed until at least the fourth song.
27 All right, if you don’t know what I mean, I wasn’t packing condoms.
28 David lovingly remembers Jason’s Blaunkpunkt cassette player, the Rockford Fosgate Power 1000 amp, the paragraphic ZAPCO equalizer, and the twin Fosgate Punch 18” sub-woofers. We could actually see the windshield pulsing outward against the rubber molding in time to the music when the thing was cranked. Eardrums? Who needs ‘em?
29 The soldier’s interview within the song goes something like this: “You’re walking around with some guy’s brains on your shirt because he got his head blown off right next to you.” My friend, Ed, came up with his own version that went: “You’re walking around with some guy’s load on your shirt because he was jerking off right next to you.” No disrespect intended to our Vietnam Vets, but that Ed was a clever one.
30 I’m really going off on a tangent with this one. Why Me? peaked at #64 in 1983 which paved the way to me listening and loving, I Won’t Wake Up. They’re my own two-hit wonder, and I thank you for allowing me this indiscretion.
31 Adonis is that Greek stud who was the lover of Aphrodite–little Greek history lesson there people.
32 If you are a product of the eighties, there’s no doubt you remember The Solid Gold Dancers–the TV show of spandex clad dancers gyrating to the Top 10 songs of the day. Much like Fab and Rob of Milli Vanilli.