Anablephobia
In the final stretch of Twenty-O-Two, I am thankful for the first cup of coffee in the morning and the first beer after work. What a wonderful way to bookend each and everyone of the 365 days that made up this year. A heavy dose of nostalgia hits hard this time of year as I am incapable of looking into the future or making nonsensical predictions or resolutions. Can you ever really ask for a restart? would you really want to? It’s just a lot easier to reflect on the things from the past.

I found myself at the Mall of the America the other day in search of a replacement power cord at the Apple Store. My third power cord for this machine. Entering the mall from the Pineapple parking level I sashayed into Bloomies, wondering aloud what I was doing entering a mall so soon after the holidays. I immediately found the answer to that question staring me straight away in the dinnerware department — Fiestaware. Specifically, the new shade, Shamrock was looking real good. My grandparents used to have a shade that was real close to the shamrock color only far less brilliant. I guess it was more of an avocado. I used to think my grandparents were so hip having Fiestaware. I had no idea at the time that this kind of dinnerware had a name or that it was as common as Christmas. You see, for me, as an eight year old running around the woods of my grandparents estate in Moose Lake Minnesota, Fiestaware had come to represent freedom.

Everyday at my Grandparents was ten hours in the woods traversing a maze of huts and thatched forts built by my father and his childhood crew who grew up and played a generation ago. Deep into the woods, the trailheads and huts were all marked with intricate but decaying signs that hung high on the trunks of bending birch trees. Each sign still tacked up with a single rusted ten penny nails. All the signs were colorfully painted in a Yogi Bear theme with messages and characters that hinted at the mystery of summers past. For an eight year old city kid it was an enchanted forest. Who needed to read Tolkien novels when they had woods like these?

One of the best parts, and the one I shamefully looked forward to when I learned that we were heading up north for a visit, was knowing that I would have the freedom to eat Fruit Loops with my grandfather. Sugar cereals were a forbidden element in my house as a kid and it was only my grandparents and their blind eye towards rotted teeth that allowed my brother and I to gorge ourselves on fiesta bowl after fiesta bowl of Fruit Loops. We needed to fuel up for our big Yogi Bear adventures and Special K or Granola would not cut it in those times. We needed sugar on top of sugar. I can still remember the color the last splash of milk and Fruit Loop dust took on as it swirled around in the reflection of the avocado Fiestaware. It was very similar to the rainbow oil slick that always hung tightly around the outboard motor of my grandfathers fishing boat. It was also very similar to the clothing that we wore at the time. The footprint Hang Ten tops and the Classic Op shorts had more unnatural colors than natural. An altogether brilliant time. So tonight on the eve of ’03, I will raise my fiesta ware glass to my grandparents, Yogi Bear, those who created huts in the woods, and to the person who ever dreamt up a cereal of sugery rainbow circles. Amen. See you next year.