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Greetings and salutations. It is I, Graham.
This week we are covering people who inspired us in our real lives. So now is the time, as promised, for me to redeem my mother in your eyes. She wasn’t all bad. In many ways she was a sweet, gentle woman, that everyone spoke very highly of. She just suffered from spiritual dementia later in life. But earlier? Early on when I was younger, you could not find a more supportive and encouraging role model.
I don’t know how many of you are old enough to remember, but in the early to mid 80s, there were companies that put out books that were intended to be read along with audio. First they came with the smaller 7 inch vinyl records, then later with cassettes. The audio was word for word what was in the book, so little kids could follow along. They gave a little chime when it was time to turn the page, and some even went so far as to have multiple voice actors or music and background sounds. They licensed a lot of titles as well, such as Disney animated movies, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and more. My brother and I loved these, but we of course owned a ton of other children’s books without audio. My mother went out and bought a cassette recorder, and spent countless hours reading many of our books into the recorder, acting out the parts animatedly, and even had a glass and spoon to provide the “chime” to turn the page. We probably had 50 or more books she provided cassette tapes for. It was an act of love and devotion that I will never forget.
Another way she supported reading was with the summer reading programs at the local library wherever we happened to be living that year. She made sure we had opportunities to get to the library multiple times a week, and since us kids were very restricted in how many titles we were allowed to have checked out at any given time, she would always use her library card to check out more. Every year it was the same. The librarians would bitch and moan about the size and complexity of the books I wanted to check out, and claim that no matter how big the book, it would only count as “one” for their reading competitions. So I would grab a dozen of their short kids’ books, burn through them in a couple of hours, then read what I really wanted. It always pissed them off, especially when they would grab one of the short books off the stack and try to quiz me, assuming I was just checking them out but not reading them. My mother had to patiently, quietly, but thoroughly, put more than one librarian in their place for harassing me over my reading choices. But she was amazing in her support.
There were other ways that she supported and encouraged my creativity as well. Christmas of 1983, I was 9 years old. The fourth or fifth present I opened was a rather large model kit of the Lambda Class Shuttle “Tydirium” from Return of the Jedi. Ever since Empire Strikes Back at age six, I had decided that my future career just HAD to be as a special effects model maker for ILM, and here I was with my first Star Wars model, of my favorite ship from the whole series. And it was huge! I completely ignored all the rest of my presents, and sat right there in the living room, opening it up and reading through the instructions. My mother helped me carry all the sprues and parts back to my bedroom and mollified my father. I spent all that day, all of the 26th, and all of the 27th in my bedroom working on that model. I did not sleep, and left my room only to use the restroom. My mother patiently brought me meals, kept my father away, and occupied my brother when he got too frustrated that I would not play with him. Finally the morning of the 28th I proudly finished the model kit. While I passed out and slept 20 hours straight, my mother carefully and quietly set up a shelf in my room that would hold and properly display my new pride and joy. When I woke up on the morning of the 29th, my mother gathered the family back in the living room to join me while I finally opened the rest of my Christmas presents that she had quietly set aside and kept my brother out of. Then that spring when we moved to Texas, the model was sadly crushed and destroyed in the wonderful packing job the Army did.
There were plenty of other attempts at growing my creativity. She encouraged every attempt at drawing, supplying “how-to-draw” books, pencil and art sets, watercolors, and more. My mother did cross stitching and quilting. She taught me to cross stitch, and encouraged me to work on sewing projects, even though it obviously wasn’t my thing. When I was in high school and first started trying to write, she went out and bought an electric typewriter and pestered me to let her read what I was writing. She may not have liked some of the subjects, but the love and support was obviously there.
And now to move on to other influences. There were a few, though I have no clue as to many of the names. They were more like situations. In fourth grade advanced placement class, we made paper mache marionettes and then we each wrote a script for a play using a variety of the class’s puppets as the characters. I created a Star Trek-like bridge and did a whole sci-fi themed play. My best friend and childhood crush, Paul Biddis, introduced me to the awe-inspiring world of the BBC, watching shows such as Doctor Who and especially our favorite, The Tomorrow People. We acted out so much from that show, and began creating our own storyline inspired by that show, writing snippets of dramatic scenes that I still remember to this day.
Later on I found pen and paper roleplaying which really expanded my worldbuilding and storytelling, but that is a story for another time. So now you have heard more about my very interesting mother. Saint or monster, creator or destroyer, encourager or destroyer, who can say which side won out in my memories. I do know that regardless of how much I loved her, I liked her a lot more in her earlier days. Either way, she shaped a lot of what I am today as a creative person. Nobody else came close to having as much of an impact. But until next time…
Don’t forget to love one another.
Graham
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