Out of Monee: Cal-Neva here they come

So I’m sleeping on the big red and white checkered couch in my parents’ living room with the TV on, having one of those half-awake dreams. So I can’t tell if the shadowy figure lurking near me is real or the boogie man.

After all, I had been at the Monee Fall Faire early in the night listening to a 70s cover band with the usual assortment of folks who attend such things (i.e., guys in satin baseball jackets, bikers, overtanned women and the men who want to luv them, teens with good fake IDs) so I could have been followed home.

Goddamn it, I shout. What the hell are you doing?

It’s my father, who sheepishly says he was looking for the remote to turn off the TV. He could have just gone over to the set, but either way, my heart is now pounding like a hummingbird’s.

I figure he was staring because he was thinking about what might be one of his last chances to strangle me, or that he will miss me, or probably a combo of both.

See, after having their home for sale for about a year, they finally got a buyer. And they took just 12 days to sort through all their earthly possessions and out of the house. Good thing I have a strong back - and an uncle with an Econoline.

They aren’t bringing much with them to California and Nevada where they will split time between my brother and my sister and her family.

That means I’ve been given boxes o’ stuff to sort through and that my car and a storage area now smell like their sold place, a mix of spices and cleaning products blended for more than a dozen years.

Not being into eBay culture I couldn’t tell you if any of it has monetary value. I do have the sled I am pretty sure we were pulled on to the grocery store after a blizzard; old furniture and paintings back at least two generations; and lots of other stuff with stories.

That’s the thing about being a writer - you become a pack rat because items are mnemonic devices with tales attached.

I guess it beats having to wait until my folks die to get to all this stuff, but it still seems odd. Plus, since they are out in such a hurry (they leave on a jet plane this weekend) it’s not like we had time to go through things together, to share memories.

Without a family of my own, I feel like I’m sending my folks off to college.

The irony of it all is I was supposed to be the one who would leave Illinois after graduation for the big time, the straight A student, the golden boy.

Now I am the only one from my immediate family still living in the same town where he went to high school.

Sometimes that isn’t so bad, others it feels like I’m a punch line to a joke, or like I’m wearing clothes that don’t fit anymore.

Mortality: the feeling you get when you watch the Chicago White Sox season, with all its great promise, fade into futility with the September sun.

Still, I’m happy for my parents. It will be nice for them to live near their grandchildren in places far prettier than the Chicago area, especially in winter.

With my folks leaving, I will miss having a place to go to get away from my relatively mundane life - a place where I could practice being retired, which, at my present rate of pay, is a role I doubt I will be playing unless it includes asking people if they want fries with their order or passing out shopping carts.

And I’ll miss having lunch buddies, as we would go out at least a couple times a month for a meal. I need more lunch buddies.

It’s funny to hear my dad call my mom “shorty” in public, which I am sure he doesn’t know is rap slang, but probably has confused a younger waitress or two. The master of malaprops, he also calls the popular PDA a blueberry, and the prostate the prostate, which in a way, it sort of is.

Of course, it’s in the DNA for parents and their children to drive each other nuts, and we’ve had our Eugene O’Neill moments.

Now it’s my siblings turn.

O bla di, o bla dah - or something like that.