Posted by Jim Powell on November 19, 2001 at 02:25:00 from 207.175.211.89 :
Debbie and I sat atop the Volcano and watched your birthday fireworks. It was utterly amazing, impressive… and COLD. There were times last night when I’ll have to admit that I was looking for the “Bat Constellation” amongst the flashing meteors. But I couldn’t find it… I don’t know if you every liked the moniker that Mark Maghran coined for you almost four decades ago. “Hey Jimmy”, he would say, “is the Bat home?” And then there was that cartoon he drew of you showing a caricature of you in full hippie battle gear, wild afro and bat-like wings held out to either side by your extended arms and a little cartoon dialog bubble over your head saying “nah, nah, Goddammit Jimmuh, don’t let the blabby fall in the plool!!!” And in the cartoon that was this devilish little fat kid, holding a rope tied to a 300 pound weight that was about to drop on your head. That would’ve been me, or at least Mark’s representation of me, in 1968. I remember when you accidentally FOUND that cartoon of you... I think you were rather pleased; though I'm not 100% sure. To us kids, you were The Bat. Everyone knew that. People would pass by 124 Jewett in the middle of the night – up until sunrise – and would see a lone light flickering in the attic… for us in the house, and I’m sure Peggy, Don and anyone else who spend time there remembers the reverberation of your typewriter that echoed through that cavernous home of ours… actually you could FEEL the typewriter… the rapid fire thump thump of the ball of the IBM Selectric. Now you’re gone, Jewett’s gone, yet that sound – that feeling, echoes still in my mind and in my heart. But yeah, you were “The Bat”; that was cool, you and I battled like hell starting around that time, but it was really cool to have you as a father. And in my way I tried to emulate you – when Mom died and I got kicked out of school, I became a Bat of sorts – staying up in my room with the stereo playing Emerson Lake and Palmer, watching the rainfall onto Summit Avenue, listening to the sounds of Santana – not that you’d know who that was. I was a Bat – instead of writing books I wrote poetry and I remember so well 21 years go I finally got up the nerve to give you the collection for your birthday; and just 10 months ago you and I sat down in the kitchen until late at night looking at those frozen moments of time from so long ago. I was 14 or 15 when I wrote this one that you liked. What ever happened to the boy He’s sitting here now, I don’t know why you liked that one so much; certainly a fourteen-year-old sitting up at two in the morning chain-smoking cigarettes isn’t a conventional image a father would have of his son. But oh, wait… what am I saying. You know, I owe you so much; there’s no birthday gift or wish I could give you other than the knowledge that the gift you gave me -- and everyone -- was greater than any that could ever be returned. In one of your journals I found your notes about how much you enjoyed spending time with me this January going through the poetry… it really made me feel good; it felt great when we sat together that night and went through these scores and scores of one page novels of my adolescence. And now, Stephen just informed me this evening, that he’s found the collection of poetry amongst your stuff. So now it comes back to me. As Chief says “the cycle is complete”. It feels complete Dad. I’ll say goodnight now, and leave you with the thoughts I wrote on the cover of that book 21 years ago. For My Father, ---------------- For you and I are as reflections
Retrospect
Who used to swing from his parents arms
While walking down main street?
Smoking cigarette after cigarette
At two o’clock in the morning –
Dreaming of pictures
And looking at fantasies,
Waiting for sleep to awaken him.
November 18, 1980
From a mirror –
As images reversed;
Opposites in opposing directions.
Yet naught else,
Is closer to being alike,
Than we two.