45s on 33 – #9: “Down on the Corner”

Some records still remind me strongly of childhood, which wasn’t a picture perfect one but not one that I remember as unpleasant either. I think few of us remember childhood as unpleasant because those mental defense mechanisms kick in where the brain compartmentalizes experience as it happens, so that the body can continue to move without becoming paralyzed by blinding darkness emanating from inside.

I’ve recently (ever since vacation) been playing dominoes. It was hard to piece together a full set because my youngest is a toy hoarder freak who takes little bits of this and that and puts them in bags and then stashes the bags. I think she may be part raccoon or some shit. But we had like four sets of dominoes but they’re all missing pieces. One of them’s a really nice thick vintage butterscotch set, but there’s two pieces missing forever it seems. But I did piece together two of the other sets which were same thickness/style into a full set (still need a pimp ass butterscotch set again though, just because anything butterscotch you do for leisure is goodness for the soul). But thinking on my youngest and her domino bullshit reminded me of my memory of dominoes as a kid. I set them up on this little broken ass organ thing I had in my room, which had been my dad’s chainsaw fixing shop (inside the house) but became my bedroom when a baby sister was born. The dominoes were set up along the organ’s top, and on the windowsill because the window on the back porch was right there. We came home from shopping or some shit one time, I can’t remember, but I went in and my dominoes were messed up. I went and told my mom, who told my dad. They both looked, and freaked because it meant somebody had broken in as the dominoes sort of worked as a line across the window. Dad disappeared into another room, and then was like, “we got ripped off.”

So yeah, some records strongly remind me of childhood, in good ways, and we try to sit at the kitchen table and play dominoes more often lately, which also is a good thing. Life is always gonna be fucked up, regardless of where you start, regardless of where you go. It is human nature to make life fucked up somehow. Thus it become imperative to try and find some fuckin’ chill.