After getting married in 1995, there was a long break from the playing of role-playing games. I had to wait for Number One Son to reach an age where he understood enough about things to enjoy a game where telling a story together was the main thing. He was aware of Star Wars through the fourth movie, The Phantom Menace, which we saw together in the Austin area where Grandma and Grandpa Beyer lived. Then, after the next movie came out, The Attack of the Clones, a role-playing game from the 80’s was updated and I bought the rule books in local game shops. Number One Son and Closest Cousin began playing with me whenever we had the opportunity. We even played during our tent-camping trip to Niagara Falls.
Closest Cousin was basically a young girl in her Disney Princess phase when we started playing. So she chose to be a noble. She wanted a Princess Leia-type character, and she created Princess Moreno D’ark to fulfill that need. Number One Son wanted a more action-oriented character, one who could solve problems by whacking them with a light saber. So he created Juba Jubajai, a gung-ho space marine sort of Jedi guardian. We chose to play in the Clone Wars era because that was where I had the most resources in book form and related most closely to the movies they had recently seen and loved. I had a bunch of other old 80’s Star Wars game supplements that I could adapt to fit into the game universe we were using.
Of course, two people is a little short of a full adventuring party, so we recruited some good NPC’s to fill in. We had to have a Wookie. So Hrowwuher became Princess Moreno’s devoted sidekick. He could blow stuff up whenever the Princess’s negotiating and problem-solving skills failed to keep the group out of trouble. Keebo Kloohorn was a musician and often supplied the sneakily supplied game-master’s hints to keep the adventure on track. He was also sometimes the character used by Number Two Son, but at a mere five years old, the game rarely held his attention long enough for him to really be playing.
On upcoming Saturdays, I will recount a few of our memorable adventures in the Star Wars game realm.
I saw a woman and her two kids getting breakfast at QT this morning. The kids, a boy and a girl, were both wearing jackets and pajama pants. They were both cute, and happy, and speaking Korean to each other. And I realized after smiling at them with my goofy old coot grin, that I am not prejudiced in any way when it comes to other people. They were Asian. I notice details. But that was an afterthought. It really wouldn’t have mattered if they were black, white, purple, brown, or yellow. (Though I have to admit I might’ve been slightly more fascinated by purple.) Not being prejudiced is a precious thing. It comes from a lifetime of working with kids of all kinds, and learning to love them while you’re trying to teach them to also have no prejudices.
Fighting Back
The sad truth is that as this world progresses in the days since the Trump election, it becomes harder and harder to stay positive and happy. It becomes easier and easier to figuratively stub your toe on the bad news each new day brings and fall into the deep dark pit of black depression.
Just after signing the paperwork for the bankruptcy, I get a couple of explanation pages from my health insurance, assuring me that I will have to pay somewhere around $4500 for my emergency room visit and 3-day hospital stay. After I earned my first $100 dollars as an Uber driver, I ran over a glass bottle and punctured a tire in its sidewall, costing me over $100 to replace it. And my bank account, in spite of scraping and saving and spending money like Scrooge McDuck, a thoroughly squeezed nickel at a time, does not contain near enough money to pay this year’s property tax. In spite of the blood, sweat, and money put into this last summer’s pool crisis, we may still lose the house. I may soon fall off of that cloud that I stand on.
The Trumpinator hasn’t been helping. He got the tax plan passed that benefits him to the tune of $12 million dollars every year, and may give me $50, or nothing, or I may even have to pay more. His tax plan removes the mandate from Obamacare that was its tentpole, probably causing its imminent collapse. $4500 may only be the first wound in that battle. And none of the terrible things he says and does get him even a hint of condemnation from the Republican Toad Army that backs him. We are headed for even greater levels of income inequality, possible revolution and civil war, and general chaos, assuming North Korea doesn’t begin nuking us first.
But the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune do not find their target completely undefended. I have ways of dealing with double-danged downers that are all but unknown to those who are basically unartistical. (Yes, I know that is not a word in English, but I am creative.)
Do you remember that little perfume-bottle figurine that I bought at Goodwill and vowed in this goofy blog to repaint to express my artistical madness and creativiticockle? (Yes, I know that isn’t a word in English either.) I broke out the enamels and the acrylics and the brushes and the other stuff, and invited my daughter the Princess to paint with me. She got out her ceramic dragon, a middle school art project that she never yet finished painting, and we both set to work.
We talked and joked and laughed at the table in the family room. We talked about art styles and painting techniques. We talked about art classes at school. We talked about many important father/daughter artists sorts of things, and the regret we both have for never seriously trying to learn to play music.
And the result was the healing of many old heart-wounds and the painting of many spots of very nice paints. You can definitely fight back against a world of darkness by creating rebellious little acts of artistry.
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