No. 218 – Shadow of the Season

Performer: Screaming Trees

Songwriters: Gary Lee Connor, Mark Lanegan

Original Release: Sweet Oblivion

Year: 1993

Definitive Version: None.

When you’re young, if you’re in any way rebellious, the biggest denial in life is that you’re anything like your parents. No way, man! My parents are losers! I’m NOTHING like them!

Eventually you get over yourself enough to realize that, yes, not only are you like them, in many ways you’re EXACTLY like them. Unfortunately, among other things, I’ve come to realize that I inherited Mom’s tendency toward self-destruction.

Unlike Mom, I don’t seem to carry it out in terms of my physical health. I might drink too much, admittedly, when compared with someone who’s a tee-totaler, but I don’t do drugs; I don’t smoke. I try to eat healthful foods and I work out three times a week. My health problems aren’t of my own making.

My self-destruction manifests itself in, well, everything else. It seems that at some point I try and blow up everything in my life—work, friendships, love relationships. Many times, I succeed. I had a lot of horrific success when I was younger. Fortunately, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become good at surrounding myself with people who won’t let me get away with my crap.

Laurie is one of those people, which probably is why we’re still together after nine years. Dave is another of those people. Put quite simply, Dave wouldn’t let me blow up our friendship 20 years ago, and God knows, I tried.

After a while in the winter of 1993-94, Dave and I settled into a comfortable pattern of not seeing each other. I was fine with it; I even started doing more things outside of work with other people. Then in March 1994, as I mentioned, I ended up in the hospital with a gangrenous gall bladder that required immediate removal.

When I came out of surgery, I had a get-well card waiting for me in recovery from everyone at The Journal. It had been organized and sent by Dave. Then, when I was moved to a regular room and could start accepting visitors, guess who was the first person to come see me? That would be Dave.

I remember feeling very uncomfortable in the hospital when Dave was there. We weren’t friends any more, so why had he bothered to show up?  Well, any discomfort was entirely on me, because I realized after the fact that I felt ashamed. Even in my somewhat addled state, I recognized that, now, when I was REALLY laid low, Dave was there like a true friend. It was a humbling realization.

After I got out of the hospital, a thaw developed in our previously frosty relationship. It was spring after all. It was better, but I guess pride got in the way, and I couldn’t just let bygones be bygones and go back to the way things were.

I wasn’t interested in rejoining the card column or the coed softball team, but I decided I would relent regarding the softball team if Dave specifically asked me to come back. I figured that as a member of the men’s team in good standing after a whole fall of playing I could satisfy my desire for playing time—and competition—with the men’s team, so playing for the coed team would be fine.

I might have told this to Doug, and Doug might have relayed the message, I don’t know. But one day in May, just before the softball season started, Dave pulled me aside in the newsroom and asked if I would play with the coed team. Satisfying my one condition, I agreed on the spot.

Of course, I didn’t play very long—two games on the men’s side, one on the coed side—before I left for The Columbus Dispatch. After my final game, Dave held a post-game cookout at his house, which I’d never seen due to our rift, and he stunned me by retiring my softball number. I again felt ashamed about my earlier behavior.

We didn’t talk much after I moved away. I had a new job and a new girlfriend, who led me down a new path of self-destruction. But in the winter, Dave sent an email (I had it at work now) saying he was throwing a Super Bowl party and would I be interested in coming up and hanging out? Considering I had Monday off, that was perfect.

It was a great bash, and I really enjoyed seeing everyone again as the San Francisco 49ers rolled the San Diego Chargers. I spent the night on the fold-out couch in Dave’s living room, and we stayed up late holding court in a baseball chat room. It was a real reconnection, so much so that in May we attended our first baseball game together in 2 years—in Cleveland.

We saw the White Sox and our man Frank Thomas take on the eventual league champeen Injuns. We posed for nutty pictures by the Bob Feller statue and ate hot dogs before the game out in the right-field bleachers where I caught (on a bounce off a seat behind us) a batting-practice home run ball by Robin Ventura.

It was a blast, and it felt just like old times, like nothing had ever happened between us. At one point, Debbie—knowing the history—said, I can’t believe you two ever were NOT friends. You guys are like little boys in a candy store together.

I know, right? But it happened. It happened because quite frankly I continued to be that immature little boy who couldn’t handle that his best friend had chosen to grow up and spend more time with his new baby and wife than palling around with his jealous buddy.

Laying aside little issues, the rift between and me was all on me. It was my nature to see the glass as half-empty and then, because it wasn’t full, try and destroy the glass in a rage and send the water flying everywhere.

But Dave wouldn’t let me get away with it. He gave me the space I seemingly wanted and waited for the right moment to prove himself, when I would realize the error of my ways. That’s why we’re still great friends to this day (even though he’s far more into the Cardinals than I’ll ever be).