Author: abendelow
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Memoir: the weaving of a dream 1976
It’s a Friday night in March, and Phil, Glen, Billy and I, all sophisticated 8th graders, quietly climb a ladder into the cramped space under the rafters in Billy’s garage. We bring with us a 12 pack of beer and a transistor radio. The little attic is dark and smells of roof tar and sawdust.…
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Memoir: the education of a toxic male, 1966-72
I met Kevin when my family moved into the south Oak Park home across the alley from his family, I was five, and he a year younger, and over the next six years or so we were constant playmates outside of school. A clever kid, Kevin was a natural athlete, who spurred my growth as…
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Memoir: Clean-up man
My father was raised by a Scottish task-mistress who made him clean the house before he could have fun, and he passed along this mandate to me and my sisters: first you clean, then play. As a boy, I learned to sanitize toilets, scrub tubs, mop floors, wash dishes, and unlike most people, I loved…
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Memoir: moments of freedom, part 1
For this post, “freedom” is the sense of agency one gets when freed from external constraints on one’s choices. This freedom from allows one the freedom to–to choose one’s course in a universe where “free will” is ultimately an illusion. Feeling free never lasts. It’s there for a moment that passes as soon as you…
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Memoir: Where I’m From
I’m from the land of Duality, of black and white, good and evil, sinners and saints. The land of up or down, win or lose, and nothing in between. For years, I saw life in zero-sum terms, and was therefore blinded to a full spectrum of experience. I received my first pair of split-vision lenses…
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Memoir 1973: stepping into adult responsibilities and the counter-culture
In what will be one of the most formative experiences of my young life, the summer after 6th grade, our across-the-alley neighbor Debbie and her family go on vacation to Europe and take my sister Sharon with them. Unexpectedly, they have chosen me to dog sit for their dim but affectionate beagle, Tara. Yes, the…
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Memoir 1971-72: My short-lived love affair with war narratives and killing machines
Playtime in the neighborhood is often coordinated by my sister Sharon’s friend, Debbie Smith. An only child, Debbie reaches out to the younger kids and is a positive role model for us. She organizes alley games of “Kick the Can” that are the most exciting thing in my young world–a game of intense hide-and-seek, not…
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Music: There’s a Virus Among us/Joliet Blues (2020)
Here’s a song that captures what my musical partner Andy and I do in my garage on a regular basis: we find a groove, and then extemporize upon it. And when all the conditions are right–we’re not trying to impress anyone, we just want to explore what the simple structure of the beat and harmony…
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Music: Let’s hear it for the atom bomb (1998)
Here is a song I wrote as my marriage was dissolving, and my mind reached after metaphors that could encompass the devastation that I was feeling. I settled on the way Japan emerged more pacific from the hyper-militarism of World War II, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. It is in no way an endorsement of the use…
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Music: December Song (2007)
Fifteen years ago, I lost the commitment of a woman who loved me well. She correctly saw that we were incompatible, and I am grateful that she pulled the plug on us, but I didn’t see it coming, and so it really hurt. We had been close companions for three years. We’d travelled together, grown…
The Wikiness 