2006 Blog Archives

I spent Saturday evening reading my blogs from the last year, so I could remember everything that happened in 2006.

Man, a lot happened.

THE YEAR THAT WAS

(In no particular order)

A hot air balloon landed in the backyard. THAT was exciting.

The rec path was completed and gets a lot of use.

Lots of rain in May resulted in flooding in the area. The water level was the highest I've seen in many years.

I strolled around Montpelier and visited the Statehouse for the first time in my life. Went to the Vermont Historical Society Museum......and saw an exhibit ripped from my past. It was a display of a 1940's living room. Saw many a living room like that in the 1960's.

Gary Gilbert goes to Montpelier.

Jim Field retired as Fairfax Fire Chief after 18 years.

The Muster Team was crowned State Champs in July at the Convention in St. Albans. They also brought home a bunch of trophies from the Franklin County Field Days. I marched in the State Convention Parade, carrying the American flag, while marching in front of Engine 1. We got second place for Best Appearing Marching Unit-In State-With Apparatus. Still think that's cool.

Last winter was on the mild side.

This past summer was on the wet side.

Christmas Day felt like Thanksgiving, weather-wise.

We watched in horror as teachers were running for safety in Essex after a domestic dispute spilled over into a school, and we mourned the deaths that occured. School shootings also happened in Montreal, and a Pennsylvania Amish school.

I never made it to the movie theater this year. Amazing.

Fairfax Community Theatre continued to put on first-class productions.

Four TV shows I watched with regularity- Supernatural, Doctor Who, Life On Mars, and Hex.

I turned 46.

Anthony made an amazing pass on the last lap to qualify for the A-main at Granby.

The Pie and Ice Cream Social was a success.

Two albums stood out for me this year-Def Leppard's "Yeah!", and My Chemical's "The Black Parade". Songs that stood out- Yellowcard's "Lights and Sounds", Matchbook Romance's "Monsters", The Raconteurs' "Steady As She Goes", AFI's "Miss Murder".

More and more houses being built around Fairfax.

One of my photos was featured during the weather segment on the WCAX 6 O'clock News.

Bonfires, barbeques, and get-togethers with friends and family.

Those are always great.

The explosion of YouTube and watching homemade videos on the internet. Chris Santee posting a tour of Fairfax.

Being able to watch the first couple of episodes of Torchwood.

The information superhighway living up to it's name. Whatever you want, you can find it there.

Advances in technology. Cell phones that do everything you want. Camera, internet, text.

Cable TV finally coming to Fairfax. Still no USA Today or daily Boston Globe, though.

The year ended with a solemn note. The death of former President Gerald Ford, and the sudden execution of Saddam Hussein. It was almost surreal watching the video of him being led into the gallows, and having a noose placed around his neck. Then to see the picture of him dead. Just felt odd.

I still get a tensed up when I hear of US soldiers getting killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. I'm thinking, Are they from Vermont? Is it someone I know?

All a part of our world. I'm sure I forgot some stuff.

Hope it's a safe New Year's Eve.

Twenty four hours after posting lyrics from the album, "The Black Parade", I watched history unfold on television of the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. As I watched, those same lyrics screamed out at me.

Have

You heard the heard the news that you're dead

No one had much nice to say

I think they didn't like you anyway

Witnesses report people dancing around Saddam's body.

Celebratory gunfire in Baghdad.

Iraqi-Americans dancing in the streets in Dearborn, Michigan.

If death comes to you as a favorite memory, as Gerard Way believes, how did death come to Saddam? What memory came to him?

This guy has been an intricle part of everyone's lives since the 1980's, first as an allie because of the Iraq-Iran War. Back then, Iran was our enemy, after the Hostage Crisis. Then Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and it seems like we've been battling him since.

I was waiting to see some of the images from the execution, but I think I will wait until morning.

The whole ordeal seemed weird, almost rushed. I got an e-mail from CNN stating he was slated to die at 10pm, and then the waiting, the conformation, the talking heads, the eyewitness reports.........

all the while lyrics screamed out at me. Me, watching history unfold.

In the same vein as The Who's "Tommy", Pink Floyd's "The Wall", Queen's "A Night at the Opera", and Green Day's "American Idiot", My Chemical Romance created a concept album/rock opera that is simply my favorite album of 2006.

Titled "The Black Parade", this dark, heavy subject matter-death, war, cancer, and in the end, salvation- is such an amazing thing to listen to. It centers around The Patient, who is dying, and his thoughts during his final moments. Not a melancholy album at all, except for one song, this thing grabs you by the neck and literally shakes and hammers you about. Lots of lyrics, lots to think about. Kick a$$ rock all around. It's orchestral, theatrical,.......I listen to it every day.

Highlights:

DEAD

Finding out you have died while the music flies along at breakneck speed. A guitar solo by Ray Toro that is a combination of Chuck Berry, Brian May, and somehow Woody Woodpecker sneaks in.

Have

You heard the news that you're dead

No one ever had much nice to say

I think they didn't like you anyway

Oh take
Me from this hospital bed

Wouldn't it be grand

It ain't exactly what you planned.

WELCOME TO THE BLACK PARADE

Swear to God, this sounds like a number from a musical.

Death comes to a person in the form of a favorite memory, and for The Patient, the memory is his father taking him to a parade.

When I was

A young boy

My father

Took me into the city

To see a marching band

He said

Son, when

You grow up

Will you be

The saviour

Of the broken

The beaten and the damned

CANCER

The only true ballad on the album. I dare you to listen to this and NOT get choked up.

Now turn away

Cause I'm awful just to see

Cause all my hairs abandonded all my body

Oh my agony

Baby I'm just soggy from the chemo

And countin' down the days to go

It just ain't livin'

Cause the hardest part of this

Is leaving you.

MAMA

Picture a battlefield in Europe. WWI or II, doesn't matter. A soldier writes a no-holds-barred letter home to his mother. Add in a little bit of the Police's "Mother", a two-line cameo by Liza Minnelli, and have it finish up as a drunken bar song. It's truely one of a kind.

Well, Mother, what the war did to my legs and to my tongue

You should have raised a baby girl

I should have been a better son

If you could coddle the infection

They can amputate at once

You should have been

I could have been a better son

We're damned after all

Through fortunes and flames we fall

And if you can stay

Then I'll show you the way

To return from the ashes you call.

We'll all carry on

When our brothers in arms are gone

So raise your glass high

For tomorrow we die

And return from the ashes you call.

Other great songs are "I Disappear", "The Sharpest Lives", and "Teenagers".

Posted for Thursday December 28th..........

Quite literally 18 years ago Thursday, I stated working as a custodian for BFA. Spartan Industries on Fletcher Road was in a mess. The parent company, Coleco, was in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and we didn't know, week-to-week, if we would stay open. A position opened up at BFA, I applied, and the rest is history.

A lot has happened in 18 years. I would guess that over 90 percent of the kids in the school now, were not even born when I started. I've been through four bosses and four high school principals. The middle school construction began soon after I started. The elementary came later.

Teachers have moved from room to room to room. Teachers have come and gone. Students began school, and worked their way through, then graduated.

There have been happy times, and some sad times.

18 years.

And it doesn't seem that long.

But thinking back........

It has.