Setting the record straight

How this relic still stands is anyone's guess.

Let's see if I can get back into the swing of things now that I've had the luxury of going for a whole week without blogging. It was actually really nice, so I'll probably be toning things down around here for the foreseeable future and posting less often. I'm taking on some top-secret personal projects that will hopefully keep me away from the computer, so I won't be tempted to sit and surf all morning, noon, and night.

But, then again, I have a way of making time for the blog even when I have other obligations, so what I just said might be bunk.

There's something I've got to set right, though. A few weeks ago, Jamieslan e-mailed me while he was home in Saltillo for a family reunion (which my family also attended because we are apparently related distantly). The reunion had taken place at the old schoolhouse, where Jamie and I had gone briefly to elementary school, and where Saltillo Video v1.0 and v2.0 had been housed back in the day. This is also the school that boasts the infamous "Fucker loves weirdo" graffiti.

Only, Jamie realized, not quite.

He took a gander into the windows of the room with the blackboard and realized that all those years ago he'd misread or misremembered what the graffiti actually said. And, because it was miraculously still there a few weeks ago, he was able to correct the record.

It's "Dumbo loves (fuck you) weirdo."

Dumbo? I get to be Dumbo? I was just getting comfortable with being "Fucker" and then I find out I'm actually considered a dumbo. Kind of a major letdown, not to mention the lamest insult ever proffered by a disgruntled anonymous acquaintance of mine.

So last weekend I was in town for Mother's Day and my brother and I were driving back from our day on the river with the family in Parsons (pictures are uploaded), when I asked him to pull over at the school so I could take a peek and see the graffiti for myself. And I was at the side of the building, looking through the window, squinting to read the board, when my brother comes strolling through the room. Turns out the door was unlocked and he just let himself in.

I'm no safety nut, but that sounds sort of like a hazard considering the floor in the room has collapsed in places and some kid's going to walk in there and the rest of the floor's going to crack and fall and legs will be broken. Ankles, at the very least.

My camera's battery died just after I ran inside and snapped the picture of the chalkboard, so I have no good photos of the wonky floor and all the rotting movie posters scattered around the room. I walked through the run-down, vacant building and I tried to remember what it had been like in kindergarten and first grade there. I would have loved to have taken more photos inside the place. The stage still has its heavy maroon drapes with "SE" sewn on in yellow block letters. The stairwell to the basement is still dark and creepy as hell. The paint scheme is still plain plaster and that weird seafoam green that colors my earliest memories: Memories that include but are not limited to the time I ran into the bathroom and jumped off the wall and received a stern smack on the butt from our substitute teacher, which embarrassed me to the point that I stayed in the stall long past the end of the bathroom break.

Dumbo, indeed.