Isometric RPG dungeon image created with Stable Diffusion.
Yesterday, one of my top students visited my virtual office hours on Zoom to talk about their research paper. During our conversation, he made impassioned arguments that I add chapters on Video Games and Table Top Gaming to Yet Another Science Fiction Textbook (YASFT), the OER textbook that I published earlier this year and am teaching with for the first time this semester. He’s right–it does need coverage of those topics not just for completeness but also because it’s how many students make a deeper connection to the genre (with television and film often being an introduction). It’s something that I plan to work on when I get a chance.
My cousin Mark Cook passed away suddenly on October 19th. I last talked to him for awhile outside NAPA Auto Parts with my dad a few weeks ago when I was in Brunswick. He had wanted to hang out while I was down visiting, but it didn’t work out for that to happen.
Mark gave me some of my favorite memories growing up. We stayed up watching The Rat Patrol on late night television in his room once when I was five or six. He had a Boba Fett action figure before I did, so I always enjoyed playing Star Wars with him when I had the opportunity to visit him at his folks’ house on New Sterling Road. He was a great pal to go swimming with when we were younger. He taught me how to swim underwater with a face mask and flippers. When I asked my mom what we were getting Mark for his birthday back in 1983, she said that he had wanted Culture Club’s Colour by Numbers. I thought to myself that he had a very sophisticated tasted in music.
Mark and I took different paths in life and work. When I visited home, I was interested to learn what new VW Beetle dune buggy project he might be working on, or how his family life was taking shape–especially after they moved in with his mom on Baker Hill Road in Hortense.
Mark lucked out when he met his wife Heather, and then again, when they had their daughter Georgia. He was intensely proud of them both–Heather’s progression of degrees to become a teacher, and Georgia’s academic awards and accomplishments that reveal her potential for future successes. As he got older, he never had much to say about himself, but he was always ready to say what Heather and Georgia were up to. While Mark’s passing will be a trying ordeal for them, I know that they will endure and reach such illustrious heights that would have made him smile–in his uniquely beaming but understated way.
Like his older brother Michael, Mark is gone way before his time. We were supposed to grow old and gray together–perhaps divided by time and place, but bound by old memories and good times.
Cherry Cox, wife of my cousin Ian and mother to Rowan, Ember, and Evan, passed away on October 1st. She was a singular person with a distinct inner light that revealed itself as a spiritual illumination that cuts through the darkness, a warmth that welcomed others around, and a perspective that favored others before herself. She is gone far too soon and dearly missed.
THIS BUILDING
DEDICATED TO
PUBLIC SERVICE
1968
LYNDON B JOHNSON
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
W. MARVIN WATSON
POSTMASTER GENERAL
One of my earliest memories is going into the post office with my mom when I was a very young child–about 12 or 13 years after the building was dedicated. There wasn’t grass and weeds growing in the cracks of the concrete, and the parking lot wasn’t as sandy as it is now.
While reading about W. Marvin Watson, I learned that he eulogized Lyndon B. Johnson at his state funeral, which you can watch here. This is a poignant passage considering today’s state of affairs where politics are winner-take-all, zero-sum game, and without the hope of compromise:
"He was ours and we loved him. Beyond any telling of it he shared his victories and he shared his defeats. In victory, he taught us to be magnanimous. In defeat, he taught us to be without hate, to learn, to rally, to accept the challenge, and to try again. He believed that good men together could accomplish anything even the most impossible of dreams. No matter who his opponent, he constantly sought to find that touchstone within the soul of every man which if discovered would release the impulse for honest and fair solution. Hate was never in this man's heart."
While I was visiting my parents earlier this month, I took some pictures around their house, shop, and driveway. Despite the hurricane and everything else, it was nice being around so much nature everyday.
