I’m sorry that you don’t get to read all of the bleargh verbal/written processing that goes on with any of my letters. I do try to edit them, but knowing that they’ll probably go unsent typically leaves me to be lazy about them.

There are many people in this list: friends, enemies, but mostly girls. I write these letters in all sorts of moods, but the darker ones are usually the source of the emotion. To be clear, I often write because I need to process things out past guttural sounds, labial fricatives, and a smattering of profanity. I have a tendency towards swings of emotion, and sometimes writing is a way for me to have to take stock and weather the storm. It’s a way to think rather than feel.

I actually keep most of these letters stored on my hard drive. Once or twice, I’ve written the letter and then automatically deleted it before even Time Machine can preserve it for resurrection. I keep them as reminders of the way I felt at the time. They serve to remind me of what I was feeling and why, because those things can sometimes lie under the surface before coming screaming back for air at the worst possible times. As such, I treat these letters like the ones I actually do send, both paper and via email. I’m an inveterate filer because it’s important to me to have this around. Just as I sometimes go back and re-read important emails from other people, I do sometimes go back to these for insight.

You see, these letters really are for me and not you. You probably already got that, of course, but now you’re wondering what I’d have to say.

I’m not telling because I’m that much of a jerk,

Geof

Hello, Apple sister. I don’t think that we look that much alike, but we fooled that Apple employee that one time with the Leopard upgrade discs. That’s a fun memory of us.

I wrote about your wonderful husband yesterday, but you needed to know in letter form what you mean to me. I think what I love about you most is your outlook on life. Even when things are bad, I always feel like you’re looking for the good things in the situation. I don’t think this is the maternal instinct. This seems to be a characteristic of how you live life, and for that I am thankful. I would like to think myself an optimistic person, and I can be when I am in the right frame of mind. Since I am sometimes not, I need that balance that says that maybe it’s not so bad after all. You may not see yourself this way at all, but it is clearly how I see you moving in my life.

I find that you are quicker than Stephen to disagree with me, yet you mainly do so when I’m clearly wrongheaded about something. I look at this as a big-sister relation, and I so need that in my life. We should associate strong friendships with near-unconditional support, but that support can come with conflict in the realm of making everyone stronger. When you do disagree with me, it’s in a loving manner that disarms my natural defenses to swallow my opponent whole.

Back in April you sent me a link about a bi-polar restaurateur in Seattle written by your friend Matthew. Your email said that you thought that it would strike a chord. It did. I want to quote myself from that email: “It’s because I was starting to realize just how not right my thinking was, how screwed up the chemistry had gotten, how out of my normal self I was. It wasn’t really me.” You have been quick to note when I am not right, pulling me in a little tighter to your family so I can see those good things. As I also said in that email, it becomes easier to step outside of the pain when I can see good things in front of me, and that’s easy to do when I see Eli and Liza and how much you all love each other, even when you’re all wearing crazy pants.

I know that any phone call I have with you is going to be cheerful in whole or in part, and most every email I get is going to have lots of exclamation points! I need those when I am down and I relish them when I am not. You continually encourage me, and there are a lot of times when I need that.¹

I love you for who you are, and I would do so even if that Stephen guy sucked, which he so does not. You two are certainly a great team, but each of you are special to me independent of the other.

Geof

P.S. Invite me over for dinner soon. I haven’t seen you in a month.

1. See also: the last 14 months [↩]

I’ve not known you or your family quite as long as I have, say, Rick, but as with our tall fellow I do relate to you on a brotherly level. In fact, you are three-and-a-half months older than Doug, and so I relate to you (and Misty) as if you were my sibling … my bald, evil scientist brother. In a sign of the bond, my mother asks about you and yours as often as she asks about the Kings.

I have always known you as one half of the daring Granade duo (Alabama version). I wasn’t totally sure what to think of you at first, much in the same way that y’all weren’t quite sure to think of me. After a while I remembered that, just like any of the rest of us nerds, you were more than just a piece of paper on a wall or a name on a business card. Somewhere along the way, y’all went from “people whose house I crash on Tuesday nights to watch sci-fi TV with my friends, an activity that I wouldn’t otherwise do” to a lot more than that. Such things happen in a natural progression, I guess. I think I started to get closer to y’all around the time of Kat and Sean’s wedding. The run-up to a wedding can always end up having that summer camp vibe, except for the fact that y’all were totally there after the fact. I feel like I won!

Over the years, y’all have become people I laugh with, think with, cry with, and sometimes argue with. We don’t argue much, really—it’s more of discussion that becomes sometimes spirited. [See also: 2004 election. You were right, and I don't like admitting that.]

You’ve been really supportive of me in a lot of ways over the last couple of years. You will invite me over to come and sit on your couch and verbally process what’s going on in my head. You know I need that, and you provide. I have this theory that I have to talk to people a certain number of hours a day—usually one-and-a-half to three depending on how things are going in my world—and you are often this person, whether it be an email or in person. You’re undeniably quick-witted, but I find you to be a careful listener, willing to nag me a bit when you think that I need it.

On one of the worst days of my life, you dropped everything and were there for me. I don’t know how you got past security, honestly. [Did you pull the Ph.D. card? That would have been awesome.] I know that we talked, and I know that I gave you Jessica’s house key, but what I remember most was a hug that lasted both an eternity and a brief second. You didn’t say it, but the message was clear: I am here for you, and you will get through it. You have been, and I have.

Here’s hoping I get that job and get to buy you that case of Rochefort 10. You deserve that and a lot more for being a great friend.

Geof

Of all of the friends I see on a regular basis—and I don’t make the time to see you as often as I should—I have known you the longest. We’ve been friends for over 15 years now, starting from me being your “secret pal” at MSMS. We all knew that you were a legacy, and so I figured that I should give you a chance and get to know you as you, not just Chris’s little brother. You also ended up living in the room that I lived in my junior year, so it all felt very fitting that I should get to know you. I’d say that I came out of things okay.

When I was in the hospital, you were right up at the front of the line of people to see me. When my family got to talking about some sensitive stuff, you tried to take that as your cue to leave. I don’t know if you remember that, but the person asking you to stay was my dad, not me, and his words were, “You’re family, sit back down.” You are indeed family: we have similar backgrounds, we believe in similar things, and we have similar aspirations in life. Also, we care about you as much as you do about us. My mother asks about you.

After I left MSMS, I thought you would be a distant friend, but then you came to Huntsville to visit for a co-op job that you’d take at the company you still work. I remember you telling me, “This is a really neat place. Why didn’t you tell me about it?” It would have been awesome to have you at UAH with me, but I think you ended up far better academically being at State, as much as it pains me to say that. I would have never guessed, though, that you would move here or that both of us would decide that it was home.

I’ve lived in metro Huntsville for 14 years, six years longer than I’ve lived in any one place. If I stay in this house for two more years, I will have lived in it as long as we lived in our Ohio house. I’ve lived a life of locational impermanence, and that has driven the friendships that I have. Being a Navy brat and the brother of an Air Force pilot, you know what that looks like just as well as I do. That I’ve had a friendship last longer than any of this—fifteen years—does my heart good.

You went with me to Ohio several years ago to go with me to an Over the Rhine show after seeing a Caedmon’s Call show with me the day before in Jackson. I don’t even remember exactly how that came off, but it was a great weekend. I got to introduce you to my childhood best friend, and you sounded a little surprised that we all knew each other as we did with the long time off—about eight years back then since I’d seen them last—but what caught me is how you fit in pretty easily. I knew you would, but it was still fun to watch. ¹

We don’t hang out nearly as much as I’d like, and that’s really on me. I really try not to just show up at people’s houses, but I also don’t call ahead, either, to make it work. I need you as a steadying force in my life, and you probably need me as an agitator some. It’s been really fun to watch you be a good husband to Jessica and a good dad to those little girls of yours. I really am jealous of you having all that.

I am a better person for having you in my life, and you’re right at the top of the list of reasons that keep me here. You’re the little brother I didn’t get to have, but you’re a lot more than that, too. I love ya.

Geof

1. Not so fun to watch? That OtR show where we were on the far side, front wall of the venue. I mean, it sounded good, but it didn’t look good from there. [↩]

Five-plus years now, and not a one of you has made a donation. I did an incorporation sale and sold three items. [Would you like an 8x12 print? Would you? I still have 97 of them after giving two away.] I put a lot of time into these recordings: getting gear packed up, traveling to the show—and when it’s Nashville, that’s two hours, setting up before while avoiding crabby sound engineers, recording—which isn’t just pushing record, but monitoring levels from time to time, then coming home, dumping cards, firing up an editor, and doing the best job I can from futzing and messing up and learning. I can spend just as much time with the photography, but I gather that more of you listen to the recordings than look at photos.

593 of you downloaded a show I did last February in Nashville. If each of you had given me just a dime, I’d have had gas money for that show. Give me a quarter and I can sock some money away to a fund for better microphones to make you a better recording. [I am as far as I will get with that rig without $400-750 microphones.] If it’s a sawbuck, then I can probably buy those mics.

I’ve always told people that I do this as a hobby and that I don’t plan to make this my business. That said, street fairs and flea markets are full of people taking their hobbies and passions and getting a little spending money out of it. A number of my crafty friends did just that at the beginning of October. I won’t lie: I envied the hell out of them.

This imbalance—me giving, you taking without giving back—has been especially brought home generally and specifically today, which is why this letter jumped the line. You see, I actually had someone pay me to record a show tonight—not much, but something. He really wanted the recording, and he knew that I didn’t know the guy. He also knew that I would do the best I could if asked. [I think that I did.] That someone paid me to record a show—blessedly 0.2mi from my house—was good not just in terms of being valued but because I could use the money right now. I’ve been un(der)employed since last September. You could help a brother out.

I’ll keep recording, and I’ll keep sharing when I do. But the lack of appreciation makes me want to stop recording shows and go back to just taking them in. It’s a lot of work documenting these things, and I’m glad that I had tape rolling for all of it to keep me up when I missed something.

I’ll keep recording, but you’re an ingrate if you keep freeloading.

Geof

I have a lot of friends and an even larger number of acquaintances. I’m that guy on Facebook with 1248 friends, and that’s excluding the ones I’ve pared away back a few months ago when I was really on this “I don’t like you people, if I’m honest” kick. I’m the guy that people ask off the wall questions, knowing that they may someone who knows someone. For example, my friend Andrew asked me a few weeks back if I’d ever done my own brakes. Dad and I did them two vehicles ago, but I had done the work. ¹ Then I realized that he was asking me not so that I would try to help him, but rather if I knew anyone who had the equipment to do so. I didn’t offhand, but I eventually remembered who would before remembering that they had moved from Huntsville a couple of years back.

Collecting people is what I do. My personal business card says, “Catalyst. Interpersonal Glue.” Amy came up with the latter. It really does re-state what my life’s practice is. ² I don’t collect people because they’re useful, though. I collect people because I like people. I like knowing them. I like knowing what makes them tick. I like finding out their interests and mashing them together with other people. There was a time in college when all you had to do to find a girlfriend was to hang out with me until we met the girl I was secretly crushing about. Being a wimp, I wouldn’t do or say anything, and BLAMMO!—another one was gone. ³

I believe in people—I believe in you, friend I’m not going to write about this month—because I believe in the power of the stories that we have to tell to each other. Everyone is a product of story, including the ones that we’re too embarrassed or afraid to tell anyone else. Here’s one I don’t often tell: when we were preparing to move from Ohio, I told my mother that I wanted to start going by my middle name, Franklin, and well, be Frank about it. I was tired of spelling my name and having it mispronounced. Who doesn’t know how to say “Franklin” or “Frank”? I remember that a week before we left, my mother came up to me and said, “So are you changing your name? We’ll have to get used to calling you Frank.” At that moment, I could have changed my life, because I could’ve been the kid who changed his name and had all of his family confused as to what to call him. ⁴ But I was the product of being a kid with a weird name, and I kept choosing to live that story. ⁵

Now, the only reason that I’m not writing about you is that I can’t fit a letter to you inside the larger narrative of this month. I started to just go right into the first friend that I wanted to write an open letter to, but I decided that I needed an interstitial to make that point clear. It’s not you. It’s me and how I want to tell the story of us—or, well, leave that story for another time. If you want me to write you a letter, open or closed, let me know and I will. That said, I am not taking requests.

Yes, I’m a pretentious jerk, but you knew that already.

Geof

1. It sucked. I didn’t suck as much as the 24-hour oil change we did. I don’t even remember the comedy of errors that led to that one, but I do know that Dad and I had a good laugh about it when we weren’t swearing at that fucking truck. [↩]
2. I gave one to my therapist because I ended up talking about it one day, and now she uses it as an anvil. [↩]
3. This included roommates, including one marriage. I laugh. Mostly. [↩]
4. To this day, a lot of them write it as Geoff. I’ve learned to let it go, but not enough to omit this endnote. [↩]
5. Trust me, it’s a story I tell to everyone, including most customer service representatives. [↩]

You get to finish up the run of family to whom I’m writing, big brother. Aren’t you proud?

I often tell people that we’re two only children who happen to have the same parents, but that only ever ends up being a rhetorical device to tell them our shared story, which isn’t one of much shared experience outside the home. You’re nearly six years older than me, having been born in Wichita a little less than halfway through Dad’s time as a Titan II missile officer. Your young childhood was spent in Knoxville, where I was born just as we prepared to leave. My young childhood was split between Texas and Ohio.

School: You started kindergarten in Tennessee, presuming that my math is right. You did most of elementary school in Texas, finished it in Ohio, and then did junior high and high school there in Beavercreek, graduating just before we moved. Conversely, I started school in Ohio, finishing sixth grade there before doing all of my secondary education in Mississippi. There’s only one overlap in our school days, and that it’s that we both did fifth and sixth grades in Ohio. The difference is that we were redistricted from Valley into Main¹ after you finished sixth grade and I finished kindergarten, so we never had any of the same teachers growing up. I never had any comparisons to you, and the same held true on your end, too. As different as we are, I think that’s for the best. Heck, it’s probably best for everyone.

We consistently came through life at different external speeds, but we did share our home life. You taught me to read, mostly (I guess) as a way to take your annoying 30-month-old brother out of your face and stick him back in his room. You have to admit, though, that teaching me to read under the radar was a sneaky trick. I can picture us as flashcard-wielding demons, housed in your room with knowledge ours for the taking. Little did Mom know that we were on the attack when I read the paper and asked what “raped” meant. I got revenge for Mom, though, asking you what “fuck” meant when we rode together once on the school bus. I remember you both stammering to figure out what to tell me and mentally vowing to Never Let Little Brother Near Me on the Bus Again.

All of this was a symptom of I Want to Be Like My Big Brother-itis, a common inflammation amongst younger siblings. This even extended to my first post-high school job, one you got me working for the radio company that you still flip discs for on the side for shingles and some money. I worked as a cub radio reporter, doing … well, not doing a whole hell of a lot seeing as I had zero contacts. I remember once going to a diner purely to figure out what was going on that people cared about. I also remember a good piece I did about some school issue up in Shady Grove, one you told me that Larry liked, and that you’d heard it too and thought that it was pretty good. That was the highlight of that summer, which I remember for us fighting a lot about how the apartment should be (you should have always won; it was your place) and for both Hurricane Danny and the Versace murder. I remember thinking that you and I were going to be stuck at the Radio Ranch for a long weekend as South Mississippi flooded like crazy.

At some point, I was fully confident enough to forge my own path in things, which explains my politics if nothing else. We both live our lives based on the values that our parents and grandparents taught us, even if that looks differently in each of us given the differences we have in temperament. [It must be nice not getting mad easily.] We may have both led largely different lives at every stage of them, but we are still undeniably brothers. I was proud to be there for you on your wedding day and disheartened to be there when Cindy passed away. Being the little brother means that I don’t have all of the protective brotherly instincts, but I remember wanting to take all of that sorrow away from you if I could.

We don’t talk as much as we should, and I don’t visit as much as I should. You’re still my brother, though. You’re the only one I got, and whoever thinks they can change that has another think coming.

1. I never, ever understood why we had been sent from one side of Beavercreek to another when Main was less than a mile from our house. It had nothing to do with desegregation, because Beavercreek’s schools were lily white. [↩]

You turned 90 back in May. I can only hope to live that long. You and Pops were married 64 years—64!—more than I could hope to be married. [If I got married this year, I'd have to go to 97. That's a long time.] You’ve always been young for your age, though. You’ve acted like a kid—a wise one, but still a kid—for most of my life. You retired about 20 years ago and ended up going back for a few more years because you just couldn’t stand not working.

Being the youngest of your sisters and making it to 90 would lead most to think that you’re the only one left, and you are. You grew up in the Depression, and you did so without a father after he died in your childhood. I cannot really begin to imagine what that was like, but I know that it must have been hard. That said, I have never heard you complain about it. I only know the particulars from some of your nieces. I think that this experience certainly shaped you. I’ve watched you save every little thing that might even remotely be useful for all of your life. I think that you go a little bit overboard with it, but you definitely lived a life where you never knew whether saving something would mean a lot down the road.

I took swimming lessons while we still lived in Texas, around the time that I was 3 or so. I learned then and was as fearless as children are at that age. Then we moved to Ohio and I wasn’t around pools. Outdoor pools were rare in the area that we lived in, and indoor swimming never held any attraction. That’s completely different from your life experience, which has been spent swimming the Leaf River and its tributaries. ¹ You still swim in the Calhoun community center, getting in a good aerobic workout.

I fell out of practice with swimming, and as I aged that fearlessness I’d had as a wee boy had vanished. I knew the dangers of drowning, and I became afraid of swimming in water that came above my neck. You devised a way out of this. We went to James Lee’s pool, and you tred water in the deep end of the pool. You encouraged me to jump in and swim to you. This was a trick, as you eased to the shallow end, leading me to swim the entire way. I didn’t want to let you down, so I kept on going.

I’ve never been afraid of the deep water since. I learned that you just keep on going until you get to the edge. I can draw a parallel to your upbringing, as y’all Ainsworths definitely just kept on swimming until you could make it. Thank you for the lesson.

Geof

1. To my other readers: the Leaf is why Jones County has two county seats, as the flooding would divide the county for part of the year before adequate bridges were built. [↩]

As my mother’s mother, you should hold a special place in my heart, and yet you do not.

When I was a child, you spoiled me, and I appreciated that for what it was as well as any kid will, I suppose. When I got past kid stage—after your husband died—the spoiling stopped being less about lavishing things upon us kids and more about manipulation. It’s stayed that way ever since. You have tried to play me off upon my mother a number of times. Do you know how often that has worked? You don’t need any fingers for that one.

I can get mad about the relationship dynamic—I did just now—but mostly I’m sad with it. You’ve had a number of brain traumas over the last decade, some of which I’ve alluded to in the past. In short, you’re no longer a rational thinker, and sometimes that just comes with age and a poor medical history. It really isn’t your fault that these things happened to you: given your penchant for comfort and being in control, I rather think that you wouldn’t have allowed them had you the power of limitation. No, now you’re just making a mess of everything because you’re still convinced that you’re a rational actor when all evidence is that you’re not.

There’s something to that, of course: an irrational actor is ill-equipped to make an observation on their rationality. Your actions of late have been clearly irrational, but actions prior to that show poor thinking. Unfortunately for me, when I look at some of those choices in light of history, I see some of my own character failings on display. I’m trying to take something from that and learn. I never thought that I had much to learn from you, but I would guess that I’ve not looked in the right places until lately.

Now, please stop making my mother’s life so damn hard. She’s not out to get you. I promise.

Geof

[Happier letters will be found later on. Promise.]

Thank you for being the funniest of my relations. I believe, although I’ve never seen the family tree to prove it, and I can’t find it on the Internet, that you’re my great-great grandfather on my mother’s side. My mother is an Adair, my grandmother a Hollis, and I think that her mother was a Pennington. Anyhow, it’s not as if there are a ton of people in Lamar County, Alabama; we’re bound to be related.

Anyhow, you were sheriff of Lamar County when the infamous train-robber Rube Burrow made his trek through North Alabama after having eluded authorities near Nashville. [Or so says the Internet. Burrow died in 1890, and Barb's story about you says that you were elected in 1884 and served a two-year term, which means that you weren't.] He’s purported to have had the bead on you before deciding against shooting you as you were holding your baby daughter—but at this point, I’m not really sure what I believe.

Perhaps I believe that your untimely death near a railroad was cause for legal concerns. Perhaps not, because again, that’s Google saying that because they like to pretend that they have all the world’s information on a string.

I do know that this caused me a stir when I once mentioned Lamar County to an acquaintance. As I went to refill my water glass, Patrick started talking about his kin from the area, including an infamous train-robber. I stopped and asked if he meant Rube Burrow, and when he said yes, we proceeded to tell the story to our astonished friends. As we remembered it, you killed Burrow right in the middle of Sulligent. As it really happened, you didn’t.

I do know four things: 1) you did exist 2) you’re buried in the Sulligent City Cemetery [I've seen the grave marker] 3) we’re related somehow and 4) the answers all lie in the basement of Felix Adair’s house.

Thank you for being mysterious enough to invite exploration.

Geof