Before There was Will & Grace ...

I know, I know... It's been a long time since I've posted anything on here, but I've been going through some tough times emotionally. With the days growing shorter, the temperatures dropping, the holidays quickly approaching and my birthday growing menacingly nearer, I tend to get this way each year. And, unfortunately, each year I begin feeling this way earlier and earlier. I've been living in a shell, not going out and not expressing myself in my blog. Quite frankly, my mind's been in such a state of boredom that I couldn't even think of a single sentence to put down on here. I actually had something that I thought was interesting to write about, but I had been thinking about it during my waking stage in bed and now, several hours later, it has completely escaped me.

But nonetheless, I was sitting down in the livingroom, debating which of the many tasks I had placed on my plate to do first, flipping through the television. I found myself stopping my assault on the up-arrow channel button of my remote control when I came upon (I'm ashamed to admit) Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.

This had been one of my favorite shows growing up, not for the lessons this gentle man tried to bestow upon the many children glued to the television set, not for the adventures in the "Land of Make-believe", but for the simple pleasure of studying the scaled-down model of the neighborhood during the opening and closing credits of the show or whenever Fred would go visit one of his "neighbors" and the camera would scan the streets of miniature houses depicting the host's strolls through the hood.

My father is a model railroader buff and some of that has rubbed off on me (although all of my trains are collecting dust in my parent's attic). I remember as a child, sneaking into my father's workshop while he was at work, climbing up onto a stool and pulling down the many boxes of model buildings he had stashed away in the cabinet above the extra freezer. Then I would go into my toy closet, pull out my sackful of Matchbox cars and spread everything out on the rec room floor and begin creating my own "neighborhood". Driving around town, visiting friends and neighbors, running simple errands, causing pile-ups at quiet intersections. My little basement land of make-believe had brought me hours of enjoyment each and every day (until about 2:30 in the afternoon when I realized I had about 30 minutes or so to neatly stack my dad's houses into their respective boxes and balance myself ontop of that stool again to shove them back into the cabinet).

But even at an early age, my architectural instinct would kick in as I watched the show and asked myself many questions. How can "Trolley" enter through one wall of the livingroom and exit through another and all of a sudden be in this land of puppets? The trolley just goes in a circle around the castle, which means that Mr. Roger's house must be behind the castle. But from the outside, his house is no where near big enough to hold a castle. How can "Picture Picture" show movies while hanging on the wall (little did I know that this little special effect would soon become reality)? Where was the bathroom? There were only three doors in Fred's house, the front, the back and the closet holding one sweater and a pair of sneakers.

But my biggest question as a child couldn't even really be put into the form of a question at such an early age, but I still can remember wondering why certain characters seemed "different". I'm talking specifically about Lady Elaine Fairchild and King Friday, televsions first gay friendship. Even though, at five or six years old, I didn't really know the right words to explain myself but, in a todder's way of thinking, I wondered why did Lady Elaine have a boy's haircut and wear a heavy and baggy wool sweater? Why was she so aggresive and nasty and bitter and why was she only friendly to Henrietta Pussycat? Why was King Friday dressed in torquoise satan? Why was he always mumbling softly below his breath like soft moans? Why did he speak with an over emphasis on his "s"s? And he was scared shitless of the red nosed drunk who lived in the Museum-Go-Round.

I can remember having these thoughts as a child, but never put words to it. I suppose I thought about it throughout my later years growing up, when I would jokingly refer to the mailman as "Mr. McFeelme" or wondered if Lady Elaine got that red nose sniffing some fishy caves, but I never really sat down and thought about it until this writing.

And now, as I finish this post and look back at what I had written, I begin to think: how sad is that?