Words On Wednesday

Roughnecks was a television series came out about 20 years ago that nobody seems to remember, but was my absolute jam back when I was a kid. Source: http://starshiptroopers.wikia.com/wiki/Roughnecks:_Starship_Troopers_Chronicles Fully titled “ Roughnecks: Starship Trooper Chronicles ," the show was based on a movie , based on a book . I didn’t know anything of the book or the film until recently. When the show was airing, I just knew it was about military guys shooting aliens with big guns, and that was awesome. As one can assume, CGI animation from the late 1990s and early 2000s was not very good. The creators reused a lot of scenes, especially one particular explosion sequence that seemed to be in every episode. I only know this because I watched through the series again during my freshman year in college with my roommate, the only person I know who also watched this show and remembered it. We wanted to love the show the same way we did as kids, but it did not age well ...

‘Murica. If I had to describe Independence Day in one word, it would simply be “‘Murica.” I’ve always had a weird relationship with Independence Day, or “the fourth of July” as I tend to hear more often. As a kid, we did Independence Day big. And I don’t mean we went somewhere to see professional fireworks shows. We shot fireworks at home. And not small, gas station fireworks. We had hookups with people who shot professional fireworks, and somehow managed to acquire some of these for our own purposes. As such, I’ve always been intimately familiar with fireworks. That includes the mishaps that can go along with amateur firework shows. We’ve had a dog run by and snatch up an actively firing cake of Saturn Missiles, shooting off as we chased her around the yard. A larger cake of balls with report tipped over once, pointing directly at where the entire audience was seated. Another time, a rocket shot up into a tree and caught the top of the tree on fire. Someone had to climb up an adj...

Father’s Day, as a complement to Mother’s Day, has always been a vastly different holiday. For one, and I’ve mentioned it plenty of times before, my own father has been gone for a decade. I have other male relatives in similar positions, uncles, a grandfather, even other men who have acted as almost surrogate fathers to me, but my own biological father hasn’t been in the picture for years. That sort of absence puts a different sort of spin on the holiday. I don’t want to downplay the roles that any other guys have had in my life, I appreciate them tremendously. Still, it just isn’t quite the same. Beyond that, I myself have been a father for now 4 years. I could never be a mother (obviously), so Father’s Day is more personal to me. Not that I’d want to latch onto it as celebrating me, I feel like that’s entirely too narcissistic. But I feel like it serves to make me evaluate myself, and whether I’m being the best father that I can be for my kids. I’m not perfect, no parent is, but...

Mother’s Day is this coming Sunday, and it is a holiday that I have come to appreciate more and more as I’ve gotten older. Growing up, I didn’t really care that much about Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Not that I didn’t love and appreciate my parents, but it was more or less just another day. As a child, each parent got the other a gift. Once I got to the age where I would buy them a gift myself, it was mildly stressful. I’m not good at buying people gifts, so I have a hard time getting something sentimental even for people I’m close to. The first thing that gave me a better appreciation for Mother’s Day was the death of my father. I’ve mentioned it before , but it deserves to be mentioned here. Suddenly going from having both parents to only one really makes you appreciate the remaining parent. I may discuss my father’s absence more, but his death gave me much more gratitude for my own mother, and all she continues to do for me. Into adulthood, I gained even awareness for Moth...