Sinister Systems and Foggy Streams

There never was any doubt I would be going out the same way my dad had and his dad had too. I would slowly lose my mind and have no idea it was happening to me until I was already a burden to someone I loved who would have to take care of me for the rest of my days. I knew I had to make peace with it all before this inevitable decline robbed me of my dignity. I needed to divest myself of everything so when the Parkinson's or Alzheimer's (it was a coin toss) eventually came for me there would be nothing for it to take. I was in my late 40s when the holes in my memory started to bubble up like Swiss cheese. Where there once had been a solid mass of past experience that I could call up at any time, life's ups and downs, ins and outs, highs and lows, darkness and light, the messy macabre mundane magnificent spectrum of existence, there now grew a sinister system of tunnels, dead ends, and inexplicable gaps. It may very well be that no one will ever care, but I have seen and done a lot in my time and if I don't start writing it down it will be lost forever. Of the great many unfortunate things about losing your mind, I've always wondered why the process of mental disintegration couldn't start with one's most unpleasant memories and damaging experiences. If there is a God who feels this phenomenon is necessarily prevalent, why wouldn't He in His benevolence at least start by removing any recollection of the beatings, embarrassments and emotional traumas of youth, leaving us to dodder about in old age smiling dimly back on a foggy stream of uninterrupted success, a lifetime awash in unfettered fulfillment? I picked up the guitar at age 11 and almost immediately I knew: It was a beacon illuminating my life's path before me. There is much I will tell you about my father in these pages. But for now suffice to say he was my first hero, a comedian, a singer and guitar player. Like a lot of young boys, my father was my first role model. He was tall, funny, clever, always smiling. Always smiling. ALWAYS smiling. How did he do that? Of the great many mysteries about this man, I will never quite understand how he did that. My smile is a frown. Even when I'm happy, I've been told, you can't tell. *