Wow! I mean... wow! (Edited bonus - The real story of BP&G)

[joegoda]

Pockets is one happy man! I has Pocket Pants to match my Pocket Cloak! I'll take a pic or so tomorrow and see if I can put one up. It's sooooo cool! They matches exac'ly!

Thanks Mom! You is the ever-loving Pockety Best!

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[joegoda.livejournal.com]

Here's the story of how Pockets, the little misfit genius came to be.

I have to take you back aways, to September, 23rd, 2004. That was the day my brother Jamie died of cancer. It was a long illness, though not as long as it might have been. He moved back to Oklahoma from Phoenix, Arizona to die. It took him almost three years, and in those three years he and I recreated our brotherhood, which had been shattered by ideology and philosophy.

He passed away early that morning, around 9:30 am or so. Sherry was with me when he passed, as was Jamie's wife. My last memory of him is me laying next to him with my head on his chest, while he was in the final stages of a pancreatic coma. Sherry had gotten some glucose tabs to put under his tongue to see if he could revive a bit, but his mouth was too dry. Still, some how, he roused enough to know I was there, and my most precious and painful memory is of him shedding a single tear, trying his hardest to say something, anything to me. He died 10 minutes later, while I was outside with Sherry, and Tina, his wife, was by his bedside. I saw his face in the sky, commented about it to Sherry, and then Tina called for us to come in. Jamie had moved on.

That story, sad though it may be, started me on one of my greatest adventures. Jamie's wish for me was to NOT stay in my apartment and become the hermit I was becoming. He wanted me to get out and LIVE.

Sherry, knowing that I was going to be having a very rough time of it... I had lost my father to cancer just three years earlier, and let's face it... the youngest sibling should not pass before the oldest... She knew that I was going to break down.

Now, Sherry and her husband, Ken, owned a small computer store about a block away from where Jamie's apartment was. Tina decided to spend the next month at her parents, back in Arizona, and had asked me to watch the apartment.

So I would walk from Jamie's apartment to the backdoor of Sherry's shop, knock on the door and Sherry and I would sit and talk and laugh about life. We cried a lot, too. Sherry had just lost her sister to the Big C as well.

Sherry and I go way, way back. We were friends for about 6 years before we became engaged in 1980 or 81. She wisely decided that I wasn't exactly the most stable person, and I wasn't back then, and married Ken instead. We remained friends and good friends at that. I'm a Cancer Native. I don't throw anything away.

Now, there's also Tim, who is my very best chum in all the world. He and I go back to my first failed attempt at College.

I was rooming with a gay gentleman in the Aggie dorm at NEO A&M in Miami, Oklahoma. I'm not gay, but I don't foster any homophobia, and people are people and nobody is normal, so it didn't matter to me. The other residents of the dorm, however, weren't quite as understanding or open minded. They assumed that I must be gay, based upon the lifestyle of my roommate, and were determined to remove us... which they did. A sofa crashing down two flights of stairs makes an interesting sculpture when it lands.

The dean gave the two of us, my gay roommate and I, special dispensation to move off campus.

I was studying theater, and I was approached by another student, Tom, who had heard of our dislocation, and offered to share his house with us... well, me, really. But the other guy didn't have a place to live, either.

So, I accepted his generous offer and went with Tom to see if I was acceptable to his other roommate.

It was a small house, two bedrooms, which is all right, because I don't take up much space. I've been known to sleep in closets, park benches and bathtubs if there wasn't any other place available.

Tom let me into the house and introduced me to his roommate, who was sitting on the sofa, reading a Fabulous Furry Freak Brother comic. Tom also introduced me to their cat, Mouth, who was sitting on the floor eating from a bag of potato chips.

By way of breaking the ice, I said to his roommate, "Did you know that your cat is eating your potato chips?"

Tim, the other roommate, looked up from his reading and smartly replied "He might as well, he drank all the beer."

That, as they say, was the beginning of a beautiful and long lived friendship.