1992: The Fourth Day of Christmas, the dark before dawn

This holiday was off to an ugly start thanks to being canned by Frank and Dave (GDW), but better things came from the experience, they just weren’t immediately noticeable.

I had been living in Bloomington, IL for over a year now and with the sacking, I was pretty much trapped in Central Illinois for the indefinite future. My immediate family was elsewhere (Chicago, Raleigh) which was good, I wasn’t in a festive mood and I probably would’ve rebuffed all their attempts to cheer me up. Grandma and Grandpa had their own snit to stew in since 1988; their continual refusal to travel elsewhere to join my parents.

It wasn’t all gloomy. Steve and Patty Bryant were good to me. They asked me to housesit their cats Copper, Brandy and Lestat which I readily accepted. I couldn’t have a pet in the apartment so any chance to play with the gregarious feline trio was always welcome. I needed the cat companionship too, the Dana mess was still pretty fresh emotionally. My relatively new tradition of going to the movies continued. I went to The Muppets Christmas Carol which was a brief distraction.

The brighter spot was the Silders’ annual New Year’s Eve bash. The holiday took up the whole weekend on the calendar so I was surrounded by my fellow underemployed Marquette friends; Helen worked for a parking-lot company, Paul still covered sports at the Southtown Economist between odd jobs and Phil finished graduate school. I can’t remember if Doug was present. We lounged around, cheered against Notre Dame, ate and drank too much, watched Slapshot, visited the corner bar and had a Nerf war.

I just remember being so relieved when 1992 was over and pondered what I could do to make 1993 better. The year wasn’t all awful, just tumultuous from all the emotional extremes: Mythus, GDW, GenCon, the TSR lawsuit, Dana, Grandma’s cancer operation, having an AOL account, Chicago Comic Con, the Smithereens concert, the Lyle Lovett concert and missing my connecting flight in St. Louis. My beard turns even grayer mentioning all these things. I also use this Christmas as the measuring stick to judge any current situation. If matters aren’t as unpleasant as then, I’m ahead.

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