Archive for Stories

April 13, 2007

Night at the Cottage

6:01 pm | My Life | Stories | Comments: 3

It’s about time I told my side of the story. There are many important perspectives on this event, and my version isn’t a complete picture. But it’s what I remember. It starts with a small group of homeschoolers, like 4 families and their kids, that would always hang out together. One night there was this big sleepover we were all at. All the boys slept in one room, girls in another, etc., and during the night they drew marker faces on us, so we obviously were pretty upset about that and we vowed revenge.

So later that summer there was planned another such thing, only out at some lakeside cottage. And one of the guys didn’t disguise the fact that we were going to get the girls back this time. In fact we all took great pleasure in hinting at the girls’ impending doom. We had this great big plan, actually, but were so excited about it we couldn’t keep quiet. So anyways this time, the girls were inside and the guys were sleeping out on a covered pontoon boat, so we wait a while after “bedtime”, and then begin trying to sneak into the house with all manner of huge, black, permanent markers.

So there’s four of us sneaking into this little cottage and suddenly stuff starts going wrong. One of the moms walks out and exposes us after we’re all inside and does the mom thing, you know? Like what are you boys doing in here, you should be in bed, and so on. So she lectures us for a while and we feel kinda ashamed and head back out to the pontoon boat. We get back and start looking around, and quickly notice that ALL OUR STUFF IS GONE. No sleeping bags, no pillows, no nothing. So we run back to the house, and bam! all the doors are locked tight and there in the back hallway we see all our stuff, at which point we proceed to go crazy trying to break into the house.

Well, we weren’t actually trying to break anything, more like trying to annoy them (I guess trying to annoy them into letting us back in… at this point our planning abilities were pretty much dead). Banging on all the windows, honking car horns, ringing the doorbell, etc. We even tried shining one of those portable spotlights into the windows. Eventually we realized that one of our buddies wasn’t around. We thought maybe he had been kept inside by the moms and was in big trouble for our little stunt and that he was getting a talking-to, and we felt really bad. After walking through the woods a bit to lament our woes and think up ways to get our buddy out of trouble, we decided that we had to keep trying to get inside. In reality, our missing buddy knew a secret way in through the half-height basement and he got inside and eventually managed to let us in as well. So we got in, got to the hallway with our stuff and in rush all the girls, and they attack us.

And I mean really attack us. One of the moms was trying to put me in a headlock and break my fingers off, while the other girls basically just grabbed onto the stuff and wouldn’t let go. So we kinda wrestled it out until one of the dads woke up and appeared in a doorway in his boxer-briefs with half-open eyes wondering what was going on. At that point it was mutually decided that we had won our gear back, and that was good enough for me and my one buddy.

So we take our stuff back to the boat and try to get some sleep, but my other two buddies still hadn’t given up hope of doing something to the girls, so they refused to leave the house (no problem for the girls - they just locked the door to their room and slept soundly). The next morning we found the poor guys asleep on the floor, blue screen on the T.V. in front of them, both looking like trainwrecks. After they finally woke up they evidently had another brilliant plan in mind, because while I was having a friendly chat with the mom that I had done mortal combat with only a few hours previous, there they were with cans of shaving cream and aerosol deodorant trying to coax the girls out of their bedroom. At that point it was just kinda sad.

In retrospect we did alot of things poorly. First, we broadcast our plans of revenge before we got to the cottage, so the girls were 100% certain we were going to try to marker-face them. Second, we didn’t wait nearly long enough before going in. We should have waited until at least 4 or 5am, when in reality we probably went in no later than 2am. There is a bit of contention about exactly when we went in, but I’m fairly certain it was much earlier than it should have been. Third, we should have known about the secret entrance beforehand and used it to our full advantage. Fourth, we didn’t need all four of us to go in at the same time; we should have just sent in one or two guys at a time.

The really sad thing is that we never had a chance after that to do anything of consequence, and the balance is still clearly tipped in the girls’ favor. It’s probably better that we failed, because we brought along the biggest, fattest permanent markers we could find - if we had succeeded, the girls would still to this day be trying to get the marker off their faces. All that being as it may, it was still lots of fun.

March 27, 2007

The Vapor of Life

5:36 pm | College | Culture | Stories | Comments: 13

I was in three different worlds yesterday. The day began like most any other, with me working at the old folks’ home. I can’t understand what it’s like to be 80 years old. That’s nearly four times my own age. Four times the knowledge, four times the life experiences, four times the struggles. In any other situation, that would get you respect; in America, it lands you in an old folks’ home, where you can be conveniently avoided by the up-and-coming generation that is choosing to learn by trial and error the lessons which most of the people around you learned 40 years ago.

After work I headed out to my humble alma mater, Grand Valley State University, stepping through what seemed like ages of time into the world of the college campus. Sitting on the back porch of the student union in the summery breeze, looking out across the green lawn with its small pond, I was surrounded by youth and beauty that was seemingly blissfully ignorant of the finite nature of life. As I sipped my drink I felt the sudden urge to do my homework, at which moment I realized with a satisfying smile that there was no homework. Instead I pulled out two sheets of music and read them, the strains of Verdi’s “The Force of Destiny” echoing in my head. Bahm, Bahm, Bahm! repeated. Then come the strings: Doodelly-doo, doodelly-doo, doodle-edoooodee DOOdoo. I listened with my eyes until the foul-mouthed pack of sorority chicks to my left got rambunctious due to the arrival of a guitar-toting fratty. I gave them my best “Foolish students, don’t mess with an Alumnus” look and headed for my car.

On the way home I drove through the world of Division and Wealthy, in the Grand Rapids ghetto. This was another world in which I have had no experience. Due to the lot that God has given me by no choice of my own, I have never personally experienced poverty. I’ve been around it, to be sure; dirt-eating poverty of the most squalid kind. People who live in poverty don’t care about getting a college degree. They also don’t really care where they’ll be when they’re 80. They would truly understand what the Bible means when it says, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

By the time I got home I was wondering about my own world. What defines it, what’s good about it, what’s bad about it. The age-old questions popped up: where am I going in this life, what should I be doing, what does it all mean? No, the answer isn’t 42. As a Christian, I’m comforted by knowing that the answers to all those questions have been written down and preserved miraculously over thousands of years. It was really too much to think about at the end of a long day, so I just furrowed my brow slightly, put on my running shoes, and took off down the shaded sidewalks of Heritage Hill.

December 28, 2006

Life Noir

1:56 am | My Life | Stories | Comments: 8

Seeing the picture brought it all back.

The pain, the loneliness. A perfect woman, beautiful blond curls flowing down around her shoulders; a playful smile on her face, her soft lips calling to me. The echoes in my head rang louder than gunshots in a subway station.

At that moment I wanted her more than anything. But she was taken. I nearly slammed my fist down. Partly anger, but mostly sheer frustration. Something stopped me. Time froze as four words thundered out from somewhere deep within me; like the eye of the storm dead silence prevailed in my brain and and I heard them. Thou Shalt Not Covet.

A moment, even less; a fraction of the speed of thought later I was happy. Happy that she was happy. Happy that her husband was happy. Happy more than anything that God had done it all.

It was also he who first spoke those four words, many thousands of years ago to people just like me. He even took the time to write them on my sin-stained heart.

Suddenly, I was the happiest man alive.

May 15, 2006

Dream-like

3:54 pm | My Life | Stories | Comments: 7

Drops of evening rain glisten everywhere in the morning light as I walk down a residential street in Cambridge, drinking in the scent of the sweet-smelling lilac bushes. The air is chilly, yet heavy with humidity from a night-time thunderstorm. Clouds obscure the morning sun, mixing its light into a blanket of grey sky. It fits the morning perfectly, like a well-played instrument in a glorious orchestra. The end of Broadway St. is obscured by morning fog. Even though mere blocks from downtown Boston, the buildings and trees produce a distinct silence broken only by the wailing of sirens or a passing vehicle. There’s something about the atmosphere that urges you to stay; to partake of the panorama of urban life that makes every city unique. But I cannot stay.

In Boston the traffic is chaotic. Courtesy and rules are thrown aside as motorists seek desperately to gain an advantage on the competition. Roads bend and twist, sometimes changing names, sometimes not, one-way then two-way then back to one again, abruptly splitting off into two directions with no indication of where or why. Vast archipelagos of traffic islands form intersections and you weave through them, hoping that when you’re finally out you’ll be heading in the intended direction. You get used to it fast; if you don’t, you’ll go insane. There’s no time to hear the centuries-old buildings tell their stories because the light just turned green. You’re already moving but the guy behind you honks his horn, apparently just for good measure. That’s Boston, I suppose.

On the street you drive by the full spectrum of humanity. Olive-skinned police officers yell at their partners. Hey hey, hey Freddie! Passing by groups of people you catch small bits of chatter in a foreign language, and though you can’t understand a word it still makes perfect sense. You see college kids gripping cups of Starbucks, trying to look like they don’t care that they go to Harvard. Couples smile and laugh, consumed in the delicate balancing act of looking into each other’s eyes while trying not to walk into a fire hydrant. They’re caught up in the romantic urban atmosphere, seeing only Boston and their beloved, having lost themselves together and not caring if they are ever found again. I know that if I lived here, I would most certainly fall in love. Cities do that to me. Especially in the morning.

Much to soon it’s time to leave. The blink of an eye affords little satisfaction, only enough exposure to the city to get me thinking, a drop of honey on the tip of the tongue that tantalizes but so quickly fades away. Back on the road, ten miles behind me and 10,000 more to go. The city remains in Massachusets, but my throughts remain with me; memories of chaos, history, love and beauty in Boston.

June 3, 2005

Shadows

12:29 am | Stories | Comments: 11

8th grade graduation crept up faster than had been expected; with frightening celerity High School was over. Childhood seemed more distant than the horizon and more faded than dreams. Even now that his first year of college was already half completed, he still despised those who dared try to teach him anything. Some things never change. Others, however, do.

Back at his parents’ house for Christmas Break, memories flooded back. School busses. Snowmen. Long walks in the woods. He remembered his friends; most of all his best friend. Long forgotten. Opening the door to his old bedroom he wasn’t surprised to see it empty. He felt compelled to walk the dark dusty steps into the attic; much of his past had been packed into boxes and stacked neatly in a corner. Bright sunlight came through the single window, intense from the whiteness of the snow outside. It shone down upon a dusty old Radio Flyer.

Separate from the rest of the pile was a single box, bound tightly with duct tape. He began to slice through it with an old piece of broken glass that was lying around. As he did so, more and more images flashed through his mind: the days of a childhood once thought to be perpetual. He stepped back for a brief moment, beginning to breathe heavily. It seemed as if time itself was leaning down upon him with all its inexorable might.

As he pulled back the cover of the box, a deep sadness welled up in him. He reached out and picked up the stuffed tiger. His oldest and best friend.
Hobbes! his mind cried out. What’s happened to me, Hobbes?
The tiger was silent, motionless; now only a shadow of the wild imaginations of youth. Calvin had grown up; just like his childhood, Hobbes was never coming back.

April 25, 2005

Decision-Making Skills

7:29 pm | My Life | Stories | Comments: 8

This post originally began as a comment on Ben Friedrich’s web log, but it got so long I thought I might as well post it.

As the story goes, my buddies and I used go to this rope swing way out in the sticks. It threw you out about 25 feet in the air over this little bend in a river that was really deep. Anyway, one time we showed up at this rope swing and a whole crew of college kids was there, drunk as can be. Having been exposed to intoxicated 20-somethings many times in the past and not fearing any harm as we were three stout young lads with our wits about us, we just said hi and started swinging. At one point, some kid whose swimming shorts were much too large for him totters up to the stand, swings out, drops in, and promptly begins drowning. We watched him for a few seconds, and eventually some guy behind us said, “hey dude, like, that dude can’t swim, man!” With that, my buddy and another guy jumped in after him and dragged him out. He was pretty shook up, but he survived. Apparently a brush with death is not worth a few too many Bud Lites, and within minutes the whole place cleared out; but not before a big huge drunk fat guy also tried swinging out, only to lose his grip too early and get shot straight into some very large rocks along the shallow edge of the river. He broke his knee, or so it is told.

Now this tale exists only in the lore of rope swings, to be told throughout the ages in the land of the Rogue River.

April 5, 2005

Ghosts from the Past

10:19 pm | My Life | Sci/Tech | Stories | Comments: 12

Some of you may be wondering what’s up with that one old-looking link on jameswlanning.com. Many years ago, or so the story goes, there was a computer game called Myst. A good friend and I got really interested in it, but we discovered that aside from one news website, there was a pitiful lack of information on the its sequel - rumored to be called “Riven” - and also the fictional culture known as the D’ni. We therefore decided to make a website to contain all that we could discover about these topics, and called it the D’ni/Riven Information Source.

For the longest time, the URL was members.aol.com/MAJMyst/, as we had to host off of Mark’s old AOL account. This was back in 1997, the ghetto days of the Internet. In fact, I think our website came out only shortly after people started getting Java support in their web browsers. I remember going to the library to see the Riven Journals (we didn’t have access to the internet at that time… I call this “The Lanning Stone Age”), and not being able to see them because the Journals had some advanced thing called “Java” that the library wasn’t up to speed with.

1997 was a big year for me, technology-wise. I finally got my hands on a modem (Mrs. Jurries was throwing away her old 2400bps external… how could I pass that up?), and got email (I think we were one of the first people to use Juno, actually - back when it was actually free). So, through the website we became deeply involved in the budding “community”, which was part of the larger evolving Internet phenomenon at that time. We helped to start an email-group list thingie called the Riven Lyst (another thing that was new back then), and ended up making a couple mortal enemies (not really but there was this little grudge thing going on). Anyways, eventually we moved our stuff to this server called Rivenguild, run by one of those new mortal enemies of mine. Then some stuff went down. Eventually, somebody email-bombed Rivenguild and the guy had to shut it down. The D’ni/Riven Information Source went down with it. Until now.

March 15, 2005

Dudzcom

1:00 am | Random | Stories | Comments: 0

So there was this guy and he was walking along one day and it was a really nice day and there was sun and stuff and he was walking and things were fun and he was happy and he was walking and whistling a tune and things were good and it was sunny and he was walking and he saw a ball point pen on the ground and thought ‘well that’s just my luck because I am in need of a ball point pen’ and he was about to pick up the ball point pen on a sunny day and then the ball point pen ate him.

November 2, 2004

November Sky

7:01 pm | Religion | Stories | Comments: 0

The dull grey sky hung low over his head as he walked down Logan Street, the dead leaves crunching under his boots. A subtle but cold wind wrapped itself around him on its way through Heritage Hill. His steady pace quickened imperceptibly as he turned the corner onto James Street. A flock of crows, perched on a church building, cackled disdainfully at all passersby, as if to say “Caw! Caw!”. The beaten and faded campaign signs made their last stand in silence as he entered Allan Manor. He voted.