For months now Aric has been bugging me to rent or buy the old “B” movie, Starship Troopers. Now personally, I loved both the first and second ST movies but I wasn’t really motivated to get it for AJ, there’s just a lot of stuff in it a 5 year old shouldn’t really see.
I collect DVD’s and have over 400 at present, my favorites being the concert DVD’s of some of my favorite bands or artists. So, rather than Starship I’ve been trying to get Aric to okay my purchase of another Eagles reunion tour DVD, the one they did in Australia, after the Hell’s Frozen Over tour. He wasn’t buying it though, he’s a Sci-fi freak and Tina says he gets it naturally from his favorite Uncle Mark!
Its funny how things cycle around and funnier how genes can stay so similar. Markie was into Transformers, Star Wars and Speed Racer when he was Aric’s age and now Jaybo is into much the same, albeit with better graphics and animation (and more TOYS to the dismay of my wallet). But I digress, where was I? Oh yes…
So Tina has become this coupon clipping fiend lately and while it truly makes my eyes cross when she talks about it (there is this whole underground community of coupon clippers with classes and text books and everything), I don’t discourage her at all because she has saved us a butt load (how much is a butt load you ask? About a $1000, but again I digress) of dough in her travels. I told her I would clear a space in the garage for her to put her “overstock” and I mean “overstock”. We look like one of those little shops in the campgrounds that has a little bit of everything for those forgetful campers.
Well, in order to clear the space and free up our mobile pantry/shelving unit I had to clear some tubs of who knows what that were stacked in front of the vaunted moving pantry. Some of the tubs were from when my famous father-in-law, the beloved Tony Copa Maligmat had passed away; others just had personal junk from Tina and me.
Now you have to realize when Tony passed we had a cram session to get his stuff cleared before too many people came in and started picking it apart while emotions were still very raw. We were really in a daze, like zombies stashing stuff in boxes and plastic tubs and sending them off to points unknown for later redistribution. It’s been a year and half and I can tell you the stuff that made it to our garage, hadn’t moved since the day it got there.
I set stuff aside and made a path through our cluttered garage for the pantry to get to its new destination. I cleared the pantry of all the crap that was on it, cleaned it real good and placed it in it’s new home, ready for “Q” (Tina’s new nickname, Q short for coupon, I know it should be Coo but Q is cuter and she’s damn cute!) to fill with her 27 tubes of toothpaste, 15 different varieties of Kotex, etc., etc., etc. you get the picture and can visualize why I go cross-eyed!
Anyway, so now it’s time to get the tubs out of the driveway and back into the garage. I got the brilliant idea that maybe I could go through them and slim it down to just a few tubs. You know whenever you go through old stuff it immediately soaks up all your time as you begin reminiscing and such at the treasures you’d long forgotten in those dust covered tubs or boxes from your attic. The first few were stuffed with my genealogy stuff, pictures and medals and books and certificates. Things I had moved from the shed to the garage because they had been infiltrated by a rogue band of rats that thought some of my precious pictures and high school yearbooks made good bedding for their mating season.
As much as I wanted to go through that stuff again, as dear as my genealogy is to my heart, something was tugging at me. Something kept telling me to move on, come back to these later. Something was pushing me to get to the “black” tub. The one at the bottom of the stack, way off to the side of the driveway. I finally started that way but my eye caught something to the right (ohhh, bright and shiny object what’s that?) and I veered. Just a can of something from Tina’s pile of pantry stock. Where was I? What… oh yes, the black one. Staring at me like a beacon of light. All dusty and squashed from the weight of the other tubs on top of it.
Only I didn’t think of it as a sorry little tub. No it looked regal in a way. It looked like its chest was stuck out and it was proud to be there in the midst of all these other slovenly tubs of despair. It reminded me of Tony when he’d walk into a room, announce he was there and even at 5’ 6” he became the biggest thing in the room. Always so proud of his talented good looking kids and what they had become! Always with that look on his face that he knew something we didn’t. Later I would realize that look was God in his heart and knowing he had a place in eternity.
Yes, this little black tub screamed to me TONY COPA and honestly I didn’t know what was in it. It could’ve been Christmas decorations for all I knew but I knew I had to get to it. To open it. To let it breathe it’s life back into the air! I set the other tubs off to the sides in a neat little circle. I stood and stared at the cool little design my stack had made. Then, almost like the little black tub had said, “heeelllllloooo” I remembered what I had started (I get easily distracted). I cracked the corner, afraid of what I might find by the eerily little tub that had been calling to me. I cracked the other corner, opposite of the first and it immediately closed the first corner I had opened. I pulled again and again and finally I flew backwards on my seat and was left staring at the contents of that special little tub.
Butt now sore I sat and stared with lid in hand at that little tub. With my mouth wide open and the glazed look on my face I’m sure the passing neighbors thought I’d just seen a ghost (or was drunk again). I crawled to the open tub, afraid my eyes were deceiving me. I moved in and tipped the tub towards me. I squinted to get a better look. I rubbed my eyes to make sure they were clear. They were, and what did I see, right on top of the stack of stuff?
The DVD for the movie Starship Troopers! Get out of here, no, it really was! Underneath that was a Joel Osteen book Tina has wanted to buy. And underneath that? You guessed it, the Eagles DVD from down under in Australia. There was a ton of other stuff in there and the two other tubs I opened too but you get the picture. It was as if Tony Copa himself had walked into our garage, bigger than life, and said “I’m here!”
Indeed he was on that day and the days that have followed as we sort through his VHS tapes and MPEG movies he made chronicling his storied full life and the loved ones that surrounded him. A year and half seems like yesterday but the days are getting easier as our mourning changes from the life lost to a life remembered. And the tears of healing turn to smiles of knowing as Tony Copa is on your shoulder!
