My childhood stumbles into the grave in an explosion of light brown elder shit

May 29, 1977. I was so excited.

After much time in the hospital and an utterly miserable place on Gaston near Baylor Hospital simply called "Convalescent Center," Grandpa was going to come home to visit us for a day. School had just let out for the summer, the Indy 500 was that afternoon, and yes...Grandpa Theo was coming!

I vividly remember going with Neila to pick him up. Mutchie had bought her a car from Friendly Chevrolet - either a Malibu Classic or a Grand Prix - with a shotgun seat that swiveled 90 degrees toward the door, ostensibly making hauling the infirm a piece of cake. Mom was making Grandpa's favorite, tas kebab, and Dad and I were excited about the race. It was shaping up to be a memorable Sunday.

That most certainly turned out to be the case.

Yes News is Bad News
He could walk, with assistance, only a few steps. After a pleasant arrival, we got him set up in Neila's old room and Mom, still a few years away from abandoning kitchen duty, returned to her dinner prep, leaving the old fellow and I alone. Neila had left soon after Grandpa's arrival.

He asked me for the newspaper and I was happy to oblige - I was the only kid I knew who read the paper every day, starting in kindergarten with Mom and/or Dad. I read everything I could get my hands on, finding even a box of baking soda fascinating. On my first day of school, I was amazed to learn that the other kids couldn't read yet.

Excited, I fetched the massive Sunday paper and pulled up a chair next to the bed to read the paper with my dearly beloved Grandpa Theo. Splaying the front section between us, I regaled him with such things as, "Lookee there! Iceland stalls on trade pact!"

He seemed disinterested in all that, though, and grabbed the paper from my hands to tear off a big chunk. Ah, clearly he wanted to save an interesting article like Dad often did...but, oddly, he tore through the middle of the article! Perhaps he only wanted the good part of the story. Yes, this is a man who still does not fuck around!

Code BROWN in Bedroom Three!
As I told him he had an interesting way of engaging the daily paper, he pulled the covers aside and did same with his hospital gown to reveal an impossibly vast explosion of gooey, light brown shit that I would rate a heavy 5 or light 6 on the Bristol Stool Scale.

It was the most surprised I'd ever been.

He pulled up his sack and dug a...serving (???) of the offending matter out from under there and chunked the soiled piece of newsprint to the side toward me, inspiring me to spring backward like a bullfrog. At that tender age, my catlike reflexes had not yet developed; they were merely doglike. That sufficed, though.

Epically flummoxed, I cautiously moved forward to somehow intervene, but then noticed that there was a tube coming out of his bird as he wiped shit from the tube/bird combo!

It was the most surprised I'd ever been, shattering the record set about 12 seconds prior.

No, it's NOT a "Little Hat"
I was familiar with his piss bag from the Convalescent Center, always hanging down low at the side of the bed, but I had no idea how the system worked - they neglected to print the details on the side of the baking soda box or wherever.

So, I figured that some sort of stretchy little hat type thing, perhaps like a very shrunken shower cap, with tubing attached was at play. How clever and convenient! Hell, I kind of wanted one for myself and actually had started to build such a thing, but I don't recall any, um, test drive. I guess sumptin' better done came up.

Code BLUE in Childhood One
The shitty catheter spelled endgame - I was outta there. I exited the bedroom into the living room just as Mom was entering it from the kitchen. The look on my face stopped her cold in her tracks and she sent forth an inquiry that I was unable to answer, instead merely pointing into the bedroom while twitching and grimacing.

Mom, likely fearing a medical crisis, bolted past me into the bedroom, almost knocking me over. Upon seeing this maybe most horriblest scene she ever seen, she went off like a motherfucker, unleashing a laryngeal explosion to match Grandpa's colorectal kaboom.

And, she was standing square on the shitty hunk of newsprint that elicited my earlier bullfrog maneuver.

I was at a loss. What to do? I fled to my room, but it was adjacent to the scene of the woe, just around the corner of the house and separated by a small bathroom. Plus, I was both curious and wanted to help. But how?

Shitfaced
Into the bathroom I crept to gaze down the long, narrow bedroom. Mom was still yelling at Grandpa in a foreign tongue, but now he was sobbing. He buried his face in his hands, getting far more shit than is ideal for one's face on his face and making Mom scream even louder. This was really getting bad.

Then, Mom realized she was standing on a very shitty wad of newspaper squashed between her shoe and shag carpet and she let loose her trademark jungle bird sound. She kept shrieking, among other things, "Yee-AH-tee, Deh-DEECH-ko!?!?!", a twin hodgepodge of languages stating "Why (Greek), Grandfather (Macedonian)!?!?! More on that later.

Dad, likely hearing the commotion from his sometimes-safe place in the garage, entered the doorway. He was too floored to utter his trademark "God almighty." I'd bet my bottom dollar that he assumed I was the cause of Mom's eruption. Nope, not this time, sir.

I watched Dad's eyes widen and his mouth go agape as he soaked in the forlorn scene. Right then, Grandpa let out a long, warbling, wailing moan unlike anything I've ever heard, before or, thankfully, since. Never had I even heard him raise his voice, this once-proud man who was always so measured and deliberate in his actions.

At that exact moment, my heart shattered into pieces and childhood concluded, completing a psychological smothering of youth that got rolling when The Golden Psycho took me to see The Exorcist as an exceptionally intelligent and observant 6 year old 3 years prior.

I remember that moment as clearly as I remember last night's dinner even though it was over 49 years ago. Over 16 years later, I was stricken speechless by a very well-done scene in The Simpsons that immediately reminded me of that most horrible one-tenth of a second of my life.

"You can actually pinpoint the second where his heart rips in half."

Death on Two Legs on a Sunday Afternoon with My Best Friend "Sweet" Lady Rhapsody, Queen
At this point, I truly had enough, and then some. Hands and face benumbed, I dashed back into my room, shut both doors, put on my treasured headphones, and cranked up the jams to child-unhealthy levels. The bill of fare was Queen's excellent A Night at the Opera (1975) on 8-track tape, which proved mind-blowingly topical and of lasting significance in ways extending to this very second.

Let us digress from the above nightmare for a moment and clear our mental palates, shall we?

The track list is, all things considered, approaching eerie and I was in the sort of a state of profound escapism, numb to the outside world, that can be especially conducive to soaking in works of art. Behold:

1. Death on Two Legs - As one might imagine, that much reminded me of my rotting grandfather, and not just 'cuz he had two legs. Yet, it too, at the hands of that moment, reminded me of also-two-legged Mom, but as a bringer of pain.

"Death on two legs, you're tearing me apart"

2. Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon - Well, it was Sunday. But other than that, the whimsical, lighthearted song was at odds with such a massive bummer of a day. But, the way it ends and instantly blasts into the the soaring intro to "I'm in Love with My Car" blew me away then, forming one of the seminal moments in which I realized how awesome rock music can be.

At that moment, Grandpa, Mom, and shit all became nonexistent for a precious flash in time as I rocketed to a faraway perfect place. Listening to that part again for the first time in many years while writing this, I was blindsided by a huge rush of glandular secretion, arm hair standing on end, and immediate tears. It was very moving, intense, and not unpleasant.

The human experience is a truly fascinating thing. Just...wow.

3. I'm in Love with My Car - Not particularly topical, but, again, it blew me away that day, and today, too. After the rousing beginning, when it "pops" 10 seconds in, I want to headbang, but, since my neck is held together by screws and plates, I refrain.

What a great song. I was amazed at how Freddie Mercury could sound like a totally different person. Years later, I was made the fool when MTV aired the video showing that drummer Roger Taylor was the one singing. I'd assumed that all Queen lead vox was done by Freddie. To the horror of some, Roger remains my favorite Queen vocalist. Even over 45 years later as a white-haired old bastard, he still kicks ass on it.

4. You're My Best Friend - Highly fucking topical, this one. Grandpa Theo was indeed my best friend for a while. We spent lots of time together as he took me on one adventure after another on the bus to the sensory overload called downtown Dallas.

In his eyes, I could do no wrong and he let me do pretty much whatever I wanted. Really, I was lucky not to have gotten killed having fun on his watch.

I'd never known life without Grandpa Theo. On this shitty day I had to face the facts that my best friend was indeed gone, not coming back, and, to boot, Mom was a much lesser person than I'd hoped. Track 4 brought cold reality back to the fore. I still call it "Grandpa's song."

Oh, you're the best friend
That I ever had
I've been with you such a long time
You're my sunshine

5. '39 - Only mildly topical due to a few lines, but a beautiful, upbeat song that shot me back into escapism following the grueling "You're My Best Friend" emotional smackdown.

Again I was amazed at how Freddie could sound like someone else, only to later learn that lead vox on this one were done by genius guitarist Sir Brian May.

Don't you hear my call?
Though you're many years away
Don't you hear me calling you?
Write your letters in the sand
For the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew

Oh, how I wished I was in that land, wherever it be.

6. Sweet Lady - topicality reentered the fold as I so wished Mom would be a more kind and gentle soul when frustrated. I've always known she had it in her, yet, often, it stayed in its cave. During this time Mom and Dad were busy almost all the time and with Grandpa disintegrating and out of the fold, I felt cold and alone. It was going to get much worse before getting better.

You bring me down, you shout around
You don't believe that I'm alone

7. Seaside Rendezvous - back to escapism on this roller coaster ride. Grandpa and Mom both loved the sea. Sadly, at that point, I had never seen it in any memorable way. At age 3 or 4, I was almost washed to sea by a rogue wave on the beach in Acapulco, but only faintly remember it and the family stopped traveling for several years after that.

Listening to this happy song, I longed to leave where I was and see the sea.

8. The Prophet's Song - Track 8's significance is that it was my introduction to the long, epic, progressive rock song. Queen's longest proper song, it takes the listener on a fantasy-soaked journey of the mind. After much exposure to short, oft-repeated radio slop, I found that style of composition hugely compelling, setting in motion a love of prog rock that seems to grow by the day, even all these years later.

And, it was not without its topicality:

A man who cried for a love gone stale
And ice-cold hearts of charity bare
I watched as fear took the old man's gaze
Hopes of the young in troubled graves

I'll always be grateful to Queen for writing this track.

9. Love of My Life - Another heartbreaker. Deathly topical, though not exactly in the spirit in which the song was written. I clearly remember trembling under the covers during the chorus as I mashed the headphone cans into my skull.

Bring it back, bring it back
Don't take it away from me
Because you don't know
What it means to me

10. Good Company - a quite cool Dixieland sort of track that brought respite from the prior heart smasher along with a valuable and topical lesson for us all:

Take care of those you call your own
And keep good company

Those recommendations didn't quite pan out that day.

11. Bohemian Rhapsody - on this day I realized what a singularly fantastic track this song...no, suite is. Not a prog epic like #8 The Prophet's Song, this is a journey through tasty ballad, opera, and hard rock strangeness with a totally kick ass breakout that I didn't even start to get a handle on until this day my childhood died.

And yes, it was topical. I wasn't sure if I wanted to be left alone or held and comforted, but I could certainly feel the antipathy, fatalism, and helplessness filling my almost 9 year old heart.

Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see
I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go, little high, little low
Any way the wind blows
Doesn't really matter to me, to me

And, to put it mildly, I just wanted to get right outta there.

Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here

Topical, indeed.

12. God Save the Queen - A brief instrumental that closes the album and still managed to achieve topicality despite the absence of lyrics! I had recently started referring to Mom as "Queen Kool" due to her autocratic nature and fierce devotion to Kool cigarettes.

I was also strongly of the opinion that our Queen needed saving. However, I also concluded, on that very day, that it was beyond and beneath impossible that a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent deity was up there somewhere looking out for us little ants down here. No fucking way. Such a force could never, ever, EVER let this day come to pass.

It was the day both my childhood and God died.

That's a Long-Ass Time, Yo!
I listened to Queen's A Night at the Opera album 3 times in succession on that fateful day 17,954 days ago. During those 2+ hours, nobody came to my room to check on my roundly traumatized ass. Yeah, I suppose they had their hands full, but still...

After the 3rd run of God Save the Queen (4th, actually, for in order to engage the entire album on an 8-track tape, I had to start midway through program 4), I rose from bed, blew my nose, marveled at the two huge spots of eye-shed pain water on my bed, and furtively crept into the bathroom to see what was up with Grandpa.

He was gone. Some stink still hung in the air. My emotions on that one (his absence, not the stank thang) were heavily mixed and it was years before I went back in that room.

I went to the den and watched the end of the Indy 500 with Dad. Very little was said. Dad was sporting a dazed look combat vets call a thousand yard stare. I don't recall eating dinner. The day was not spoken of again among my nuclear family.

Transformation
I became a different person on multiple levels that day and did not again listen to that album in its entirety for 49 years and change. I listened to tracks - I'm certainly not gonna go a half century without listening to "I'm in Love with My Car" - but not the whole thing. I simply could not bear it. Together, the tracks formed a linear whole far exceeding the sum of its parts.

I only listened to it again in full today, July 25, 2026, on what would have been Mutchie's 113th birthday had she somehow not yet drawn her parting groan exactly 24 years ago. The effect of listening to it and writing this was astonishing - I again soaked some household linen, copped some serious rushes, and was emotionally rocked both by the album and how the paths of Grandpa, Mom, Dad, and me collided on that day. It may be the most emotional session of writing I've experienced in the years of constructing this massive site, and I was not expecting any such thing.

I guess the grossly premature death of one's childhood is actually a big deal, after all.

That day was one of the early milestones in a stretch of life that grew increasingly brutal for the next several years and, really, the Flozberkian turmoil and suffering didn't let up for another 42+ years, when Life v1.x finally gave way to v2.x.

Epilogues
When Mom was about Grandpa's age when the above took place, she, too, suffered mobility issues and the loss of normal toileting. At least once, unable to awaken disgracefully-drugged Dad to help her, she tried to reach the crapper on her own and ended up on the floor to suffer a misadventure that required first responder intervention and a good deal of unsavory cleanup in the shag-carpeted master bathroom.

She ruefully lamented to me soon after that she lost her dignity that night. Immediately, May 29, 1977 blasted into my mind. It was a struggle to refrain from asking her if Grandpa lost his dignity that day. Of course, I didn't touch that one with a ten foot pole, instead offering the perspective that real dignity is attained and held by treating others with fairness and compassion.

Had I dared to bring it up, there's a good chance she would have denied that it even happened.

Soon after, as she grew nearer to the end of her life in an unusually long hospice run, she had to wear diapers and was tended to by Neila, who I'm quite certain treated her with cheerful dignity no matter what came to pass.

What a pity that Grandpa Theo didn't get to shit a similar path.

After this nightmare and a few more harrowing experiences at that dreadful Convalescent Center dungeon of malodorous woe as my life further deteriorated in various ways, I detached myself from Grandpa in an effort to save what remained of my sanity. He clutched at life for over two more years before an untimely expiration on Thanksgiving that proved costly to poor Dad.

But Wait! There's a Bit More!
1. As noted above, Mom quite faithfully called Grandpa "dedichko," a curious thing because it's not the Greek or Turkish they normally spoke - it's Slavic, used in the Bulgarian and Macedonian tongues. Even more interesting, it means "GRANDFATHER," not "father" and both languages' word for the former do not, unlike with English, resemble the latter.

So, Mom was referring to a man presented as her father who carried a very uncommon Greek name in lingo not Greek and not meaning "father." Those are a couple of tiles in the mosaic strongly indicating that Mutchie and Grandpa's so-called descendants are not related to them.

The matter will be engaged in greater detail in its own entry.

2. I was unaware of the various roles played by the members of Queen on the A Night at the Opera album because I had no source of info. The interwebs obviously didn't yet exist, and I was limited to 8-track tapes played on an old stereo an evicted tenant left behind in our apartments. So, I had no liner notes or lyrics to devour like those who had turntables and vinyl and had to figure out what I could on my own.

And, I was a bit more behind the 8 ball in this matter because of a rather interesting approach to gifting taken by the grifter John, The Golden Psycho. Given how long this entry has become and that I've not added any fresh meat to "More John Stuff" in a while, a separate piece is in order for this one, too.

One Last Thing
RIP, Grandpa Theo. You, quite the interesting chap, were my bud.

Return to Appendices

RIP, Childhood: 1968-1977