photo #6395338

William Lockette on May 3, 2024

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In Album: William Lockette's Timeline Photos

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William Lockette

Two of the three people in this photo are dead. I'm the tall one with the afro. The short dude in front of me is my dad. William Franklin Lockette the first. Next to me in the back is the old Coos County (Oregon coast) Sheriff, Andrew Jackson, and his adopted son Jamal. In this photo, Jamal was... View MoreTwo of the three people in this photo are dead. I'm the tall one with the afro. The short dude in front of me is my dad. William Franklin Lockette the first. Next to me in the back is the old Coos County (Oregon coast) Sheriff, Andrew Jackson, and his adopted son Jamal. In this photo, Jamal was like, 18 or 19? He's just... short. Cool dude. Last I heard from him, at his father's funeral in our home town, He works with an underground skateboard magazine doing photos and layouts or something. Somewhere down in California. He's still short, but I'm reasonably sure he's still alive. Unlike the other two, sadly. My dad passed back in 2006 at 83 years old. Andy, I think, went in 2018 or '17. This photo was taken at my dad's wedding. Not to my mom, they were married for my childhood until I was 11, but to his new wife, Marie Calame. Me and her had.... philosophical, and very core differences in our characters that did not play well for more than 48 hours at a time. Last I saw her, I stole $15 from her purse, went and bought myself a night's worth of chips and soda at the 7-11 and started sleeping in my car until I figured something else out. I'd rather be poor and homeless, starving and being constantly sick from living in a broken down Lincoln Continental outside a trailer park run by a slum lord for illegal Mexicans, than to ever deal with her again. My stance hasn't changed much. She was not an ideal human being. I'm still working on that. My father was cremated, though he wanted a burial, and she has the ashes. At least she had back in 2006. Who knows where she is now. I hope she became the person God intended her to be. But I still wouldn't stop if she stepped out in front of my truck. Anyway... When dad passed, I was living in Florida at the time. I had hooked up with this girl I'd been roleplaying on IRC RPG's with for like... 3 years? Me and Melissa knew more about each other than two people who have never met before should. Deep things. Dark things. And light as well. We had the same sense of humor, the same dry style of conversing that still kept the room upbeat. Fun challenging conversations that dared the other to misstep. They weren't useless, but they did become weaponized as our youthful souls realized they had to change. Our perceptions were different of how one should behave in society and among the populace. I was the one who favored smoking a joint at EPCOT while doing a tour of the different national culture displays they have around the giant globe, shoulder to shoulder with thousands of strangers but strolling along like they weren't even there. I was working on personal space. Not how to grow it, but how to shrink it. Safely. To not be nervous in the massively overwhelming throng of nightly visitors to one of the coolest theme parks on the planet. It's like everyone you've ever seen in your entire life, and their families, and their families, all trying to cram in to the back of a 1983 Honda civic. Melissa was working on pushing her brain, and her credit, to the limit. She could've gone to UCF. Done some project or another and joined the rank and file of the collegate. Nah. She went to Full Sail. The one Stephen Spielberg called "The Harvard of media colleges." It's graduates include folks like JJ Abrams (sp?) who went on to make a little film company called Bad Robot productions. And create trend setting shows like LOST. And direct epic reboots, like Star Trek. That's where she went. And now has a project with NASA under her belt. She liked to tiptoe around feelings and cultural norms. But, it was the day before her graduation party at Disney World, where she also worked full time, when I got the call that my dad had passed away in his sleep from a heart attack, after putting in a window sill planter box for the neighbor lady of the retirement home place he was living in. Point being: This photo was of a different me. I find it strange to see it, see this... hollow.... angry... inexperienced and shallow version of me. I wonder what I'll look like when I'm 80. And what that me will think when I look back on current 41 year old me. Hopefully, I inspire something good in my future self's eyes..... I'm trying, here. I certainly don't think I'm as much of a disappointment to the memory and lives of my parents... despite what my bank statements and shelves say. I'm pretty fuggin' awesome, actually.

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May 3, 2024