In 1986, a famous comet became the steward of one of my most precious memories.
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Story performed by: Aaron Calafato
Audio Production: Ken Wendt
Original Art: Pete Whitehead
Additional Vocals: Cori Birce
Season 2 of 7MS is made possible by Fishbowl
Halley'sComet.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
I told Cori not to worry about the introduction for this story because I decided to go rogue. I brought the microphone with me. I'm in my car. I'm parked. You may not be able to tell the difference with the sound quality, but if you were to drive past me or see me, you would just see a man sitting with his microphone in the driver's side, and I'm surrounded by foam. I brought three to four pieces of foam from my home studio to make sure we got some good sound quality here, so it might look a little strange, but sometimes you have to go to the source of a story, especially if the story is important to you. I decided to take you with me to the source here today.
Let me let you know what I'm looking at here. Again, I'm in my car and I'm parked, but what's in front of me is a beautiful view. It, in fact, has been something I've been looking at most of my life. At the edge of my town where we're at right now, it's a really high elevation point, so you can see the whole city.
But more than that, you could also see the adjacent cities and all the different water towers and the rolling hills and the trees. This has become and has been my place for a really long time.
Do you have a place? A lot of people have a place they go to that's important to them in their life, and it just helps them center themselves. For me, if I'm having a great week or a bad week, I need to reflect and look out at the view. This is my place.
If you want to take the kids for ice cream, right around the corner. We don't take the ice cream home or sit on the benches outside the ice cream store, we drive over here. We get out of the car and sit on the hood and have ice cream and laugh on a cool summer night as the temperature slowly starts to fall.
If I want to look out at the stars, beautiful place to look up, especially on a clear night, I come out here. If I do a night drive with Cori and I just want to park and talk to her and say something important, this is my place, especially during the 4th of July.
If I want to come out here, it's absolutely beautiful because we can park in the car and then get out. If you stand on the hood or even sit or on the top of the car, you can not just see the fireworks from our town, but around the 3rd, 4th, and 5th of July, you can see fireworks from four or five towns over like a painting in the sky.
If I want to see a beautiful sunset, a fire sunset in the summertime or an October sky, this is the place. If you buy something on Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist and you want to make an exchange, this is a great place, too. A lot of reasons to like this place, but there's got to be something deeper emotionally because it's actually not that beautiful of a place if you really look around, because the right of me, it's a giant antique mall, and to the right of that, it's a run down strip mall. Where I'm parked is a giant black asphalt parking lot.
I can see a seagull right now eating a cold fry that's someone throughout their window. The antique mall is actually pretty cool. If you go in there, you could get lost for hours. But then the strip mall that's adjacent to it, for years, it's been one of those strip malls that just keep turning over, and each time the stores turn over, they only last like a year or two. Then the stores keep getting weirder and weirder.
So what used to be there was a university extension and a drugstore and a pet store, and then it was like a pizza hut. Now it's a weird variation of a Chuck E Cheese but mixed with the Rainforest, it's just really unsanitary ballroom, playground for kids.
Then next to that is like a bar. Then there's this one of those gambling places that say, really rad games. And at least for me, I didn't know what those were. Why are the windows always tinted black? Why are there middle aged men just walking in there after work and then you don't see them come out for hours? There's one of those places.
Why is a place like this a place they keep returning to? I just realized it several months ago when I was here looking up at the night sky. It has to do with Halley's Comet. The memory just flooded back to me.
Now, if you don't know, Halley's Comet comes around the earth and you could see it with the naked eye every 76 years, approximately. Essentially, it would be, if you live long enough, twice in a lifetime, you get to see it. The last time Halley's Comet was here was 1986. I was three years old, which is even more fascinating that I have this vivid memory at three, but it's there and it's real, and it brings me to where we're at right now.
But the antique mall that I was telling you about, it wasn't the antique mall back then, it was a lot nicer, and it was a grocery store called Finest. All the moms would go there, and it's a great produce and great deli. It was the place to be.
I remember at home, again, I'm three, and I could just feel things were uneasy, things weren't going well with my parents. I didn't know exactly what. As a kid you just feel things, you don't necessarily... You can't comprehend them, but they speak to you emotionally, and so something was uneasy.
I remember my dad coming to me and saying like, "Hey, I'm not going to be here tomorrow." I don't know if it was for work or something, but it doesn't matter. The point is, he came up to me and said, "Hey, I'm not going to be here tomorrow, but tonight I want to take you to go see something. I want to take you to see Halley's Comet. It's a comet that's going to be streaking across the sky and we'll be able to see it together, buddy."
I remember being so excited, so fascinated. I was going to get to go with my dad. He said, "What we are going to do is we're going to go to this place and you can see the sky. It's really beautiful. We'll sit in the parking lot, and then we'll go get some food and we'll have food and we'll sit on the hood of the car and we'll look up at the comet."
He took me in his little Toyota and drove me right where I'm parked right now. I remember right before they closed, he took me by the hand, we went into Finest. He got Genoa Hard Salami, shaved real thin. The only way you can get it, white Italian bread and a root beer.
We got the groceries and came back out to the car. We sat on the hood of his car. I just remember eating a salami sandwich with my dad, sharing a root beer and looking up at the sky, looking for Halley's Comet.
This memory has been there. I just haven't been able to access it. When it came back, it came flooding back. What's interesting is I don't remember seeing the comet. What I really remember is being with my dad and how wonderful that felt and how I didn't want it to end and how special I felt right here in this parking lot. But my eyes were fixed on him and the sky, so maybe that's why I keep coming back. If I'm lucky enough, I'll be able to see Halley's Comet again from this spot in my lifetime.
7 Minute Stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Audio production by Ken Wendt. You can connect with Ken or inquire about his audio production services at kenwendt.com. That's Ken W-E-N-D-T.com.
Original artwork by Pete Whitehead. Find out more about Pete's work at petewhitehead.com. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen Podcasts. Lastly, I'm Cori Birce. Make sure to tune in next week for another story. 7 Minute Story season 2 is made possible by Fishbowl.
Yes, it is. Cori.
We're not just saying that. Aaron, can you tell everyone a little bit about what you've been doing on Fishbowl?
Yeah, I've been doing the Fishbowl live talks about storytelling and podcasting. It's been great.
I may or may not jump in and occasionally interrupt him and try and redirect him and it's really fun and probably a little annoying for him, but I also have been using Fishbowl for career questions that I have that I would maybe be a little embarrassed to ask if people knew who I was.
Yes. It's the anonymity factor.
Yeah. It's so awesome to be able to just confidently ask the question about something that I should probably know or that someone assumes that I know and get the right answer.
That's the thing. Posting, sharing, participating in the conversation anonymously in these bowls. It's unlike any other networking app, because it's freedom. When you post, you don't have to water down your comments for fear of getting fired. It's really empowering and we'd love if you join us there.
Absolutely. To do that go to joinfishbowl.com/7ms. That's joined fishbowl.com slash the number 7MS and download the free app today.
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