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Memories of the Son of Memory (Part I): At Grandma's House



My past is haunted with prophetic gasps of a future love affair with Shakespeare. The specters are oblique and furtive, but they're certainly there. In one of those rare instances of if-someone-came-back-in-time-to-tell-you sort of things, I would certainly have believed the time traveler of my future obsession with the Bard. "He'll captivate your imagination," she'd say, "and tell you of yourself. You'll grow and become disillusioned and regain faith all by virtue of what he'll teach you. You'll resist only a little at first, but it won't last. It'll be inevitable, like moon to tides."
And I'd say back, "What about Spider-Man?" because I'd still be enamored of the web-slinger who defined my early childhood.
And she'd say, "You'll name your first born Peter."
"Okay," I'd answer back.
"But your third child will be named William."
I'd think for a moment, then say, "What about my second child?"
"He'll be called...Jeremy," this sapient time walker would say.
I would then stare at her blankly. "Why?"
"Because you'll like the name."
"Oh." I would squirm a little, then ask, "Can I go play now?"
The time traveler would realize that talking to a ten-year-old was probably not the best use of her talents and, with a nod of her head, dismiss me.
Still, as I grew, I would reflect on the hints of her prophecy and realize their truth.
I recall early on wondering what language Shakespeare was written in. (English, of course, was what I could see him speaking, but I didn't know if it was his native tongue or a translation.) This seemed important to me, and, I dimly remember, I was enthused that he had, indeed, written in an American language. (The difference between England and America was blurry at that point.)
More concretely, I saw an episode of Bewitched once when I was at my grandmother's house. It must have been after I'd taken a year or two of school--and, since I was there in the afternoon, it was probably the summer. My best guess is that I was seven years old.
The episode depicts Maurice, the father of Samantha, coming to visit his grandkids and, to their delight and enthusiasm, begins to quote Macbeth. "Double, double, toil and trouble/Fire burn and cauldron bubble!" Now, it's widely considered axiomatic that Shakespeare didn't write the lines of the play that Maurice enacts, some small parts of the play being penned by a coauthor, Thomas Middleton. One of the perils, however, of writing with Shakespeare in those Jacobean days, however, was losing whatever effort you did beneath the monument of Shakespeare's works and your name can only be found by diligent digging through Wikipedia.
In my mind, I thought that, since the Stephens children were thrilled to hear some Shakespeare, I should be, too. Add to that the fact that, as I had gone to a year or so of school, I knew how to read, and you've got the perfect mixture of naiveté and gumption for a second grader to start pawing through his grandmother's Complete Works of William Shakespeare.
The velvet cover--somewhat worn--felt soft in my hands as I flipped to the opening page. There, leaning insouciantly on his hand, his chin-length hair around a retreating hairline and a rebellious ring in his ear, was Shakespeare. Or, rather, a glamorized depiction of him, complete with long cuffs jutting out of his doublet's sleeves and a quill pen loosely held.
Next to the picture was a table of contents, filled with strange sounding words. My young eyes strained at the bizarre titles, words that would one day become close friends. Cymbeline, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and--best friend of all--Hamlet.
It wasn't alphabetized, which I'm sure was a bit of a scandal. How else could a book organize itself if not by alphabet? After a lot of puzzling about, I found the page listing for Macbeth and folded the book to the appropriate part.
I was met with nonsense.
Like countless readers before me, the reputation of Shakespeare and the reality of Shakespeare couldn't really come together. While I could read the words, their close proximity to each other, their unintelligible punctuation, and intimidating columns--making it look scriptural long before I would consider it as (quasi) such--all bred little appreciation in my small mind.
But the kids on the show! They were so excited for Shakespeare! There must be something to it. I liked reading, so I would soldier on until I found the fount of their euphoria.
I could only remember a few of the words that Maurice had said to his fake grandchildren, but as I pushed through the first page of Macbeth, I couldn't see anything remotely like it. There were no witches, there was no "Double, double"...there was nothing to be seen.
Disappointed, I shelved the book and swore off Shakespeare with all the finality of an ended summer, forgetting that--as summer's do--my chances to return to Shakespeare would someday surface.

One other memory of my grandmother's home and Shakespeare: Downstairs--the realm all rambunctious boys are sentenced to when their energies overpower the adults' patience--was a treasure trove of worn out VHS tapes, towered precariously next to the years' old TV. More than once, in a desperate--and fruitless--attempt to find amusement befitting a third grader, I started poking through the titles stored there. The musk of a sextigenarian pervaded the shag carpet, beaten up map that dangled on the wall, and floated about me as my eyes rested on a guy--holding a sword! Anything with a sword would be worth watching, I figured.
I looked more closely at the title. "Hamlet? What's Hamlet?" I asked. The grave attitude of the people on the front--mingled with the monochromatic layout--made me leery. What's the point of a guy having a sword if he isn't going to have fun doing it? And was this movie in black-and-white? Grandma's stuff was so old, it probably was black-and-white.
I put it down without watching it.

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