Michael Jackson

He should have stopped with the way he looked in the Billie Jean and Beat It videos. By the time you get to Black and White, something isn't going right, and the Leave Me Alone video where he's flying around in the little roller coaster rocket, he's taken his first step into the true Neverland where you Never Can return to anything even remotely normal or even good looking.

There is so much danger in having too much money when you are young and have no concept of how to manage it. I watched this documentary about him where he was shopping in a Las Vegas gift shop, a lot of fake Egyptian "relics." He would just walk up and down the aisles saying, "I'll take that, and that, and that one..." It was insanely expensive, useless, fake crap.

A news program tonight suggested that as Michael matured into adulthood, the face of "the man in the mirror" became more and more like his father's, and so the surgery began not just to de-ethnic the nose, but to make him so different from the father, he could never again be the son. And then you always think, the next thing will make me happy. The next thing. If I change this. If I change that. I will be happy. I will feel like I have back what I lost, what I never had.

But you don't. It must be a very strange and difficult way to live.

I liked "Rock With Me" and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." Sweet songs, and he was cute, even with his original nose and little Afro. He wore a tux, not gigantic baggy pants and a wifebeater undershirt. The Thriller video was a huge event. I remember hanging out in a Sears TV section because MTV was on and the station was about to play the video. It's a long, long video, and people gathered around to see it, fascinated. It was the perfect match between a catchy, epic tune and wonderfully choreographed dance numbers.

The dancing was amazing. Dancing went out of vogue in the 1950s after Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire faded from the movies. Michael Jackson brought it back for awhile like no one else could or has since. He would have had a much happier life on Broadway as a dancer and being openly gay. (As a singer, he is not that much, a Mickey Mouse voice that, like Britney Spears, benefits from special effects and studio enhancements. He is no Adam Lambert.)

I love the mysterious romance of the Billie Jean video. It is as classic and timeless as Gene Kelly's title performance in "Singin' in the Rain." The Beat It video is silly. Jackson cannot pull off being a tough guy, even in a red leather jacket, but the song is great. I attribute that to Eddie Van Halen, though. The introduction of the moonwalk at the 25th Anniversay Motown show is electrifying in ways I cannot describe. I remember watching it live when it happened and you just don't believe what you're seeing. His body could truly move in magical ways. It was the talk of the world the next morning, a defining moment in entertainment history.

But when he died, he was 50, almost 51. There is no magic in being a manchild and 50. There comes a time when you have to begin looking old or else you'e just going to look ridiculous. Like it or not, you start to look like your father and your legs and arms don't bend the way they used to. You cannot fight time. And you can no longer do a 50-city world tour and expect to enthrall the fans the same way you did 30 years ago. Even Sinatra became, in the end, a painful singer to listen to. If you are millions of dollars in debt (that no yard sale of all that Las Vegas gift shop crap is going to solve) and have no choice but to commit to such a tour -- and kill yourself trying to get in shape for it -- well, that was a series of bad decisions made by a manchild who had no one he could trust for sound advice.

And it's not like this is the first time this has happened to a famous person. Elvis and Judy Garland come to mind, just to name two. Elvis died at 42, bloated and puffy. Garland was only 47 and looked 20 years older.

Missing Mechanicsville

It was with great regret that I left Hanover County. I moved there in 1999 to be near a job. The only thing I knew about Mechanicsville was it had a windmill bank.

I found a great old house to rent for less than what two bedroom apartments were going for ($750 a month, and the rent never went up in five years!) Even though we were very close to a commercial area and a busy intersection, the house was surrounded on all sides by trees and brush and was far off the road. I felt like I was living in the woods, even though I was minutes from I-295, which quickly took me anyplace I needed to go.

Everything about Mechanicsville was convenient. Within minutes I could get to a Wal-Mart, a Ukrop’s or an all-night Food Lion. I was looking forward to the new Target with great excitement. I had all my doctors, bank branches and the vet nearby. The traffic was not bad at all compared to the West End or Southside.

I felt very safe and didn’t panic if I couldn’t remember if I had locked my front door. Nothing was ever stolen out of my yard or car. I lost one mailbox to vandals and that was it for my Hanover crime. During that same period, my wallet was stolen twice and our vehicles were broken into twice while in the city.

The police officers were familiar faces, like having a town full of big brothers looking after me. The one time I needed to call an ambulance, I was literally picked up by three grandfathers. They even stayed with me until I was put in a room. And I didn't get a bill afterward for the ride to the hospital.

It was an idyllic place to live. I got married at the historic Hanover Courthouse on a summer Tuesday evening, standing in the same spot where Patrick Henry tried cases. New commercial development brought new opportunities to shop, and yet there was still a small-town, rural feel. I loved to drive along scenic and twisting Atlee Station, Pole Green and Cold Harbor roads.

Then I decided I didn’t want to rent anymore. I wanted to buy a house, but Hanover was being built up with huge and identical looking subdivisions with tiny yards, prices starting at $270,000 and up. I guess when you have a school system as excellent as Hanover’s, people will pay anything to live here.

The few neighborhoods that still had houses under $170,000 were mostly along Cold Harbor Road, up against the steady roar of I-295. People were selling their little houses to move up to the bigger ones. They wanted me to pay $173,000 or more for a modest three bedroom rancher, often with only one bath and no garage, or a little four bedroom Cape Cod, two up, two down, eat in kitchen and a living room. The market was so hot, these houses would sell in minutes. We rushed around for several months, putting in bids, but people would actually offer more than the asking price.

Finally someone told me that the last place that was relatively close-in and still had some affordable housing was the Lakeside or Dumbarton area. On our first Sunday afternoon tour of open houses circa 1950-1975, we found one that easily would have cost $20,000 more if it was sitting across the county line. No one bid more than the asking price, so we got it by virtue of having our mortgage paperwork already in hand—although I have to ask myself how crazy is it to buy something as big as a house after looking at it for 15 minutes? I spend more time trying on a pair of shoes before I buy them.

I didn't want to leave Hanover, but I had no choice. I still miss everything about Mechanicsville very much, especially Anna’s Italian Restaurant, Cracker Barrel, the 23116 post office and the windmill bank, which I hear is no longer a Wachovia anyway.