Home of Wes Platt and OtherSpace MUSH
The following column appeared in The Herald-Sun on Nov. 16, 2013:
My friend Colin – another adoptive parent – asked over lunch last week whether I felt like a dad now.
“Has it really sunk in?”
It’s been nearly six months since Catherine and I adopted John Michael in Asheville and brought him home to Durham.
The answer should’ve been an emphatic “Yes.” But as I thought about it, I grew less certain.
“Therefore, let it be resolved that the City of Cypress Knee welcomes one and all to celebrate the commemoration of our one hundred and sixty-seventh anniversary during Founder’s Day Weekend.”
Adelaide Spruce, chair of the city council, set the proclamation aside and then looked toward the other five present members of the board.
“Do I hear a motion to approve this proclamation?” she asked.
When Marson and RPG Works announced plans to cease operations in early 2012, I wasted no time in hunting for an alternative hosting site for OtherSpace and jointhesaga.com. I signed on with Register.com for both the website and the game. However, the game proved too problematic for Register.com to handle. That meant shifting the game…
In the purple November twilight, the abomination rising on the east side of Interstate 95 looked to Jim Larman more like the familiar silhouette of his youth: a great sombrero atop the 200-foot tower of the roadside attraction formerly known as Nico’s Natural Wonderland.
But then, inevitably, the rosy pink neon and spotlights switched on, laying bare the truth of the monument’s evolution.
Now, the cone of the sombrero was a freakishly pointy metal breast – one that would’ve felt right at home in Madonna’s bra in that old “Express Yourself” video, he mused. Atop the dark nipple, a crimson aircraft hazard light blinked its soft warning for planes that might be coming from or going to Cypress Knee Municipal Airport or the Wings Over Florida retirement community north of town.
The brim of the sombrero had become a glazed brown doughnut with candy-colored sprinkles and swirls of white frosting.
A billboard beckoning motorists off the highway at Exit 325 proclaimed: NAUGHTY NICO’S WILD WORLD.