Darkest Hour – "Convalescence" (2005)

I've fooled myself into believing

That nothing ails me

Nothing can kill me

In the last 2 or 3 lines, I told you about the fabulous cheeseburgers served up at the Sunshine General Store, a tiny grocery store in rural Montgomery County, Maryland:

Sunshine General Store

They’re just like the ones my grandmother used to make:

Recently I sat myself down at the store’s lunch counter after a long walk along the Magruder Branch Trail in Damascus, Maryland.  

After I scarfed down my cheeseburger, chips, and Dr. Pepper, I was in need of a pit stop before I hit the road.  Sunshine's bathroom came equipped with a sign that offered some helpful advice:

(No worries!)

Then I hopped in my car and headed to Manor Hill Brewing, a rather posh new farm brewery that’s a short drive from the Sunshine store.

These days, personalized cornhole boards are de rigueur at the better breweries and wineries in this part of the country:

I sampled three of Manor Hill’s brews while sitting at a table that was next to the brewery’s stock of malts:

Manor Hill’s next-door neighbor is "The Fox and The Firefly Farm."  I have a feeling there’s a story behind that name, but I have no idea what it is.  (Be my guest – Google away.)

My next stop was Waredaca Brewing, which is located on a 220-acre horse farm that offers horse boarding and riding lessons, but is known is primarily as an “eventing” barn.  (Eventing is an equestrian triathlon that combines dressage, cross-country jumping, and show jumping.)

So its only appropriate that the beer tasting boards at Waredaca incorporate horseshoes:

After I had finished my tasting at Waredaca, it was time to pick up my usual Friday night pizza and head home to check out the newest “Orange Is the New Black” and do a little blogging before heading to bed.

Something woke me up at 3:45 am.  That “something” turned out to be the urgent need to get to the bathroom and engage in some projectile vomiting, the likes of which I had not experienced in many years.

My younger son had picked up a bad stomach bug a few days earlier – I had head him ralphing vociferously several times that night – and he had passed it on to me.  

The vomiting spell gave way to a nasty bout of shivering, followed by a day of back and joint aches and a profound feeling of lassitude.

I’m back to normal now, but I’m not sure I will ever be able to eat another Sunshine General Store cheeseburger again. 

I know that the cheeseburger wasn’t the cause of my violent, middle-of-the-night upchucking . . . but the feeling of it going through my gullet in the wrong direction isn’t going to be easy to forget.

* * * * *

If 3:45 am isn’t the darkest hour of the day, it’s close enough for government work.

Darkest Hour is a metal band – more specifically, a melodic death metal band – that was formed in Washington, DC, in 1995.  

Darkest Hour

In interviews over the years, the band’s members have listed these bands as among their influences:  Dark Tranquillity, Minor Threat, Earth Crisis, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Government Issue, Scream, Shadows Fall, Bleeding Through, Eighteen Visions, Every Time I Die, Entombed, Dismember, Sacrilege, The Crown, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, Iron Maiden, Dream Theater, Carcass, Arch Enemy, Killswitch Engage, Sick of it All, Dead Kennedys, Soilwork, Danzig, Venom, Exodus, Discharge, Cro-Mags, Integrity, Edge of Sanity, Mayhem, Emperor, Ulver, Testament, Death Angel, Pantera, Cannibal Corpse, and “just about every Scandinavian [death metal] band.”

“Convalescence” was the single from Darkest Hour’s fourth studio album, Undoing Ruin, which was released in 2005.

Here’s “Convalescence”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: