A toast to what would never be!

I was caught off guard last night when I started thinking about some kids I hung out with in my childhood and how much they impacted my life.

I spent a significant portion of my early years living in the suburbs of a little town called Chicago.  It was very diverse and it has always been the place I remember feeling the most "normal" in my life.

I had a little group of five kids that I hung out with.  Our ultimate goal in life was to build a fort underneath the bushes in the field across the street from my house.  It was gonna be cool.  It would be three levels with two "rooms" on each level so that each of us had our own room.  I hate that we never got around to building it.

I felt so close to these guys and sometimes wonder how we would have all been if we had grown up together.  But it wasn't meant to be as most of us were military kids (a.k.a. Navy Brats) and our families moved often.  These were the days of long distance phone call fees, no answering machines and absolutely no such thing as the internet.  So, unless you were up for writing letters, once you moved away, even if it was just across town, your friendship was over.

There was Kenny W.  He was a great guy and was probably my closest friend in the gang.  He and I were inseparable until I moved away.  Then we were quite separable.  I missed him the most when I moved south.  I think when I first moved away, I might have written him a letter or two, but, man, that was so hard.  So we lost touch.

The coolest thing I learned from Kenny was how to jump my bike.  This was the COOLEST EVER!  We would put a piece of plywood on a cinder block to make a ramp and then ride our bikes over the ramp and totally get some air!!!!  AWESOME!!!  We even turned it up a notch and practiced jumping off of our bikes as we were going up the ramp.  This would heighten the intensity a lot and also prepared us for any time in our lives where we may be riding a motorcycle that could explode at any second and we HAVE TO GET OFF!  This, of course, hasn't happened for me yet, but I'm prepared.  Totally.

Three or four years after I moved I was sitting in my classroom when our teacher introduced a new guy in class.  It was Kenny!  I was so excited, but he had changed.  We tried to re-kindle our friendship, but it just wasn't there.  We had both jumped ramps with too many other dudes....

Next door to me was a guy names Steven and I swear his last name was Pelican.  I don't think that was it, but that's what I remember.  Steven was this little blond haired blued eyed aryan-esque looking kid.  He had a funny accent and pretty much called everything he didn't understand "reetahded."  Of course that is considered a derogatory and hurtful term now, but back then, I had no idea what it meant. 

Steven taught me that when girls wore tight jeans and walked swaying their hips, that they were, or course, "reetahded."  I was shocked to learn this as a 6 year old but I was grateful he had informed me.  Girls were already icky enough as it was.  Of course, in the 80's when Jordache Jeans were on every girl I saw, I was amazed at the number of "reetahded" girls surrounding me at any given time. I was worried about our society!

Anyway, to this day, I really find Pelicans as a great comfort.  His last name may have been "Smith" for all I know, but Pelican works for me.

Then there was Floyd.  Floyd said he was Filipino and at this time in my life, I had no idea what the hell he was talking about.  Sure he had a darker skin tone than me, but so what.  He wasn't "Filipino," he was a boy, just like me! 

I remember his Grandfather would take us to baseball games and always get us hot dogs.  One night, as I was headed to a game, my Mom said "Don't eat a hot dog at the game.  We'll have dinner when you get home."  Sure as clockwork, when we got to the game, Floyd's Grandfather gave me a hot dog.  I thought it would be rude to say "no" so I, of course, ate it.  IT WAS DELICIOUS!!!  Baseball hot dogs always are. 

I got in big trouble with Mom that night.   I don't know how she knew.
"Eat your dinner."
"I can't, I'm full."
"Why? Did you eat a hot dog at the game?"
"No."
"Really?  Then what did you eat at the game?"
"A hot dog."
She was always so cunning....

As it turned out, when I moved south, there was a quite a large Filipino population, much larger than in Chicago.  I remember thinking to myself, "ohhhhhhhhhhh... thaaaat's what Floyd meant..."

Then there was John Paul Francis.  The only thing I remember about John Paul Francis was that he really liked to be called John Paul Francis.   I do not know what his last name was but man, if you just called him John, or John Paul, he would go NUTS! 

"Hi John!"
"It's John Paul Francis"
"John Paul?"
"FRANCIS... John.. Paul.. Francis!"
"Can I call you JPF?"
"JOHN PAUL FRANCIS!!!!"

I swear we used to say his name incomplete just to mess with him.  It was so much fun.  I wish Stripes had been out already so we would have known to always say "Lighten up Francis!"  Come to think of it, he kind of looked like Conrad Dunn, the guy who played Francis in Stripes.

I wish we could have grown up together just so I could have given him one of those Chicago style mob names.  I would have totally pushed for him being called "Johnny-P-Franks" as if that was his name.  Kind of like "Franky no neck."  See how that flows?

Now, the friend who impacted me the most in my life was Sam.  Of course, Kenny taught me survival techniques, Floyd encouraged my love for hot dogs, Steven helped me to identify the "reetahded" among us and John Paul Francis taught me about obsession with one self.  Sam taught me that all of us are different from each other in some way and that we could still be friends, no matter what.

Actually, he didn't mean to teach me that and I really didn't figure that out for quite some time.  My Mom actually helped me with that one, but she wasn't trying to teach me anything either.  Well she was trying to teach me something, but I simply didn't understand.

Sam, like Floyd, had darker skin than me.  He was black but that didn't matter one bit to me just like the fact that I am extremely white didn't matter to him.  What did matter was that Sam, had an Afro.  It was the 70's and it was the city!  If you could grow an Afro, you did and if you could grow it BIG, you totally did!  Sam was the epitome of second grade cool and confidence.  He was so laid back and nothing ever phased him!

Sam could not catch air on his bicycle and I never understood why.  As the years went by, I figured out that Sam's Afro probably slowed him down a bit.  It was large.  Not Fletch large, but large enough.  But what Sam could do was hold a lot of pencils in his hair.

In elementary school, we used those fat pencils and you couldn't just stick them behind your ear and be cool.  The older kids got to use thin "normal" pencils and sometimes they'd put one behind each ear and then freak me out saying "look at me, I've got devil horns.  I'm the devil.. bluhhh bluhhhh."  Jerks.

But Sam! Sam could totally hold three or four fat pencils in his hair and it was soooooo cool!  "Sam, you got a pencil?"  Then he would sink his hand into his hair and POOF he would pull out a pencil and just hand it to you!  AWESOME!!!!

I went home and told my Mom,
     "Mom, I want an Afro!" 
But she coldly and heartlessly said
     "You can't have an Afro."
So I tried to explain it to her in a way she would understand.
     "No Mom.  You don't have to worry.  An Afro isn't something you buy, I can grow it.  I want to growwwww an Afro."
     "I get it.  But you can't grow one." 
She was just being difficult.
      "MOM!  Why are you being so mean?" 
She looked at me and smiled and even chuckled.  Oh the disrespect I was being handed was awful.
     "No honey.  I'm not saying you're not allowed to have an Afro, I'm saying that you are simply not able to have one."
Her cruel chuckle continued.
     "You're so mean to me!  The Welcome Back Kotter kids moms let them have Afros!"
I ran to my room and cried.
I'm pretty sure as I ran off she said something condescending like
     "fine, try to grow an Afro."

Well, I tried and over time, I figured out what she meant.  I remain jealous of Sam to this day, wherever he may be.

Well played Mom.  Well played indeed.