I Remember...

I remember riding my horse, Lady-M bareback, losing myself in the imaginations of an 11 year old boy. I’m a cowboy! YEE-Hawwww! Until Giddey-up showed me what real cowboys face…

I remember standing, solemnly watching as my mother’s brown Toyota Celica’s tires swirled up dirt cyclones as she drove the expanse of our dusty gravel driveway, and I prayed she’d return from work soon…

I remember huddled in a crevice in her room, how my sister stared at me with those Disney eyes, as we tried not to listen to my mothers harrowing cries…

I remember being rewarded by my father for my heroism as I sailed through the air, my leaf like body batted by his branch coming to a dead rest as my fragile back puckered a whole in the drywall of the master’s bedroom…

I remember my mother packing…

I remember watching my mother’s tears as we tried unsuccessfully to stab open a can of soup with a knife, the second time I saw her cry, since newly separated from my father, we still didn’t own a can opener…

I remember the sweet taste of steer meat, ketchup and tomatoes, American and Swiss cheese on my burger; and I remember the first time my mother cooked up store bought beef…and I remember becoming a vegetarian…

I remember not having to go to a park to see leafy trees and green grass, not worrying about arriving early enough to get a spot or throwing a football over broken bottle glass…

I remember when shiny new grills meant a burnt burger stuck to the barbecue…

I remember as a little black boy in predominately suburban Midwest Wisconsin when Yo! MTV raps meant Heavy D was Mount Vernon, Krs-One the Bronx; in fact I remember when the only BX I knew had an M in the middle, and usually left my child ashy legs with severely skinned shins and bruised knees…

I remember when driving south through Chicago, radio stations played songs about fighting the power, struggles with the cops, and breaking free of restrictive chains, instead of snap rapping, leaning and shaking and how low those chains hang, when Self Destruction gave way to self-indulgence and We Are The World became We Fly High, …ballin’…

I remember elementary school art class when the teacher actually told the class to use peach for people’s skin, when my burnt sienna didn’t fit in…

I remember when wireless simply meant cordless, broadband was the piece of purple rubber holding together broccoli stalks I chased and popped my sister with, and cable, cable was the wire that connected the antennae to our uhf/vhf TV. I remember being the remote control; in fact, I kinda remember rabbit-ears, tin-foil and locking pliers…

I remember when the Olsen twins were babies on Full House, Michael J. Fox only attended political rallies on his fictional sitcom and both Mr. and Mrs. Superman hadn’t met up with kryptonite…

I remember when the only Elmo I knew was the name of a fire in a movie about some high school kids doing detention, and there were barely six, six resident’s on Sesame Street. Ah Ah Ah…