Archive
05/01/09 - (2)
Summing Up
So many guys my age would tell you That they can sum up their childhoods, in three words: "Bicycle" and "baseball glove."
I own up to a slightly expanded variation on the theme. For me, the iconic words of my youth Were "comic books," "flipping cards," and "Saturday matinées."
Casting back to those easier and simpler days, What I best remember are Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel Repulsing the German and Japanese armies;
Those baseball and Sky-Birds bubblegum cards, Which my classmates and I would use in flipping contests, Matching heads or tails, on the playground and after school;
Those weekly cliff-hanger serials and goofy cartoons Punctuating the two feature movies, at the Shady Oak theater, Costing all of a quarter, another for popcorn and soda.
What words, I wonder, would other WWII-era guys employ, To encapsulate the best parts of their adulthoods — "Divorce," "addiction," "obesity," "downsized," "Jesus"?
Or might they resort to words slightly more sanguine — "Trophy third wife," "five-thousand-bottle wine cellar," "Stomach stapling," "golden parachute," "Viagra"?
Me? I never was too sold on making words do all the work. But if I had to sum up high school to now, I'd put it this way: "Bachelor," "Blue Nun," "bulimia," "bum," "basset hound."
05/01/09 - (2)
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