There
we were at my job’s end-of the year picnic, showing off my little 4-month-old
baby to co-workers and handing her around to people who had passed the
43-question test (with essay) we require before you can handle little Amelie.
My eyes became transfixed on a group of kids in the corner of the yard, all
hootin’ and hollerin’ while blasting a little red ball at each other trying
to take someone’s knee cap off.
"That’ll be you soon," somebody said, noticing my gaze as I
bounced the baby.
I stared starry-eyed and muttered, "yeah." And then it occurred to
me, "no." He didn’t mean me! He meant that will be Amelie one day.
She will be out there playing, whoopin’ it up with the other kids, and by the
size of her, beating them up and stepping on them with her massive size 62 shoes
that are usually worn by circus bears to keep their snaggly toenails from
tearing up the carpet.
He meant her, not me!
But I wanted to be out there with them … in the mix … whoopin’ it up
… gettin’ crazy … gettin’ grass stains on my pants … messin’ up my
hair … rolling in the grass until I itched so bad I thought my skin would fall
off.
Not her. Me!
Look at ‘em. It’s summertime. Daylight savings time is back. The air is
warm. The grass is thick and there’s playin’ to do. Lots of it.
I wanted the red ball. Do you know how far I could kick that thing? I almost
ran out to the pack and screamed: "Hey, I can kick the ball over that
house."
Remember doing that as a kid? Everybody crowded back, you licked your lips
and gave it your best whack. Straight up it went, and straight down it came,
whistling like a falling bomb. Kids ran screaming for cover, and it always
smacked right into your mom’s car, leaving a nice big dent in the hood.
So you tried again …
These were the things you did when you had 17 Cokes in you, 22 cupcakes and a
5 lb. bag of sugar you’d eaten with a ladle. The uncontainable energy would
build up until it bubbled out like molten lava desperate for a way to free
itself. To set it loose, all you had to do was run wild like an antelope with
its hind quarters on fire. As you lost steam, and control of your senses, you
crashed into a tree.
There, in the childhood equivalent of public drunkenness, an arm bent
backward or blood trickling from your forehead, you panted like a wild dog and
for the first time noticed that the world was, in fact, spinning … and there
were dancing cows over by the swing set.
"You OK?" some worried parent would rush over to ask. Unable to
contain your wobbly head or the goofy grin that had sprawled out across your
face, that little brain uttered a canned line saved for just such occasion:
"Me? Fine. I need another soda, though."
And off this adult would trot to help renew your sugar fix.
Climbing trees. Falling out of trees. Can you remember landing squarely on
your back and the hollow thud it made as every bit of air was forced out of your
lungs? Why was it fun lying there gasping and trying to grip the air with your
hands to force it into your mouth? But it was.
I miss it. I miss it so much. Won’t be long before my little one can get
out there. Can mix it up. And I will have to watch from the sidelines, and
dream. Dream of my childhood and falling out of trees and getting beamed by
balls with my knee caps nearly flying off. I’ll live through her vicariously
… or just maybe I’ll jump in and try to boot a ball over a house.
* * * * *
Brian Thompson is a former journalist in St.
Augustine, Florida, where he writes a weekly humor column called "Life in a
Nutshell" for the The St. Augustine Record. His topics range from the
proper way to lose a load of lumber out the back of a pickup truck to soiled
baby diapers that could peel paint off the wall. He is a short story writer
and the public information director at Flagler College, where he also teaches
future journalists on the college's newspaper bad habits. You can read his
columns online at Nutshell
City and reach him at brianlthompson@bellsouth.net.
