Anybody lookin'?
Say cheese.
2 I do that.
3 Everybody does. Or we wouldn't have minds.
4 I tossed around all sorts of things. I thought about how when I was younger, I always assumed people liked me. I don't think that anymore.
5 I thought mostly good thoughts, and some awesome. Some wrenching. Heading north to my old digs on a Saturday early brings this stuff out.
6 A kaliedescope of images turned around in my frabjous brain as I zipped along the highway. Stupid stuff. High school. Cruising. Crushes. Pick-up basketball games with the boys. A Penny Lane downtown. In Penny Lane the barber shaves another customer. We see the banker sitting, waiting for a trim. And the fireman rushes in from the pouring rain. Very strange. And suddenly this image popped into my head:
7 In the midst of this strange daydream, Nurse Ratched appeared to me like a boss in a video conference. This is the Nurse Ratched from the Cuckoo's Nest film, which played on teevee last week.
8 For the record, the actress's name is Louise Fletcher.
9 That didn't matter to me as I flew up 101 on Saturday morning. I looked over and saw some geese. "Louise Fletcher," I mumbled. <basketball buzzer.> "Immaterial." An eighteen-wheeler thundered past.
10 She wasn't Louise anything. She wasn't a character in a book written by a space case. This was the physical embodiment of Nurse Ratched. So there I was, bombing up the freeway and goofing on nearly everything in my life. when Nurse Ratched materialized.
12 When the thought crossed my head that I no longer assume people like me now that I am this Old Brown Shoe, she popped into my head immediately. She appeared somewhere in the vicinity of my left eyebrow. "Why do you feel that way, Mr. Harrington?"
13 "Feel what way?" I asked. I was and am that kid.
14 "Why do you no longer assume that people like you?"
15 " 'Cuz they don't know me. I don't know if I know me anymore."
16 "Now why would you think that, Mr. Harrington?"
17 " I always had some sort of identity. I was well-liked. My sister used to bring all the popular kids over to our house when I was in eighth grade: the football players, the cheerleaders, the pretty song girls, the school-spirit gang, those sorts.
18 "Our family garage was THE off-campus spirit hub for school spirit. We painted posters for football games, and I got schooled in the whole school spirit shuck-and-jive."
19 "Shuck-and-jive?"
20 "Yeah. I learned how to schmooze Do you have any idea what goes through an eighth-grade boy's mind when surrounded by all of that? They develop shuck-and-jive."
21 "Cool?"
22
23 "Yeah, I guess you could say 'cool'. I remember in my first year in high school having the most beautiful song girl in the WORLD walk over to me in my garage and say, 'Are you Linda's little brother?'
24 "I replied, 'Nah. Linda's my older sister.'
25 She actually turned red with delight, turned to the others and said, 'Oh my God he's SO cute!'
26 I turned into Roger Rabbit, even though he hadn't even been invented yet.
27
28 "And how did that affect you?"
29 "It didn't."
30 She popped out immediately, no known destination.
31 It was a blast painting signs. I even got to design this thing called "The Hoop," this huge hula-hoop apparatus that had some sort of spirit message. The entire Friday night lights focused on that just before the team would run onto the field. They crashed through The Hoop while the band played the school song.
32 Had utterly no effect on me. I could walk around in front of my friends and hang out with all the school hot shots.
33 Moving on, Part One: Add to all of this my Dad, who worked for ITT Continental, the people who brought you Wonder Bread, red, yellow and blue balloons, AND all Hostess products: Twinkies, Cup-cakes, Snowballs, Ho-ho's, and the now forgotten Suzi-Q's.
34 He would bring home huge boxloads of day-old stuff that we would distribute to these high-strung kids.
35 I literally lived The Wonder Years.
36 <enter Nurse Ratched> "And this affected you?"
37 She was really digging for stuff that was not as deep as she thought. You need go no further than the surprise sugar-rush within a Twinkie or a Cupcake to understand true popularity.
38 For the record, I never made that connection. Not then, not now. I just thought it was awesome having a spirited, amazing home. My family sings too.
39 "So why do you assume people don't like you now?"
40 "I actually don't. I just assume that there are people who don't. It's human." This woman was getting annoying.
41 I took the turnoff to Dad's house and saw my neighborhood, usually wet beneath the blue-suburban skies I'd sit and meanwhile back...
42 Nurse Ratched stopped at that point. I turned to the main street that had the barber shop, and all that. It looked different, but had the same basic look. I smiled, giving myself a tour of my personal Penny Lane.
43 No roundabout. I always thought I should talk to our mayor, Art Lepore. As far as I know, he was the only mayor ever. He taught at my high school, and was an awesome man.
44 We even had a cool mayor.
45 It was a cartooooooooon.
46 As I drove through the town I looked at the hills, and thought of all the memories.
47 I smiled.
48 I smiled because I had an amazing childhood.
49 I realized that life can be a blast, and I thought everyone should have all the Twinkies they could.
50 I turned to go up my street.
51 I looked to my right and saw a mini-Cooper parked off to the right.
52 Huge smile. If you're a Wonder Years addict, you'd get that one in an instant.
53 I drove up Helen Drive to my Dad's, leaving Nurse Ratched to go haunt a house.
54 It was the beginning of a nice weekend with Dad.
55 Nothing but bright thoughts on this Monday.
56 Nurse Ratched tried, but failed.
57 I gottago.
58 You have a GREAT day.
59 Eat a Twinkie.
60 It'll work. Ask an expert.
61 Fly low.
63 Peace.
~H~
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