On There Goes the Galaxy De-motivational Poster Video and Childhood Lyrics Problems

Since it's been a bit of a big hairy monster in terms of the ol' day job, I only have two things this week for you.

One is a short video you might enjoy. I'd taken those faux inspirational poster graphics I'd created based on the Greater Communicating Universe of my book series, and made them into a video, with music and animation. It was a great learning experience for me in terms of editing and software, and I hope it'll give you a smile. I think it turned out pretty quirky, spacey and fun.

The other thing I wanted to share was a passing reflection on how kids tend to hear lyrics...

Which is to say: wrong. Very, very wrong.

Kids, being new to the world in general, are not daunted by things not making sense to their ears. When they hear a lyric that's seems strange, they do not consider that they, personally, might be mishearing. Nope, they assume automatically that they don't know half the things people are talking about anyway, and just run with it.

This crossed my mind as I caught myself thinking of the Josie and the Pussycats theme song. As a kid, I loved this cartoon, and I would sing the theme song.

Only I apparently had my very own version of the lyrics which my brain retains to this day.

I warn you, it's not pretty...

Josie and the Pussycats
Long tails and ears for hats
Guitars and short pizzats.
Me, sweet the poobystar
Yo an body come along

Yes. This is how I sang it.

If you were curious, I'd firmly believed a "pizzat" was the mini-dresses that Josie and the band wore.

I have no idea what a "poobystar" was. Possibly an astronomical phenomenon.

So--- do you recall totally mishearing lyrics as a kid? Or do your kids have some creative lyrics to their favorite songs? I'd be interested in hearing about them.

And on that note, I leave you until next time, dear friends.

The Milk Crate Redemption

I wondered just when I'd hear the sirens, get glimpses of the red and blue whirling lights through the curtains.

I wondered when the big boots would clomp up the steps. When the knock would resonate, firm and unamused. I imagined the clink of cuffs. The jingle of cell keys. The light buzz of an anxious taser, waiting for me to give any whiff of doing something stupid that required a quick, sharp shock to the system...

Yes, I had in my possession two stolen milk crates from local dairies. And it was only a matter of time before I'd be hauled in by the coppers for illicit Calcium-Based Beverage Conveyance Hijacking.

At least, that's what the warning on the gray plastic crates had implied:

"WARNING! Unauthorized use or possession of milk cases is against the LAW. Criminals WILL be prosecuted."

I'd unthinkingly rescued the things from my college dorm dumpster right before summer break. I had snagged them along with three only slightly bent posters, a broken VCR I was sure I could get working again, and a desk lamp that, I later learned, gave off more heat than a dwarf star and was likely the cause of the Chicago Fire.

At the time, though, I had thought it quite a haul. See, I didn't have much to my name then.

In fact, if you added to the above list a case of Spaghetti O's and a clunky 80s laptop computer suitable only for the lap of the Fat Lady from a traveling carnie show, well, you pretty much had what was to my name. Not even my full name. Just a nickname maybe. Or initials.

And the Spaghetti O's were only visiting.

So, initially, I was really excited about the milk crates. They could carry my laundry to the dorm washers. They could serve as unique storage solutions. They could transform into a creative table for fine dining on the aforementioned Spaghetti O's.

I had plans for them. Oh, how I had plans!..

Until I noticed that warning on the side. The one that let me know I was in possession of hot merchandise.

I went cold. It was a jar to my nerves. And it tainted all that was good and true about my dumpster diving.

I knew already I was not up for the criminal life. This was only my second dip into the world of theft and evil, and that first one hadn't gone so well.

In my misguided youth, I had pocketed a bunch of shiny plastic sequins and fake gems from a giant thrift store artwork in the back of a shop. I knew it was wrong-- oh, I knew-- but they were so bright, and shiny and magical, I thought I could make a crown out of them and peeled a few off.

However, the guilt, which my mother had a talent for layering thickly over life like butter to bread, began to work on me even without Mom's involvement. Yep, I had developed a good strong Guilt Autopilot. Had she known, Mom would have been delighted at her handiwork. I had crowned myself the Queen of All Cheats and Liars, and saved her the trouble.

The very thought of my bad behavior kept me awake nights, in a sweat. This was not the person I was raised to be. A jewel thief. A gem smuggler.

Eventually, I formulated a plan to make things right. To repair what I'd done with no one ever the wiser. There would be no loss of TV privileges for a month. No embarrassing admissions to the store owner. No formal letters of apology. No grounding until infinity-- or high school, whichever came first.

No, this would be subtle. This would have style. I'd gotten a glue stick and, heart pounding, I went back to the thrift store and tried putting the plastic gems back into place when no one was looking. Some stuck, but some didn't. I felt sick. I had not only stolen, but I had ruined what I determined had to have been a priceless work of art. I decided to live silently with the knowledge about my sneaky, underhanded nature. Such evil, my eight year old vocabulary was unable to put into words. But it haunted me... oh, how it haunted me... like my own personal Jacob Marley.

And that college summer, it all came rushing back to me when I saw that warning on the dairy crates. Sure, the stolen crates having falling into my possession were an accident. But would the authorities ever believe that?

And what kind of authorities were there to track down and prosecute for milk crate theft anyway? Were there Dairy Agents who follow trackers on milk crates, and show up on your doorstep wearing mirrored sunglasses and milk mustaches?

I read the names of the cities on the milk crates and had no idea where these places even were to return them, even if I'd had a car. So I spent my various moves in and out of student housing with a blanket over the hot merchandise in question, careful, eyes suspicious, looking for signs of any rogue Dairy Agent on my trail.

I realized the other day I still have these crates. Yes, after decades, the only thing that has come clean is the laundry they still carry. I no longer wait for the knock on the door, the ring of the bell. But I'm older now. Wiser. Able to look at the logic behind it all.

Anyway, nowadays I'm mostly focused on that tag I ripped off my mattress.

Fig Newtons, False Gods and Free-for-All

Supernatural phenomena normally steered pretty clear of Mr. Gardner's eighth grade social studies class.

Maybe it thought it could do more good on the dodgeball court, where some of us needed all the help we could get...

Maybe it saved its eye-poppers for the kids at the Catholic school down the street, so it could enjoy a really jazzy entrance...

Or more likely, it was just as face-hitting-the-desk-bored as we were, from learning about the American Revolution eight stinkin' years in a row.

Mr. Gardner himself, however, was a pretty cool guy. Each day, he'd let one of us out of class a couple of minutes early, if we could answer one of his trivia questions.

Now, this was extremely valuable tender for our young years. See, with two extra minutes of liberation, in the 80s, you could easily:

• Drink your weight's worth of lukewarm fountain water
• Whip someone in the butt with your Trapper Keeper notebook
• Tease your bangs straight up and top-coat them with AquaNet
• Swap three Garbage Pail trading cards for some Joe Bazooka gum
• Or any number of other critical social interactions
  

No other teacher had ever given opportunity for such unbridled freedom. So, yes, Mr. Gardner was a little unconventional. And one day, the man even extended to us the open hand of trust:

"I just have to take these papers to the office. I'm going to leave you all unattended. But you stay here quietly in your seats and read chapter 12 while I'm gone. And we'll discuss it when I get back."

Of course, the moment he left, the paper airplanes were flying. The boys hand-wrestled. The girls squealed over the latest 16 Magazine photo spread featuring An Abundance of Guys Named Cory. And general mayhem broke loose.

The classroom looked like it was directed by John Hughes.

But suddenly, the giggling, the shouting, the sound of running high-tops all stilled...

...As a deep ancient voice resonated from the very heavens... or, you know, the classroom PA system:

"This is God! You should be reading chapter 12! I command you!"

It was striking how much this Maker of All Creation... this Do-It-Yourself-in-Seven-Days World-Builder.... and Mr. Gardner doing a Charlton Heston impersonation sounded alike.

And that's when one boy— a kid we called "Fig" Newton, whose vast talents included making the perfect sound of the bell and convincing substitute teachers he was, in fact, a new student named Tyrone— decided this whole Chapter Twelve Commandment thing could be resolved with a single philosophical explanation:

"We're atheists!"

The classroom exploded with laughter.

When Mr. Gardner returned, his Magnum P.I. mustache was turned up in a smirk.

Funny, we never did speak about the important spiritual moment we'd shared in his absence.

You'd think something monumental, like hearing the crackly voice of God, would have been worth filling the man in on...

If, you know, if we'd believed in that sort of thing.

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Apologies to my fellow blog friends that I haven't gotten a chance to come check out your posts lately. It's not that I'm ignoring you or became a blog-snob or anything. I've been crushed with two work writing projects due at the very same time. It's a little like playing dueling banjos, only I'm the only banjo player for 50 miles.

I promise I'll be around to see what you're up to, soon, once I can get that banjo duet down to a manageable one player riff.

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Space Farms: Wildlife's Final Frontier

"A rat! Aiiieeeee, it's a rat! A giant, huge, hideous, disease-carrying rat!" a ten-year-old me shrieked and ran into the house breaking the land-speed record for a single-jet, corn-flake-powered pre-teen.

The offending "rat," we learned was, in fact, an unlucky baby opossum. Unlucky, not just because it had fallen out of its safe tree, but because it had a run-in with a flying, exploding, elementary school banshee out to ruin its moment of quiet contemplation and tree-logistical problem-solving.

But given that this was north-central Jersey, where wildlife pretty much consists of stray dogs and groundhogs flattened off Route 46, my confusion of marsupial with plague-spreading rodent really was understandable.

It's not as if, among the strip malls, pizza parlors, doughnut shops and bowling alleys we had much chance to commune with nature.

And that's why one year in elementary school— in a quest to expand our horizons and expose us to the Joys of the Natural World— my class went to explore the wonders of "Space Farms Zoo and Museum."

Space Farms' claim to fame, back in the 80s, was it was the home of Goliath, the "World's Largest Bear." On the billboards and TV advertisements, the 12-foot-tall, 2,000 pound Alaskan brown bear was shown roaring at the cameras. A proud representative of all that was wild and proud and toothy in the Animal Kingdom.

We arrived at the attraction, our young hearts drumming a rap beat in excitement. Animals... real animals... something beyond dogs and cats and the classroom hamster which peed on us daily. This was what life was about!

And look-- there in that cage-- a lion! King of Beasts!

Only this was the old, fat, jumpsuited King. Not the young, slvete, gyrating King.

This King was one step away from having a coronary over his last fried peanut butter and gazelle sandwich. He looked like he'd soon give his final roar in the Space Farms litter box.

We hastened on, bowing our heads in respect.

Next we came upon a cage of monkeys, who tried to hustle us for money and banana slices... "C'mon, baby, just one little slice of banana... One slice... you can hook me up, can't you?"

Then there was the hyena who did stand-up prop acts with creaking vaudeville jokes and then angrily heckled us until a few kids cried... "Aw, you wouldn't know funny if it came up and bit yer tail.. Yeah, go cry to yer mama..."

There were buffalo roaming the sweeping 50-foot pen... And llamas hanging out on street corners and spitting.

But then we saw it. The great Emperor of the Forest we'd all been waiting for. Goliath! The World's Largest Bear.

"Is he dead?" one of my classmates asked.

"No, I think I can see him breathing a little."

"Where?"

"There where those gnats are all landing."

He laid there in the bottom of his cage, looking at us with glazed eyes, one group of onlookers as any other in an endless, blurry parade.

Like a plus-sized woman in a tiny spandex shirt, it was hard to tell if Goliath really was as large as was claimed. Or if his cage just was three sizes too small.

Fur was missing in patches. Flies buzzed around his head and, long ago, he'd given up doing anything about them. They were close personal friends now. And it depressed him, because just about the time he'd really get to know one, its 72-hour lifespan would be over and it would die.

Silent, we moved on to the Museum portion of the attraction. The varied collections of the Space family, for which the farms were named.

We threaded through displays of vintage cars and dinosaur bones and the skulls of long-dead Native Americans, propped up, labeled and lit for our viewing.

Then— to tie nicely in with the animals we just met outside— we saw Space Farms' wide collection of beasts, stuffed or in jars. Probably once part of the outdoor zoo, now they were entombed in sawdust and glass cases, or thriftily cradled in empty peanut butter jars and thick yellow-clear fluids, still entertaining visitors in some last macabre irony of showmanship.

Yes, Birth, Growth, Death, Skippy jar... such is the Circle of Life.

At the giftshop, classmates bought velvet flocked animals to take home with them, a token to remember our fine, furred friends of the animal kingdom.

That was when I, having no souvenir money, found a whole quarter on the ground. A quarter! It glinted in the sun. Yes, this terrific streak of luck was the talk of the classroom the rest of the year.

So with it, I bought the only thing $0.25 cents could get you back then. A metal drink coaster, bearing scenes of happy Space Farms days and the attraction logo.

Today, as I refreshed my mind with details of this unique place, I discovered that in addition to having the World's Largest Bear, Space Farms had yet another honor bestowed on it:

According to Roadside America, it was named one of Parade Magazine's 1989 "Ten Worst Zoos in America."

I also learned that our dear friend Goliath never really left.

Yes, his spirit may be roaming free among the shady Alaskan trees, along snow-encrusted mountains. But his body has been mounted Space Farms-style... Tucked in a fireplace display, between a case of guns and a hat-rack made of antlers.

I look at the photo and can almost hear the gift shop's piped-in Musak, as it plays crackling strains of a familiar tune... The Eagles' Hotel California.

"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave..."

That's right-- sing it, fellas. Nature in North Jersey.

Goliath-- I salute you.

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The Regrettable Third Grade Boobie Extravaganza

When your dad's a biologist, your childhood might just be a bit... different... than everyone else's.

Oh, you won't necessarily notice it in-between A-Team episodes and Crayola 64-packs.

But as an adult, you might just look back on your first years on this planet-- cringe-- and wonder how you went so far astray.

Such was the Third Grade Boobie Extravaganza.

Yup, where most parents were happy enough if little Rodney just colored in the lines, and didn't pick his nose in the school play, my dad had other priorities.

Things which, as a biologist, he found oh-so-adorable coming from a little person. But which pretty much put a giant red target on my big bespectacled noggin.

I was, for instance, the only 7-year-old who had to call horseshoe crabs at the beach by their Latin name.

And let me tell you, when your Limulus polyphemus innocently slips out in class, it does not make you the girl everyone wants to sit next to at lunch.

Now, I mention all this, because it was this line of thinking that transformed one carefree artistic moment into what we shall call my "Boobie Enlightenment Period. " I recall vividly how it began.

I was sitting on the floor of my grandpa's house in Florida on summer vacation, drawing mermaids. Red-haired mermaids, blond mermaids, brunettes... Mermaids with blue tails, purple tails...

No Crayola left behind.

And my father, watching this for some time, determined that the real problem with my drawing style was not my derivative over-use of a Warhol-esque repetitive theme...

Nope. It was that my mermaid collection violated the laws of proper anatomy. If I were ever going to be an artist of any caliber-- y'know, and not be washed up by age eight-- I really needed to pay more attention to detail, the Pop explained.

And thus, the first pair o' boobs entered into the picture.

Or actually, all of the pictures. Yup, from here on out, it was a veritable Boobie Renaissance in my artistic endeavors. From Nancy Drew to Wonder Woman and everyone in-between... if it was a female character and I drew it, you could guarantee, she had a pair.

And while this appeased the Pop regarding my maturing artistic sensibilities, I discovered once I hit third grade-- as in many an art movement-- it didn't quite translate to the masses like I'd hoped.

Unlike second grade, the third grade classroom, inside and out, had a number of bulletin boards we kids were allowed to decorate and maintain. And so for every season, we crafted a scene using our own hand-made cut outs.

You can probably tell where this is going.

Oh, my friend Josette did a snowman and kids throwing snowballs. Lance Helgerberger drew a couple of boys on a sled. And me, I drew a pirouetting ice skater...

With sweater-clad knockers Lana Turner would have been proud of.

My teacher, Miss Andros, a sweet prim maiden lady, blinked befuddled at the image and struggled noticeably about just how to tactfully address this booby-trapped situation. So she pointed. "Jenni, now you see these here... um..."

But then I explained to her, yes, I was aware of them. And how being anatomically accurate was important if you were ever to really learn to draw properly.

Mumbling and patting my shoulder, she found her argument suddenly flaked away like Elmer's paste.

And so third grade became the year I introduced my classmates to the joys of fine art. I can just imagine now, at Parent-Teacher Conferences, Miss Andros pointing out the bulletin boards and asking my mother if she could pick my contributions out of a crowd.

Oh yes, Miss Andros. She could...

She most certainly could.

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Fostering Figments of Fester

So they tell me I met Uncle Fester.

Dad said it so casually over the Thanksgiving holiday, it was as if bald, sunken-eyed Addams' who power lightbulbs by popping 'em in the ol' kisser were discussed on just everyone's turkey-centric holiday...

Right between the Macy's Day Parade and the first college bowl kickoff.

I don't even know how the subject came up anymore. All I recall is the Pop saying, "Well, you know, you met Uncle Fester." In the same matter-of-fact tone he might have told me, "You know, your shoe is untied..."

Or "You know, you really need to cut back on the caffeine..."

Or "You know, you have a giant monster zit exploding on your forehead."

But no. It was: "You know, you met Uncle Fester."

And it seemed to me that this was a memory I really should have retained. An Uncle Fester Meet-n-Greet should have been one very big day in Kiddom.

I mean, I loved "The Addams Family" of the 60s. Dry, dark humor.... A big old Gothic Victorian house... A disembodied hand that did its own errands?...

What wasn't to like?

But I scanned the noggin for traces of shaking hands with a pasty, cowl-wearing Goth Kojak, and for the life of me, not a peanut butter-smeared, Play-Doh-encrusted memory lurked in my mental attic.

I recalled meeting Wonder Woman once at Jamesway. A very taped-together Wonder Woman, sloppy and sagging, who was so not the Lynda Carter who I spent a good seven years of my life wanting to be. Mainly, because I thought it would be cool to spin around really fast, and cause an explosion that involved a wardrobe change.

It would have been a handy trick to have, particularly in the school gym locker room.

I remembered meeting Spiderman at the Rockaway Sales Indoor Flea Market. A very authentic Spiderman who I had a crush on at the time, anyway, because Peter Parker was both funny and a bit dishy. And superheroes up until that time had no discernible sense of humor to speak of. (I mean, Clark Kent, honestly-- what a stiff! And Batman, so sulky...) So it wasn't really any surprise that Spiderman was a fond reminiscence...

Even at age six, I was going for the quirky guy.

I also recalled meeting a couple of Apes, from Planet Of The. I was a little disappointed at the time that one of them wasn't Roddy McDowall, because he was about the only actor I really knew other than Burgess Meredith. And because this was the late 70s, Roddy McDowall was pretty much in everything.

I felt he should have won lots of Oscars. Largely because, to my kid-brain, there was absolutely no one else in Hollywood of his artistic caliber... and certainly not one willing to wear a monkey head.

But Fester. I'd forgotten Fester! The mind boggled. How could it possibly be?

"Well," said the Pop finally, "he didn't look like Fester. He had hair. He was living in New Jersey."

(As if living in New Jersey and being bald were mutually-exclusive. Tell that to Tony Soprano.)

But then I remembered! Or at least if I didn't actually remember, my brain made up vague convincing recollections on the spot to fill in the missing Festerocity of it all.

I think it was a Two Guys Department Store. I envisioned a small stage, and this guy with some hair and normal colored skin, aged and paunchy, being introduced to the crowd. "Jackie Coogan" was the name. A name that meant nothing to a wee kid like me, as it didn't leap from the Addams Family opening credits.

This was Fester. I recall him being a bit curt, a little cold, and I don't recall actually speaking to him, or having anything signed. I recall leaving shortly thereafter... no bald heads... no lightbulbs lit... no goofy jokes... no sword fights.

It was disillusioning. No wonder it didn't spring to mind instantly. But, ya know, overcoming those little disappointments are an important part of Kiddom.
And hey-- a dull, unfriendly Fester is still better than a Wonder Woman with plastic bullet-proof bracelets and visible bra straps, any day.


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So tell me, folks-- what famous faces have you gotten to meet, and was it all you'd hoped? And how does your kid-memory stack up to big events these days?

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Brook-Bagging Louie Stamoolis

As a bully, Dwayne Pasternak was an underachiever.

Oh, he probably could have gotten good at it, if he'd just applied himself a little more. But on a scale of Bullying as an Artform, his work was like a Starving Artist painting...

Unoriginal... Cheap.... Initially getting your attention, but eventually just blending in behind the sofa.

He was the kid who'd call you "dogface," if you just happened to look his way. The one who'd trip you on your way to class so you'd drop your books. The boy who'd snap your bra.

I always felt his repertoire lacked range.

I mean, Teeny DeLuca, now she'd shown first-rate creativity when she tried to give me lead poisoning. And Arnold Kosninski, he used skilled spin-doctoring to enrage his victims. But Dwayne, well, he'd never make into the Bully Hall of Fame... His lack of imagination held him back.

Until he decided to brook-bag a kid named Louie Stamoolis.

Louie Stamoolis was a seventh-grade human computer... input and output. His math was of Texas Instruments quality. He remembered dates and events like he lived them. He even seized foreign languages like Napoleon did countries. Louie was brilliant.

But because Louie was storing all of this data in his brain, regrettably, it left very little room for anything else. Like manners... modesty... or a sense of humor. And the giant weight of his brain also seemed to press on the back of his eyes, straining his tear ducts.

Louie Stamoolis could cry at the drop of a hat.

It didn't even have to be his hat.

Add to that, he was small for his age, with an almost pretty face, and long dark lashes. He was a target for his intelligence, his looks, and because he was a little bit hard to like.

The crying only made it worse.

So, one day as school let out, I was headed on home and spied Dwayne Pasternak playing keep-away with Louie's backpack.

Dwayne was tall, wiry, and with a straw-colored flat top. With his plaid flannel shirt and that scrub-brush hair, he looked like a scarecrow teetering in the wind-- the book bag dangling high over Louie's head.

Louie's pale face was streaming with tears and he'd jump. And miss. And sob. And jump again. And whimper.

"You want it?" laughed Dwayne, "Come get it. Or consider yourself brook-bagged, Stamoolis!"

Brook-bagging meant tossing someone's backpack into the stream that ran outside the school. Many a text book and homework went the way of the brook. Teachers knew papers turned in with crinkled and smeared pages had probably been resurrected from a serious brook-bagging.

Well, at the very threat of it, Louie Stamoolis' tearducts started working overtime. And that's when I heard a bored, irritated voice say, "Aww, just give him his stupid bag back, Dwayne."

Oh. That voice was mine.

Dwayne fixed his attention on me, with a look of vague recognition like, "Hey, hadn't I bullied you before?"

But strangely, Dwayne didn't really scare me. What was he going to do to me? Snap my bra again? Call me ugly for the umpteenth time? By eighth grade, I'd seen it all, and survived to tell about it. But picking on Louie Stamoolis... that was like flipping a turtle on its back to see it struggle.

Someone had to take the side of the turtle.

"You stay out of this," Dwayne snarled.

"C'mon, Dwayne. It's not cool. Just give it to him," I said.

And that's when Dwayne started racing down the hallway.

I looked to see what Louie planned to do about it. But he just leaned against the lockers, sobbing like Joan Crawford trying for an Oscar. So maybe it was a lack of fear. Or maybe I'd just watched too many Wonder Woman episodes. But I left Louie in the middle of his big scene-- and ran after Dwayne.

Now, Dwayne wasn't really expecting to be chased-- let alone by a girl. Down the metal stairs we went, one after the other, with a clatter like thunder.

Bang! went the school doors and out onto the sidewalk we flew. Dwayne sprinted. I sprinted, too. And that's when, true to his underachieving nature, Dwayne lost all initiative and dropped the bag. It lay there on the pavement in the center of the bridge over the brook-- the shining prize in my quest for justice.

Dwayne called me some names over his shoulder for good measure, as he ran on home. A parting shot of a desperate man. The weak words of the defeated. I picked up the backpack.

I smiled at the bag, gave it a little hug, and thought, "No brook for you today, my friend." And jogged back into the school to find Louie.

Louie was right where I'd left him, having a meltdown at his locker, his world ending in the form of a drowned red Nike backpack. I handed him the rescued bag with flourish and a warm triumph swelling in my heart. Or maybe that was just my asthma kicking in after all that running.

"Here!" I proclaimed. "It's safe!"

But Louie snatched it from my hand like I'd tried to brook-bag him myself. He glared up at me, gave a swipe to his running nose, his tear-stained eyes, and slung the bag on his shoulder. Without a word, he stalked off.

I stood there, watching Louie's retreating back bob off into the afternoon sun, and I shook my head.

I bet Wonder Woman had these moments, too. The scenes they never showed us.

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Remedial Gym and the Fourth Grade Kickball Miracle

Remedial gym class.

Yep, if there was ever a way to truly ostracize a kid in our school system-- a way to hang a big ol' school-board-sanctioned "Kick Me" sign on a first grader's fledgling social standing-- remedial gym class would rank pretty highly in the list.

The Presidential Physical Fitness tests would occur my first year of school, and the school decided I was apparently not measuring up.

My arm hang was weak.

My sit-up quantities per minute were sub-par.

And my stylistic form during relay-racing was just all over the place.

I wasn't even six, and I was athletically washed-up.

My low status in gym class set a tone that carried all the way through to fourth grade.

That was the year I got braces and glasses and that fashionable thick black elastic band required by school law to hold my glasses tight to my head during exercise; I guess so if I got hit in the face and my glasses shattered, the maximum amount of lens would penetrate my eye.

It was also the year kickball became the unofficial-official sport of my classroom.

Now I've mentioned in the past how after lunch, when they sent us out onto the playground, we weren't allowed any sort of sports equipment, running, jumping, skipping, hopscotch, jump-rope or other potential lawsuit-inducing activities.

However, if fully-supervised by our classroom teacher, we would get some time for recess.

This meant an organized sport. This meant, it basically was one more gym class to add to my regular humiliation.

This meant, I was faced with kickball.

Ah, kickball... Each year, kickball came up, and each year kickball was explained to us as, "It's just like baseball but you kick a red rubber ball."

My grasp on the concept of baseball, however, was tenuous at best. I knew baseball as that sport that my grandfather put on television and then fell asleep in his lounge chair.

I knew it as the program which, the moment I would try to change the channel, Grampa would wake up abruptly and grumble how he "was watching that, put it back"-- then wipe a little of the snore-drool from his chin.

I knew baseball as the thing that prevented me from watching Godzilla marathons on WWOR-TV.

So, when it was my turn to kick, I knew I should kick the ball as it came at me. But after that, I was fairly fuzzy on the finer points of the remaining procedure. Mostly, I'd weigh my options about what to do next, intentionally hesitating long enough that someone would tag me out before any key decisions had to be made.

I found it to be a lame but effective strategy.

So year after year, I was chosen in the near-last range for kickball. I say "near last" because there were maybe two other kids leftover from First Grade Remedial Gym Class who hadn't gotten the hang of the whole group sports thing, either.

Most of us were only children, and I see how it happens. Breathtakingly exciting pick-up games of baseball aren't exactly common when it's one kid in the backyard throwing the ball up and batting it into a tree hoping for a rebound.

Anyway, so as fourth grade led into summer, each clear day we would go out for kickball, and I'd bunt it, and get an out, and go back to wait for my next round of embarrassment

Until José Rodriquez went all Gene Hackman on me.

I don't know how he figured out the root of my kickball problem--because I thought at the time my stall-tactics had been fairly credible.

But somewhere along the way, José had come to realize the reason I was such a lousy kickball player was simply because I just didn't understand kickball. And that's when this kid-- a who had always called me names up until now-- decided to help me.

Maybe he thought it was better to take me under his wing than lose the game. Maybe he'd known someone who was confused before, too. Maybe he took an epiphany kickball to the head. I really don't know.

What I do know is, the first time he coached me, it was startling. The pitcher rolled the ball to me, I stepped forward, gave it a decent-enough kick, put on my "Hm, maybe I don't really feel like running anywhere" face, and then saw José standing by first base. "Here. Here. Run here!"

So I ran. I made it to first base! It was monumental. I stood there in a state of absolute disbelief.

So the next kid was up to kick. He kicked the ball. And, again-- there was José. At second base this time, waving me in. "This one now. This one. Okay, he's got the ball. So stay! Stay!"

And I stayed. Elated. Delighted. There on second base.

When I made my first run ever, it was such a weight off my fourth-grade shoulders. I was a kid who could score a run! Not a moment worth Olympic notoriety, or my own trading card or anything. But it was one moment where I wasn't a liability to my team.

The macadam on the playground was filled with sparkling metallic flecks I'd never noticed before.

That day, and the two kickball games thereafter, I learned so much. Suddenly I knew when to run. I knew when to steal. And I knew when to sprint all the way home.

The sun shone a bit brighter those days. Even more amazingly, I moved up a good three kids in the team selection rankings.

I think back on those kickball days with a bit of warmth in my heart. Sure, I still got tagged out sometimes. And yeah, I got headaches from that lovely black rubber band riveting my glasses to my skull. But it was the first time I learned I could actually be a part of something that didn't involve glue and safety scissors.

Yes, indeed, it was a long way from Remedial Gym Class.

And I have José Rodriguez to thank for it.

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