If you think you know, you don’t. You actually have no idea. Now I know every generation say’s the same thing. My mother said it, her mother said it, and now I am saying it to you. Things were much different when I was growing up.
Now don’t get me wrong, I love our new toys. I would be lost without my laptop and cell phone. They make life so much easier, but with that comes complication. Did I just say that? I did! The things that are supposed to make our life easier do just that, make it more complicated.
I am going to take you back to a place when they were not so complicated, well at least for me they weren’t. Back to a time when MTV still had music videos, Nick had "You Can't Do That on Television" and Pac-Man was king. Back to a time when a 7 year old kid believed without a doubt that the shoes you wore could make you jump higher, make it further and run faster. Back to a time when you had to go outside and play because not everyone had cable and it was boring as hell to sit inside all day. There was no "wifi", radio had commercials and a healthy meal consisted of a steak and potatoes.
Now by no means am I a writer, I am going on the same ride as you. You are reading this the same way that I am typing it. It is the way I remember. Now I’m not going to go on and on about how great life was every year of my existence, but I do have to start somewhere.
That place is the small town of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. To me it was no small town at all. It was no different then any other place on the map. We had a movie theater, library and you could leave your bike on the front lawn before bed and not worry about it getting stolen.
We had just moved there. I was lucky to be young enough in my quest for friends that joining a new first grade class was not so difficult. You simply sat by the kid that bathed as much as you and knew the secret to picking his nose without anyone else seeing. Let’s face it, that’s gross, we know it is gross, we know others know it is gross, but at that age it is something that is ok for us to do, but when we see others do it, well you get the picture.
I am the youngest of four boys. Two of them had already moved out by the time I got to the first grade. My summer time playmates were older so that made me a tougher kid. Well in some way’s at least. I could take a punch, but you take me away from my mother and I start crying like you gave me a wedgie that lifted me two feet off the ground. To combat that my mother devised a plan, she often thought of fantastical idea’s to shield me from the ideal that she was not there. They worked great for me, but others thought they were bizarre I am sure. I showed up for class that day in a cape made from a shower curtain. My mother called it a “cloak that makes you invisible”, the kids I was about to meet felt it made me very weird.
So there I was, my mother dropped me off in front of a class full of dirty faced, messy haired kids, and I was the outcast. The teacher introduced me to a bevy of yawns, eyes rolling and kids making fart sounds every time I tried to speak.
My teacher, whose name escapes me, was even in on the fun. “So did you bring any treats for the class?” she asked. Before I could even answer she did for me “kids, Michael is new today lets do our best to make him feel welcome even though he came empty handed” she said with this sinister smile. Yea, like I said I don’t remember her name, but even at that age I had a pretty good name picked out. I heard my brother say it once or twice describing our next door neighbor. Let’s just say it rhymes with snitch, but isn’t. I think you get the idea.
Alone is how it started and alone is how it would be, well for part of the day. I knew I would make some friends eventually. My mother said it would take some time, but I thought it would be easier then it was. Little did I know I was on the verge of meeting my best friend, well at least for the day.
After lunch we made our way outside for recess. There was so much going on, games of kickball, four-square, girls-chase-boys, freeze tag and some two-hand touch. The playground was stacked, they had everything. What my mother called the marry-go-round we affectionately referred to as the wheel-of-death, which was a personal favorite of mine.
(below are the actual pictures of the slide and monkey bars)
You know what I’m talking about, the circular thing with bars placed all along the inside to grab onto for dear life. Then there was my other favorite, the steel slide. None of this plastic crap you kids have nowadays. This thing was huge. It seemed 50 feet tall, you could only slide down it on cool days or else you would burn your hands off, and if you were wearing shorts forget about it. Your skin would stick and maybe even melt as you screeched down at the speed of under one mile per hour. Not always fun stuff but I made sure I went down a few times before I noticed the jungle-gym.
It was massive. I walked up on it much like the men that discovered
some long lost ancient ruin from some past civilization I am sure. The monkey bars were 24 rungs long. I know I counted them myself. You had to climb metal stairs 7 steps high just to get to them. I wasn’t interested in making my way across. I had my eyes set on something much more daring and far more to my liking.
There, about 10 feet away and maybe 5 feet up was a bar set parallel to the bars I just described. On top was a kid that I would come to dislike very much. His name was Brent Maas, and he had a crowd and I knew just what he wanted to do.
He stood with the idea that he was going to jump from that bar almost 5 feet off the ground across what I called the “sea of woodchips” to the monkey bars.
“No, I never said I was going to land on top, on my feet. I am going to grab them with my hands” he explained to all that were watching.
Most of the kids stood around and gasped in awe. Except one, my soon to be short term best friend.....
“You will never make it” the kid said. His name was Scott Jatczak.
“Shut up” Brent yelled down to the boy from my first grade class. “If I can’t do it, no one can.” He smiled. That’s when I opened my big fat mouth.
“I can!” I yelled as I started to walk over to the bar.
The group of kids parted like the Red Sea as I strolled by them with my make shift cape. Far from scared, I meant what I said. I was fearless.
I didn’t even bother waiting to be invited. I simply climbed up the poll to the bar Brent stood and asked him to move over. He looked at me and just said “Fine, it’s your funeral”. He moved to sit down and with the grace of someone only his age, he grabbed the bar, swung backwards, upside down of course and landed right on his feet. After a move like that I figured everyone would have forgotten about me, but they didn’t.
With my new found doubter looking on I knew what had to be done. I had to make that jump. That’s when a familiar voice spoke up, one that I had just heard. “He doesn’t have to, I already saw him do it” Scott said in my defense.
I looked at him like he was nuts, but understood he was just trying to keep me from becoming more of an outcast that I already was. I caught on and agreed that I had done just that and started to make my way down the poll already victorious. Then Brent stepped in to make sure I would make the jump anyway. “How do we know he did it, no one here saw it. So I say you do it, or else” he threatened pounding his fist into his other hand. Now I was a spry little guy, but if you did the math it just didn’t look good on paper. I figured it was better to risk failure then go home with my first black eye.
I stood up again ready to jump. The kids started to chant almost like I was a stressed business man on top of a building ready to meet my demise. “Jump, Jump, Jump…” the all yelled. Just as I was about to my new best friend stepped in once again. With his hands up, stepping right into my path yelling “wait, wait wait…hold up”. He looked at me as if he knew something I didn’t. He made a finger gesture as if he wanted me to come down off the bars. With the chant as loud as ever he mouthed the words “you need my shoes” in a way that I understood. I looked down to his feet as he pointed. “You need my shoes” he yelled. He was right. At least that is what I believed.
Growing up I didn’t have much and on top of that my mother believed while in school you needed to wear your Sunday best. As I stood on that bar ready to jump to what I figured was equal to the distance across as the Grand Canyon, I never thought about the penny loafers I was wearing that were sure to hold me back. “He’s right, I need those, I always wear those when I do things like this” I smiled as I rushed down to the ground to change.
“You are just stalling!” Brent yelled as he pushed me over to Scott. “Fine hurry up, and then get back up there so we can watch you break your leg”. He added.
I sat down and slid off my shoes and slid on what I would come to know as the finest shoe a boy could wear at that time. They were bright red Converse Chuck Taylor’s, and they were going to get me from way up high and over there to way up high to the other over there.
I laced them as fast as I could, jumped to my feet and made my way back to the top of the bar, poised and ready to become a legend. The chants started once again and with all eyes on me I bent at my knees and sprang like a cat. With my arms outstretched and my cape flying behind me I made my way thru the air in a way that would make Superman jealous. I had the height and I had the distance.
SMACK!
Well, a little too much distance. The bar I was trying to grab nailed me right in the chest knocking the wind out of me. My feet flew right under the bars out in front of me as I slid down in a way to catch my chin. My arms hit the bars soon after as my feet began to fall to the ground. That’s when it happened. I closed my hands to grip whatever I could as I watched my life flash before my eyes. My feet swung backwards then forward again as the chants turned to a loud cheer. “I did it!” I yelled. Then with a slip of the hands I fell what seemed to feel like 100 feet and landed right on my back.
I laid there for only a second before the kids swarmed around me to look down at my motionless body. I hurt everywhere. “You’re lip is bleeding” someone said as I tried to focus on the faces that stood over me. One by one the kids that surrounded me moved to help me up. In that one moment I went from the outcast to playground legend, just like that. Brent made his way thru the crowd of kids to stand face to face. I smiled, but he didn’t. “Welcome to the first grade” he grunted as his fist made friends with my nose. I went down like a ton of bricks.
Just like that my legend faded with him as he walked away. All the kids that were standing over me the first time I lay on the ground had followed him back into the school with the bell. It was just me laying there and my new best friend standing over me. “Now your nose is bleeding too” he smiled as he looked down. He sat me up then sat down next to me.
We both agreed that we should get back into school with the others but not before he agreed to let me wear his shoes for the rest of the day. In doing so I agreed to let him wear my cape. We made plans to walk home from school at the end of the day and just like that, things were not so bad anymore. Right before we were to walk thru the doors back to class he said something as he stuck out his hand that is only as easy when you are 7. “Best friends” he smiled. With a spit to his palm and mine, we shook. From that moment on, for at least the day we were just that, best friends.
The rest of the day was easy. Word had spread to those that were not there the jump that I had made, and more importantly the black eye I got as a gift from Brent. The fingers pointed, the giggles began and the friendships were made. That day started out to be the best day, up to that point, in my life.
The last bell was to ring. The mass exodus to the doors was furious. If you did not have your “A” game, you would surly fall and be trampled like those at the running of the bulls. I found my way to Scott thru the sea of kids and we were on our way out the main door ready to head home, him in my cape and me in his shoes. He would go on to explain how Brent picked on him on an almost daily basis and with us walking home together it was a better situation for all. He was right, but we would have more to worry about soon enough.
I would go on to explain that my mom would drop me off at school everyday but walking home was up to me. We made plans to do it like this everyday, minus the lunchtime adventures of course. We were almost to his house when he asked me about the cape. Then I told him. “Well, it is a magic cape. My mother say’s when you put it on and wrap it around really tight, not only can no one really see you, but things pass through you too”
“Really? Like bullets and everything?” he asked.
“Yes, I think so…”
Well remember how I said our friendship was short lived. Well, this is why. Fresh on the magic of my impossible jump we both thought anything was possible. Well at least he did. There as we waited to cross the last street before we were home Scott wrapped the cape around his body and bolted across.
Well, to make a longer story even shorter, the cape may work against bullets but it sure doesn’t with trucks. Yep, that’s what happened. Sure, he made it. Broke a few things, but after the breaks squealed and he flew farther then I did in his shoes, I stood over him in the middle of the street and he said, “I think I want my shoes back…” That’s just how it is. My name is Michael Tragic, and this is just how it is :-)
