Baby Land

I spun around on the stool and stared out of the large glass window. It was 6:30 in the morning and these three young dudes wearing wet suits were carrying surf boards as they skateboarded by the Breakfast Club. Their long hair was blowing in the wind and they were barefoot.

“Well,” I said, “you don’t see that every day.”

“Barefoot?” Val asked. “Are you crazy?”

I return to my coffee but it got me thinking.

When I was a young dude I did stuff like that. My hair was really long and to this day barefoot is my shoe of option. I’ve got a wet suit hanging in my closet and I used to ride a skateboard though I’d probably kill myself if I tried it now. I surfed back then though I never put it all together at one time like these kids did.

Though I did stuff!

Once, Gene Prevatt and I skipped class at Groves High School to have lunch at Joe’s Drive In. Joe’s was the place where the church crowd went and it was “Happy Days” but nobody knew how happy back then.

Anyway Gene and I pull up to the curb and order. We were cool! Then my Mom pulls into the curb across from where Gene and I were. I hit the floor board. Gene continued looking cool.

My Mom took 47 hours to order. I had to pee. She won. I got out and walked to her car to tell her how much I love her.

“Why aren’t you in school?” she demanded.

“Ummm,” I quickly responded, “Gene told me that we had a field trip.”

She let me slide which is pretty cool for a Mom.

Then another time Gene made me go to the Mall with him. Back then the Mall was where everybody in Savannah went to be seen. Young couples held hands and just walked in circles around the Mall. Now they’ve all grown up and go to Malls across the country to exercise by walking around. Through they don’t hold hands anymore.

Gene was buying his mother a birthday present at Friedman’s Jewelers. I was just tagging along. Then I noticed that they had a special on “pre-engagement rings” … $10 each.

I bought twenty.

“What are you doing?” Gene asked.

“Trust me,” I replied.

I put them in the glove compartment of the 64 Mustang four-in-the-floor with the rusted out body because of Continental Can. If I drove faster than 35 Miles per hour pieces of the car would blow away.

But! I would go out with girls and we would start making out and then I would pop the question.

“You want to get pre-engaged?”

It worked every time!

A couple of weeks later I told Gene we had to go back to the Mall. I needed to stock up. So we did. But damn Friedman’s Jewelers had stopped the sale. They’ve since gone into bankruptcy and I completely understand why. You can’t start a movement like the “pre-engagement” movement and then suddenly stop it.

It was a happy place in time. We were like babes in Baby Land! Just having fun and celebrating and discovering how much we enjoy one another.

They were happy thoughts on a Friday morning. There are lots of people in this world who are not happy people. They go through live justifying their actions or not taking any responsibility for the damage they’ve done. They’re self-righteous and no longer remember how to have fun.

You’ve got to laugh at life. God gave it to us to be happy (unless you’re a fundamentalist then it’s all about sadness management). And though I’ve cried a lot in this life of mine, I’ve laughed far more. And it’s the laughter that gets me through.

So I choose to forget the poisonous people and let them go. They make me angry and I do not want to live like that. I want to be who I am.

A baby in Baby Land!