Things Change

A quote from "90 North" by Randall Jarrell: "I see at last that all the knowledge I wrung from darkness -- that the darkness flung me -- is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing, The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness. And we call it wisdom. It is pain." The first bike I ever owned -- when I was ten or eleven -- was a Christmas gift from a friend. He was receiving a new one and I was gifted with his old bike. He had cleaned it up and brush painted it with a nice coat of red paint. It was the only gift I got that year, one of my only gifts as a child. I loved that bike: it freed me to pedal around so I could accompany my friend as we rode anywhere in our tiny, sandy, two-paved-road fishing town. Before the bike, I ran alongside him. I was quite accustomed to running everywhere, especially in summer, barefoot, usually shirtless. Most years from first grade until we were about twelve, we spent our time together, at his house or in imaginary jungles or on wild, indian-infested wagon train trails. We defended those trails from apaches intent on taking our scalps. Sometimes, on pirate ships, we manned canons or forced reluctant traitors and mutineers to walk the plank for failures and misdeeds. We were never bored, usually outdoors. On jungle safaris we were frequently attacked by ferocious lions and tigers and often captured by cannibal head-hunters who put us into large pots to cook us while dancing all around and brandishing their spears. They sang or chanted amazing, invented language repetitive verses overloaded with frequent "ughs' and tongue-twisting nonsense phrases. His mother served us gallons of Kool Aid, gave us snacks we ate with relish. With a child’s trusting nature, I hoped this could never end – I felt secure in friendship and apparent acceptance by my friend’s parents. Of course, things did change. But..........I did not. Not for a long, long time.