Tuesday, May 03, 2005
WHIFF
Summer colds, like the one I just had, inevitably take me back to an April day from long ago.
Once again, I am a kid a fresh out of high school by a couple of weeks. A kid who, instead of staying in bed to nurse a cold, decides that hanging out was a better idea. Even if it means riding a bus and a jeep through the baking asphalt streets.
An entire afternoon is squandered on the Family Computer, with all of us believing that Battle City is probably as good as gaming would get.
The sun sets and, like juvenile vampires, we come alive. We clamber into a car and head out into the night. Hoping against hope, as all teenage boys do, to…ahem…get lucky. The ride is soundtracked by Summer of ‘69 (which I heard isn’t actually about the year 1969) because a friend is in a Brian Adams phase, and he just got the tape.
We feel giddy. Exhilarated. Invincible. Perhaps it is the afterglow from our recent graduation. Perhaps it is because the new chapters in our lives known as college and real life seem harmlessly, though deceptively distant.
Perhaps it is just because we anointed ourselves with buckets of Drakkar Noir and we forgot to roll down the windows.
Whatever the reason, that night, everything seems possible.
Even for a kid with a cold.
Once again, I am a kid a fresh out of high school by a couple of weeks. A kid who, instead of staying in bed to nurse a cold, decides that hanging out was a better idea. Even if it means riding a bus and a jeep through the baking asphalt streets.
An entire afternoon is squandered on the Family Computer, with all of us believing that Battle City is probably as good as gaming would get.
The sun sets and, like juvenile vampires, we come alive. We clamber into a car and head out into the night. Hoping against hope, as all teenage boys do, to…ahem…get lucky. The ride is soundtracked by Summer of ‘69 (which I heard isn’t actually about the year 1969) because a friend is in a Brian Adams phase, and he just got the tape.
We feel giddy. Exhilarated. Invincible. Perhaps it is the afterglow from our recent graduation. Perhaps it is because the new chapters in our lives known as college and real life seem harmlessly, though deceptively distant.
Perhaps it is just because we anointed ourselves with buckets of Drakkar Noir and we forgot to roll down the windows.
Whatever the reason, that night, everything seems possible.
Even for a kid with a cold.
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