No Fool Like An Old Fool...

Happy birthday to me.

I am now so old, I remember things that happened half a century ago.

Fifty years ago, I was in kindergarten, and living south of San Francisco, in a huge apartment complex that stretched for blocks, it was so big. It was already my fourth - no, fifth! home.

Kindergarten, like all my school years, pretty much sucked. It got off to a dismal start. Sometime in the months prior, mom walked me to the school for enrollment. OK so far, except I had no idea what was going on. Then, an hour later, I was back playing with my friends. I forgot all about school. Weeks went by.

And then, school struck without warning.

It was like, "Huh? School? What's that? But.. I've got plans." I got handed a sack lunch and a towel to take a nap on, and got hustled out the door and into the next 17 years of schooling.

Being five meant I was old enough to get a bike. Dad brought home a used bike, painted top to bottom aircraft carrier grey, and taught me how to ride in the parking lot of the mall next door. It was your standard issue 50's cruiser bike, with big round fenders, and to me, it was huge. My feet barely touched the pedals.

I remember so badly wanting to ride it though, that I snuck it out of the house one evening, and rode it wobbly across the gopher-potholed lawn. It was like one of those old silent movies where Laurel and Hardy drive a Model T on the railroad tracks. I barely kept control as I bounced and swerved across the courtyard.

That was also the year I was abducted.

Several older boys lured me into an upstairs apartment in one of the neighboring buildings, and wouldn't let me leave for what seemed like the better part of a day. I remember considering my chances if I leaped from the window. I have not been as frightened for so long a period since that day. I don't think I've ever even mentioned that story to anyone before.

Fifty years ago...

And so, the next year, we moved. Again.

But that would have been only 49 years ago, and therefore the subject of a different blog entry.

So happy birthday to me; happy birthday to me...