I’m 5 years old. On Mama’s stove is a steaming stock pot, filling the world with the essence of chicken and dumplings.
I’m watching her use her fists to mercilessly beat a lump of flour that will become dumplings. She punches the dough, making loud grunts, striking terror into the heart of childhood.
“What’re you making?” I ask her.
“Hush now,” she says.
For many years I sincerely believed that chicken and dumplings were called Hush Now. We ate a lot of Hush Now in my house.
Mama then tells me to “Go outside and play.”
Such was the fate of little boys. Any time you opened your mouth to ask a question, you were sent outside to “go play.” God help the child who told Mama he was bored.
“BORED!?” she’d shout. “I’ll show you bored!”
Then Mama’s eyes would fill with holy fire and she would wave her rolling pin around, sermonizing about idle hands. Frankly, you’d be safer telling my mother you were a communist.
So I walk outside to ride my bike.
Back then we all had bikes.
Every last one of us. Bikes were everything. A kid in the saddle was limitless.
Sometimes we would be gone for hours on our Schwinns. Nobody worried about us because there wasn’t much to worry about. Our parents weren’t like today’s parents. We didn’t carpool to soccer practice in hybrid vehicles while buckled in FDA-approved car seats, staring at the opiate glow of our iPads.
Our parents drove big-bodied vehicles with names like Lincoln Continentals, Custom Cruisers, and Ford Country Squires. We had no seatbelts except Mama’s right arm. Moreover, we didn’t know what soccer was.
So there I am, riding bikes with my pals. We pull over at a friend’s house. We dismount, midair, while traveling upwards of 89 mph.
We sprint to our friend’s doorstep to ring the doorbell. We are breathless and rosy-faced from exertion.
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