the tinker toy knows the way...

Innocence. Oh how sweet it is. No worries about anything. Bills, money, food, shelter, jobs, grades, love, anything… god, what I wouldn’t give to have that oblivious innocence again… things were so easy back then… everything I ever wanted was laid out in this candy land of lollipop trees and bubblegum clouds… so sweet, yet so sour… the progression seems so clear now… 7, 9, 13, 16, 19, 21, and on… in such sweet harmonic motion..

The other day as I was pulling into our apartment, I saw this little asian kid who lives a floor below us playing with an American kid… they both had sticks, held strong in their hands and ready to slay any evil that crossed them…

Back in the day, when I was 7-8-ish, when there was no such thing as pain, or love, or that complicated shit… I remember always hanging out with my bestest friend chuckie (I actually called him chook, or chunk, when I first met for some reason… i think it is because Asians have a hard time with that –huck sound… or that’s my theory…).. we always had sticks as weapons.. I remember I had a good 3-5 stick collection of various “weapons” stored in my parent’s garage… Right next to my Lion-o claw and sword… they ranged from a “mighty 2 handed stick” (I believe this was a sturdy branch…) to a “blessed 1 handed scimitar” (most likely weak, but quick flailing maple branch..)…

In any case, I couldn’t possibly count the hours that chuck and I passed, slaying evil, bad guys, with our mighty “swords”… chuck had tinker toys, which we quickly fashioned into a magic compass, to guide us through the world to the evil boss (ala. Zelda)… we’d throw this “compass” into the air, and it’d land… pointing to our destinies… slaying many monsters along the way, we’d always reach the boss… and save the princess… (princess is in another castle my ass…)

This went on for a long time… it was so much fun… pretending the willow/jungle tree next to his pool was a wicked monster, and shedding every branch of it’s foliage in order to slay it…. Knocking the tops of his mom’s asparagus plants, as if we saved the world (yeah, I don’t think she was too happy about that)… writing the words “SEX” in the middle of the road in front of his house, then getting in trouble and having to wash it off with ammonia that spilled into my face because I wanted to demonstrate centrifugal force in a bucket to him…. That’s the innocence, the oblivion, the no-cares, no-whys world I miss…

i remember we had buried a handful of change (nickels, pennies, dimes) into this dirt pile in my yard... one day hoping to excavate our "oblivious innocence" buried in small mounds of dirt... i bet if we went to that spot, we'd find at least $.30 of our treasure there... this was our time capsule...

When I saw them playing together, it couldn’t of been more than a photographic picture of chuck and i… and asian kid with a crew cut haircut, and an english bloke, with brown hair.. both wielding sticks of +25 strength… out to save the world, from the terrible reality that breaks innocence from its cradle…