My Top 10 Child Triumphs

So, I know that you don't care that I have a top 10 of my childhood triumphs, but the thing is, you care that YOU have one. The problem is, it's a Tuesday and you just need a jogging of your memory to remember all those years ago when you were 7 or 8 and under.

What a different world it was when you were 7, eh? I mean, somebody could tell you ANYTHING, and who were you to not believe them? I have a friend that just found out a couple years ago that you can't get worms from Chocolate that isn't frozen, because her mom told her this when she was young at Halloween.

My story was that I didn't know that the chicken that you ate came from (stay with me on this one...) CHICKEN. When I found that out, I couldn't watch The Friendly Giant anymore because I knew that someday when the Giant wasn't paying Rusty's bills, he would be a set of chicken wings at the pub.

So I thought, wait a minute... Where does a HOT DOG come from?! Could it be from a Dog?! Could life be that cruel to a 7 year old? But even worse, I had just found out what the difference between boys and girls were, and I knew that we had wieners. But wieners were what was packaged in hot dog buns. Could that mean that I was eating male penises all this time?!

Well, at least that turned out to be a real load of my mind...

Anyway I'll give you my top 10 list and then you remember what yours was all those years ago...

10) When I was in grade 2, I was old enough to carry a backpack rather than carrying my NFL lunchbox. Even better, it was a McDonald's backpack with the Golden Arches on the back that all the middle school kids had. It was the first and last time I ever had coolness walking to school...

9) When I was in Kindergarten, my teacher told me that "if you don't like it, go home" So I did. I got up after play time and walked out of the room and walked down a busy street in Vienna, Virginia and made it about 100 Metres before my front door (which we never locked) before my teacher showed up in her car and found me and drove me back to school. I betcha she never said that to a kid again...

8) For some stupid reason, I was so happy the first time I got homework that I remember what it was. And like every other homework assignment after that, I did it wrong...

7) I remember writing my first assignment in Cursive (writing, not printing) It was a short story that I wrote in Grade 2. I liked to write even back then. My grandmother kept that short story in her Tickle Trunk. I found it in there after she had passed away, and fpund out that she kept all of my stuff from school.

6) After I saw Star Wars for the first time in the Theatres, my dad took me to Toys R Us at Christmas where my brother and I saw Darth Vader and a couple of his Stormtroopers in real life. I was so scared, and all I could ask him is why he was so mean to Luke Skywalker. Of course, at the time, if I would've known that Luke was really his son, I would've laid into him for being a fucking lousy father figure...

5) I remember when I came home from school and my dad and mom had gotten us a brand new puppy. He was an Irish Setter that we named Ryan. It was the first time I think my heart was broken when we had to give him away a few months later because our landlord wouldn't let us have a dog. I still wonder what ever happened to him...

4) I have a hockey obsession as we all know... I remember getting my first pair of hockey skates, and then goalie skates. I remember my dad coming home from being away for the weekend refereeing pro hockey and having him give me the keys to the trunk of our Oldsmobile. I opened it and saw a slightly broken goalie stick that Jim Weaver broke in a game that my dad got for me. Then he one-up'ed that a year later by getting me a pair of goalie pads, and made me believe that Santa got them for me. But I guess he was right, Santa did get them for me.

3) I remember when Cory Bush and I got our hands on our first Playboy magazine. I've never felt so alive in all of my young life. -Until I got CAUGHT my my parents with that same porn mag. That really made me know I was alive. Because I knew I was just about to die...lol

2) My first solo bike ride. I begged my dad not to put training wheels on my bike. I was 3, but I thought I was 13. I took it out in the court we lived in and he held my seat, and I was on my own. I remember how hard it was for me to steer and pedal at the same time. But I got the hang of it. Anytime I think something is hard to do, I remember exactly how I felt steering and working the pedals when I was 3. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done and I did it. So I now know it can be done in other areas now...

1) My first kiss. Truly a triumph when I was 7. An older woman she was, when I was just a pup. My heart pumped like a jackhammer for hours afterwards and I couldn't stop daydreaming about it for weeks. Hell, it was 3 decades ago and I can still smell her hair. Ah, the stuff you remember as a kid... The funny thing is, that kid is long gone and an old man has now replaced him and I can barely remember what he looks like in my head.

But he will always have a face in my heart... A truly timeless place.