that boy

I remember that boy…he was a favorite of mine. That boy who lost himself in words and pictures and ideas…in comic books and Greek mythology, in the words of Dr. Seuss and Mark Twain and Robert Heinlein and Ralph Ellison, in images on the boob tube and the movie screen and in the halls of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art…that boy…that inquisitive, imaginative boy…he was a favorite of mine.

I remember that boy…he danced to his favorite 45’s and he danced out in the autumn rain late at night…he soared in the clouds and kept his feet on the ground…he fell in love gracelessly but earnestly and he had secret, improbable crushes on friends of his mother and others too old to take him seriously…he loved his mother and tried to understand his father and see all the good that he could in his brother...that boy…that odd, fanciful boy…I remember that boy very well.

Yeah, I remember that boy…he was often a best friend when he wanted to be a boyfriend…a dreamer when he wanted to be doer…he was often a shoulder to lean on when he wanted to be a heart that was longed for…he knew all the words to the theme from Gilligan’s Island and the real names of all of the members of the Legion of Super-Heroes and all of the lyrics to the long version of “American Pie”…that boy…that strange, mundane, amazing boy…yeah, he was a favorite of mine.

I remember that boy…that shy, arrogant, easygoing, stubborn, illogical, utterly practical boy…he was a favorite of mine…he is a favorite of mine still. That boy…hopefully I will never lose sight of that boy no matter how far back down the road he seems. Yes, that boy…that simple, complicated boy…he is, now and forever, a real favorite of mine.

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