Memories are like baseball cards. I have many of them, but remember few of the details of any of them. Someone may find one of the ones that I have collected and ask me what I think of that one, and I can only fidget and think "Did I collect that one?" I have so many of these invaluable pieces that often I forget the details of why I have such. Memory is such a thing that what is lost is just as valuable as what is remembered. How many stolen bases did Ricky Henderson have in 1989 is just as important as how did I convince that long lost person to be my friend that forgotten night? By the way Ricky had 77 stolen bases in 1989, 25 with the Yankees and 52 with the A's. The Yankees traded him to the A's because they thought at his advanced age of 30 his best years were behind him. Ricky proved them wrong to the fullest by playing productive baseball and becoming the major league leader in stolen bases. Nine seasons later in 1998 Ricky collected 66 stolen bases to lead the majors but, that's enough on Rickey Henderson. I've read books by people that expose their detailed knowledge of the past and leave stripped souls like mine to wonder how does one recall such minute details from an ever growing past. Some can call the angels for reference and some can barely remember yesterday. I remember London on a hot summer day, that was cool in comparison to the Tallahassee nights that enveloped me. I remember a member of the London police force tell the group that I was in that London was the safest big city in the world. He gave us a speech filled with English pleasantries that made the good scholars chuckle and the rest of us look to the brilliance of our souls to say that we weren't home anymore. A few weeks later bombs blew off. They blew while the students pressed there pillows to there bed sheets. We were no morning commuters, we slept as the bang of the explosion of tube railings rang. We awoke as the passengers of the next train went to the ground level to take the bus that would blow to the sky and leave all aboard next to the angels that cry. I walked those streets for a few more weeks. I eyed the trash cans and thought they could contain something that might blow my brains. But nothing would blow. The terrorists had there throw. Were they wrong? Just pedestrians on the street. Did they do what they wanted to prove? Or did they just give proof, to the world that was always aloof? That hate is just a game. That you throw your grenade and they throw there's. That you might give to the church of deceased and they give to the free spirit of god. I have no insight. Thousands were killed when planes hit the USA. Hundreds when the tubes were set a fire. The Spanish can never take a train without the thought of a blue and white wave that singes all of their hair. Russians our soldiers to the bone. They hate the Jews and the Germans, shouldn't they hate us all? But they got burnt when terrorists went into there hall. Lets see a play, lets see the world; lets see Chechnya when they don't want Russia to burn.
Dear Old Hometown, So we've been apart for some odd years now, and things have changed between us, for better, never worse. Hometown I must use your name though I wish no harm upon thee: you are West Palm Beach, Florida. You were my place of growing. My first school play (I was a house), my first drive in a car (a parking lot, it didn't go so well), the first day in school, first time I hit a baseball, a raquetball was hit within you too. There are too many firsts to name but you get the idea. Hometown you are quite seductive. You've sent many a man and woman to your salty soil. Some find peace in the newness of you. In the difference that you offer. Different from other such towns that have opened up their souls to the challenges of facing the truth. You bring the heat, literally, all year long. Most find you in a longing for warmth. They had found themselves in the cold grip of a normal winter and had decided that the cold shouldn't hold them any longer. Boo fucking hoo. I left you for a more northern southern climate. Still trapped in the same state but, different by varying degrees (again literally). I was pushed away by your heat but, driven away by your whorish desire to have all of New England be your groom. So I moved north with a desire to find where the center of me would live in peace. I didn't find my soul without you but, only a loneliness that begged for a different approach. A few different northern cities were tried but none offered the family and friends that you provided. It made me wonder if it was you that I hated or if I was just lost in the indecision of youth. The endless cycle of happiness in the beginning only to find uncertainty in the end. I'm not upset at you any longer. You gave me a place that could harbor my tendencies, a place where a young soul could find a type of love that only a youthful type could know. Hometown I found love in you like a high school finds a bully to keep the smart kids in line. Something that makes you wish you never had what you have but can't get away from what you are. I might never find the love that I found in myself in some different town. But then again you never become yourself again, you only become an older, wiser version. One that doesn't give in to the ordained world of hope, only to the loose world of self satisfaction. Hometown your not the reason for my failures or grandeur. Yet, I am who I am because of your fences. I'm no free dog that wanders through the street searching for scraps. I remained chained to your tree of suburban sprawl. I only go outward not upward. I feel the ocean is my border and the swamp is where I end. The murkiness of the pool I swim is no different then the old end of the wasteland that you have let become. I wish for you to reclaim your old being. The endless sawgrass fields that covered the land and hid the egrets and turtles. The lake of Okeechobee that once took the lands that have now become houses and new development. The malls that cater to the pristine people that have money to spend but, not a thought to give. The street lights that are a shade to dark for the sea turtle to see. The old place that my grandma once knew. Dear West Palm, I love the grains of sand that whisper through my toes as walk on your beach. I love the wings in the sky that come to you when the northern climate would claim their youth. I love when you kiss my back as I look away from your bright sky. But your beauty has gone too far. You can't have everyone. You've taken our old folks from the places they made great. You've made it so lucrative that their kids come down for a research job of skin cancer effects on the Irish immigrants descendants. I'll never be without you, you live to deep in my imagination. I can't go through a night of dreams without you sliding in.Your good, maybe an indian curse that waits till you get older before it unleashes its worst. But I love you all the same. This place that most don't know but, will forever live in my brain. I will leave love with you and hope you spread it again. Your a field slashed and burned that will always make more crops for the spring.