He took little Susie to the Junior Prom

Went vegan, eschewed the pot roast added a field roast and Susie lived to be an alcoholic mother of two until she, with a restless heart, told him to hasten down the wind.

Or maybe this is a antidote to introduce my life story.

For the audio version of the book I am asking Trevor Noah to read this introduction that explains my entire life.

The Expanding Past – as events fade further and farther into the past the stories we tell about them grow larger and larger.

Two weeks before the event in question, or maybe this should be the event in question, an incident happened that may or may not have been related. Reluctantly, I got into the one and only fist fight I have participated. I don’t know what started the fight, yet I remember the details fairly well. I got into a brawl with Jim Stevens before first period.

And I regress one more time as there was another event that preceded this event that I should explain. When I was growing up Sonny Liston, Cassius Clay and Joe Frazier were the heroes in our home. I rather abhorred boxing as a spectator sport. Our Dad loved boxing with the same zeal that my mother loved roller derby. I should probably regress into another story how I broke my mother’s wrist while we went roller skating. It was the only time I ever roller skated in my life. I rooted for Cassius Clay.

Our Dad loved to spar with us kids. Yes you can keep reading as there was never anything other than staged boxing matches. I hated it for the most part. We would slap box in the living room. One would float like a butterfly and the other would sting like a bee. We would box like Ali and and get stung by a bee. It was more of a strategy session than for pain infliction. The worst thing to happen was sending Dad’s Pale Reserve beer all over the threadbare carpet.

And this is where Jim Steven comes in on the particular day. Somehow we got into a fist fight which became the amusement of half the fifth grade and most of the sixth. I have no idea where was our teacher on this day. This fist fight was very similar to bar room fights you see in American western movies. The fight moved desks, turned over trash cans, and projects hanging on the walls went flying in all directions. The thing is, Jim Stevens picked a fight and he had no idea how to fight. I really did not either. We were eight minutes into scattering desks and exchanging “punches” when my hand got sore from hitting Jim Steven’s in the face.

I had the strategy down but not the infliction of pain. He threw closed fist punches toward me and landed none of them. Jim Stevens was not a very athletic or coordinated person. I rather felt sorry for him. Nobody died in the melee from what I recall. The homeroom teacher walked in about a minute after the mayhem. He knew something had happened but he was not exactly sure. By this time, Jim Stevens was crying because blood was dripping down his nose or maybe his face. In retrospect, I wish to recall he was crying because the violence was gratuitous and very sixth grade.

We had a conference with our teacher soon after. Jim Stevens got into a lot of trouble. I have no idea the back story. This event bothered me. I was the new kid at Whitfield elementary. I did the opposite of what was intended and for that it is rather unfortunate.

So a few weeks later we were playing kickball during recess. I remember sending a ball across a baseball field below where we were playing. I rounded the bases and stood watching my classmates fetch the ball I had sent into orbit. I felt bad. I was really good at kickball and I did not have the ego to care if I was good at kickball. I wanted my new classmates to like me because I was average. My ability to launch a kick ball could be interpreted as arrogance.

I probably should regress into another story about how my parents were going through a painful break up at this time. It is a useful back story however I did not know this at the time. In retrospect, I may not have been the picture of suburban tranquility. Still, we figured it out.

And putting all this together I stood alone, after circling the bases, waiting for my classmates to retrieve the ball. I reached into my pocket and found coins of all variety. This was money I had left over from the lunch money my parents had given me for the week. They rarely gave us lunch money, and in retrospect they may have had a decent reason.

I have no idea why I found this scene so ridiculous. I reached into my pocket and took all the money in my pockets and loaded them into my right fist. Without much thought, I threw those coins straight into the air. Coins scattered randomly all over the kickball field. The tinkling on the blacktop was a curious sound. Kids in my sixth grade class heard the coins hitting the ground They dropped their kickball pursuit and went in search of the good old yankee dollar eighty six.

As intended, my colossal kick was now a distant memory.

I threw the coins in the other pocket once again in the air, trying to be popular.

A girl I had a crush on
her name was Jody
ripped her dress in the commotion.

Somebody got an elbow in the eye.