Clareified

So, my closest friends in high school were all dorks. Every last, god love them, one was a unqualified dork. Yeah, even the homicidal pyschos of which there were two –both dorks. Anyhoo, one of the games we’d play — when not fighting across the Risk board or committing atrocities in violation of the Geneva convention whilst playing chess (oh, yes, that is how we’d talk too…you killed a pawn, its head was cut off and hoisted on pikes as a promise that that was what was going to happen to the rest of your army if you continued to advance. Funny story, the chess club started off as just me and my friends goofing around, but then junior year the school assigned us a real grown adult to supervise…this guy had been on the Haverford chess team and played competitively in college, needless to say he was appalled at our behavior…at all times. When he saw that Isaac had tied a string around my queen’s neck and hung her from the classroom doorknob, he made us stop. (It wasn’t racism, I always played white.) Wait, did I say “funny story,” I meant…nevermind, no story to read here…oh, and no one needs to call the police. We are all well adjusted law abiding citizens. Except one. But he’s the exception that proves the rule!)
Anyway, on our way to debate matches or whatnot, when we didn’t have boards to play, we’d play the where in time would you want to be if you couldn’t be in the here and now (early nineties, for those of you playing along at home.) My first question was always “would I be me or could I be a white guy,” because obviously, that was important. And then the Indian guy, Lucky, would be all “yeah, I want to be a white guy too.” The rules changed, but I think my answers were usually: If I had to be me, then I’d want to be my age in 1965 because I thought civil rights marches would be cool. If I could be a white guy, then I vacillated between 33 A.D. in Calgary, because I figured hanging out with Jesus would be awesome AND I’d get my own gospel and being my age in 1864 because I wanted to march with Sherman and set Atlanta on fire.
I don’t know why those conversations popped into my head this afternoon while I was doing laundry, but the truth is, I think I was born at just the right time and I’m glad to be here.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 2:42 am and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.