Random Memory #453 as spurred by the random word generator.
Today's random word is Bobcat. Today's random memory is brought to you by my parents.
It's been well documented throughout this site that my family members are the primary (or better yet ONLY) reason that I have trust issues. I was already born with an abundance of gullibility, but they just pushed the envelope.
One day my father decided to take me hiking. I was about six and was familiar with the term, but the average inner city child hikes almost as much as he skis. It would be years before I would realize that in order to hike, one must actually be in a rugged terrain of some sort. Without that knowledge, I believed that Fort Dupont Park in Southeast was THE popular destination for hiking aficionados.
Of course this belief was provided by my father who had me go so far as to get a large stick to use as a walking aid for when the time came. If you aren't familiar with the park, let me describe it for you. Go to your window, and look out at the sidewalk. Imagine a few leaves scattered on the ground and there you have it...the great outdoors of Fort Dupont. Don't bother looking it up online. The pictures are a lie. Many a field trip was taken to the "nature center" where we held real live crickets captured in the wild by the brave men and women of the National Park Service. Once they had a snake, but it died while we were there.
Anyway, we were "hiking" along when I guess my father got tired (or bored). "Wait a minute. I think we might have to turn back. This might be a territory of the mountain lions. See that track right there? Yeah, that looks like a mountain lion print." I start freaking out, which I guess was the wrong response. For whatever reason, he and my mother were really big on me not growing up to be a punk. He wanted me to eagerly embrace the idea of battling it out with this imaginary creature he just made up, while my mother felt that the proper response to four 20-something drug dealers chasing me off the playground was to run home, grab a broom handle or a 2X4 and go back up there.
"What you scared for? You got a stick! If one of them comes, use it!" I didn't know what the hell a mountain lion was. I was six. I was dumb enough to believe we were actually on a mountain range in the middle of DC. Did I seem like the type of kid to instinctively fight off a hell cat? I was scared out of my mind, and him randomly yelling "RUN" a few minutes later didn't help.
I don't know how I found my way back to the car...Oh wait a minute, it was Fort Dupont Park. Walk a few minutes in any direction and you end up on a street in front of a bus stop. I hopped in the care, we went home and he laughed the whole way. I told my grandmother what happened when I got home and she just gave me the stare of disappointment. "How can you be so damned fool? You believe anything anybody tells you!"
This coming from the woman who told me that black Santa Clauses work for the real (white) Santa Claus who doesn't like going to black neighborhoods.
No comments:
Post a Comment