When I was a little kid at whatever age little kids are when they start picking up crayons and drawing and trying to write, and I picked up the crayon with my left hand, no one freaked out. Sure, most people are right handed, but my parents and doctors and teachers didn’t get worried or upset when I used the OTHER hand. They even let me use “left-handed” scissors when we started cutting construction paper.

And when I played tee ball? No one looked down on me for standing on the other side of the tee from my righty teammates. I even got a glove that enabled me to catch the baseball with my right hand and throw with my left! Not that a glove helped with my lack of athletic prowess, but, still, baseball glove on my right hand — no one protested like they often did in the generations before mine.

See, my mom is left-handed, too, but a little before her time and maybe occasionally still during when she was in school, teachers would try to take that crayon out of their student’s left hand and put it in the right. How awkward and just, well, wrong and pointless and stupid that was. Everyone can agree on that. Just kind of silly, right? Everyone now understands that there’s no reason a lefty has to be changed. I never had to, anyway.

Interestingly enough, I also never had to “come out” to my parents that I liked girls. My heterosexuality was never an issue. It was never something that I worried about or even thought about in that way. I didn’t have to have any tentative or awkward conversations with my pals to let them know that I wanted my penis to go with a vagina. Seriously, it just never came up. Not once. Because that’d be absurd, right? It’s just how I was born. It’s my chemical and mental makeup for some reason. Just a wacky glitch of genetics. It doesn’t hurt anyone, as I just like ladies in that manner, and if one likes me in that manner, and we hit it off, all is well. No worries. No one cares, really.

If I’d been shorter, no one would’ve minded either. Or what if I’d picked up my first crayon with my right hand and showed instinctively that I obviously felt more comfortable drawing and scribbling that way? My parents and teachers would’ve been fine with that, too, as the silliness of worrying about something like that had long since been accepted.

So, one would assume, if I’d had a predilection toward pee pees instead of vajayjays, it should be the same thing, right? I’d have gone about my life pretty much the same way, never having to make a big deal or any announcements about it. I’d just be who I was, and when I started reaching “that age” where you notice people in a different way, well, surely there’d be another boy who felt the same way, and we’d get to be adolescently awkward together and hold hands and go to the movies (with a parent chaperoning) and slow dancing at the miserable school dances and whatnot. Like anyone else, me and the fella could go steady, maybe exchange class rings in high school. It wouldn’t matter. No reason it should. Just how some folks are born.

Right?

A. … sleeping. In the good old days, I could sleep in for however long I wanted after a fun night of partyin’ and hangin’ out and whatnot. My job didn’t start until the afternoon, and I’d just naturally wake up then. Back in the good old days.

B. … still working on my jetpack design. Because in the good old days, I hadn’t given up on it yet. I still thought general want and gumption, regardless of lack of funds, could beat out technical knowledge and dedication with a budget any day of the week. Sometimes the best thing about the good old days was ignorance.

C. … writing. Yeah, I’m writing now, too, but I mean writing something that would be read much more than this will. And something funnier, as back in the good old days, my funny bone was firmer, stronger, maybe girthier. Wait… that didn’t sound right. Or did it sound too right?

D. … getting brunch with friends. Just, you know, brunch. A good pancakey meal. Don’t do that much anymore. Just ate a granola cereal out of a cup because some dingus stole my bowl at work. I miss carefree brunching, money and calories and triglycerides be damned.

E. … sleeping. Seriously, I’d just like to be asleep right now. Because sleepytime is happy time.

Still, this is all rose colored glasses nonsense. It’s like what Yoda said about Luke, “All his life has he looked away… to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. Hmm? What he was doing. Hmph.” Except maybe the back horizon, which is the past. Though I look to the horizon, too. Hm, is that applicable?

Hmph. Hmph indeed. Look, regardless of horizon or back horizon, I should be more mindful of where I am and what I am doing here and now.

And, with that in mind, I should dig out those jetpack schematics, because that might work with maybe a shinier, more art deco design and an extra fin…

Three men with the power of TRES!

TRES POWER MEN!

Pusherman push you!

Smasher’s gonna smash!

The Puncher punch you in the face!

TRES POWER MEEEEN!!!

(Music rocks out with a spoken word montage of their mighty origins.)

Born out of gray cubicles,

three boys learned the power of action-packed violence

and became men…

TRES POWER MEN!

(super rockin’ guitar followed by power drums)

PUSH!

SMASH!

PUNCH!

TRES POWER MEEEEEEN-UH!!!!

TRES POWER MEN created & illustrated by Doug / lyrics by D.J. / embodied on this Earth by Chad (Pusherman), D.J. (Smasher), and Doug (The Puncher)… Believe in your dreams. (Don’t even try to fight it).

I dunno. That clip just makes me laugh. The character designs are kinda wacky in a way that is wacky, but the voices have an easygoing tone and vibe that is fun. I dig it.

And, yeah, I hambone. Sure. I didn’t know it was called “hamboning” until seeing this delightful cartoon clip, but I’ve slapped little beats and rhythms on my belly before. I’m glad to know there’s a name for it — especially such an awesome one. Hambonin’.

Now I find myself wondering if hambonin’ could be the career I’ve been looking for during the malaise that started with adulthood. That sounds silly, sure. I mean, there ain’t no work in hamboin’… or is there?

And meanwhile, our grandma, who was lovingly codenamed by her grandkids “Bobba,” had a creepy (to us anyway) pillow in her basement that was, if I remember correctly, round and kind of shaped like a lion’s face. This wasn’t it, but this is the closest picture of a similar lion-face kinda pillow I could find…

Okay, yeah, so… no. The lion pillow in the picture above is not scary. The real one, in my memory, was a little patchier, with a more angular and ferocious, less sleepy-time design. Still, it was a pillow shaped like a lion’s face. It was on a couch in our Bobba and Granddaddy’s basement.

Patrick and I used to, or, at least, at one point, would use the pillow as a mask and chase each other around, the pillow-masked one being the “Maneater.” Funny, running-around times based upon a pop song and a lion pillow and a couple of weirdo kids.

“Maneater.” Pop song about a lady who can rip a fella’s world apart with her womanly wiles and lady parts? Or a monster with a lion face that literally consumes men, chewing up their flesh? Different, meanings, different contexts… all terrifying.

Indeed, the song still kind of gives me the heebie jeebies. Now, however, in the interest of complete honesty, as I am wont to do in this blog-thing, I find I am afraid of the song for the legitimate lyric-based reasons, as the “Maneater” described, while not a flesh-eating monster as I once believed, is still a frightening being to me… really, a combo of both enters my head when I hear this song… which is more often than you might assume, as I think Hall & Oates are awesome.

Why do I think this? Because it is the truth. Hall & Oates are indeed awesome.

I couldn’t believe my ears! “What’d you say?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

She looked at me, totally at her wits’ end, maybe due to some Barbie shoe that wouldn’t fit her doll or because the particle accelerator she built out of common household items was on the fritz, threatening all of mankind again – I dunno. Whatever it was, she was hot pissed. In exasperation, she shouted, “I said DAMN!” And she pronounced it “day-um,” Southern Ohio style.

I laughed out loud (is there an easier way to type those words?) in shock. It was a big deal back then! Hell, I might’ve told on her, too… Not sure. If I did I was a douche bag. That seems possible, maybe even likely.

Sneaking a swear word or a “cuss” was something subversive to do as a kid, at least it was for me. Getting away with a bad word. Edgy. I felt empowered with the few “s-words” I’d let out when annoyed or the secret “f-bombs” during times of childhood stress.

But when one is an adult, swearing is no big fucking deal, is it? Shit, I can fucking swear whenever the shit I wanna, and I can even substitute “shit” for “hell” if I think it’ll sound better or more badass.

Now swearing comes as natural to me as breathing. And it’s lost all it’s fucking power, because who gives a good goddamn, you know?

So, what now then?

What the fuck now then indeed.

From my PURE LARD column at the footnote, way back in February of 2005. AWESOME illustration by Jason Ericksen.

Before Young Abe Lincoln became PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN-MAN, he was just a boy growing up in Springfield, IL (as seen on the historical CW show SPRINGFIELD). Not sure from whence he came, but knowing he was different, Abe would often save lives and prevent disasters both natural and supernatural in secret. (This was before he grew his beard, mind you.)

One of his greatest adventures is the one in which the town of Springfield was attacked by none other than the haunted wooden teeth of George Washington. Being as he was the father of our nation (even though he was sterile, which raises many theological questions), the world of the USA was shocked at the news that his teeth were evil.

Young Abe, using his cunning and secret karate skills (as taught to him by Paul Bunyan during Forest Camp), discovered that while, yes, the wooden teeth did indeed used to be in the mouth of God’s America’s first official president, they were not possessed by Washington himself!

After using what passed for the internet back in them olden times (smoke signals, peyote, and mice with notes written on hemp paper tied to them) to do intense research, Young Abe discovered that there had been a struggle on the Rainbow Bridge (the bridge that connects Asgard, the world of the Norse gods, with earth — know your geography) between the ascending spirit of George Washington and… the then-future ghost of Adolf Hitler!!!

Washington had been bested in the battle, though only through Hitler fighting dirty (of course). Hitler then possessed Washington’s wooden teeth and sent them back to earth to destroy the hometowns of future great leaders — hence the attack on Young Abe’s Springfield.

As you have no doubt guessed (or remember if you made it past middle school), Young Abe defeated the Hitler-possessed wooden teeth of George Washington by inventing fire, which he used to burn them to undeath.

And that’s why Washington, once he reached Asgard, implored Odin, king shit of the gods, to make sure Young Abe grew up to be president of the the U.S. of A as soon as he was capable of growing a beard.

And that’s… one to grow on, so… now you know the more you know. And knowing is half the battle. Amen.