In a vain effort to avoid doing homework, I recently found myself flipping through the dusty comic books stacked in the corner of my room, remnants of a bygone era. As I turned the tattered pages of volumes of “Foxtrot†and “Calvin and Hobbes,†I came to the realization that I never had a real childhood.
Jason and Calvin represent what I see as the ideal life of a child. They have nice houses and good families, but that doesn’t really matter. What is important is that they have a seemingly infinite backyard and a constant supply of gadgets and toys. And now, as I go through adolescence spending all day in a school desk and all night in my own, I cannot help but desire what Jason and Calvin have. I want adventure, I want spontaneity, I want escapade.
I want to use a transmogrifier to turn myself into an elephant. I want to have so much fun that I bring it home with me in the form of a hefty amount of mud. I want to form an exclusive club in a treehouse and wear hats made of newspaper. I want to use walkie-talkies to conduct covert operations in my living room, and I want to intimidate and coerce my cohorts with a camouflage helmet that fires a volley of suction darts. I want to embark on an expedition to the Yukon, departing from my backyard with just a toboggan and a couple of peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches.
In the summer, I want to ride a red wagon along a trail through the wilderness, up and down the undulating hills. I want to fish in a pond, I want to play croquet, and I want to meander through the woods aimlessly and without inhibition. I want to shoot model rockets into the stratosphere, fly kites that I made myself, and send Hot Wheels cars careening along their track, right out of my window. I want to measure how far they flew and how long they stayed in the air so that I can determine how fast they were going.
In the winter, I want to sled down impossibly steep hills only to tumble and roll most of the way. I want to drink hot chocolate and eat cookies in front of the fireplace as soon as I get home. I want to use a jai alai xistera to send snowballs soaring, and I want to build an army of snowmen during the night just to scare the neighbors. I want to put a snowball in the freezer so that, come next summer, I can throw it at my arch nemesis and leave him both unpleasantly icy and utterly baffled.
I want all of this, and yet when I was young I did the things kids are supposed to do. I played Clayton Rec. baseball, I rode my bike around the block endlessly, I had water gun fights in my backyard, and I owned a substantial arsenal of Nerf weaponry. So perhaps it isn’t that I didn’t have a childhood, after all. Maybe I just want another chance.