"Manual"
I cried when I broke a new crayon in kindergarten.
I remember the first time I walked into a mall arcade in Pueblo, Colorado.
I thought I stepped into a big pile of the future the first time I played electric Battleship. I wanted to waste my time forever.
I used to sneak downstairs in my Underoos every Saturday morning. I would shovel handfuls of cereal into my mouth while I watched cartoons on a black and white TV. I didn’t know the Smurfs were blue until I started middle school.
Reagan got shot and dropped all his jelly beans.
Michael Jackson caught fire.
I wrote my first poem on a typewriter.
Kids played outside. Uncles told us communism was the invisible enemy. We played violent games, pretending to be loud cops and top secret military. No one ever got hurt.
We used to write with pencils and pass notes in class.
Cell phones were as big as bricks. People had party lines and dialed phone numbers one revolution at a time.
Weathermen were fortune-tellers.
Cocaine wasn’t considered addictive and cigarettes cost less than a buck.
Rock and roll used to ooze and skip out of twelve inches of wax, 8-tracks, and cassette tapes.
Women wore neon jelly shoes and acted like they were comfortable.
Parachute pants.
The popping and locking, and checkered everything.
I remember when everything we bought and used was made in America by Americans and we knew it because everything we used was always broken.
Life required more work when I was growing up.
Routines on the edge of easy
The last days of analog
The world went manual to automatic during my afternoon nap.
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