Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Farewell Days of My Youth - A Small Memoir

Have you ever gone back through an old year book or sifted through a box of keepsakes? Do you remember how you felt when you saw what was and how things were? You sort of look back fondly on all the good times you had. Slightly nudging at the bad times and trying to forget the embarrassing ones, as well. What brings me to this oasis of the past? I recently finished watching the third saga of the anime Robotech. It brought back so many fond memories of when I was a kid. I remembered during the summer of '85, my best friend and I would be glued to the TV at 4 o'clock in the each afternoon. We knew the theme by heart and never missed an episode. We loved to go to the dead-end street afterwards and act-out or favorite scenes. He would always be the evil arch nemesis and I would always play the brave young hero. He lived far away, but had an aunt and uncle that lived across the street. So every Summer, we would watch Robotech and then burst out of the house and jump into my Veratech Fighter as he clibed in his Zentradi Battle Pod, and wage combat on the unsuspecting world we created around us. We strived to achieve our goals for human survival in the face of a tyrannical enemy or complete annihilation of a pathetic race of weaklings. Making sure all the while that the battles would end as the street lights began to turn on. Our combat was finished for the day, but our war of attrition had many more chapters yet to be written. As we grew older and farther apart, I never forgot those days. Even now I still remember the way he would face me down, his gun barrels gleaming in the blazing sun. I lay there, on the brink of defeat, one solitary round left in the chamber of my rifle. Both our protoculture reserves deadly low. No hope at all that I would come home to my dearest. I'll always remember that smile he flashed as he pulled the trigger just as I did the same. Then a street light faintly glowed in the distant ending our stand-off. I'll never forget you, my friend. Even though, I've gone on to become the Captain of my own ship with my dearest by my side. You were lost to a war you never got to see to its conclusion. I will never forget you for you were a great friend and truly a remarkable and worthy adversary. Though you're gone now, I'll sit and wait patiently in my Veratech Fighter, ever vigilant. One day, I will see you in that great beyond. There, where the streetlights never come on and Summer never ends. For Eric 1978-1992

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