Invisible Fist

One week ago, a student saw me chatting with a teacher in the cafeteria and shouted at me, across the room, “Who’s that old man?!?”

Later that day (at Costco): an older man smiled at me and said: “Hello, young fella!”

The following Friday, some teenage students asked my age. When I answered “63,” one said “Daaaamnnn, I thought you were 50!”

Yesterday, a student asked me my age, and I asked him to guess. His reply: “Your voice sounds like you’re 30. Though your appearance makes me think you’re 39.”

As Kurt Vonnegut (might have) said: Scott Smith has come unstuck in time.

It was 50 years ago this week when Red Sox catcher Carlton Fisk, hit a game-winning home run in the 12th inning to force a Game 7 in the 1975 World Series.

I watched much of that Series in my bedroom (about 30 miles from Fenway Park), standing up, with an earplug— thus concealing the tiny black & white TV’s mono sound output from my mother.

For some reason, she was especially adamant that week about enforcement of “Not on a school night!” rules. Perhaps she was mad at my older sister about something, which was rather common during that era.

If I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, I slapped the “Off” button and slid under the covers, feigning slumber until I heard the descent back to the first floor.

There were a couple of mornings, when I saw my father—still in his work uniform—at breakfast and he told me what happened in the previous night’s game and I did my best to act surprised by the news.

Though I don’t have a great poker face, so I suspect my mischievous smirking might have revealed my transgressions.

At “Parent Night” at my son’s first week of camp, I conjured up nostalgic memories of my own time at camp, and the fun I had as a youth. Then realized I never went to camp as a kid and that my found memories were probably based on scenes from “Meatballs.”

Then realized I never went to camp as a kid and that my misty, water-colored  memories were probably based on scenes from “Meatballs.”