March 29th: fool lesson and youth chrysalis

Day 194

This week I'm teaching stuff about April Fool's Day, make the students tell me three things about themselves, 2 truths and 1 lie. If they fool Mr. Willis, they get a piece of candy. I had to strike the subject of sports, age, and relatives as options because that was just dumb. Tomorrow i may have to do the same with dogs, watching TV, and computer games.

A couple students gave an answer something to the effect of "I'm interested in killing people" and it wasn't the lie. Troubling. For the last part of the lesson, I teach them a silly song (that a fool would sing to a king and queen to make them happy) called the "Wishy Washy Washer Woman," a camp song classic of olde. It occured to me that I have all the skills necessary to be a camp counselor.

After classes, I played soccer with student Mike and his class, although it was bloody difficult to tell who was on what team since they all had a fondness for navy track jackets. More often than not, I passed to an opponent. Charlie was on my side, a heftier student by Chinese standards and every time I passed to him I couldn't help but bellow "Charlie Murphy!" in a Dave Chappelle voice. I was able to set him up for a goal one time that was a near-perfect reenactment of the time our team (Crystal Tissue from the S.A.Y. days) made it so Josh Hoag was able to score. Who'd have thought just kicking around with a bunch of Chinese teens would conjure such nostalgia?

The game was short-lived for me, as more people with soccerballs took the field, their games bleeding over into ours, balls from everywhere coming into play. When running downfield, my breakaway was ruined by getting clotheslined by some kitestring. Chaos. It was like the ADD Olympics all of a sudden. After that I had to be the authoritative eye, making sure my boys didn't get hurt, either by errant balls of downed kites or meteors or whatever else tried to get onto this peril-magnetic soccer field.

I rode up to the middle school and engaged Heather and Mike in frisbee, their field emptier both of students and grass. The wind was playing havoc, so it didn't last long. I went to Times for supplies to make pickled golfers. (A pickled golfer is gin, iced tea, and lemonade. An arnold Palmer with gin.) One snag: China doesn't believe in lemonade. I went with the old stand-by: orange juice.

Mike and I played badminton on the roof while the new drinkables chilled. We had enough daylight to get in a 20 minute volley, called it quits to wet our whistles. Ah, gin. It's been too long. There is no way to make martinis here either, though when I go to Nantong this Saturday, perhaps the Metro will have the crucial vermouth and olives.

Heather and I had tree dumplings and cucumbers, then I rode back to my place. Erin and I watched "The Truth About Charlie" then I went with her to the hotel, since getting in three rounds of exercise in one day had boosted my appetite some. I got a ham and cheese sandwich that came with those triangular potato wedges instead of fries. Talk about throwback to the grade school days: the smells of pencilwood and damp cardboard from miniature milk cartons, odd lunch business like salisbury steak, thinking of nothing better than getting home and watching cartoons like Woody Woodpecker eating an oatmeal creme pie, maybe playing some Atari. (Is my age showing?)

We rode back, I downloaded a new Radiohead song, listened to it a few times before retiring, my head awash in nostalgia. That young man is still in me and that ethereal bridge between the inhibited, quiet "shy me" and the present lunatic artist "confident me" was almost visible. I'm still not sure exactly what age it happened or what event caused it, and perhaps the metamorphosis was too subtle to pinpoint. I'm thankful for whatever triggered it. Had I remained that taciturn meekling, I would have missed out on hundreds of adventures, including this one.