20 years ago, in the 2nd grade

“Proud”

My psyche 20 years ago has taken a disturbing turn.  I have mentioned before that I never won a soccer game with any team I played with throughout my years in AYSO.  In that entry, I lied about winning a soccer game.  Now we see myself upping the ante on that lie: I’m proud of something I never did!  I suppose that makes sense, what does a normal seven year-old have to be proud of?  Little, that’s what!  Perhaps I recognized the idiocy of being asked what I’m proud of myself for and instead opted to commit myself to consistency.

“What is your favorite sport?”

Well, I’ve never been very into sports, so it figures that I wouldn’t have an illustration for the entry concerning my “favorite” one.  More likely I was just being lazy or hurriedly finishing all of my homework the night/morning it was due.  I suppose soccer was the necessary answer considering it was one of my major activities at this time in my life and I didn’t conceive of karate as a sport per se.  Today my “favorite sport” is boxing though more in terms of its technical aspects and not as something that I follow.  You’ll see what the ink on the back of the page is with the next entry.

“What are you going to do over the three day weekend?

What hellish weekends these must have been for my parents.  Soccer AND karate on the same day!?!?  I’m intrigued by what I’ve chosen to depict as my last representation of the soccer.  Rather than some heroic, sportive deed I’ve shown two players (I’m probably the goalkeeper) negotiating who gets the ball after some stoppage in play.  Who gets the ball is probably be the most important thing to a bunch of seven year-olds rather than playing the sport itself.  (e.g. basketball in junior high was really just an excuse to pile up and fight for a loose ball.)

“What you did this weekend”

This entry is a personal favorite.  This captures a childhood in Brooklyn so well.  From the stops, its clear I took the 2 train to get from Midwood (Karate was at Brooklyn College) to Prospect heights.  On the 2 line Flatbush Avenue to President is seven stops, two stops from President is Eastern Parkway-Brooklyn Museum which is a very easy walk to the next stop, Grand Army plaza, but a little far to where my mom lived on Park Place and Flatbush.  Reading this gives me a Proustian uneasiness: I’m able to feel the bewilderment, discomfort and boredom that my seven year old self must have felt during this minor ordeal on the subway after a day of soccer and karate.  The optic wonder was an electronic LED-based kaleidoscope and, for some reason, I have depicted it as a hot dog in this entry.

full disclosure: this entry is dated 11-7-1991, but is directly following 11-1-1991, and precedeing 11-5-1991.

“What you did this weekend”

More soccer and karate! And not just fun too, but “the most fun” was had!  I wonder what was particular to this weekend to make it stand out so much?  I did love my karate uniform and I wore it for years after giving up “karotey.”  This illustration is me standing with my arms raised in triumph in my new karate uniform.  The blue climbing my legs is a short cut to portraying the perspective of the vast blue mats covering the whole gym.  The red on the right is one of the massive foam blocks that we practised flips on.

I played soccer and played the battle of Getyisburg.  My Dad got a hair cut”

I’ve drawn myself remembering what I did over the weekend.  How meta!  From left to right the thought bubbles portray; 1) Myself doing a header and an accurate portrayal of my uniform.  2) My dad getting a haircut from a blonde woman instructing her to “cut it here.” 3) My dad and me in matching outfits (I doubt that is accurate) holding hands with my dad holding a bag, probably full of books.  I deeply enjoyed Civil War lore as a child.  

“I went to soccer and I wan.”

No, I’m not impersonating Elmer Fudd in this entry, I’m simply misspelling the past tense of “win” even though I’ve finally spelled “soccer” correctly!  I have previously mentioned that I never won a soccer game in my entire career in American Youth Soccer Organization.  I mean, my team - the Pink Panthers - was so bad they removed pink from the roster of available AYSO team colors.  They figured our poor performance was caused by a lack of morale due to our jerseys. In short, this is the earliest concrete evidence I have of myself lying.

“I play socer ane I will go to ckoerotey.”

My adventures in extensive coloring and idiosyncratic spelling continue!  The second grade was my first and final year of “ckoerotey” - that’s karate to us spellers.  You will notice in the months to come that I was very creative in how I spelled karate.  This illustration portrays myself (in flesh tone) on the blue mats of the gymnasium room at Brooklyn College that karate class was held in.  It appears I am vanquishing someone wielding a scimitar.

“What will you do this weekend?”

Ah, once again my good friend “fun” makes an appearance.  Like today, 20 years ago, fun was a top (the only?) priority of mine. “I will play socer and I will have fun” despite the fact that my soccer team at the time (and every one before and after) never won a game…ever!  Perhaps we are witnessing here an early manifestation of my lack of competitive spirit.