Iconoclasts of My Past

In all my excitement about the approaching coastal break, I neglected to report on an important rendezvous. But first, A Message To The Kids: Take note, Junior, You may think you're pretty radical now, but before you know it you too will be reluctant leaders of the Status quo (if you're lucky!). Take the above unfunky bunch. Sure, they're the very definition of harmless now, but once upon the 80's they were part of a freewheeling cabal, a loose-knit cell of insurgents hopped-up on Prog Rock, Marlboros and Meister Brau. Now, look at them: Chemists, IT Guys, educators, some boob who chases ribbon-cuttings for a living. Lame, I know - but it wasn't so long ago these operatives huddled under their mullets and congratulated each other on how charmingly prescient they all were. These days, most of them can embarrass their kids just by getting out of the car. Take a good long look, all you Jonas Brothers out there... this too could happen to you.

Now for what I learned: Goldsboro, North Carolina is a mostly unremarkable place. This very fact haunted me as youth; I cursed my forebearers continuously for landing me in what had to be the planet's most boring community. To this day, I hyperventilate a little whenever I cross into Goldsboro proper, for I have watched enough Wayne County corn grow to last a couple of lifetimes. But the older I get, the more I reconnect with survivors of that distant time , the more I'm forced to reconsider the merits of my homeland. For all its lack of intrigue, some of the most invigorating folks I know came from the home of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base. Knowing that my own experience is but a microcosm of a larger America, I'm momentarily convinced there is hope left for humanity. Then I go to work, sit in on a City Council Meeting and all those warm feelings melt away like so much spilled, cheap beer... the kind teenagers drink when they think nobody's looking.

Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.