today marks the 25th anniversary of the Challenger spaceship explosion. this is one of those events where people tend to recall where they were when they saw it happened. my mom can recall watching JFK get shot. i remember where i was when 2Pac died, the towers collapsed, America elected it’s first Black president. things of that nature.
i was 3 when the Challenger expoloded. this was a time when TV stopped what it was doing for two things. 1-spaceship launches and 2-michael jackson. the 80’s were awesome. i can’t recall exactly every detail of the explosion, but i can tell you the aftermath.
we had a new visitor in our house. Sally. Sally had to come live with us because her parents died in said explosion. Sally was horrible and got me into a lot of trouble. she lived in my closet and was horrible at cleaning up after herself. fortunately Sally and i learned that the quickest way to clean your room was to open the bedroom door and shove everything behind it. parents don’t let you close the door anyway so why would they look behind it?! also the worst storage place for a cereal bowl is under the bed. it makes your room smell horrible.
Sally was imaginary.
what the hell kind of kid has an imaginary friend at 3 years old with such an elaborate origin story? am i going to have to deal with this from my kid? probably. but at least i’ll be one step ahead and know first off to check behind the bedroom door for discarded toys.
Lol. I called Tory and he thinks my imaginary friend was either Samantha or Sara.
My imaginary friend was named "Shoulder" and she lived in the school yard by our house. She never really did anything and I don't know what she looked like. Who names a friend "Shoulder"? Anyway, blame it on your roots.
So… I don't know if God counts as an imaginary friend. I am sure there would be some serious theological debates on that, but I hung out with God… we talked about all kinds of stuff, the end of the world, where was my daddy, why big brother's are so mean, why do people die and where do the go.. etc.. etc..
I was a really serious kid. Seriously.
No wonder I completely act a fool now.
Sign of the times indeed…
my great grandmother would set a tape recorder in the room with me and leave. i can just imagine the stories she picked up.
They were totally wicked!!! (In my little boy from The Incredibles voice)! I hope you never, ever lose your creative imagination!