I used to watch older kids bust guns as soon as the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve back in the day, which is something you shouldn't do. Now I have a new ritual — deleting things in the New Year with the hopes of finding more comfort and focus — which is something we should all do.
Let's take a stroll back to early 1990-something, deep into the alley past Mrs. Ellen's house, around the prickly, fat, toothy rats, over the unfinished wooden gate attached to the bricked-in two-story that led straight to a passage to the only house that had a semi-working fire escape. That fire escape, extra-rickety and made of rust, gave us a clear pathway to the roof, but it required a little work. My friend Mumbles would clutch his fingers together, providing me and some of the other kids with a sturdy platform to dig our Nikes into after getting a running start, and partnering with his strength, he'd catapult us up to the ladder, where we'd catch hold, swing a bit, then pull ourselves up and climb to the top.
