Ode to My Past

I have fond memories of my friends and I in college sitting in the dorm lounge, listening to the latest music and eating junk food. 2 Pac had just passed away so that's all that we really listened to...in tribute so to speak...a creative young guy with huge aspirations just like the rest of us but happened to die too young. All of us nodded our heads in solidarity with the words...just as if we were all serious about living and dying in LA. We didn't have to say a word to each other whether we agreed with the lyrics or not...it didn't matter where each and every one of us came from...it didn't matter if I was white...my brother next to me Mexican...the brother next to him Hmong...Filipino...Indian...Black...Chomoro...Vietnamese...Burmese...It didn't matter.

Years later...far apart...just once in awhile we hear something as simple as the music that once caused us to do silly things and remember...that time when it was so foggy that we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of our faces but we still played basketball nonetheless...we were all drunk off of bud ice because that was the strongest that we could get someone older to buy for us...remember? We had Hong Kong Deli in our bellies because they had that special...fried chicken...remember? We went there when Kaofu died...remember? I couldn't go back there after that though...it hurt too much.

We rode in the funeral procession with that fucked up orange sticker in the window...we never even went up close to his body...remember? We just stood back and watched his parents wail and we never said a word. We left and each of us went our own separate ways without saying anything but we didn't have to...we all knew what each other was thinking and feeling.

Remember that party that we had in the dining hall? The one where all of the gangs showed up and and we had to keep the peace. Remember that? Remember that huge wad of cash that you and I had in our pockets and stored in our dorm room just in case we might get jumped? Remember that huge bag of weed they gave us as payment which none of us smoked because we didn't like the taste?

Remember that time when we all said goodbye? We all pulled our cars into the lot and each of us blasted our music as loud as we could. Mine was a little funky though because we could never get the wiring right...but you guys didn't care. I remember that. I remember that well...