06/05/2026
Finding My Way…
Remember?
That’s a strange question, and an odd way to start a story.
So let me ask you, what immediately comes to your mind?
More precisely, when?
And where?
Most importantly, who comes to mind, and why?
Those questions matter, if you matter, and I believe that you do.
I am beginning to forget things that I shouldn’t.
Actually, that’s not completely true.
Beginning to forget has come and gone.
I can no longer remember when the forgetting began.
My memory is fading fast.
But not my imagination.
If you have a bit of time, bear with me.
I have a story to tell, and if I am not wrong, your story will reawaken, by listening carefully while you read.
Have you ever been lost?
I don’t mean disoriented or confused.
Truly lost.
I guess there are a vast spectrum of experiences that fall into the category of lost.
Maybe being lost includes anytime that we don’t know where we are.
I certainly didn’t.
Uncle Howard came to my house at 5:00pm, just like he said he would.
I ran out to his car, got in, and off we went.
“Thomas, this is your school”, my uncle told me, pointing to a brick building through the windshield of his Cadillac.
Uncle Howard was a chauffeur, though I didn’t know for whom, nor did I care to.
He was also a longshoreman, and according to family lore, had a no show job, which in theory, could have been connected to who he drove in his limousine.
I was 5, exactly 5, and I wasn’t concerned with any of that.
My uncle wasn’t who people thought he was.
To me, Uncle Howard was who I thought he was.
Truth be told, he was who he knew he was.
Because of that, he treated me accordingly.
He parked the car, and we walked over to the playground, which was enormous in comparison to the swing set and monkey bars in my backyard.
The sun hadn’t gone down yet, and the stainless steel slide was as hot as a frying pan, so uncle Howard lifted me up onto the monkey bars and “spotted” me, as I struggled my way to the other side.
The swing set was 3 times the height of what I was accustomed to.
He pushed me, while explaining the finer details of extending and curling my legs, until I was able to do it on my own.
Perhaps it was too much, and if it was not him behind me, I would have been scared.
But it was him, and I wasn’t scared.
Not one bit.
My uncle held my hand, and we walked around the perimeter of the school, discovering a smaller playground in the back, with a seesaw and small merry-go-round, both of which I needed to try.
I sat on the seesaw, while uncle Howard carefully lifted and lowered me, with only one hand, on the seat opposite mine.
Of course, to me, this was evidence of his superhuman strength, and I couldn’t wait to tell my friends all about it.
The merry-go-round was more treacherous.
Though he definitely didn’t mean to, his plain old human strength proved more than necessary, and I fell off, or more accurately, flew off, and landed unscathed on the soft sand.
We weren’t there for very long, before the sun began to set.
We walked past the library toward the bright lights and loud sounds coming from the old High School field between Central Avenue and Franklin Avenue.
The Pearl River Volunteer Fire Department sponsored an annual Carnival as a fundraiser.
This was my first one.
The sky quickly became dark, but I don’t remember seeing any stars.
Bright colored lights were everywhere, flashing, blinking, and traveling quickly in patterns determined by the rides they were illuminating.
The colloquialism of bells and whistles was surely coined after this madness.
The term overstimulation hadn’t made its way into the lexicon of the 70’s, but if there was ever a textbook example, this was it.
Back then, it was just called having a great time.
The smell of fried dough, popcorn, and hot dogs filled the air.
Kids were everywhere, screaming above the volume of a bizarre mixture of sounds that emanated from every attraction.
The chaos somehow created order.
Looking back, the whole thing ran like a well-oiled machine.
Perhaps not very well built, but definitely very well-oiled.
The adult to child ratio must have been around 1:5, and putting teenagers in a separate category, they probably outnumbered parents and children 4:1.
It was a Friday.
Friday the 13th, 1973.
It was the evening of my 5th birthday, which is why I am sure of the date.
To say there was a lot to see is an understatement.
What caught my attention, more than anything else, were the stuffed animals.
Stuffed animals were everywhere I looked, and every kid seemed to have one, except for me.
Little one, big ones, and every size in between, of every color and species imaginable.
“Do you want a stuffed animal, Thomas?”, my uncle Howard asked.
It was a rhetorical question, but he just was making sure I knew that he was paying attention.
My uncle was always paying attention.
He demonstrated an obvious interest in me, and in whatever I did, that made me feel important.
Actually, it didn’t just make me feel important.
It made me feel loved.
We stood in front of what looked like a shed with one of the large walls cut out.
The other large wall, the one that wasn’t cut out, was covered with balloons.
Everywhere else; on the sides, ceiling, and even the floor, where stuffed animals.
There was a lady inside the shed.
She looked right at me, winked, and asked, “Are you a winner?”
Uncle Howard handed the lady a dollar, and she handed him a bunch of darts.
He placed the darts on the counter, in a neat row, then picked me up over his head and placed me on his shoulders.
My uncle threw the first dart, as he described a few details of his demonstration.
POP!
The dart that he threw popped a balloon, and stuck firmly in the wall.
Hitting a balloon with a dart turned out to be easy.
In fact, it was nearly impossible to miss.
The lady smiled at me and said, “You look like a winner”, and I gave it a try.
The challenge for me, was throwing the dart with enough force to pop whichever under inflated balloon I hit, without it bouncing off.
Dull darts and low PSI made getting a perfect 10 out of 10 score, deceptively difficult.
Between the 2 of us, we popped 4 balloons.
The lady handed me a small stuffed blue monkey with oversized ears, and I was thrilled.
Uncle Howard bought me cotton candy, that came on a long paper cone, and I made the mistake of trying to eat it like ice cream.
First my face was sticky, then both of my hands, and finally, my pants, which I used as towel, with no success.
The Ferris wheel stood towering over all of the lesser rides and attraction.
It was colossal.
I was fascinated, but my fear eclipsed my interest, and my uncle didn’t seem at all disappointed.
Most of the rides had a height requirement that made me ineligible, or fortunately for my fear, “exempt.”
I am sure that my uncle knew that I was afraid, but he didn’t show it.
We got in back of a long line, and he bought a bunch of tickets.
He took me to a ride with horses, called a carousel, and we got on another line, that was much shorter.
When the carousel stopped, we stepped onto the platform, and found a horse and pony that were side by side.
Uncle Howard put me on the pony and he got on the horse.
It wasn’t the Ferris-wheel, but it is a memory that I cherish, with God’s mercy, I will never forget.
He was the Lone Ranger and I was Tonto.
It was perfect.
We got on another line.
It was for a train ride.
But the seats were too small for adults.
There was a girl and a lady in front of me.
She had a small bag of water with a goldfish in it.
The lady said, “Karen, I think he wants to see the fish.”
The girl turned around, and said, “My name is Karen, what’s yours?”
A moment ago, she was just a girl.
Not anymore.
She had long brown hair.
Very long, kept in perfectly maintained pigtails, tied neatly with bright red ribbon.
Her eyes were hazel.
She was noticeably short.
Probably a full 2 inches shorter than me.
I also remember seeing that she wasn’t missing any of her teeth, which I considered a plus.
Her shorts were cut off jeans, just like mine.
She wore a girl’s shirt, but I cannot recall the details, other than recognizing that it was pretty.
Her sneakers were white prokeds, and they were just like mine, only mine were blue.
She smelled like soap, or maybe it was her clothes.
I couldn’t see myself, but I must have looked like a deer in the headlights.
“Uh”, I began, sort of.
Uncle Howard nudged me toward her.
I’m Thomas. Thomas Clifford. Where’d you get that goldfish?”, I answered and asked, at the same time.
“I won it, but my mom won’t let me keep it”, Karen answered, proudly, yet regretfully.
“We have a cat, and my mom said the cat will eat the fish”, Karen explained, “And now I have to give it back.”
“Hi, I’m Jeannie, Karen’s mother” the lady said, introducing herself to my uncle.
“I’m Howard, Thomas is my nephew”, he told her.
Karen whispered to me, “I won him. I won him with a ping pong ball. I don’t want to give him back.”
Karen’s mother and uncle Howard were also whispering, or maybe, Karen and I were just not listening.
“How old are you?”, Karen asked.
“5”, I answered, holding up all 5 fingers of my right hand, and adding, “Today is my birthday.”
Karen’s mother interrupted our conversation, and said, “Happy birthday, would you like a goldfish?”
I looked at Karen, and she was smiling.
I turned and looked up at my uncle, who was behind me, and didn’t have an immediate objection.
Uncle Howard didn’t say anything, he just put his hand on my shoulder, which I took as a sign of approval.
“Yes”, I said, “I want a goldfish.”
Karen handed me the bag.
“He’s our goldfish, okay?”, she asserted and asked, in way that didn’t invite negotiation.
I said, “Of course. He’s ours.”
My uncle held our goldfish, and Karen and I caught the train.
We sat together, and when the train took off, she held my hand.
When the ride ended, my uncle and Karen’s mother were waiting for us at the exit.
“You are both going to Kindergarten at Franklin Avenue in September”, Karen’s mother told us.
We were very happy to hear that.
“Thomas is going in the morning, and Karen, you are going in the afternoon”, her mother explained, and quickly added, “So you will be in school together for 13 years!”
“His name is Franklin”, Karen said, looking closely at our fish, which my uncle was carefully holding in one hand, and less carefully, holding my monkey in the other.
I took the monkey and handed it to Karen.
“I won him. We threw darts and I popped 2 balloons, and uncle Howard popped 2 balloons.”, I told Karen, establishing myself as capable and confident.
After all, the balloon lady said that I looked like a winner.
Uncle Howard smiled at Karen and said, “Don’t worry, your cat won’t eat him.”
“His name is Pop”, Karen said, and hugged him.
“He’s both of ours, too”, she insisted.
Her mother said, “Karen, it’s very late and we have to go now”, adding “It was nice meeting you both, have a goodnight.”
“Nice meeting you, too”, my uncle replied.
“Happy Birthday, Tom”, Karen said, and she slowly disappeared with her mother into a crowd of people.
“See you soon!”, I shouted.
“In September!” Karen shouted back.
“One more ride?”, my uncle asked.
“Yes!”, I said, somehow more excited, but not entirely sure why.
I saw a motorcycle ride, similar to the horse carousel, but only big enough for kids.
The line was long.
When I finally made it to the front, the guy said, “It’s full, you’re first on the next one.”
I waited impatiently, and as soon as the ride stopped, and the kids exited, the guy let me and everyone behind me get through until all of the motorcycles were taken.
I jumped on a green motorcycle, which I chose because it matched my green Schwinn Stingray bicycle, handed down from my brothers, Howie and John.
I don’t know how many times we went around in a circle, because I wasn’t paying attention.
My mind was elsewhere.
When the ride stopped, I exited through the entrance, and my uncle wasn’t there.
He was at the exit, which is where I should have gone.
So I ran to the exit, but he wasn’t there.
He was looking for me.
I saw the booth where we bought tickets, and started walking toward it.
Then I decided to go back to the motorcycle ride, because I knew that my uncle would be there, looking for me.
But there was a big crowd of people blocking my line of sight, so I went around them.
I passed by the place where Karen must have won Franklin, and looked for the motorcycle ride, but it wasn’t where I thought it was.
Then I saw uncle Howard.
He looked angry.
I ran as fast as I could straight toward him.
“Thomas!”, he shouted, and his face immediately lost its anger.
He wasn’t angry with me.
He was angry with himself.
He bent down and I jumped up as he caught me in one arm.
“I’m sorry”, he said, “I lost you.”
“I lost you, too”, and even though I was happy, I began to cry.
“Thomas, you found your way.”
He looked right at me, and pressed his forehead against mine, which he often did.
“A lot of people never find their way”, he explained.
“Everyone gets lost, but not everyone finds their way, and they stay lost.”
“Sooner or later, you are going to get lost again”, he went on.
“You will find your way.”
______________________________
That’s what I remember.
How about you?
______________________________
7 days after my 5th Birthday, on July 20th, 1973, Martial Arts superstar Bruce Lee died in Hong Kong.
He was only 32 years old, and in the prime of his life.
Obviously, his death was a tragedy, but it accelerated awareness of the Martial Arts, and the popularity of his work, on and off the big screen, grew like wildfire.
