Our First Love by Anthony Lamarr Read Free Book Online

eyes tapered to razor slits and his eyebrows hovered like too taut bows. I figured he’d heard my thoughts. His voice palpitated as he said something I couldn’t decipher. I nodded in congruence, but in my mind I screamed, “Get a life, Nigel!”
    He must have heard me again because he stood and looked around the room. He turned off the ceiling fan, then continued looking around the living room for something. I hoped it was the car keys.
    â€œWhat are you looking for?” I finally asked.
    â€œThe remote,” Nigel answered. “I want to see what the weather’s going to be like tomorrow.”
    I wanted to wring his neck.
    I sat at the computer preparing to write a blog about Barney, when Nigel walked into the living room and saw me. He must have developed mind-reading skills because he looked right at me and said, “Do not write anything about Barney in your blog. Do you hear me, Caleb? Nothing.” I usually get mad when Nigel talks to me like he’s chastising a child because I’m a grown-ass man. I let it pass that time because it was the first time Nigel had ever mentioned the blog. However, he did give me an idea for a memory to write about.
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    The (not so true) Way I Remember It – by Caleb Greene
    â€œHow Momma Raised Good Children”
    I hear it all the time.
    Children are “badder” than they used to be.
    I’ve heard it from relatives and friends who claim not to know where the children they’re raising come from. I hear it from uncles and aunts, from people whose jobs require them to work with children, and from neighbors who live behind high fences or with bad dogs. And, after listening to them all complain about how bad children have become, they’re caught off guard when I beg to differ.
    My initial response to these people who are deliberately trying to give children a bad rap is what they’re saying is an unproven fact. After explaining that an unproven fact is something you know to be true but only because your gut tells you it’s true, I usually lay out my journalism credentials. You see, the first and most important lesson they teach future journalists at Richmond University is a factual error is an automatic failure. So, I learned to take issue with unproven facts.
    However, most parents don’t seem to care what they taught me or what I learned in college. I’ve read your comments and I know nothing short ofdivine intervention will convince most of you that children are not badder than they used to be.
    I’m not sure who’s to blame for starting this misconception about today’s children, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason children appear to be badder than we used to be is because nowadays you can’t tell children to “get lost.” Or as my mother and father would command, “Get out of my sight and don’t let me see you until I call for you.”
    On weekends, during the summer, or any time school was out, Nigel and I were literally thrown out the house. And some days, when they wanted us to be really good children, they didn’t allow us to hang out in the yard.
    By the time one of them walked out on the porch and yelled across three neighborhood blocks, the house would be cleaned, dinner would be cooked, and the only thing left to do was feed, bathe, and put their “good” children to bed.
    The encroachment of society’s seedy elements into neighborhoods has made it even more difficult for parents not to raise “bad” children. I’m sure no parent wants to put their children in harm’s way and they shouldn’t. But how can you raise “good” children if you can’t tell them to get lost? Getting lost when told to do so is what made us good children.
    Technology is also to blame.
    When was the last time you told someone to get lost? And they did? Or could?
    Technology won’t allow people to get lost.
    Back in the day,