The Moments - Chapter 22: Distinguished Gentlemen and a Lady in Red

       I always enjoy connecting Joey to some of bright spots of my childhood, and I especially enjoy when those connections occur somewhat naturally... almost accidentally. Last July 5, a series of events fell into place with perfect timing to put Joey in closer proximity to some of my favorite memories from yesteryear.
       Building up to that day, I take this story to a Kroger parking lot. Though Elvis plays on our car stereo most of the time, I sometimes play CDs featuring other artists or songs that I think Joey will enjoy. I’m sure he will always count the King as his favorite artist, but I want to encourage his appreciation of all great music.  Rockapella is firmly in that rotation. You just can’t go wrong with them. After a few occasions of playing their CDs in Joey’s presence, he started paying extra attention to the theme song from “Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?” Yes! Parenting win for a child of the 90s. After hearing it, and hearing me sing along with it, a few times (and not really being able to show him the old gameshow on TV), I also introduced him to the “Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?” cartoon which we own on DVD (another great show). After a bit of Carmen exposure over the spring and summer of last year, he started an interesting conversation on July 3. After getting him from his mom’s house, we went to pick up some things at Kroger. As Rockapella sang those classic lines from the gameshow theme song and we pulled into a parking space, Joey asked me “Daddy, why they looking for Carmen Sandiego?” I explained that she was the greatest thief of all time and that she travels the world stealing big, important things but that ACME Crimenet was always there to stop her. I told him that she was the focus of a TV show I watched when I was a boy and that the song we had just been singing with Rockapella came from that show. He took it all in. He was particularly intrigued when I said that Carmen always wore red – Joey’s favorite color. The conversation ended as we walked into Kroger but would continue with a different angle two days later.
       That Sunday, July 5, we left Nashville early to join my parents at their church near Lexington. Still having Rockapella in the CD player, they started our day with song. After hearing the Carmen Sandiego theme again, Joey asked me very specifically, “Daddy, when did you watch that show about Carmen Sandiego?” Figuring we had time for a long answer, I told him, “Well, that show first came on the air when I started the Second Grade and my best friend introduced me to it. One of the first times I went to Donald’s house after school, he said, ‘You’ve got to check out this show.’ So we went into his grandparents’ bedroom and sat in the floor and looked up at the TV that sat on their dresser, and I heard the Chief and Rockapella and I saw Carmen Sandiego and her gang for the first time. It was such a cool show! From then on, I watched it every afternoon at 4:00. I wish it still came on TV, because you’d love it. Each day, a different member of Carmen’s gang would steal something, and the ACME detectives would have to get it back. And then, one of them would get the chance to go after Carmen herself. Win or lose, at the end of the show, the host would say to the last gumshoe, ‘There’s one more thing you have to do. You know what it is,’ and then that kid would yell ‘Do it, Rockapella!’ and Rockapella would sing Carmen’s theme song.” He acknowledged it all with an interested, “Oh! Ok.” I continued by telling him, “Donald and I watched that show for five years. I want you to meet Donald someday, too. He doesn’t live in Tennessee anymore. He moved away right before we started high school, and now he lives in North Carolina. But he has a little girl who’s about your age.” From Joey, I got another “Oh,” and we kept driving. He asked to hear the Carmen Sandiego theme a couple more times, and this was when he picked up the habit of shouting “Do it, Rockapella!” from the backseat when we would listen to Rockapella. Some more miles and a few songs later, we pulled into the church parking lot and I proceeded to help Joey out of his carseat. As I was unbuckling the straps, I heard a familiar voice calling my name. Speak of the devil – it was Donald! He and his wife, Amy, and their adorable daughter, Dagny, were visiting his West Tennessee family and they and his grandparents were joining his uncle’s family, who had recently joined my parents’ church, for the morning. It was so wonderful to see my old friend, as it had been a few years this time. Seeing Donald always brings back a flood of memories of fun times during our grade school years and how dear he and his family were to me as we were growing up. I hadn’t seen him and Amy since before Dagny was born, and they had never met Joey. As soon as I got over the surprise, I pulled Joey over and told him that this was the man we had been talking about earlier, and that Donald was responsible for us knowing who Carmen Sandiego is and about her TV theme song. He was basically the person who introduced us to Rockapella. After the church service ended, we had a few more minutes to chat, and Amy got some pictures of the kids.
       Looking at my little boy while standing next to the childhood friend I used to play Nintendo with until, sometimes, dawn made me feel like time had sprinted. Then, I remembered that those days were nearly a quarter-century earlier. Time hadn’t sprinted - we just lost track of it. How far we had gone and how much we had done in the years between can’t be measured. But now, Donald and I both have little ones of whom we are so proud (as I write this, Donald and Amy are preparing to welcome another little girl) and opportunities to season their upbringing with a little bit of our own history. I’m still working with Joey on being a Donald/Chuck caliber Nintendo player, but I’ll always have some Rockapella CDs close by to be the soundtrack of our life. Meanwhile, I will wish my son the kind of friend I had in Donald as he moves toward school age – to be a great influence and to make things more fun as a team.