We Don't Need No Education

“The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

I’m worried -

You could say -

About little things, like the past playing tricks on me, don’t you worry about such things? I mean, we could say we remember things this way, only to find out they went the other way.

                “No, I’m sure I went right in my life.”

                “Nah, bro, you’re wrong, you went left, way back there.”

                “Huh?” I look back at the many roads of my life, the odd paths it took to put me here to write this letter to you. And I’m no longer sure -

                           If it happened the way I remember it,

      But does it matter?

                Isn’t all that matters is … it happened?

I like to think so, my friend. I like to believe all that matter is it happened, even when I wish it didn’t happen the way everyone else says it did.

                I still miss you.

                I still think about you.

                The last night I remember we were still friends was when you came over to stay the night on the weekend -

                I don’t know who old we were -

                I don’t know when it was -

                But I do know why you came over because I didn’t want to go over to your place.

We went down to Cody’s house late at night after my mom and dad went to bed, no one knew, and you hated the idea of us going to Cody’s. We were friends, and I in my foolishness saw the new friendship with Cody as the shiny new toy which needed to be played with -

Forgetting about all the other, more loved toys.

We were going to play a game of capture the flag -

                We didn’t play the game -

                You never came back.

                Now, as an adult, I understand why you never came back, Dain. What I don’t understand is why you did what you did.

                No - I do understand, which makes it all the worse to write about. If I could sit down with you one last time before you took your own life, I would talk to you about your mother, not about the future, not about the reason for life, just simply about your mother. I would tell you about the first time I heard Pink Floyd, which was in the car with you guys.

                With a big smile on my face, I would shake my head at the bar setting up the scene for the story. It’s what all good storytellers do. They set up the scenario before digging deep into the meat of the tale. You need to know -

                The where

                The why

                The how

                The when

                Before we can start laughing over the silliness of it all.

                You know, your mother is the reason I love odd people. She is the reason I feel uncomfortable around the normal folk of the world. I mean, who makes a living at picking up puppies, driving around town to find a spot beside the road to sell so-said puppies. We spend hours with puppies in the trunk of her car looking for a place to set up shop and hours running into stores while you’re mother sold puppies to get cash for dinner.

                It never failed -

                I mean, never -

                A few hours later, your mother would come rushing into the store to find us, gathering us up so we can dash away from the police eyeing the oddity which was your mother. I love it. I love the whole adventure of riding around with this unique woman with a more unique life.

                Now - with the beer in hand

                And your stool empty next to me -

                I can see how difficult the uniqueness of her life was for you, for your sister, your brother, and everyone orbiting her.

                But sitting here, it still makes me smile. Is that wrong? I hope not.

                And the day I remember the most -

                Which I must say are flooding back to me in waves right now -

                Was a hot summer day. We were either heading to Toys R Us or Carowinds or coming back from a puppy gathering quest, but the windows were down. The wind only cool when the old white car was moving, stoplights were a killer, and your mother chatting away to us both. I always get her mixed up in my memory with the lady who played Sarah Connor in Terminator 2, don’t ask me why. It is how I see your mother after all this time in my life.

                I can’t tell you what she was talking about on this drive. I have no idea, but the radio had been turned to the Classical Rock station, and Pink Floyd started to wind up. The song Another Brick in the Wall Part 2, started blaring from the speakers:

We don’t need no education,

We don’t need no thought control.

                I liked the song. It was different from what my mother listened in the car. She never listened to Classical Rock on the rides home from school, but knew the song Joy to the World by heart. My mother would sing it more often than not. She didn’t know any nursery rhymes, so Jeremiah being a bullfrog was the song that sent me off into the dream world at night as a kid. Jeremiah was a bullfrog, a very good friend of mine…

                Back then it wasn’t odd -

                Now, it is just cool.

                And here was new music, I had never heard before, but was dancing with my ears. I liked Pink Floyd, but I didn’t understand it, and your mother explained to me.

                “Back then,” she said with a matter of fact tone, “school was more about making you into a little robot. They didn’t want you to think for yourself.” She looked over at me with a wink in her eye, “they still don’t.”

                Wise words for odd women? I like to believe so. The world is a duller place with her gone, but Heaven has a few more puppies to be sold now. I can see you and her riding around gathering all the lost puppies - after all -

                All dogs go to Heaven -

                And you two find a spot near the gates to sell the puppies to all the newcomers to the holy place until the angels start to roam around eyeing the two of you. Your mother seeing trouble coming before it came would gather you and the dogs up bolting to a new place to get some cash for dinner. All the while humming -

We don’t need no education,

We don’t need no thought control