Funky Town
When I was a kid, my younger brother and I spent a huge chunk of our childhood over at my Aunt Mary’s house. We loved going over there and hanging out with our cousins, Jason and Sarah. Jason is 2 years older than me and Sarah is only 9 months younger. We spent countless days swimming with them in their pool, riding bikes, roller skating and dancing. Jason was the ringleader. Whatever he did was magical. If Jason had white wheels on his roller skates, I HAD to get some. If he carried a comb in his back pocket to feather his hair, I wanted a comb. If Jason could play Pac Man for 8 hours straight without losing, I wanted to achieve his amazing feat. He was the man!
One of our favorite activities on hot summer days was dressing up in old Halloween costumes. One year, Jason had been Witchiepoo for Halloween. Even though it was a “girl’s” costume, my aunt just didn’t have the heart to tell him “No”. So Jay was Witchiepoo.
Although it really wasn’t a part of the Witchiepoo costume, Jason had added a large, black afro wig to the costume. We would all fight over who got to wear that nappy wig. If Jason said, “YOU get to wear the wig today,” I would be floating the ultimate cloud of approval. I just KNEW that I was cool if he said so.
Once we got our costumes on, Jason would host a dance party in his bedroom. Since he was the dj, he would play the records (yes, we had 45’s back in the day) and be in charge of the light show. The light show consisted of Jay flipping the overhead light on and off as quickly as he could, trying to impersonate a strobe light. It was the shit! My brother, Sarah and I would jump on the bed, dancing like fools while he flicked the light with stellar speed. When the song “Funky Town” would come on, we’d go absolutely nuts! In fact, one time my brother went so berserk while dancing to Funky Town that he flew off the bed, smacked his head on the corner of Jason’s desk and cracked it open. We wound up in the ER getting my poor little brother’s head sewn shut. Ah, the childhood war wounds one endures for a good dance party.
A few months ago, Jason and I were reminiscing about the good old Funky Town days. He confessed that for his entire childhood the one thing that he wanted, more than anything in the world, was a real strobe light. Although he enjoyed flicking the bedroom light on and off for us, his true hearts desire was an actual strobe. Since his parents would never buy him one, of course he thought that they must be extremely expensive. However, recently he saw a strobe light in a novelty store for $15. Poor guy–he had been misled for all of those years thinking that his dream was unattainable!
So now I have the task of doing a little online shopping for a strobe light for Jay for Christmas. Although he no longer owns the afro wig, I think we could still put on a pretty good dance party in his living room. Perhaps I should throw in another wig and a cd of Funky Town, just for good measure? As long as there aren’t any desks around for my brother to crack his skull on, we should be set. Let the dance party begin!