Argentina

For the Treehouse that was just a tree
For giant toads, tarantula pets
And mystery cuis

For old book smells and a cool concrete floor
For Hardy Boys and Tolkien, and Susan Cooper
For that book on the Holy Grail with the last few chapters missing
And Bible stories

For empanadas, and Milanesa Napolitana
For papas fritas espai and the ravioli at La Madrileña
For half-cows at the carniceria hanging in the open air
For Dulce de Leche
And pizza at La Fontana

For blazing Olympic torches and tire swings
For bottle rockets,
For burning our homework in the trash pit
And spectacular flames from failed hot air balloons

For barrels, and crates, and hammers and nails
For dogs, and cows, and reservoirs
For wild condors and a dead possum
That just wouldn’t stay buried

For Doña Pepa’s Spanish lessons
And Benita’s gnocchi

For Joel the Fragile
For Johnny the Frightened
For Peter the Strong
And Paul the Brave

For maizenas and Alfajores Havana
For Pan Dulce at Christmas
Piping hot submarinos
And tea with milk

For charangos with armadillo backs
For panpipes, and toy horses with real horsehair
For red ponchos with a black fringe
Symbolizing the blood of Guemes

For Sunday school at Veinte de Febrero
For weekend walks on the peatonal
Even sickness, and beggars
And old jeans with holes in the patches in the knees

Thank you for everything I made
And am made of.

Mighty Man and Yukk

When I think about being a kid, the top three things I think of are Saturday morning cartoons, climbing trees playing pretend, and reading books. I was a voracious reader. In the summer between first and second grade I read 20+ Hardy Boys books. Thinking back to that time, every book had this phrase: "...and they slumped to the ground, unconscious." If anybody really got knocked out as many times as they had, they'd be stuck as a cross between Mohammed Ali and Richard Pryor.

In any case, I didn't experience Saturday morning cartoons the same way as other kids. I was living in Argentina, and we got our cartoons courtesy of a friend whose dentist (I kid you not) would send them VHS tapes of saturday morning cartoons. One of the side-effects of this was that the commercials were just as interesting or more so than the shows we used to watch.



Being a kid in a boarding school in Argentina, my life was rich in so many ways, but I still felt like those commercials were my tie to America. We had such a mythology around going back to "The States". Whenever someone would go back, we'd all say, "Eat a Big Mac for me!" and even though I hated Big Macs I'd say it too, because Big Macs were part of going back to The States. It was everything at first, but after a while it was only the little things that I'd miss. In the US you get used to the idea that you can buy Chocolate Chips, Root Beer, Marshmallows, Refried beans, soft toilet paper, packaged meat, M&Ms (oh god, M&Ms were such a luxury, it would take us an eternity to eat a handful), and other things. I don't mean that they didn't have the American brand; they really just weren't there (sometimes we could get the beans, but not always). The fun and wonder of trying to make Root Beer from soda water and Root Beer concentrate was so much fun, and yet I felt like I was missing something whenever I was away from The States.



Getting back to the point of the post, though (I could go on for hours with the rest, and I'll bore you with it later), I realized the other day that one of my fond memories of childhood is something that few people seem to remember: Mighty Man and Yukk. They were part of the Plastic Man show, and we only got it in the US. Who knows, maybe it was one of the shows that wasn't very popular, but I loved it. You see, Mighty Man was a billionaire by day, but when he needed to, he would turn his Mighty Man Ray on himself and become the foot-tall superhero Mighty Man. Accompanied by his dog Yukk, he would battle the forces of evil. Yukk was a dog who walked on two feet and had a doghouse on his head. He wore the doghouse because he was so ugly that anyone who saw his face would be instantly traumatized. They used this to their advantage numerous times by exposing his face to their enemies. I thought it was hilarious, and the idea of Yukk still sticks in my mind, but when I try to use it in analogies I find that most people don't remember it. The show ran from 1978 to 1984, and I was only born in 1977, so I guess I must remember it from when we were on sabbatical in the US before going back. It's part of my childhood that I remember clearly, and love. Here's the best picture I've found, of Mighty Man and Yukk, superheroes extraordinaire!