A Party at a Place to Remember
...shirt, which I especially loved. Each person received a different, exquisitely detailed hero. I received a Cyclops t-shirt, painted with Cyclops’ trademark, piercing blue, the drawing literally jumping out at you as if he was right there. For the piñata, we went to the side-yard. I went first, and I was swinging like a dazed and beaten boxer does just before his defeat. I had the direction that a decapitated chicken. To put it simply, I did horrible. As I eagerly looked on, with the watchful eyes of a seven-year-old, I cheered, but the cheer was for everyone to make an error, not just small errors, but like Bill Buckner unforgivably let the ball roll through his legs in the ’69 World Series. All of my friends were dropping like flies, when, up came Joe Blanco, the biggest and most intimidating kid on the block. Big Joe was an absolute behemoth. His legs were the size of tree trunks, his massive arms, like sledge hammers, his demeanor, as surly as a soldier. He was intimidation in its purest form; it just oozed out of his body like an over-filled jelly donut. He stepped up to take a swing at the domineering monster piñata, with the concentration of a reliever in the ninth inning of the World Series with his team up one. He took a massive swing, a grizzly bear’s swat as it slaughters its prey. All of my young classmates clamored to get the closest spot, in order to pickup the most candies. In came the swing, punishing the piñata like heavyweight boxers do in a championship fight, but just like the gritty boxer, the tested piñata held up. So I am given a chance at redemption. I step up to the piñata circle as confident as Barry Bonds would be if he were facing a high school pitcher during a baseball game. I approach the piñata with the hunger of a seven hundred pound man trying to break through a chain-linked fence to get a twinkie; I was not going to be stopped. I take a swing, but not just any regular swing, a swing quick as a cricket, strong as an ox, a swing straight from the heavens. As the bat struck the piñata, the anticipation of my fellow partiers collectively ascended to inconceivable heights, higher than the bird flies, higher than the redwood soars, higher than the mountains rise, these kids wer...