My Identity

Seems like a lifetime ago, translated…

“Hello, how many times had we met?”, the sixth-grade boy, with that sort of joking look on his face, asked me with a smile.  Don’t know when it’d started happening, I’d answered twenty-five, and started seriously counting, like those countdown ‘til goodbye.  But, I’d often miscounted and lost track.  Don’t know when it’d started happening, I’d gained so many names: bumblebee, hottie, Mr. Hot Dog, Principal, Weird Uncle, Uncle………like I’d had, countless identities at the school, on campus.

photo from online…

I just never understood, that the threesome from the first grade would mistake “call me older brother” as “call me ‘hotdog’”.  Am I, a rap artist?  The group of three young kids called out to me, “Mr. H-O-T-D-O-G!” time after time again and again, and, they’d fallen down laughing really hard while calling out to me.  Why would you guys need a Mr. Hot Dog, and, not Ronald McDonald?

The very first little boy who’d gotten my title right, for a while, he didn’t look too happy.  He’d had a sign on his backpack, “Remember to Check the Assignments You’d Turned in”, don’t know if the sign was designated for the little boy wearing it, or, the other “good kids” who’d done their homework assignments like they were supposed to…………and, naturally, there was, that little girl who didn’t call me anything, and just, ran off fast, when she saw me, like she’d, despised me.  And would often started that game of tag, you’re it with me.  And, for a little while, I’d stopped, bumping into her.  Then, one random afternoon, she’d run out of that classroom at the end of the hallway, and waved really hard to me, hollered out, “Uncle Security Guard!”

photo from online…

I’d spent my elementary years, my high school years, my college, and my graduate school, away from my place of birth.  I kept believing, that I’d not had an emotional tie to my hometown.  Until I’d returned to serve my alternative army service terms, and had, started living the countless possibilities that I had the opportunities to live, changed my names a countless number of times, and I’d finally understood, that it’s this group of young kids, who’d, awakened the sense of homesickness.  I’d always, hidden the words, “I like you guys, children from my hometown” deep inside of me, but I knew that, you kids had, already found me out, as you’re all, very good at tag-you’re-it, found my faults!

So, this, is the story of a man, who’s serving his alternative army term back in his hometown, and discovered, that the simplicities of life back in his hometown is what he’d longed for all this time, and, hopefully, after his service term is finished, he’ll be more than likely, to stay in his hometown, and continue working with this group of children…