Harlon Mills just passed.

He died?

He died…78 years old.

It’s been that long?

Fifty years…almost.

He was that black boy – tall and lanky – long arms - with some of those crazy legs. Run like ….big eyes…like ‘nothing ‘stoppin me!’ Crazy ass fool, just searchin you out, lookin’ to knock your head off.

No. You’re thinking Marlin Hill…played for the Broncos. He was wild! This here is Harlon Mills played for the Bears. Big long country white boy. Both boys was from the South. Poor folks. Good hands.

We were all poor. Just didn’t know it.

Some even more poor…worse off than most.,,,and we knew it. Hell, I knew it. My Momma knew it. She cried. Always so tired…died tired.

May she rest in peace.

Amen.

No, Marlin went to a Negro school. Southern U, I think…

Mills went to Mississippi. But he come from Arkansas.

Hill…HE come from Mississippi. He live there now, but got the dementia.

Who don’t…played that game? Scramble your brain like eggs in a bowl. Only you just don’t know.

You don’t know until after yer forgot. Then nobody remembers you until you die. That’s when they say, “Oh, yeah…him. I seen him play…”

Best you can hope for is you don’t remember, yourself.

Chances are you won’t.

S’ a game. It’s only a game…

Don’t fool yourself man. It’s money. It’s something they pay you to do, because nobody else can do it.  What the hell else you gonna do? You know what you’re signing up for.

Don’t think you’d know ‘dementia’ back then…

If you did, and they offered you the money…at that age…with your family in that way…young stud…you’d say, ‘I’ll take it and worry about the other when I’m old’.

Can’t hide in a cave all your life. Got to live in the world. It’s bound to beat you up somehow…hell, man, look at me and you…

Me? What’s wrong with me?

Nothing you don’t know.

We played the game, you and me !

It’s a good thing we wasn’t so good…school bus was safer.

Still got our wits about us !

See, you think so, and that’s what wrong with you, right there.

What’s for supper?

We just ate supper.

Nooo. What was it?

Spaghetti.

THAT was spaghetti? Nooooo.