Happy Birfday!

To Mark Braxton, aka Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuf!

- Mark Braxton. Or, as he became known in high school, “Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuff!” My first friend ever, we met on the afternoon kindergarten bus. One of the most amazing facts about Mark was that from grades K-6, he had the exact same “Happy Days” lunchbox. Every year our metal lunch boxes would get pummeled by older kids who thought they were being “funny”; getting a new lunch box every year became a back to school ritual. Like shopping for school clothes, or rape. Not for Mark. Somehow, god knows how, his lasted all those years. Will never forget that lunch box. In high school during study hall he helped out the office, going round picking up attendance cards from each class, and by the third day of class the teachers were trained to not fight it, but simply pause the lesson whenever he’d stick his head in the door and be treated to a class-wide chorus of “BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFF!!!” As he worked his way towards your class the noise would get louder, you’d get excited, then after he came to your class you could hear it get quieter with each room further away. A veritable moving orgasm, now that I think of it. Awesome. I haven’t seen Buuuuf since high school - actually, I didn’t see him that much during high school either. At some point he found a new group of black friends to hang out with, and I had become part of my white crowd. Always felt crummy about that, but we were kids, I dunno. Just happened. A side note re: Buuuuf. THE single worst basketball player ever. And I’m not exaggerating. Hell, I don’t know how he even made the team by our junior year. My 8th grade year over 100 kids tried out for the jv team, and I was one of only two 8th graders that made it. Buuuf? Cut. My sophomore year the team was great, won the district (I was playing jv that year, since it became obvious Varsity had no room for my 40 shots a game.) For some reason the next year, if you showed up and were alive, you made the team. Hence, Buuuf. His shot had to be seen to be believed: grabbing the ball with both hands at one hip, he would swing the ball clockwise over his head, releasing it into the stratosphere in a manner, shall we kindly say, haphazardly. The killer tho? You know how great shooters, upon releasing the ball will shout out “good!”? Buuuuf, god bless him, the ball would still be in his hands as he’s winding up his shot and he’d announce “off!” Dynamite.