Dexter's Somewhat Mediocre Page
   




A long time ago, this one senior football player guy found this one freshman cheerleader girl. They eventually fell in love and after discovering the girl was pregnant, they got married. After having the girl and naming her Diana, the cheerleader girl (who was no longer a cheerleader) got pregnant again. On December 8th, 1984, their son was born. They have an interesting story, but this story isn't about them. This story is about that little boy, whose name was Darren.

I was born in Pomona, California, where we lived until I was less than a year old. We then moved to San Bernardino, to the house that I would love and cherish for many years to come. I can still remember it well. A two-story house. We would keep our shoes in the entrance. Our TV was next to a fireplace and the staircase. Ever since I was able to, I would creep behind the TV and climb up onto the landing on the stairs. Upstairs, there were the bedrooms. My bedroom had its own little hallway after the door. This is where I spent a lot of my early childhood.

My sister learned to read at a very early age, and I was eager to learn also. One of my earliest memories is of my sister teaching me the sounds of the letters of the alphabet in our bathroom. Weird memory, I guess. I learned how to read at an average age, but it was early in comparison to most of the other children where I lived. Ever since I was able to read, I would be reading everything. Not just the books that my parents got for me, but street signs, cereal boxes, instruction manuals, and just about anything with words written on it. Sometimes I would stay up late reading, and my parents would enter my room. Afraid of getting in trouble, I would bury my head in my book and pretend I was asleep. "Lucky for that hallway," I thought, "It gives me ample time to prepare after they open my door." Of course, I realize now that they probably wouldn't be mad if they caught me reading.

Come to think of it, I always feared getting in trouble. Something with my genetics or upbringing made me very afraid of doing what is wrong or bad. And it seemed that whenever I did do something bad, I was caught and punished. Maybe that's part of why this fear still lives in me today.

Aside from fear and all of that, I remember having a very good childhood. I attended Ruth Grimes Elementary School, where I was the only child in my kindergarten class who could read, and one of the few in my first grade class. The teachers there thought that I was some kind of prodigy. I picked up on math very easily, and by the end of first grade I was working out of a third grade math book. I remember the day when my first grade teacher told me that I was gifted. I didn't even know what that meant. But she asked if I wanted to try more challenging material. I did, but for some reason, I only chose math, despite wanting to try reading too. I didn't know why I didn't say that I'd try both, but I do know that after I had said it, I was too scared to tell her that I had changed my mind. So I went on with math, finished the second grade book, and got halfway through the third grade book when first grade ended. For some reason I don't remember doing any math in second grade, and so in third grade everybody ended up caught up with me.

My school was not given a good amount of funds, and nearly everything showed it. The neighborhood that we lived in was definitely not a good area in any respect. But we lived in what was possibly the best neighborhood of the ghetto area. Our neighborhood was a big oval, with only one entrance and exit. In the middle of the oval, there was a small park, called Spruce Park. This park is probably the single biggest thing that I identify with my childhood. It had an awning, some barbecue things, and bushes in that area. Then there was the sandbox, with the jungle gym made of brown painted wood. I climbed on that thing too, above the swings where we weren't supposed to be. Then there was a big field with two hills and a few scattered trees. My friends and I would always play football and soccer and just about anything in this field. It was like the epitome of childhood, or something. And it was at that park that I met my two best friends, Nathan Anthony and Josh Morgan.

I met Nathan first, when I was in first grade or thereabouts. He was three years older than me, and yet, he was my first best friend ever. We both enjoyed playing video games, and I had never seen anybody as good at Street Fighter II as he was. He also had this tree in his backyard that we would climb, then go from that to his roof. It was a nice place to get away from other people, people who couldn't climb.

Nathan introduced me to Josh, who was only two years older than me. He was also quite chubby. He loved video games more than either Nathan or me, and he owned a Sega Genesis and his own TV. I would go to his house to eat his mother's home cooking and play on his TV in his room. Sometimes when I would spend the night, he would watch cable porn, which I thought was gross at the time. "You'll understand in a few years," he told me.

Getting back to video games, and going back a few years, I started playing video games when I was about three or four. Sure, I was terrible, but I loved to press the buttons on my Atari 2600. Then, when I was either four or five, my parents bought me a Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas. I remember being so excited about it that day. After that came the Super Nintendo, which lived with me for quite a while. When I was five, I decided that I wanted to make video games when I grew up. My sister and I even had an idea for a game that involved Santa Claus being kidnapped and candy canes as weapons and all that. Give me a break; I was five. At any rate, I fell in love with video games at an early age, and haven't stopped playing since. I still consider video game design as one of my top career choices.

Another thing that I fell in love with at an early age was food. I was born a fat baby, and then I became a skinny child. I could eat a whole lot of food and not have it show. This would later backfire, when it eventually would show. My parents always marveled at the fact that I would try nearly any food, and the chances of my liking it were good, while my sister would never eat anything but plain cheeseburgers, scrambled eggs, or teriyaki beef. She's still like that, but I guess nobody marvels at it any more.

We were kinda spoiled with our food too. Nearly every single night, our family would go out to eat. We usually went to middle-of-the-road places, like Red Robin or Chili's, but the money certainly added up after doing it daily. My sister and I eventually longed for a home-cooked meal, like the kind that Josh got to have every day. He told me that I shouldn't complain, because he almost never went out to eat. I guess the grass is always greener, or something.

We were spoiled with everything, I guess. My dad bought me tons of video games; I had to own at least thirty NES games. We went to amusement parks and water parks pretty frequently too. Castle Park, Scandia, and The Oasis mostly, but every now and then we would go to Disney Land or Raging Waters or even Magic Mountain.

Magic Mountain captivated me. Being Japanese and a young child, I could hardly go on any of the rides. On my first two visits to Magic Mountain, I had to stand by, watching the people having so much fun on the Viper. I wanted that thrill, that excitement. Finally, by my third visit, I had met the 54-inch requirement. That first ride on the Viper was my favorite, and it gave me a lifelong desire for the thrills that could be found on this planet.

Back to life in Spruce Park and at Ruth Grimes, I got my first girlfriend in fourth grade. Her name was Ashley Killian, and I recently got back in touch with her over the Internet. She was a bit pudgy, but I didn't know it then. We never really did anything that boyfriends and girlfriends do, but hey, we were only nine. I spent a lot of time at her house swimming in her pool or playing her Genesis. We were more just friends that were labeled boyfriend and girlfriend than actual boyfriend and girlfriend. She and I were the only students that were in GATE in our grade. Gifted And Talented Education, they called it. Once a week we went to some far off school that had much better funding to learn with people that we didn't know. I really don't remember learning anything there, but it was only a year that I was in that program.

About this time, my dad got a great job offer that would move us to Arizona. Arizona!? "That's so far," I thought. Fourth grade was the last year that I would spend in the place where I grew up, the only place that I knew. Spruce Park, Ruth Grimes, Castle Park, our house, Josh, Nathan, Ashley, and everything else, I would be leaving it all behind and starting over. Starting fresh, starting new, "Doesn't that sound nice?" my parents would ask. "Not if everything is so perfect," I thought. How could they do this to us? How could they just take away everything we had built up for almost a decade?

I couldn't understand how they could, but they did. I remember our last day living in California. Our stuff was all packed and in a truck. My mother, sister, and I were in my mom's Pontiac Bonneville, driving away from it all. With tears in our eyes, my sister and I looked out the back window. "Good-bye house," we sputtered. "Good-bye park." "Good-bye everything," I whispered to myself.

And that ended the first nine years of my life. I tried to make it brief, but I suppose condensing nine years is a bit of a task. The change in location marked a significant change in me. Where before I was carefree and joyous, I became extremely unhappy with my life. I cut myself off from everyone and everything, longing endlessly for the life I had left behind.