Misty Watercolor Memories. Of Things.

Wow, it's hard to believe that it's been about twenty-five years since the Rubik's Cube craze. That little gadget had the entire world fascinated! I remember walking to school with my grade school chums and just trying to get one side of it aligned with the proper color. I never even knew anyone who got it entirely figured out! And then of course there were the Rubik's spinoffs...I even had a Wheat Chex cube I got from sending in box tops, and a Rubik's Cube book cover for my English textbook. It was certainly good times, and fun to remember, as things always are when they really sweep the nation to that insane extent. Anyone here remember the Rubik's restaurants that popped up everywhere? Plus, there was the Rubik's Cube movie, the less spoken of the better---thank you very much for your phoned-in performance, Mr. Irons. "Rubik's Rock" was a pretty good album, and I still can't believe it outsold Abbey Road and Thriller combined, yet the numbers don't lie. And how about the Rubik's Buicks that were painted red, yellow, orange, red, green, blue, and white? Oh, and the Rubik's public transit buses! Remember Rubik's Wednesdays, when all citizens were given liberal leave to pursue the hobby, and the Rubik's Education Centers which eventually became mandatory for children under fifteen? And God, whatever became of the Rubik's Army, that demogogic band of fervent thousands who attempted to invade the capital of Serbia in an effort to capture the buried secrets necessary to solve the riddle of the four-minute cube solution? And don't tell me you don't remember the Whitfield Act of '84....I still remember my mother's tears as she was led away in chains and placed into the back of that miltary transport jet, her only crime being patriotism as she tried in vain to rally millions to return to their once-productive lives of labor and family....who among us can forgive the sight of the mass graves hidden in Australia's cruel Outback desert, and the awful triumvirate of deceitful United Nations secretaries feeding us lie after lie as the Rubik's Cube became an almost religious talisman of hatred, racism, and genocide, used by dictators and democracies alike to spellbind and enslave once free peoples? Where were you when the Orwellian world which our feverishly working hands were complicit in creating came crashing down with a single round from an AK-47 held by a young Egyptian revolutionary who had never so much as taken a Rubik's Cube in his palm, yet who had recognized its evil power to warp man's mind from infancy? Does the bronze fountain bearing his shrieking, decapitated likeness give you chills whenever you traverse the sidewalk in front of the Rubik's Memorial, and do you still take a moment on Shame Day to remember his selfless sacrifice? Or are you too busy sleeping in and shopping for discounted DVD players? (Sorry. I get a little emotional remembering it all.)

No, I guess it wasn't all good times, but then, the PT Cruiser was huge for a while, and look how irritating that got.