Disclaimer: Good evening, from Los Angeles, I am not Dan Rydell, nor am I Casey McCall. Ernie was the portly, loveable old bartender on Power Rangers, and as such, does not belong to me. I was thinking the other day about something Fateless Wanderer wrote a while back in an intro for a chapter of her story Requiem for an Era. "Any true fan knows that Ernie has always known." Too true. I took that thought and ran with it. Something like this has no doubt been done before, but it's worth saying, isn't it? This is being written in celebration of the fact that I am finally done with my senior thesis! (And there was much rejoicing throughout the land…(crickets)…(wind rustling)…okay, I'll stop now.) Consider it an early Christmas present.
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Thank You.
Angle Grove Youth Center, an unknown date in the future
Man, it's hard to believe they finally closed this place down. I still remember the day I opened it. It was a simple idea, really: just open a place where the kids of the town could go after school or on the weekends where they could just be themselves. That's all I had in mind for the place.
Who knew at would become a home away from home for most of them. This place saw more martial arts classes, parties…and more bizarre goings on than the entire run of Poltergeist. That was life in Angel Grove for ya. Always unpredictable. Probably the only town on earth where the "duck and cover" drill was more important after the Cold War than during it. Oh, well. It was a great run.
Of course, those last couple of years before I left were the craziest. In addition to the teenage angst parade you could see on display in any other town, you had a real-life Godzilla movie going on on an almost weekly basis. Evil space aliens trying to take over the world? Spandex-clad warriors with giant robots the only line of defense? I swear, from the outside, our lives must have looked like a rip-off of Voltron! But somehow, we got through it. We were saved every time by those color-coded heroes who always preferred to remain anonymous.
Though they weren't anonymous to me. I mean, they covered their tracks well, but when you spend enough time as close to the situation as we were, certain things start to make sense. Like the same group of five or six people, always dressed in the same colors, always hanging out together, usually here, practically obsessed with marital arts, disappearing at a moment's notice? I put two and two together.
The group changed over the years, people came and went, colors changed hands, but they still hung out here. And I still honored their silence on the issue. They must have had really good reasons for not telling anyone about their after school jobs, and who was I to make them break that silence? But I had to do something. So I figured, they hang out here all the time anyway, let it be their home away from home. I never charged those kids for anything. Whatever they needed, I'd try to find a way to give it to them. I figured it was the least I could do. An old friend coming back to town? We'll throw a party on a moment's notice. They all stood out for different reasons, but they were always together. Zach's one-of-a-kind style. Kim's effervescent personality and inner fire. Never being able to understand a word Billy said—until Trini put it in plain English. Jason lecturing dozens of kids about "the true meaning of martial arts." I still can't stop laughing from that time Tommy started attacking that tackling dummy. Gave a whole new meaning to "unnecessary roughness." Adam, who you couldn't get two consecutive sentences out of to save your life. Aisha, who could smile her way through anything. There were times there I was worried that Rocky would eat me right out of business, but it didn't matter. Katherine, who apparently was equally at home dancing on stage or dodging intergalactic freaks. And last, but not least, Tanya, with a heart of gold and a voice to match. If any of those kids had ever said jump, I'd have asked how high. I'd have blown my ankles out in the process, but I would have tried. It was my way of saying thank you. Somebody needed to.
Do I ever wonder if they knew that I knew? All the time. And yeah, they probably did. But it was their secret to share if they chose, not mine. All I could do was stand back there and say thank you, the only way I could.