Hi. Yah, I'm the 'Joshua Lyman' from the title. Most people just call me Josh (with the exceptions of my mother, when she's angry, and a certain co-worker, when she either can't resist me or is angry with me, though it's hard to tell which is which oftentimes). For the next couple of pages or so, you're going to be reading about - don't try too hard at guessing this one - my childhood. I promise that as soon as you're done reading, I'll send you a sympathy card and a fruit basket. Ok, maybe the story of my life isn't that bad. Maybe.

Anyway, to get on with it... Let's see. First off, I'd like to say that the title of this should probably be 'Childhood Trauma'. The word drama - to me - means a few tense moments supported by long, drawn-out minor musical chords with some crying immediately followed by some good-natured, wholesome fun and happiness and about 18 Emmy nominations. Trauma is a whole other story. This is that whole other story:

Ok, so I grew up in Connecticut. It's a nice state although tiny and easy to lose. I once knew this woman who swore by the 'good book' that Connecticut existed somewhere off near Arizona and New Mexico. I don't blame her because, by my estimation, and the help of my good friends over at World Book Encyclopedia, 1989 edition, Book 20 (U-V), page 115, Connecticut is about three-eighths of an inch by two-eighths. (And for my good friends in the rest of the civilized world, if you're reading this, that's about 10 mm by 6 mm. I really do not know why we don't just convert to the Metric System. It's easier than measuring with our feet.) The state itself is a very pleasant place to live and everything, but I think that, in some aspects, growing up could have been better. For example, when you first start school you learn to spell your name and your parents' names and your state's name and things like that. Connecticut is no cherry pie when compared to 'Josh'. I quickly became envious of kids from Iowa, Ohio, and Utah who only had to learn four letters. The founders of this country must have been severely intoxicated when they came up with state names like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi, with all those letters - many of which are doubled just to throw everyone off. I know how the kids in those states felt when they learned that they had been screwed over in the state name department. I was in the same boat with the same hole surrounded by the same shark-and-electric-eel-infested waters. Basically, I rue the day that mankind decided to create written language. But then, since it is, thus far, impossible to go back and prevent humans from learning to write, we have to acknowledge the secretaries and personal assistants who take care of all that annoying stuff for us. But I still hate spelling.

Needless to say, spelling wasn't my only unfavorable impression of school, but it's not like I was always picked last for kickball or anything. Actually, I was king of the friends I had, unless we were playing 'King of the Mountain' in which case my lean frame was fairly easy to dethrone from any monumental dirt mound. One day in particular really stands out in my memory. It was one of those defining points in life that influences how a person turns out. I would like to take a brief moment to recognize how much my life sounds like an archetypical children's coming-of-age novel (with, perhaps, more whining) and to say that, to tell you the truth, it was pretty much all like that. Thus is the saga of Josh - a biography that, if written, would only appeal to the 8-12 year old demographic. And now that you've been duly warned, I continue. So, this one day, I had apparently infuriated someone beyond their limit (which I now consider part of my job description). Myself and the aggravated youth, as boys would do, were going to settle this 'after school' and probably 'by the swings' or, even more ominously, 'near the slide'. I refer back to the subject of my then-lanky frame, which is evidenced today by my now-lanky frame, to point out that the odds against me were about twice my body weight. Still, I met them: four against one, four against me. It was hardly fair. It wasn't fair at all. They were real blockheads who probably traveled in a group so they wouldn't get lost or forget what they were supposed to be doing (though they probably ended up at the wrong places at the wrong times anyway). But they were still very large, enormous blockheads. And I was a very tiny, minuscule shrimp. I didn't want to fight them. I didn't want them to fight me. That was only wishful thinking.

The leader of the group - the only one I had actually ticked off - approached me further. I could tell you his name, but I'll keep it anonymous just in case somewhere, somehow he reads this. I wouldn't want him to get mad at me for labeling him a brainless, slime-filled, incompetent goon whose head you could hardly distinguish from a rock on account of the fact that both were equally dense. I wouldn't want any hard feelings between us because I'm saying that I know he's probably in some dead-end, burger-flipping job while I work for the President of the United States. I'm just taking this precaution of keeping his name anonymous on the off chance that I'm wrong with my predictions. But I'm not.

So, we began to fight - a real epic little battle. I'm talking Homer's Iliad and Odyssey kind of stuff. We rolled around some, and I think I gave him a nice blow to the jaw, which he followed up with forcefully kicking me in the stomach. He stood up while I was trying to regain any semblance of breathing and kicked the ground to coat me with a traditional layer of dirt. 'Traditional' of the first man standing in any fight. I pulled myself up and, though he looked just about as bad as I did, he still gave me the impression that he wanted to break several of my limbs, or shove my face in the mud, or stomp on the cookies I had made for the bake sale. But I never gave him the chance. I walked away before he got the opportunity to say anything. Sometimes I regret doing that - doing the sane thing. It's almost as if it was harder to grow up because I never had to come home and press a frozen slab of meat to my eye to decrease the swelling. Maybe that's where manhood comes from - pounds of frozen steak from your parents' freezer - and it enters your body through your eye.
That was a Friday, I remember, the day I disobeyed that instinctive, driving force that urges guys to fight for no real reason except for the sake of fighting. By Monday, I wanted to reclaim my ancestral edge and my nonexistent reputation. Ironically, and coincidentally, and unexpectedly, and unfortunately (or fortunately - which ever way you look at it), my adversary moved that weekend. I was his 'going-away' beating. Some honor. Now, this may not seem too traumatic of an event, but it was, as I said earlier, one of those defining points in my life. I wanted my meat.
In later years, the goons of my 'enemy' became 'friendly acquaintances' of mine. We really ended up having nothing against one another and so I gained a nice sense of security that you only get from 6-foot tall, 200 pound, football-playing slackers. Still, I never got to finish that fight. If the opportunity arises again, I probably won't seize it - I'm just not a fighter by nature. I'm the 'gatherer' part of 'hunter-gatherer'. I'm good at gathering things. You should see my collection of paper clips. On the other hand, if we meet again and he takes the opportunity to throw a punch then I will finish what was started. I've got the steaks in my freezer just in case.

I guess I should quit beating around the bush of school woes because I never really hated it. I'm a graduate of Harvard and Yale and a Fulbright scholar after all. You never go to schools like those if you hate learning and despise being taught. This next part might be kind of sad, a little bit, I think. It's about my sister's death. I'm telling you that right from the start in case you're the kind of person who cries at weddings or cries when you get an A on a term paper or cries when your carnival-prize goldfish dies or cries when you see the commercials that try to encourage you to sponsor a starving or homeless child. There is nothing wrong with you if you are one of these people but I want you to know that this will not be a happy section. If you get emotional very easily you might want to skip it or at least find some tissues or something. Ok, well, if you're still reading, I'll give you a little background on my sister.

Her name was Joan, but everyone called her Joanie. She was eight years older than me. She always kept her black hair shoulder-length and she always joked around and made people smile. When I was little, I wanted to be exactly like her. Well, except for the whole weird and complicated underwear part which kind of scared me sometimes (and it still kind of scares me, but I won't go into that). She was always a nice person even when her annoying younger brother kept bothering her and her friends. All she would do was smile and quietly find something else for him to do. She never yelled. She wasn't incapable of being angry, but even when she was, she never yelled. She did cry sometimes, too. She'd go in her room, lay down, and just cry - having thought of some injustice. She never cried to get her way with our parents or anything and often she wasn't crying about her own state of affairs but about those of others. I'd come in to her darkened room and walk over to her tall bed and ask, "Joanie? Up?" in my voice that was three octaves higher than Mickey Mouse's. She'd always relent and pick me up and set me down on her bed. And she'd cry and tell me that another one of her friend's boyfriends was being a real jerk but her friend wouldn't or couldn't leave him. Or she'd tell me that one of her guy friends had come to school drunk and she had ended up sitting on the floor of the mens' room listening to him get sick. When she cried, that was the only time you knew that she wasn't living as innocently as she pretended to be. She had seen a little bit of the real world and that was enough for her.
Joanie was always so smart and she would share that knowledge with me. Sometimes, just for fun, I'd sit with her while she was sprawled all over the floor doing her homework and I'd ask her about what she was working on. She'd explain it thoroughly though she knew it didn't make sense to me at the time. It was always fun though. I especially liked when she was working on science because I'd find the part of the book about reproduction (it's a skill that all children have). I'd ask her about it just to see her ears turn red.

Her life was always so interesting to me. I remember on Hanukkah we always opened gifts from oldest to youngest. My parents practically had to force me to open my present each night on account of the fact that I was always engrossed with what Joanie had gotten right before it was my turn. One year, on the last of the eight days, she got this necklace with three diamonds, two rubies, and two sapphires. She loved it and I could have sat there just watching her catch the light with it, making it shimmer and cast specks of light onto the walls. I would have sat there doing that very thing if my parents hadn't interfered. I got a bike that year - which was the next best thing to the pony which was the top of my list. It certainly beat the socks that I had gotten on the other seven days. I distinctly remember that when she finally put it on, the necklace gave her this glow. She wore it everyday since then and tried to make sure it was polished every week. That was her last Hanukkah.