NAMBLA
★★★★★ (1 out of 5)

Hello, and welcome to my week-by-week review of everything in the world. Today I am reviewing NAMBLA.

Ever since my wife died I’ve found myself with a lot of free time. I try to fill my days with a variety of activities, from watching TV to watching people walk past my house. In times of inclement weather I like to write letters to people I pick out of the phone book. If any of them respond, I save those letters (hoping they aren’t my original letter torn up and returned, which has happened a surprising number of times) for another day of inclement weather.

My nephew suggested I get out and meet some people, but that seemed selfish. I certainly wouldn’t like it if someone was interested in my friendship only to occupy their time. Waiting for a stranger to approach me seemed like a reasonable compromise, so I stood outside 7-11, smiling and wearing a name tag so as to appear more welcoming, but everyone who approached me just asked for a cigarette or money. No one cared to get to know me.

I considered joining a big brothers program – a situation where both parties would know the friendship was an artificial set-up based on an obligation. There would be no pretense. One of the men I met in front of 7-11 said he knew where I could meet some little kids. “Show me the way,” I said.

He took me to his friend’s garage where three other men looking to become big brothers had gathered. They called themselves NAMBLA. There was Lenny, a retired cop; Burt, a Best Buy employee; another man who refused to tell me his name and was wearing some of the smallest shorts I’ve ever seen; and of course Milton, my friend from 7-11 who also works there.

I wasn’t sure if these were my kind of guys. They seemed friendly enough, and very enthusiastic about the program, but several of them wore unidentifiable stains and/or had speech impediments. Milton was missing a finger.

We sat down in chairs and listened to the unnamed man talk about how much he loved the program and the boys it allowed him to meet. I began to feel he loved them more than he knew. Then he held up a picture of himself as a child and kissed it a little. I laughed, but I was the only one. I began to feel uncomfortable. This place was not at all what I had expected.

I’ll give them one star because they had free chips, but they lose the other four stars because when I realized what these guys were about I spit those chips out all over the place.

Please join me next week when I’ll be reviewing pinecones.

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