Footprints

"What was that Miles Davis song..the one from Mo'Betta?"

My phone rang at 8:23am this morning and before I was really coherent I was being asked questions. I wasn't even really sure where I was yet, and could barely discern whether the noise was my alarm or if the phone was actually ringing.

"You know, the one that goes 'do-do-do-DOOO-do-DOO-do-do-do-do...," he said.

It was my best friend who, is not only a notoriously early riser, but also resides in another time zone. My eyes were still closed and here I was struggling to figure out what he was talking about.

"Um..um..um..um...Footprints! It's Footprints by Miles Davis. It's on the um...," I replied. My brain on autopilot. He may have just as arbitrarily have asked me to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or when my birthday was. "It's on the Miles Smiles album...track number 3," I continued, with the precision of Rain Man.

But he wasn't done. You know how it is when you give somebody an inch, they take a mile. Had I not answered, or appeared to be a little more coherent, perhaps I would've been excused from any further conversation and been allowed to go back to sleep. But I did, and with details. He must've thought that I had been up for hours, perhaps thumbing through my jazz collection like a card catalog as part of some daily ritual to be at the ready should anyone have any obscure jazz question to ask me. "What scene was that from in the movie?" he continued.

"Um...it was when Giant was at Shadow's apartment and...," I reported like some machine. You put a quarter in the slot on the back of my neck and then fire away. I've got all the answers.

"What about that other one you were talkin' 'bout the other night?"

"The other night...the other night...umm...um...TUNJI! That was Tunji by Coltrane"

"Cool. Cool....Go back to sleep." He was very aware that he had awakened me.

That's okay though. Best friends are on that very short list of people that are allowed to get away with such things from time to time. Had it been somebody further down this list or not on it at all, I would've been a little irritated, or probably just not have answered at all. I wasn't even that mad that there was a whole 12 minutes left before my alarm was set to go off. That would just allow me that much better of an opportunity to be on time to take my son to his basketball game. His team got blasted, but he did hit a nice little 8-foot bank shot after I convinced him to run to the open spot in the other team's zone defense. The next Jason Kidd was playing for the other team and was running circles around our guys, making steals, driving for lay-ups, and even feeding his teammates in stride on the fast break. It looked like the kid was playing at a completely different speed from the other kids. No, it didn't just LOOK like it...he WAS.

I made a chicken and rice dish (right off the Campbell's Soup lable) that turned out pretty good. The kids loved it. They even let me watch the hot college basketball match-up of the day (#2 Tennessee vs. #1 Memphis). They had previously been forcing me to endure the Good Times "Militant Michael Marathon" on TV One. Jimmy Walker is still a pretty funny cat, and Thelma is still kinda fine in those 1974 6-button jeans, but back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back episodes was a bit much. If I saw James flare his nostrils and fly into a range or Florida say "Damn! Damn! Damn!" one more time I was going to lose it.

All in all, it was a pretty good Saturday. I can't complain. All that's left for me is to get my church clothes ready and go to bed.