As a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut. My mom, dad, brothers, and I used to go to the top of our apartment building on 143rd Street and look through a big telescope that my dad found at a pawnshop downtown. On a clear night, our family would take this telescope, our dinner, and a boom box up to the roof, and we would take turns looking at the stars and planets and moon while we listened to tapes by Smokey Robinson, Chaka Khan, Earth Wind & Fire, and John Coltrane and others. I used to love it so much, I never wanted to go back inside. I was so obsessed, my mom got me a book all about
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