Adult Dean: Growing up, Mom and Dad gave me "The Police Talk" about how to handle yourself around cops. There was a presidential election that created a racial divide, and there was a flu pandemic that they said would kill a million people around the world. But it was 1968. And that's the state our country was in. Yeah, even the flu part. This was the year I turned 12, the age where you transfer from boy to man. Or as the old folks used to say, "When a boy starts smelling himself." The previous summer's race riots had caused the first wave of "white flight" to the suburbs. As a kid, I didn't understand all that. We had neighborhoods that were just as safe as the ones they were developing outside the city. There were teachers, veterans, shop owners, all united by pride, self-determination, and the right to spank any kid caught outside after the street lights came on.

Lillian: And then he told me they were your magazines, and this was supposed to be between the men.
Bill: Oh, so you did hear that part.
Adult Dean: I know I wasn't supposed to do it. I know they're dirty. [sighs] I tried to think about other things, but I couldn't get those pictures out of my head. Stupid sexy Harriet Tubman.

Adult Dean: In Alabama, what most people called "spring break" was called A.E.A. It had something to do with a week-long teachers conference, blah, blah, blah, blah. All we cared about was no school. Lots of my friends went on trips with their families to the mountains or the beach, but I was gonna spend my vacation in my happy place... On the couch, in front of the TV. I planned to eat cereal till my teeth fell out and watch cartoons till my eyeballs fell out. Basically, if something didn't fall out, I failed. [music stops]
Lillian: Get dressed, Dean.
Bill: And pack your suitcase.
Dean: W-What? It's my vacation. I've been looking forward to it for weeks.
Lillian: Change of plans. We're going to visit Grandpa and Grandma's farm.
Dean: We're going to the country?! Why?!
Adult Dean: Contrary to popular belief, there's a difference between growing up in "the South" and growing up in "the Country." I did the former. My mom and dad did the latter. This is how I grew up. [toilet flushes] And this was them. [picture of an outhouse] My groceries. [pack of chicken] Their groceries. [girl surrounded by chickens] My chores. [vacuum cleaner] Their chores. [Black people picking cotton] Okay, that last one may have been over a hundred years ago, but that's how old they seemed to me. My point... We were not the same.

[Mr. Brady is addressing the class while wearing a dashiki:]
Adult Dean: What in the Marcus Garvey...?
Mr. Brady: For the past few weeks, you've been studying The Odyssey, which is similar to the oral tradition of storytelling in many African cultures, like the Yoruba people of West Africa.
Adult Dean: He's going full Africa on Day 2?
Mr. Brady: Like the ancient Greeks, Africans passed down important history generation to generation through storytellers known as griots. These griots used different instruments, like these drums, to perform for and educate the village.
Adult Dean: Drums too? Oh, know your audience, man. This is a fiddle crowd.
[Mr. Brady starts drumming]
Brad: I'm a griot, too!
Adult Dean: I always wanted a Black teacher, but did he have to be so Black?

Adult Dean: I still hadn't figured out what Wendy's issue was with my sister. Kim was great at her job, but I figured it had something to do with Kim being from the original mother race and Wendy being jealous because her loins weren't the birthplace of civilization. I mean, that's what I got from those Black Panther pamphlets in Kim's room, anyway.

Adult Dean: I didn't understand a lot of what was going on, especially why when people get really upset about something bad, they resort to destroying their own things.
Man: [o.s.] Sick and tired of this!
Adult Dean: But something told me that my friends were probably just as confused as I was.
Man: [o.s.] Why do they keep doing this to us?!
Woman: [o.s.] Nothing but them ol' white folks.
[When Dean arrives at the old school, he finds Cory and Keisa kissing]
Adult Dean: Suddenly, the anger I was seeing on the news made a little more sense, especially because it felt like some things would never change.
[Dean throws a rock at a school window and then puts his glasses back on before riding his bicycle home]
Adult Dean: Everybody in my family plays that day over and over in their minds. But for different reasons. For each of us, it felt like the world around us had changed forever.
[Lillian lets Dean in when he arrives home. In the living room, Dean notices the baseball on the mantle, signed "Dean's game ball 4/4/68"]
Adult Dean: But thankfully, for each of us, the world on the inside hadn't.

Adult Dean: That's when it hit me. My dad was actually wrestling with the very concerns he thought I'd been wrestling with this whole time.
Bill: Okay. It's getting late.
Adult Dean: I wanted to tell him what was really bothering me because I knew it would put his mind at ease. But I was too embarrassed to confess my stupid, silly troubles to a grown man with real ones.
Dean: Oh!
Bill: Hey! [laughing] Hey! You got one. [laughs] All right, take it slow. Take it slow.
Adult Dean: And in that moment, my dad wasn't a Black man in Alabama in 1968 or a father worried about his kids.
Bill: Keep the rod up. There you go.
Adult Dean: He was just a man fishing. [Bill laughs] That's when I understood everything he didn't know how to say. I had a brilliant spark of inspiration that fueled me to write all night.

Dean: Mom? Dad? You guys home from work yet?
Adult Dean: In the '60s, you could count on Black men for all kinds of things. Being able to dress. Being able to fix a car. Unfortunately, you could also count on them to know exactly where to hide things. Instead of a will, my dad left us a map.
Dean: [holds "Adults Only" record by Redd Foxx] Getting warmer. [holds "200 M.P.H." record by Bill Crosby] Getting colder.
Adult Dean: Boy, was I wrong. I was determined to find his stash of magazines. Wow. All the drawings and homemade cards we'd given them over the years. Mr. Giggles? Wait. Mama told me he moved to a farm after I dropped him in the toilet that time. [sighs] The betrayal. Wow. So many memories. So many precious... Oh, boobs. Jackpot. I mean, sure, these were pretty tame by today's standards, but back then, nothing was hotter than Mahogany Love. Stay out of grown folks' business, Mr. Giggles.

Adult Dean: Ah, the science fair. One of the best days of the year, next to Christmas, my birthday, and Mama's short rib Sundays, of course.
Dean: Carrol, how's it going? Hey, Tom, good luck. You're gonna need it. Just kidding.
Bill: The boy ain't right.
Lillian: Oh, shush. So, you feeling confident?
Dean: A little.
Adult Dean: A little? Please. I was gonna win this thing hands down. I mean, look at the competition. A baking soda volcano? What are we, in 2nd grade? Oobleck? Wow. You mixed corn starch and water. Did you do that yourself? Heh. Why is Neptune bigger than Jupiter? Come on, Larry. Everyone knows it's seven times smaller. If I'm looking at the future of NASA, then the Russians have nothing to worry about.

Adult Dean: Being 12 in the '60s was the equivalent to being in your 20s today. We didn't have helicopter parents coddling us at all times like fragile teacups. That scar? [chuckles] Got it playing "Follow the Leader" through an abandoned construction site at recess. [gargling] That mouthwash? Uncut, would make you fail a Breathalyzer test.
Bill: [enters] Dean, I need you to ride your bike down to the store and pick me up a pack of smokes.
Adult Dean: I feel like I don't have to explain that one. Okay, so, my mom still laid out my outfits for me, but those polyester clothes, made from 100% petroleum? [scoffs] Kids used to burst into flames all the time.