I want to talk about Mike Esposito, and what he means to me as I reflect on Christmases long past.
I want to talk about the days when I used to set up toy soldiers in my playroom. I used to be very meticulous about it.
I used to set up the pewter soldiers with the pewter soldiers. They were mostly generals you see, and they had to hold conferences away from the enlisted men who were plastic. That's how the army works.
The enlisted men were Made In China, and had to be sectioned off in divisions. They had to placed in straight lines if they were not in battle, or behind the proper barricades if they were in battle. These details made a difference.
The Civil War officers and generals had to confer with the leaders of the American Revolution in a section of the playroom apart from the British monarchy and royal guards placed inside the Playmobile castle. That's how international relations and the Prisoner Dilemma work. I took it seriously.
All of these matters were complicated further at Christmastime. All pewter soldiers and enlisted plastic ones had to set in orderly rows under the small Christmas tree designated for our pets that we set up in the playroom. Setting up soldiers in the middle of the floor for eleven months of the year took a few hours. Setting them up under the tree often took twice as long. You were working in tight quarters against the domino effect.
All of this fine and important work wasnruined by Michael Esposito on many an occasion.
I want to talk about how he knocked my soldiers down with paper blocks that were meant to be barricades left well alone.
I want to talk about how he didn't watch where he was stepping. If he lowered his foot on an unsuspecting plastic foot soldier outfitted for the Pacific theatre well... Why the f*** not, right?
I want to talk about how Mike Esposito thought everything in the playroom was just part of a large game that he could take part in whenever he pleased. Well, war is no game.
I want to talk about the day I remind Mike Esposito of all these memories by putting a foot into his teeth and burning his copy of Dave Barry's Big Trouble.
Merry Christmas.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Emily
Emily Ayer is a very patient, giving person.
She always makes enough peanut butter balls to go around. This means that no matter the occasion I usually get at least three. If I were around her more often I would probably gain too much weight.
The real test of her patience though was having Mike Esposito and I sit on opposite sides of her in World History. Mike and I could be obnoxious, to put it lightly.
And obnoxious we were. We could quote movies all day without an end to it in sight. We would distract everyone around us by dropping lines from Eric Clapton songs. It benefitted no one, and it thrilled us. It was obnoxious.
Still, there is nothing more obnoxious than picking someone up by the legs of their small, standard-issue metal school chair and holding them aloft. That's what we did to Emily, and it was obnoxious.
We did it as often as possible until one day Emily asked us to please just stop. She didn't swear when she asked. Emily never swore. This impressed me. I would have sworn everyday if I sat next to Mike and myself.
Mike and I were obnoxious at times, and Emily was not. She had been practicing poise and grace for a long time.
It is tragic that both types of people get to leave World History with the same letter grade.
She always makes enough peanut butter balls to go around. This means that no matter the occasion I usually get at least three. If I were around her more often I would probably gain too much weight.
The real test of her patience though was having Mike Esposito and I sit on opposite sides of her in World History. Mike and I could be obnoxious, to put it lightly.
And obnoxious we were. We could quote movies all day without an end to it in sight. We would distract everyone around us by dropping lines from Eric Clapton songs. It benefitted no one, and it thrilled us. It was obnoxious.
Still, there is nothing more obnoxious than picking someone up by the legs of their small, standard-issue metal school chair and holding them aloft. That's what we did to Emily, and it was obnoxious.
We did it as often as possible until one day Emily asked us to please just stop. She didn't swear when she asked. Emily never swore. This impressed me. I would have sworn everyday if I sat next to Mike and myself.
Mike and I were obnoxious at times, and Emily was not. She had been practicing poise and grace for a long time.
It is tragic that both types of people get to leave World History with the same letter grade.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Erin
Erin Kelly is a creative girl. A real "initiative-taker" as they say in the world of office euphemisms.
It's hard when many of your friends go away to college, and you are left behind in high school. Erin had plenty of friends her age, but how do you fill the time when so many faces you saw everyday were elsewhere?
Roofing. You go roofing.
To successfully "roof" one must jump onto some person's house and get both their feet on top of their roof. One earns points if they succeed. Friends track each other's points and see who has the most at the end of the summer.
When I first heard about this I thought at best it sounded like something Dick Van Dyke would have tried in Mary Poppins. I thought at worst it sounded like trespassing. If you have ever seen Mary Poppins you know that even the best case scenario presented above still pissed off a few characters in the movie regardless of how well Van Dyke could dance.
Erin would describe her roofing adventures to many on many drives to Buttonwoods ice cream shop that first summer I was back. She invited me to join. I was torn between wanting to try it myself and deep concern for her safety.
But Erin was a creative person. That's what happens to people who listened to Sgt. Pepper's as often as she did. They live on the highwire, and we were lucky to have them around.
It's hard when many of your friends go away to college, and you are left behind in high school. Erin had plenty of friends her age, but how do you fill the time when so many faces you saw everyday were elsewhere?
Roofing. You go roofing.
To successfully "roof" one must jump onto some person's house and get both their feet on top of their roof. One earns points if they succeed. Friends track each other's points and see who has the most at the end of the summer.
When I first heard about this I thought at best it sounded like something Dick Van Dyke would have tried in Mary Poppins. I thought at worst it sounded like trespassing. If you have ever seen Mary Poppins you know that even the best case scenario presented above still pissed off a few characters in the movie regardless of how well Van Dyke could dance.
Erin would describe her roofing adventures to many on many drives to Buttonwoods ice cream shop that first summer I was back. She invited me to join. I was torn between wanting to try it myself and deep concern for her safety.
But Erin was a creative person. That's what happens to people who listened to Sgt. Pepper's as often as she did. They live on the highwire, and we were lucky to have them around.
Jason
Jason had always been full of good ideas.
When we visited one another as kids we were never bored. If we were we must have found something to cure us of it quickly.
I remember going to Jason's house in kindergarten and first grade and letting our imaginations run wild. We built magnificent forts out of fallen trees in the woods in the backyard. We hosted a radio show while seated at the huge electronic keyboard he had in his living room.
One day we went on a hunt for diamonds in his backyard. We found them alright. The diamonds were scattered under a giant evergreen. We collected as many as we could and showed his mom who must have laid into us for picking up so much broken glass with our fingers. That's winning!
Among all these adventures the best part was if we needed an intermission we just jumped on the tire swing or played MathBlaster.
We came up with grand plans at my house, too. We piled cardboard boxes in my backyard convinced we could make a spaceship that would leave orbit. If only we had had some sort of propellant that day...
Yes, we had many brilliant ideas that spawned more just like them. So it was particularly disappointing for me to hear how Jason and Chris had spent a good part of a Saturday in high school.
They washed the road.
Chris and Jason got a few buckets together along with some sponges and soap. They began to wash the road in front of Jason's driveway.
You can call it silly to pick up pieces of glass and call it diamonds. You can say it is a waste of time to build a fort in the woods when there is only two of you and you are not attacking one another. You cannot deny though that those experiences allow the imagination to expand.
It is hard to imagine how spending precious time washing the asphalt that will always become dirty again can lead one to greater heights. It may very well inspire someone to wash their driveway just for kicks, but that is probably as far as it will go.
It was certainly a public service. They were like Boy Scouts without a chaperone.
Imagine if Steve Jobs had backtracked and re-invented the cassette player instead of the iPod.
Imagine if your best friend left your radio show at the keyboard to wash the road. Well, how would you feel?
When we visited one another as kids we were never bored. If we were we must have found something to cure us of it quickly.
I remember going to Jason's house in kindergarten and first grade and letting our imaginations run wild. We built magnificent forts out of fallen trees in the woods in the backyard. We hosted a radio show while seated at the huge electronic keyboard he had in his living room.
One day we went on a hunt for diamonds in his backyard. We found them alright. The diamonds were scattered under a giant evergreen. We collected as many as we could and showed his mom who must have laid into us for picking up so much broken glass with our fingers. That's winning!
Among all these adventures the best part was if we needed an intermission we just jumped on the tire swing or played MathBlaster.
We came up with grand plans at my house, too. We piled cardboard boxes in my backyard convinced we could make a spaceship that would leave orbit. If only we had had some sort of propellant that day...
Yes, we had many brilliant ideas that spawned more just like them. So it was particularly disappointing for me to hear how Jason and Chris had spent a good part of a Saturday in high school.
They washed the road.
Chris and Jason got a few buckets together along with some sponges and soap. They began to wash the road in front of Jason's driveway.
You can call it silly to pick up pieces of glass and call it diamonds. You can say it is a waste of time to build a fort in the woods when there is only two of you and you are not attacking one another. You cannot deny though that those experiences allow the imagination to expand.
It is hard to imagine how spending precious time washing the asphalt that will always become dirty again can lead one to greater heights. It may very well inspire someone to wash their driveway just for kicks, but that is probably as far as it will go.
It was certainly a public service. They were like Boy Scouts without a chaperone.
Imagine if Steve Jobs had backtracked and re-invented the cassette player instead of the iPod.
Imagine if your best friend left your radio show at the keyboard to wash the road. Well, how would you feel?
Chris
Chris Mazzone was the life of the party that night. That was typical. His date, however, was not.
His date was a girl from New London Chris was "seeing." They had been "seeing" one another for some time. The girl he brought over had shared some really important memories with him.
Memory No. 1: "National Treasure" starring Nicholas Cage, in theaters, ladies and gentlemen.
Memory No. 2: Chris bought her a very nice gift that Christmas. She, in turn, bought him a wrench. What made it great was it wasn't even a Craftsman specialty item or anything like that. It was not a gag gift either. It was a wrench, the kind that got people killed in a game of Clue.
Thus set the stage for what is now everyone's favorite Memory: The Big No. 3.
Chris brought the girl over for a game night at John's house. Chris brought the party with him. By that I mean he embodied the fun and the laughter we had all come to associate with our group's get-togethers.
His date did not. She seemed pretty ambivalent about the whole evening. She probably would not have chosen to come again had she been given a chance.
But Chris was feeling pretty good that evening. Chris was feeling so good he got pretty hungry. Chris got so hungry he decided to excuse himself to "go to the bathroom."
We were on one end of John's house in the "loft." The bathroom was down one floor and on the other end by the living room. The kitchen was in between, and gamers had to cross it twice.
That was all it took for Chris to decide tonight would be a good time to make himself at home. How does one make themselves at home? They make themselves a sandwich.
Chris returned to the loft with a sandwich. He had gone through the fridge and found the choice cold cuts and cheese he wanted. Perhaps he found a little mustard or mayo, too.
We know for a fact he found a paper plate somewhere where no one would look for it. John saw the "Happy Graduation" plate Chris presented his sandwich on and swore they had not been used in years.
How deep did Chris dig in someone else's kitchen? He must have looked in the highest cabinets located over the refrigerator where people of an average height could not have reached.
Chris was hungry. It's a good thing for him he was tall enough to get a very special plate and truly make himself at home.
His date was a girl from New London Chris was "seeing." They had been "seeing" one another for some time. The girl he brought over had shared some really important memories with him.
Memory No. 1: "National Treasure" starring Nicholas Cage, in theaters, ladies and gentlemen.
Memory No. 2: Chris bought her a very nice gift that Christmas. She, in turn, bought him a wrench. What made it great was it wasn't even a Craftsman specialty item or anything like that. It was not a gag gift either. It was a wrench, the kind that got people killed in a game of Clue.
Thus set the stage for what is now everyone's favorite Memory: The Big No. 3.
Chris brought the girl over for a game night at John's house. Chris brought the party with him. By that I mean he embodied the fun and the laughter we had all come to associate with our group's get-togethers.
His date did not. She seemed pretty ambivalent about the whole evening. She probably would not have chosen to come again had she been given a chance.
But Chris was feeling pretty good that evening. Chris was feeling so good he got pretty hungry. Chris got so hungry he decided to excuse himself to "go to the bathroom."
We were on one end of John's house in the "loft." The bathroom was down one floor and on the other end by the living room. The kitchen was in between, and gamers had to cross it twice.
That was all it took for Chris to decide tonight would be a good time to make himself at home. How does one make themselves at home? They make themselves a sandwich.
Chris returned to the loft with a sandwich. He had gone through the fridge and found the choice cold cuts and cheese he wanted. Perhaps he found a little mustard or mayo, too.
We know for a fact he found a paper plate somewhere where no one would look for it. John saw the "Happy Graduation" plate Chris presented his sandwich on and swore they had not been used in years.
How deep did Chris dig in someone else's kitchen? He must have looked in the highest cabinets located over the refrigerator where people of an average height could not have reached.
Chris was hungry. It's a good thing for him he was tall enough to get a very special plate and truly make himself at home.
Jackie
Jackie Phillips had always been such a careful person.
Jackie was the type of person you would entrust with something dear to you. Jackie had an air about her that meant you could hand over your valuables to her- be they objects or secrets- the same way you could hand over your hard-earned dollar to a local credit union.
You could not imagine her busting up your car. There were plenty of friends you would never allow behind your steering wheel just because they had a wild streak. You could imagine them doing doughnuts in a Wal-Mart parking lot before colliding head-on with a truck.
Jackie was not one of those people. Jackie drove a Hyundai Elantra and used it to play a game called "Speed Limit" for goodness' sake. The title of the game says enough. You try to see how long you can stay right on or just under the speed limit. There must be a very small number of New Englanders that can control themselves enough to tolerate that game for more than five minutes. Jackie is part of that very small club.
But kids fidget all the time, and Jackie was a closet-kid in many respects. Weren't we all?
That day Jackie pressed the button that locked Mr. Ewer's files she did it for no reason at all. Maybe it was just a way to pepper the conversation we were having in journalism class that day. I think she was just plain bored, and when people in our generation got bored they fidgeted.
Jackie fidgeted with someone else's belongings and all Mr. Ewer's could muster was a very confused and exasperated expression. "Why would you ever do that?" he asked.
It was a great question. Maybe it was a nervous tick Jackie developed playing a sort of bonus round in "Speed Limit" entitled "Child Safety Lock."
Jackie was the type of person you would entrust with something dear to you. Jackie had an air about her that meant you could hand over your valuables to her- be they objects or secrets- the same way you could hand over your hard-earned dollar to a local credit union.
You could not imagine her busting up your car. There were plenty of friends you would never allow behind your steering wheel just because they had a wild streak. You could imagine them doing doughnuts in a Wal-Mart parking lot before colliding head-on with a truck.
Jackie was not one of those people. Jackie drove a Hyundai Elantra and used it to play a game called "Speed Limit" for goodness' sake. The title of the game says enough. You try to see how long you can stay right on or just under the speed limit. There must be a very small number of New Englanders that can control themselves enough to tolerate that game for more than five minutes. Jackie is part of that very small club.
But kids fidget all the time, and Jackie was a closet-kid in many respects. Weren't we all?
That day Jackie pressed the button that locked Mr. Ewer's files she did it for no reason at all. Maybe it was just a way to pepper the conversation we were having in journalism class that day. I think she was just plain bored, and when people in our generation got bored they fidgeted.
Jackie fidgeted with someone else's belongings and all Mr. Ewer's could muster was a very confused and exasperated expression. "Why would you ever do that?" he asked.
It was a great question. Maybe it was a nervous tick Jackie developed playing a sort of bonus round in "Speed Limit" entitled "Child Safety Lock."
Jenny
The campus was lined with policeman. Thank goodness.
The University of Connecticut was surrounded by policemen wearing reflective neon yellow stripes. They were ready for chaos, and that's what the students on Spring Weekend provided them.
The campus was a disaster zone. Swarms of drunk people were coming out of the woods raising cain. The air was filled with swear words and clouds of pot. Broken bottles and beer cans carpeted the ground outside the senior housing complex.
Couches were being thrown out windows. Some were on fire. Some had been stolen.
Through it all Jenny Barnett was stoic as all hell. She could have cared less what the college crowd was up to. A college girl herself, Jenny had no time for bullshit.
Just earlier that day I had asked if I could do laundry in her building once I arrived for Spring Weekend. "Hell no," came the reply. No time for that. No time for bullshit.
I had never seen Jenny drink let alone be so nonchalant around those who did. Jenny was singing rap songs to herself as she led me by the hand through the crowd of outlandish partiers. She was simply commenting on how stupid everyone was being.
I had never known Jenny to drink (she could, in fact), and I never knew her to be so nonchalant about the extreme practices of her classmates. She led me by the hand from living room to living room, apartment to apartment like a guide dog: emotionless, unwavering, undeterred.
And then I lost Jenny for a time in the crowd. I caught up with her roommate all right, but I had no idea where she had run off too once we found ourselves outside one of the final stops of the night- some random person's kitchen.
Then I found her. Her pockets were weighed down by Bud Lights, and she held four more in her hands.
I had never known Jenny to steal.
It turns out she could in fact.
The University of Connecticut was surrounded by policemen wearing reflective neon yellow stripes. They were ready for chaos, and that's what the students on Spring Weekend provided them.
The campus was a disaster zone. Swarms of drunk people were coming out of the woods raising cain. The air was filled with swear words and clouds of pot. Broken bottles and beer cans carpeted the ground outside the senior housing complex.
Couches were being thrown out windows. Some were on fire. Some had been stolen.
Through it all Jenny Barnett was stoic as all hell. She could have cared less what the college crowd was up to. A college girl herself, Jenny had no time for bullshit.
Just earlier that day I had asked if I could do laundry in her building once I arrived for Spring Weekend. "Hell no," came the reply. No time for that. No time for bullshit.
I had never seen Jenny drink let alone be so nonchalant around those who did. Jenny was singing rap songs to herself as she led me by the hand through the crowd of outlandish partiers. She was simply commenting on how stupid everyone was being.
I had never known Jenny to drink (she could, in fact), and I never knew her to be so nonchalant about the extreme practices of her classmates. She led me by the hand from living room to living room, apartment to apartment like a guide dog: emotionless, unwavering, undeterred.
And then I lost Jenny for a time in the crowd. I caught up with her roommate all right, but I had no idea where she had run off too once we found ourselves outside one of the final stops of the night- some random person's kitchen.
Then I found her. Her pockets were weighed down by Bud Lights, and she held four more in her hands.
I had never known Jenny to steal.
It turns out she could in fact.
Eric
Eric and I toured Brown University, but knew we would not likely get in.
It was a cold day in Providence. It was raining so very hard. It was what people call "teeming."
It was cold, grey and miserably wet outside. However, Brown University is, of course, one of those campuses that still looks great on that day like that. It looks like the sort of place any high schooler would like to go to college.
I know I wanted to go there. It was in the heart of a hip section of Providence that seemed so rock-and-roll. The campus itself was filled with brick buildings so venerable and stoic. Who wouldn't want to go to college there?
Eric and I were lucky. Our parents brought us to Brown to get an experience. We were not pressured to attend an Ivy League school. We were invited to explore and make our own decisions.
I had toured Georgetown and George Washington. I had walked through Harvard Yard. I enjoyed every moment of these visits because I just admire what these places stood for without feeling an ounce of pressure to be among their alumni one day.
I think Eric felt the same way because we simply enjoyed the visit that early morning as the rain and wind relentlessly forced our huddled tour group to follow our guide under archways that shielded us.
It was under one such archway our guide, outfitted in a hooded blue raincoat, started to shout over the sound of the storm. He was telling us about life in the student dorms.
Then we heard it. We heard a scream. Eric and I looked over.
A girl was in a dead sprint out from under the archway into the pouring rain. She was screaming something so loud it must have woken up everyone in a nearby dorm room on campus sleeping off their hangovers.
"I DON'T WANT TO GO HERE!" she screamed.
Her parents took off in tow. The three continued on into the storm.
"It's a terror knowing what this world is about and watching some good friends scream, "Let me out!"/... This is ourselves... under pressure." -David Robert Jones and Farrok Bulsara.
It was a cold day in Providence. It was raining so very hard. It was what people call "teeming."
It was cold, grey and miserably wet outside. However, Brown University is, of course, one of those campuses that still looks great on that day like that. It looks like the sort of place any high schooler would like to go to college.
I know I wanted to go there. It was in the heart of a hip section of Providence that seemed so rock-and-roll. The campus itself was filled with brick buildings so venerable and stoic. Who wouldn't want to go to college there?
Eric and I were lucky. Our parents brought us to Brown to get an experience. We were not pressured to attend an Ivy League school. We were invited to explore and make our own decisions.
I had toured Georgetown and George Washington. I had walked through Harvard Yard. I enjoyed every moment of these visits because I just admire what these places stood for without feeling an ounce of pressure to be among their alumni one day.
I think Eric felt the same way because we simply enjoyed the visit that early morning as the rain and wind relentlessly forced our huddled tour group to follow our guide under archways that shielded us.
It was under one such archway our guide, outfitted in a hooded blue raincoat, started to shout over the sound of the storm. He was telling us about life in the student dorms.
Then we heard it. We heard a scream. Eric and I looked over.
A girl was in a dead sprint out from under the archway into the pouring rain. She was screaming something so loud it must have woken up everyone in a nearby dorm room on campus sleeping off their hangovers.
"I DON'T WANT TO GO HERE!" she screamed.
Her parents took off in tow. The three continued on into the storm.
"It's a terror knowing what this world is about and watching some good friends scream, "Let me out!"/... This is ourselves... under pressure." -David Robert Jones and Farrok Bulsara.
Jeremy
The scene would have made passing drivers very uneasy.
It was late at night, a warm and foggy summer night, and for any drivers coming through the back roads of Connecticut it would have disgusted them and pushed them to really step on the accelerator.
Jeremy and I stood at the top of Jenny's driveway, shadowy figures to those on the road. They would have only seen that we were two college-aged kids up to no good. We would look just like the sort of thing that women who walk throughout the neighborhood each morning with their dogs would talk about with their friends and cite as evidence that our generation was on the wrong track. Then they would continue complaining about the growing deer population.
Jeremy and I were waiting for Jenny to come out of her house so we could all begin one of our summer "hang-out" sessions somewhere else. But Jenny never came. She was at work or.... something....
But Jeremy and I did not know that ahead of time, and while we waited patiently Jeremy decided it was time to unzip his fly and take a pee break. My dog does the same thing when the wait is too long without having to fumble with a zipper.
So imagine how it looks to a passer-by when two young men stand outside someone's house with the car in idle and one of them is peeing. It is like a scene out of The Goonies, or Say Anything, or- to stretch it- even The Sopranos.
The only other people I know who urinate on someone's property in plain sight have been out on the town for hours and didn't go to class in college all that often.
It's funny. Jeremy doesn't even drink.
It was late at night, a warm and foggy summer night, and for any drivers coming through the back roads of Connecticut it would have disgusted them and pushed them to really step on the accelerator.
Jeremy and I stood at the top of Jenny's driveway, shadowy figures to those on the road. They would have only seen that we were two college-aged kids up to no good. We would look just like the sort of thing that women who walk throughout the neighborhood each morning with their dogs would talk about with their friends and cite as evidence that our generation was on the wrong track. Then they would continue complaining about the growing deer population.
Jeremy and I were waiting for Jenny to come out of her house so we could all begin one of our summer "hang-out" sessions somewhere else. But Jenny never came. She was at work or.... something....
But Jeremy and I did not know that ahead of time, and while we waited patiently Jeremy decided it was time to unzip his fly and take a pee break. My dog does the same thing when the wait is too long without having to fumble with a zipper.
So imagine how it looks to a passer-by when two young men stand outside someone's house with the car in idle and one of them is peeing. It is like a scene out of The Goonies, or Say Anything, or- to stretch it- even The Sopranos.
The only other people I know who urinate on someone's property in plain sight have been out on the town for hours and didn't go to class in college all that often.
It's funny. Jeremy doesn't even drink.
John
John Thomas was a devoted follower before many of us.
John was a devoted follower of Limp Bizkit. He was a rap-metal acolyte, and everyone in our circles in middle school knew it.
John would scrawl the lyrics to Limp Bizkit songs like "Nookie" and "Re-Arranged" into our school desks with his pen. He even did it to the desks in the classrooms of teachers we liked.
He would take teachers' chalk and draws his fish-in-the-sand on the blackboards of our eighth-grade Spanish classroom. It was the three-trunked tree familiar to all fans like him. It represented all that Limp Bizkit stood for: big, puffy jackets; backwards baseball caps; sexually-explicit lyrics.
John would run to the DJ's table at middle school dances and furiously scrawl the name of as many Limp Bizkit songs as he thought he would realistically get played over the speakers, songs like "Faith" and "Break Stuff."
"It's just one of those days when you don't wanna wake up/ Everything is f***ed up/ Everybody sucks."
This was heavy-handed stuff for thirteen year-olds. It was rock 'n roll rebellion. After all, who could forget the mud-covered, shirtless crowds of devotees at Woodstock '99 where Limp Bizkit reigned a supreme live act. John would have been one of them. He would have moshed with the best of them. But since he could not be at Woodstock '99, John just moshed with the best of our classmates on the floor of the middle school cafetorium.
Factoid: "Cafeteria" + "Auditorium" = "Cafetorium."
And what was the price of John's discipleship? This is how it was relayed to me.
John and two of our mutual friends went into the woods. John picked up a log to recreate the scene from the music video of one of his favorite Limp Bizkit songs "My Way."
John proved he belonged in the video. He acted just like the star. He swung a log up and down like a caveman.
And then John hit himself square in the forehead with what must have been a piece of wood that weighed something in the double digits. And John almost fell backward.
That's the spirit of rap metal, and it's a tough way to grow up.
John was a devoted follower of Limp Bizkit. He was a rap-metal acolyte, and everyone in our circles in middle school knew it.
John would scrawl the lyrics to Limp Bizkit songs like "Nookie" and "Re-Arranged" into our school desks with his pen. He even did it to the desks in the classrooms of teachers we liked.
He would take teachers' chalk and draws his fish-in-the-sand on the blackboards of our eighth-grade Spanish classroom. It was the three-trunked tree familiar to all fans like him. It represented all that Limp Bizkit stood for: big, puffy jackets; backwards baseball caps; sexually-explicit lyrics.
John would run to the DJ's table at middle school dances and furiously scrawl the name of as many Limp Bizkit songs as he thought he would realistically get played over the speakers, songs like "Faith" and "Break Stuff."
"It's just one of those days when you don't wanna wake up/ Everything is f***ed up/ Everybody sucks."
This was heavy-handed stuff for thirteen year-olds. It was rock 'n roll rebellion. After all, who could forget the mud-covered, shirtless crowds of devotees at Woodstock '99 where Limp Bizkit reigned a supreme live act. John would have been one of them. He would have moshed with the best of them. But since he could not be at Woodstock '99, John just moshed with the best of our classmates on the floor of the middle school cafetorium.
Factoid: "Cafeteria" + "Auditorium" = "Cafetorium."
And what was the price of John's discipleship? This is how it was relayed to me.
John and two of our mutual friends went into the woods. John picked up a log to recreate the scene from the music video of one of his favorite Limp Bizkit songs "My Way."
John proved he belonged in the video. He acted just like the star. He swung a log up and down like a caveman.
And then John hit himself square in the forehead with what must have been a piece of wood that weighed something in the double digits. And John almost fell backward.
That's the spirit of rap metal, and it's a tough way to grow up.
Shea
We stood around ready to say goodbye.
We were ready to say goodbye to Shea Quinn. The next time we would see him he would be Cadet Quinn, a swabbie deep into his first summer at the Coast Guard Academy.
We were outside on Eric Wester's lawn one evening in late June. We had just graduated. We still felt like high school seniors, and this was a very difficult moment for us.
Shea would be the first to leave, the first to enter the new phase of his life many of us were anticipating that summer. He would go on to the Academy, and we would not see as much of him as we were used to.
For the previous six years Shea was a constant presence in my life and many others. We would greet each other each day throughout middle school with a fist bump shouting each others' last names to see how loud and obnoxious we could make them sound in the hallways lined with lockers. We began this in cross-country and it continued through band class and well into high school.
We had sat side-by-side in English classes we worked hard to get good grades in. We sat in line with one another in a Spanish class we were likely to get very bad grades in (Que malo!). We had continued shouting matches on tennis courts to see how many f-bombs we could drop after hitting bad shots.
And now Shea was driving away from this gathering in his green Honda Accord. We had all gotten together to "hang" one last time before Shea headed off to the "swabbie summer" he would later talk about as a grim experience. Case in point: upon his first day he was given a haircut that he said made his Irish mug look like it belonged to a Serbian terrorist.
Katie was the first to wear her heart on her sleeve. She hugged Shea goodbye and started crying.
And then Shea made his way to the Honda which was parked right in front of my 1991 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo. Navy blue with a thin red stripe running the length of the exterior, Shea had always called it my "Batmobile." It had more dials and controls inside it than most American automobiles of the early 1990s, yet it still looked like a relic of the late 1970s or a model of some vehicle designed for the Soviet military.
Everyone, Shea included, commented on my poor driving habits. Everyone loved the stories of the mailboxes I had knocked down or the one-way entrances I took straight on in the wrong direction.
So it seemed fitting that my Toronado would be parked behind Shea's Honda in tribute to his departure.
As we waved goodbye and Shea got into the driver's seat of the Honda, he channeled Will Ferrell with one final signature shouting of "GOULET!" before slamming the sedan into reverse. Que increible!
He yelled just before slamming the sedan straight into the bumper of my Oldsmobile. The only thing more unbelievable than the incredible noise created upon impact was the fact that it did not dent the Batmobile at all. Not a scratch. The tank was intact.
That's how an Irishman left the party that day- with a bang.
We were ready to say goodbye to Shea Quinn. The next time we would see him he would be Cadet Quinn, a swabbie deep into his first summer at the Coast Guard Academy.
We were outside on Eric Wester's lawn one evening in late June. We had just graduated. We still felt like high school seniors, and this was a very difficult moment for us.
Shea would be the first to leave, the first to enter the new phase of his life many of us were anticipating that summer. He would go on to the Academy, and we would not see as much of him as we were used to.
For the previous six years Shea was a constant presence in my life and many others. We would greet each other each day throughout middle school with a fist bump shouting each others' last names to see how loud and obnoxious we could make them sound in the hallways lined with lockers. We began this in cross-country and it continued through band class and well into high school.
We had sat side-by-side in English classes we worked hard to get good grades in. We sat in line with one another in a Spanish class we were likely to get very bad grades in (Que malo!). We had continued shouting matches on tennis courts to see how many f-bombs we could drop after hitting bad shots.
And now Shea was driving away from this gathering in his green Honda Accord. We had all gotten together to "hang" one last time before Shea headed off to the "swabbie summer" he would later talk about as a grim experience. Case in point: upon his first day he was given a haircut that he said made his Irish mug look like it belonged to a Serbian terrorist.
Katie was the first to wear her heart on her sleeve. She hugged Shea goodbye and started crying.
And then Shea made his way to the Honda which was parked right in front of my 1991 Oldsmobile Toronado Trofeo. Navy blue with a thin red stripe running the length of the exterior, Shea had always called it my "Batmobile." It had more dials and controls inside it than most American automobiles of the early 1990s, yet it still looked like a relic of the late 1970s or a model of some vehicle designed for the Soviet military.
Everyone, Shea included, commented on my poor driving habits. Everyone loved the stories of the mailboxes I had knocked down or the one-way entrances I took straight on in the wrong direction.
So it seemed fitting that my Toronado would be parked behind Shea's Honda in tribute to his departure.
As we waved goodbye and Shea got into the driver's seat of the Honda, he channeled Will Ferrell with one final signature shouting of "GOULET!" before slamming the sedan into reverse. Que increible!
He yelled just before slamming the sedan straight into the bumper of my Oldsmobile. The only thing more unbelievable than the incredible noise created upon impact was the fact that it did not dent the Batmobile at all. Not a scratch. The tank was intact.
That's how an Irishman left the party that day- with a bang.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Jackie
Jackie Phillips was at once the most-deserving and least-deserving person to be honored that day.
Jackie Phillips was singled out in front of fifty other people for a reason. She was a role model for everyone else in the room. Like an enlisted soldier promoted from sergeant to lieutenant in front of his unit, Jackie became the model student everyone else present should have aspired to be.
And yet the irony of it all reflected in Jackie's expression. Jackie's expression seemed to ask, "What, are you kidding me? Can I just leave or something... ?"
Jackie would revisit this moment with me and all our friends many times over the next few years.
"Remember that day in chorus?" she would begin. "Remember how Mr. Hammond stopped everything and said people should pay attention as closely as I did even though I could not sing well? Remember how he suggested that the good behavior I displayed got people like me who could not sing into chorus?"
To be fair Jackie was the one who said she could not sing, and she wore her reservations about concert choir on her sleeve. But this was also the Jackie Phillips who did not believe she deserved to be crowned the junior prom queen the year before. Tiaras were pretty stupid, she insisted.
This was the same Jackie Phillips who referred to herself as a "closet fat kid" because she ate all the time. While her appetite was impressive for a girl her size anyone could nevertheless lift her as easily as they could lift an American Girl doll.
So perhaps only Jackie believed she was not deserving of the public recognition she received in chorus class that day. Perhaps only Jackie Phillips was convinced she could not sing. Perhaps she did not deserve to be called The Only Earnest Student In Concert Choir. Perhaps she should just have been called The Biggest Square In Concert Choir.
It makes sense to me. Any senior who did their homework in study hall was a square in my book, and that's exactly what Jackie Phillips did.
I mean, who does their homework in study hall?
Jackie Phillips was singled out in front of fifty other people for a reason. She was a role model for everyone else in the room. Like an enlisted soldier promoted from sergeant to lieutenant in front of his unit, Jackie became the model student everyone else present should have aspired to be.
And yet the irony of it all reflected in Jackie's expression. Jackie's expression seemed to ask, "What, are you kidding me? Can I just leave or something... ?"
Jackie would revisit this moment with me and all our friends many times over the next few years.
"Remember that day in chorus?" she would begin. "Remember how Mr. Hammond stopped everything and said people should pay attention as closely as I did even though I could not sing well? Remember how he suggested that the good behavior I displayed got people like me who could not sing into chorus?"
To be fair Jackie was the one who said she could not sing, and she wore her reservations about concert choir on her sleeve. But this was also the Jackie Phillips who did not believe she deserved to be crowned the junior prom queen the year before. Tiaras were pretty stupid, she insisted.
This was the same Jackie Phillips who referred to herself as a "closet fat kid" because she ate all the time. While her appetite was impressive for a girl her size anyone could nevertheless lift her as easily as they could lift an American Girl doll.
So perhaps only Jackie believed she was not deserving of the public recognition she received in chorus class that day. Perhaps only Jackie Phillips was convinced she could not sing. Perhaps she did not deserve to be called The Only Earnest Student In Concert Choir. Perhaps she should just have been called The Biggest Square In Concert Choir.
It makes sense to me. Any senior who did their homework in study hall was a square in my book, and that's exactly what Jackie Phillips did.
I mean, who does their homework in study hall?
Chris
Chris Mazzone was taller than I was, and he should not have attempted it.
Chris Mazzone towered over me. He was over six feet tall. Surely that was problematic given what we were trying to do.
Surely Chris understood that we were warning him against it, against trying what we had almost seriously injured ourselves doing. It was all in the name of fun and adventurous thrills, and Chris should not have tried it.
But now Jason, John and myself were sitting in the woods were we had landed, each of us alone but aware that others who had tried it were nearby. It was midnight and the barren trees were black against the snow lit by the floodlights in the backyard. We sat and waited for the sound of Chris Mazzone hitting one of the two things you always find in woods like these: a stone wall or a tree trunk.
People talk of miracles at Christmas, and Jason, John and I had just been handed three at once. It was a miracle that Jason and John had not broken their arms or hit their heads. It was a miracle I had not broken both my legs or sent tiny fragments of bone deep into my ligaments when both my feet collided with a tree trunk jutting out from behind a boulder.
I had merely done just what Jason and John had done before me. I followed their lead, and why wouldn't I? Jason and John had as much common sense as anyone I had ever met. I would trust them in the outdoors any day.
Their sense of deliberation and knack for well-esecuted plans had always been inspiring. If I saw them attempt to steal a grizzly bear's cubs I would probably consider jumping right in on the action.
They were also two of the most spiritual people I had ever met. If they asked a crowd of people to join them in drinking the Kool Aid I would just assume it was a substitute for the wine received at communion.
So I drank the Kool Aid. They tried to offer me some sound advice from the spots where they crashed. They had told me not to try it. "Spit the Kool Aid out, Dan," they pleaded.
Shortly thereafter my two feet met the hard trunk of a tree jutting out of a boulder soles first, and I became the third recipient of a miracle that night.
Surely Chris would not do the same.
Surely Chris would see that his tall frame would be even more difficult to maneuver on that icy slope. Surely Chris could picture himself being carried down the slippery sheet of ice like a white birch tree pulled down a cascading waterfall.
Maybe his height didn't endanger him at all. I don't know; I know little about physics. I was just about convinced he stood greater chances of busting his long limbs in a place like that.
Anyway, what group of people receives four miracles in one night? Talk about a crapshoot.
And yet there he was beside us in the snow, limbs intact after he had slid feet first down that hill. He had rode that layer of frozen rain covering the ground like it was a bobsled track, and he was alright. He was miracle number four.
So after we had all spent a moment taking in just how dangerous our cheap thrills had been, after our palpitating heartbeats slowed and disbelief sent us into a mental stupor, we walked back up and out of the woods into Shea Quinn's backyard. We walked up the steps of his back deck and entered his kitchen. Shea was inside doing just what he often did around midnight whenever he was home on leave- he was drinking black coffee and cooking.
The four of us that were lucky to be standing on two feet were about to do what any group of people who received multiple miracles deserved to do- eat a pancake breakfast before 1 a.m.
"You guys are fucking idiots," said Jeremy Slonski.
Chris and I looked at one another and smirked. Jeremy must have been more surprised at Jason and John, the two people with a lot of common sense between them.
Chris and I were not surprised at what we had done. We were used to doing stupid things.
Jason
It was almost midnight by the time we piled into the station wagon in the crowded parking lot. There were six of us total, five teenages and one adult. We all smelled like the crowd we had just left. We smelled like the marijuana cloud that the concertgoers had created and imbued into our clothing though none of us smoked pot ourselves.
By the time us kids had dragged ourselves into the old station wagon we reeked from three hours spent standing on the lawn of the ampitheatre with our heads involuntarily caught in a pot cloud and our feet in beer-soaked turf. Dave Matthews and his band had been off stage for half an hour by the time we all piled into the car. A good full hour of sitting idle in traffic awaited us.
What else to do besides put in yet another of the six or seven Dave Matthews Band albums we had brought on our drive? Shea Quinn and Tim Atherton had already fallen asleep in the very back of the car. In the front and middle sections of the car sat three wide-eyed and wide awake concert-lovers looking to stretch the night out just a little more.
We put the album in and began to sing along. We hoped this would ease our disappointment having not heard some of our favorite track played live that night in Hartford. It did for awhile.
It did until the two boys in the middle seats- one a nervous-by-nature tenth grader named Dan and the other a tall, gangly dude of the same age named Chris- decided that singing along to the songs playing on the sound system was just too boring for this time of night. Why not speak the lyrics instead? Wouldn't that be fun for everyone?
It did get a big chuckle out of Jason, the son of the man driving the car and chaperoning this event. Jason looked back from the passenger seat at his two friends as they happily chanted the lyrics to every song in a truly awful monotone. Oh, this is fun, they thought as they reveled in their ridiculous idea. They were all too happy to entertain anyone they ever encountered with half-brained ideas just like this one.
Yes, Dan and Chris were certainly thoroughly enjoying themselves and both were silently thinking , Wow, I am such a funny guy!
And the driver? He was the family man forced to sit in a car full of hyperactive high-schoolers that reeked of smoke, sweat and all the grime shared by a thousand people standing too close to one another. There were the smells, the traffic, the fact that it was a late night turning into a long morning. On top of all that two moronic high schoolers were sitting directly behind him in the station wagon speaking the words to some of his favorite Dave Matthews songs. It must have been a toxic cocktail. A migraine ensued.
The driver speaks with his son in the passenger seat and politely suggests that the two guests in the middle CUT IT OUT. Why not just listen to the songs instead of reciting the lyrics as if it were the Pledge Of Allegiance?
Chris and Dan shut up, the traffic subsided, and the crew could finally head home. Few words were exchanged until someone suggested they all stop at Dunkin Donuts once they rolled back into town. Iced Vanilla Bean lattes all around, everyone!
Jason and his father very generously rewarded two obnoxious people in the drive-thru at three in the morning. There is nothing qute like the lingering aromas of a concert mixed with vanilla flavoring.
By the time us kids had dragged ourselves into the old station wagon we reeked from three hours spent standing on the lawn of the ampitheatre with our heads involuntarily caught in a pot cloud and our feet in beer-soaked turf. Dave Matthews and his band had been off stage for half an hour by the time we all piled into the car. A good full hour of sitting idle in traffic awaited us.
What else to do besides put in yet another of the six or seven Dave Matthews Band albums we had brought on our drive? Shea Quinn and Tim Atherton had already fallen asleep in the very back of the car. In the front and middle sections of the car sat three wide-eyed and wide awake concert-lovers looking to stretch the night out just a little more.
We put the album in and began to sing along. We hoped this would ease our disappointment having not heard some of our favorite track played live that night in Hartford. It did for awhile.
It did until the two boys in the middle seats- one a nervous-by-nature tenth grader named Dan and the other a tall, gangly dude of the same age named Chris- decided that singing along to the songs playing on the sound system was just too boring for this time of night. Why not speak the lyrics instead? Wouldn't that be fun for everyone?
It did get a big chuckle out of Jason, the son of the man driving the car and chaperoning this event. Jason looked back from the passenger seat at his two friends as they happily chanted the lyrics to every song in a truly awful monotone. Oh, this is fun, they thought as they reveled in their ridiculous idea. They were all too happy to entertain anyone they ever encountered with half-brained ideas just like this one.
Yes, Dan and Chris were certainly thoroughly enjoying themselves and both were silently thinking , Wow, I am such a funny guy!
And the driver? He was the family man forced to sit in a car full of hyperactive high-schoolers that reeked of smoke, sweat and all the grime shared by a thousand people standing too close to one another. There were the smells, the traffic, the fact that it was a late night turning into a long morning. On top of all that two moronic high schoolers were sitting directly behind him in the station wagon speaking the words to some of his favorite Dave Matthews songs. It must have been a toxic cocktail. A migraine ensued.
The driver speaks with his son in the passenger seat and politely suggests that the two guests in the middle CUT IT OUT. Why not just listen to the songs instead of reciting the lyrics as if it were the Pledge Of Allegiance?
Chris and Dan shut up, the traffic subsided, and the crew could finally head home. Few words were exchanged until someone suggested they all stop at Dunkin Donuts once they rolled back into town. Iced Vanilla Bean lattes all around, everyone!
Jason and his father very generously rewarded two obnoxious people in the drive-thru at three in the morning. There is nothing qute like the lingering aromas of a concert mixed with vanilla flavoring.
Shea
I sat in the fluffly bed of snow uncomfortablly resting my back on the slope, my skis and legs in a pretzel-like knot beneath my torso. My muscles hurt; my ankles felt strained against my ski boots.
I was laughing hard and deep when I stood up though there was no one close enough to hear me. The others had continued on skiing down hill into the wooded base below.
It was absolute madness to be skiing in the woods like this. How could you not follow Shea Quinn though? He knew what he was doing. He could navigate the glades on any ski resort. Shea approached every ski trail with confidence. It didn't matter if the trail was marked or not. Shea hatched crazy plans on ski slopes, and just watching him cut sharply around stumps and logs in a thickly-wooded glade made anyone following want to jump right into it.
The wind was cold and biting. The snow was deep, and it weighed my skis down as I tried to pull myself together. I was still laughing hysterically when I saw Shea.
He came barreling down the slope toward the middle of the forest. He was turning as handily as he could at that speed. I remember hearing him yell "Oooooh!" as he went straight through that dead tree and split it in half. The top of the trunk flipped over his back as he made impact.
Shea crashed in the snow a few feet away. A broken tree trunk stood two feet above the snow up slope. I looked at Shea, and we both erupted into one of the deepest fits of laughter I have ever known.
I was laughing hard and deep when I stood up though there was no one close enough to hear me. The others had continued on skiing down hill into the wooded base below.
It was absolute madness to be skiing in the woods like this. How could you not follow Shea Quinn though? He knew what he was doing. He could navigate the glades on any ski resort. Shea approached every ski trail with confidence. It didn't matter if the trail was marked or not. Shea hatched crazy plans on ski slopes, and just watching him cut sharply around stumps and logs in a thickly-wooded glade made anyone following want to jump right into it.
The wind was cold and biting. The snow was deep, and it weighed my skis down as I tried to pull myself together. I was still laughing hysterically when I saw Shea.
He came barreling down the slope toward the middle of the forest. He was turning as handily as he could at that speed. I remember hearing him yell "Oooooh!" as he went straight through that dead tree and split it in half. The top of the trunk flipped over his back as he made impact.
Shea crashed in the snow a few feet away. A broken tree trunk stood two feet above the snow up slope. I looked at Shea, and we both erupted into one of the deepest fits of laughter I have ever known.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Erin
Erin would always let me drive us to the ice cream stand.
It was a summer staple- Buttonwoods homemade ice cream. It is thick, it is fattening, it is delicious, and it comes in oh-so-many varieties.
Erin and I would set aside entire summer afternoons to drive a half hour away down Connecticut's backroads just to devour some filling variety in a waffle cone. And we would only listen to the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's." Those were the two highlights of that brief stint home away from school: ice cream and The Greatest Rock N' Roll Album Ever (According To Most).
"What would you think if I sang out a tune/ Would you stand up and walk out on me?"
Ledyard to Preston and back again, weekend after weekend. Ice cream became a fourth meal for me at least once a week.
"Lend me your ears, and I'll sing you a song..."
And Erin would always let me drive despite my poor performance with my brand new Hyundai that summer. I had a manual for the first time ever, and I sucked with it. I would have that sedan inching along like a tractor running on little diesel. It lurched and it stuttered. I often stalled out in the middle of intersections.
Does it really matter though when you have music?
"Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies...."
One day Erin asked to drive my standard home. We had four blocks to go before we were at her house. Sure, why not, Erin? Go right ahead. You're a responsible person. By all means, take the wheel.
There were four blocks to go. They were many twists and turns, but there is always the subliminal joy of The Beatles' greatest album to calm all who pay attention to the Fab Four's simple message of love.
And then the car started to lurch. The car inched forward. The car came to a startling halt. The car accelerated again. The car lurched to a halt. And so on for four blocks.
"Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/ We hope you have enjoyed the show..."
Lurching, halting. Starting, stopping. It was like riding an ornery thoroughbred, and yes, I do know what that feels like.
"I'm fixin' a hole where the rain gets in/ It stops my mind from wanderin' where it will go..."
We made it up Erin's sloping driveway, and I realized I had just experienced what every other passenger in my car had to deal with on occassion.
Public Service Announcement: Always wait one half hour after eating dessert before you jump into a 2004 Hyundai Elantra with Dan and Erin.
It was a summer staple- Buttonwoods homemade ice cream. It is thick, it is fattening, it is delicious, and it comes in oh-so-many varieties.
Erin and I would set aside entire summer afternoons to drive a half hour away down Connecticut's backroads just to devour some filling variety in a waffle cone. And we would only listen to the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's." Those were the two highlights of that brief stint home away from school: ice cream and The Greatest Rock N' Roll Album Ever (According To Most).
"What would you think if I sang out a tune/ Would you stand up and walk out on me?"
Ledyard to Preston and back again, weekend after weekend. Ice cream became a fourth meal for me at least once a week.
"Lend me your ears, and I'll sing you a song..."
And Erin would always let me drive despite my poor performance with my brand new Hyundai that summer. I had a manual for the first time ever, and I sucked with it. I would have that sedan inching along like a tractor running on little diesel. It lurched and it stuttered. I often stalled out in the middle of intersections.
Does it really matter though when you have music?
"Picture yourself in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies...."
One day Erin asked to drive my standard home. We had four blocks to go before we were at her house. Sure, why not, Erin? Go right ahead. You're a responsible person. By all means, take the wheel.
There were four blocks to go. They were many twists and turns, but there is always the subliminal joy of The Beatles' greatest album to calm all who pay attention to the Fab Four's simple message of love.
And then the car started to lurch. The car inched forward. The car came to a startling halt. The car accelerated again. The car lurched to a halt. And so on for four blocks.
"Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/ We hope you have enjoyed the show..."
Lurching, halting. Starting, stopping. It was like riding an ornery thoroughbred, and yes, I do know what that feels like.
"I'm fixin' a hole where the rain gets in/ It stops my mind from wanderin' where it will go..."
We made it up Erin's sloping driveway, and I realized I had just experienced what every other passenger in my car had to deal with on occassion.
Public Service Announcement: Always wait one half hour after eating dessert before you jump into a 2004 Hyundai Elantra with Dan and Erin.
Jeremy
Jeremy had a special bond with our boss, and at times it seemed he wasn't Jeremy's boss at all. It seemed like Jeremy could do whatever he wanted at the tiny tourist eatery in Connecticut that gave us our mininum wage.
Granted our boss was downright ridiculous. He "managed" a restaurant during the day and studied to be a doctor at night. He had all that medical training and still insisted that homosexuality was in fact a third gender. He insisted the bread we used for sandwiches and hot dogs was never stale, that it should be sold no matter what. It never mattered that we could slam our fist into it without making a dent.
One morning two customers were seated at a table anxiously awaiting an enormous breakfast they had ordered complete with buttermilk pancakes and scrambled eggs. Our coworker opened the spout to the maple syrup dispenser and ants crawled out on to the hungry couple's plates.
We asked our boss how this could happen. He said there was nothing that could be done. Nature was to blame. Ants would come out of the syrup dispenser just as surely as bees would continue to make honey.
Jeremy reveled in all of this. He could egg his boss on and call him wildly inappropriate names. He could make his own hours. He could make my hours. He was my manager before any of us had job titles more descriptive than "short order cook."
Jeremy could say and do whatever he wanted. Say for instance I dropped a Snapple bottle on the ground, and it spilled iced tea everywhere. Our boss would question my sexual orientation. After all if I could not hold on to a glass bottle how did I expect to hold on to a girl?
Had Jeremy dropped a bottle he could probably have just asked our boss to clean it up for him, and then I would have to do it.
While Jeremy could make his own hours I had mine cut until the boss had me working only four a week. He didn't like firing people outright, so this was an easier way to get me to quit.
So Jeremy and I carried all these memories to college. And so we made a very special phone call around Christmastime during our freshman year. We prank-called our former boss from our dining hall even though I hadn't worked for him in nearly two years. We asked that a special order of oatmeal be delivered two hours north to my dorm room in Boston "PRONTO!"
Had it arrived it probably would have had ants in it. It's only natural after all. That's a doctor's professional opinion.
Granted our boss was downright ridiculous. He "managed" a restaurant during the day and studied to be a doctor at night. He had all that medical training and still insisted that homosexuality was in fact a third gender. He insisted the bread we used for sandwiches and hot dogs was never stale, that it should be sold no matter what. It never mattered that we could slam our fist into it without making a dent.
One morning two customers were seated at a table anxiously awaiting an enormous breakfast they had ordered complete with buttermilk pancakes and scrambled eggs. Our coworker opened the spout to the maple syrup dispenser and ants crawled out on to the hungry couple's plates.
We asked our boss how this could happen. He said there was nothing that could be done. Nature was to blame. Ants would come out of the syrup dispenser just as surely as bees would continue to make honey.
Jeremy reveled in all of this. He could egg his boss on and call him wildly inappropriate names. He could make his own hours. He could make my hours. He was my manager before any of us had job titles more descriptive than "short order cook."
Jeremy could say and do whatever he wanted. Say for instance I dropped a Snapple bottle on the ground, and it spilled iced tea everywhere. Our boss would question my sexual orientation. After all if I could not hold on to a glass bottle how did I expect to hold on to a girl?
Had Jeremy dropped a bottle he could probably have just asked our boss to clean it up for him, and then I would have to do it.
While Jeremy could make his own hours I had mine cut until the boss had me working only four a week. He didn't like firing people outright, so this was an easier way to get me to quit.
So Jeremy and I carried all these memories to college. And so we made a very special phone call around Christmastime during our freshman year. We prank-called our former boss from our dining hall even though I hadn't worked for him in nearly two years. We asked that a special order of oatmeal be delivered two hours north to my dorm room in Boston "PRONTO!"
Had it arrived it probably would have had ants in it. It's only natural after all. That's a doctor's professional opinion.
Eric
Americans spend far too much time looking at merchandise they will never buy.
Americans spend too much of their precious time looking at shelves and shelves of stuff they would like to own but can't afford. They park on wide fields of concrete outside giant suburban shopping outlets housing a Best Buy, a Borders or a Bed, Bath and Beyond.
One can walk into any one of these stores and lose all track of time and forget why they arrived in the first place. Eric and I did this more often than anyone I knew. We did this religiously. We would set aside entire Friday nights to drive to Borders and Best Buy in Waterford, Connecticut with long lists of CDs we thought we would like to buy.
I still have one of those lists saved on my computer. It is over four years old, and few items have been deleted since then. That's surprisingly unproductive.
Instead of walking in with a purchase in mind and walking out with that purchase in hand we would often just browse.
Eric was my classic rock sensei in those days. He knew what I should buy before I knew what I was looking for. I was told I should make moves on Bowie's Ziggy Stardust before I nabbed Alladine Sane. Springsteen's Born To Run comes before his Born In The U.S.A. (I still don't own the latter). And in his opinion The Rolling Stones' Singles Collection was not a good value at $60 a pop.
I came in armed with knowledge and often left with a list longer than the one I showed up with. We would spend an hour at a time just finding albums from artists we had never heard of. We would carry stacks of six or seven albums at a time to the preview stations. A working preview station meant a high school kid could spend a lot of time listening to an album he could not afford.
For example, Eric and I once went in intending to buy one album apiece. I left with The Police's Synchronicity. Eric left with four CDs that weren't even on his list. Yes, the preview station was a tempting device. It was like playing the slots.
Once Eric and I walked into Border's and came to a stunning revelation. We approached the music stands and noticed a middle-aged man staring very intently at a shelf in the DVDs section. He was not, it turns out, interested in the material made for our age group.
He stood there with knees bent, his hands jutting violently into the pockets in his leather jacket, and his back arched backwards. He just stood there and studied everything for sale in front of him for about ten minutes.
What did we learn that day? If you must spend a lot of time browsing merchandise at a megastore, stick to the music section. It's good to be young and broke and listening to a great album for the very first time. Some people, on the other hand, invest their time and energy in all the wrong places.
Americans spend too much of their precious time looking at shelves and shelves of stuff they would like to own but can't afford. They park on wide fields of concrete outside giant suburban shopping outlets housing a Best Buy, a Borders or a Bed, Bath and Beyond.
One can walk into any one of these stores and lose all track of time and forget why they arrived in the first place. Eric and I did this more often than anyone I knew. We did this religiously. We would set aside entire Friday nights to drive to Borders and Best Buy in Waterford, Connecticut with long lists of CDs we thought we would like to buy.
I still have one of those lists saved on my computer. It is over four years old, and few items have been deleted since then. That's surprisingly unproductive.
Instead of walking in with a purchase in mind and walking out with that purchase in hand we would often just browse.
Eric was my classic rock sensei in those days. He knew what I should buy before I knew what I was looking for. I was told I should make moves on Bowie's Ziggy Stardust before I nabbed Alladine Sane. Springsteen's Born To Run comes before his Born In The U.S.A. (I still don't own the latter). And in his opinion The Rolling Stones' Singles Collection was not a good value at $60 a pop.
I came in armed with knowledge and often left with a list longer than the one I showed up with. We would spend an hour at a time just finding albums from artists we had never heard of. We would carry stacks of six or seven albums at a time to the preview stations. A working preview station meant a high school kid could spend a lot of time listening to an album he could not afford.
For example, Eric and I once went in intending to buy one album apiece. I left with The Police's Synchronicity. Eric left with four CDs that weren't even on his list. Yes, the preview station was a tempting device. It was like playing the slots.
Once Eric and I walked into Border's and came to a stunning revelation. We approached the music stands and noticed a middle-aged man staring very intently at a shelf in the DVDs section. He was not, it turns out, interested in the material made for our age group.
He stood there with knees bent, his hands jutting violently into the pockets in his leather jacket, and his back arched backwards. He just stood there and studied everything for sale in front of him for about ten minutes.
What did we learn that day? If you must spend a lot of time browsing merchandise at a megastore, stick to the music section. It's good to be young and broke and listening to a great album for the very first time. Some people, on the other hand, invest their time and energy in all the wrong places.
Emily
There were few freshmen seemingly capable of handling band camp, and Emily Ayer was one of them.
Emily Ayer, dedicated flutist and avid supporter of the Ledyard Music Department, would surely be able to handle band camp. She had done so well in the middle school band. She paid attention in band like she paid attention to everything else in life. She was diligent and earnest. She had perfect posture. She held her flute up with the same confident poise she displayed in everything she did everyday.
Emily Ayer had poise, and people with poise can handle band camp.
On top of all that Emily had the last name synonomous with success in band camp and beyond. She was an Ayer, and Ayers do very well in band camp.
Her older sister Kate was a drum majorette- her sister! Her sister not only told the clueless freshmen what to do; she told the sophomores, the juniors and her fellow seniors what to do!
Yes, any Ayer would do well in any music program, and they would do particularly well in band camp.
While the rest of us would struggle to keep a straight face while we watched one another screw up every single marching corps command, an Ayer would surely do everything asked and more.
While the rest of us arrived late proudly carrying cold Dunkin Donuts iced lattes and get reamed out for it, we were sure Emily Ayer would do just fine.
And Emily Ayer did just fine most of the time. Emily had everything down pat. She put it in all the effort necessary to learn all band formations and flute parts in a timely manner. She arrived on time. Compared to Dan and Chris, Emily was on her game.
There was just one problem. Emily never put her feet on the floor.
Emily Ayer was new to band camp, and she did everything right except put her feet on the floor.
The rules governing a high school band are pretty straightforward. One must arrive on time with their instrument (Dan broke this rule). One should not eat in class (Katie broke this rule). One should wear nice clothes and look presentable for concerts (Chris broke this rule). One should never talk when the conductor is discussing something with members of another section (almost everyone broke this rule). Emily Ayer did not break any of these rules.
However, one should also always keep two feet firmly planted on the floor. Emily Ayer often had only one foot on the floor and the other crossed over her leg. The band teacher would notice this minor transgression every single time his baton was raised and the whole band was waiting for the signal to begin playing. Everyone was silent, and everyone was paying close attention to whatever the teacher was about to say.
Baton raised, he would simply say, "Feet on the floor, Emily Ayer." It was a command meant for one but heard by all.
We heard it all year, too. It didn't end with band camp.
"Feet on the floor, Emily Ayer."
"Feet on the floor, Emily Ayer."
"Both feet on the floor, please, Emily Ayer."
An Ayer was disrupting the band's zen. She was bad karma. She should shape up or give up.
Emily had too much poise to "give up," but she did leave the band before our sophomore year began. She went on to do great things in Ledyard's concert choir, and this proves our parents right about one thing. It turns out you do have to do some searching before you find an activity that firmly plants your feet.
Emily Ayer, dedicated flutist and avid supporter of the Ledyard Music Department, would surely be able to handle band camp. She had done so well in the middle school band. She paid attention in band like she paid attention to everything else in life. She was diligent and earnest. She had perfect posture. She held her flute up with the same confident poise she displayed in everything she did everyday.
Emily Ayer had poise, and people with poise can handle band camp.
On top of all that Emily had the last name synonomous with success in band camp and beyond. She was an Ayer, and Ayers do very well in band camp.
Her older sister Kate was a drum majorette- her sister! Her sister not only told the clueless freshmen what to do; she told the sophomores, the juniors and her fellow seniors what to do!
Yes, any Ayer would do well in any music program, and they would do particularly well in band camp.
While the rest of us would struggle to keep a straight face while we watched one another screw up every single marching corps command, an Ayer would surely do everything asked and more.
While the rest of us arrived late proudly carrying cold Dunkin Donuts iced lattes and get reamed out for it, we were sure Emily Ayer would do just fine.
And Emily Ayer did just fine most of the time. Emily had everything down pat. She put it in all the effort necessary to learn all band formations and flute parts in a timely manner. She arrived on time. Compared to Dan and Chris, Emily was on her game.
There was just one problem. Emily never put her feet on the floor.
Emily Ayer was new to band camp, and she did everything right except put her feet on the floor.
The rules governing a high school band are pretty straightforward. One must arrive on time with their instrument (Dan broke this rule). One should not eat in class (Katie broke this rule). One should wear nice clothes and look presentable for concerts (Chris broke this rule). One should never talk when the conductor is discussing something with members of another section (almost everyone broke this rule). Emily Ayer did not break any of these rules.
However, one should also always keep two feet firmly planted on the floor. Emily Ayer often had only one foot on the floor and the other crossed over her leg. The band teacher would notice this minor transgression every single time his baton was raised and the whole band was waiting for the signal to begin playing. Everyone was silent, and everyone was paying close attention to whatever the teacher was about to say.
Baton raised, he would simply say, "Feet on the floor, Emily Ayer." It was a command meant for one but heard by all.
We heard it all year, too. It didn't end with band camp.
"Feet on the floor, Emily Ayer."
"Feet on the floor, Emily Ayer."
"Both feet on the floor, please, Emily Ayer."
An Ayer was disrupting the band's zen. She was bad karma. She should shape up or give up.
Emily had too much poise to "give up," but she did leave the band before our sophomore year began. She went on to do great things in Ledyard's concert choir, and this proves our parents right about one thing. It turns out you do have to do some searching before you find an activity that firmly plants your feet.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Mike
By the time we had finished packing the papers into the green three-ring binder it was past five in the morning and Biology had become my least-favorite subject.
It had been eighteen hours of typing, editing, drawing, and analyzing. It began on a Sunday morning and ended just before dawn on Monday. I had never experienced an all-nighter before. I thought an all-nighter was something that could kill you.
Imagine two high school freshmen everyone assumes will work hard for high grades doing their damndest to live up to the expectations set by one of their favorite teachers- Jerry Lentz, biology- and leaving themselves little more than twenty hours before the due date to do so.
It began in Wood Lot II. For those who don't know where that is it's next to Wood Lot I.
Wood Lots I and II were behind the centuries-old stone walls that bordered the high school athletic fields and the school's neighbors' properties. They boasted an imposing array of maples, red and white pines, elms, and oaks.
These trees had all the ingredients for an ecological survey and more: the new-growth sprouting in the canopies; the vines that added still more items to our damn "species list;" the sassafras and the shrubs in the understory that marked "forest gaps!" (dun, dun, dunnn!).
The more time Mike and I spent out in Wood Lot II the more overwhelmed we became by the diversity surrounding us and the immensity of the report hanging over us slated to be well over ninety pages. To a freshman a report over twenty pages long earned someone a doctorate.
And we did spend a lot of time out in the woods. We collected every type of leaf one who expect to find on the ground during autumn in New England. I would come home with a pile of humus and just drop it on my carpeted bedroom floor, all for Mr. Lentz.
This was a man who would speed walk through the woods in a fluorescent yellow running jacket and bright orange hat. You felt you were already failing if you didn't keep stride with him during our classroom trek through the woods and follow his rapid-fire gaze to everything of interest. He made you nervous.
Mike and I were nervous when we agreed to partner up for the project. We were nervous until we spent a Saturday morning out in Wood Lot II unsupervised and did what all well-meaning freshmen with no sense of what deadlines meant do. We just, well, goofed off. We threw rocks at one another. I sang songs about LSD I heard on the radio, and Mike sat in a tree and watched potheads go riding through the woods on motorbikes.
Had we kept on that track and not buckled down to do the work in front of us who knows what could have been. We could very well have ended up in a Seattle grunge band.
The weeks at school and weekends at home passed quickly. One Sunday in late October it occurred to both of us that a massive project was due the next day. We had made some progress- some. We had written a few paragraphs on succession and ecological borders. We had drawn some pictures of leaves we had discovered, veins and all. It did not amount to anything close to the ninety-plus pages we were staring down.
Shit.
The day before that dreadful Monday went something like this:
Sunday Morning: Mike arrives at Dan's house. He and Dan survey everything scattered on the carpet in Dan's bedroom, a mass of papers and graphs all needing a home in a three-ring binder.
Sunday Afternoon: Dan and Mike discover the art of delegation. Dan agrees to write the section on some topic or other. Mike agrees to write another section on something else.
Sunday Evening: Dan and Mike discover the art of procrastination. They don't like putting all this time into a project about stuff in the woods. They realize they would much rather be playing tennis. They do the next best thing. They launch tennis balls at one another from across the room.
Sunday Night: Dan and Mike focus themselves on typing up their report as panic starts to set in. What happens if you don't turn in an assignment like this on time? Does Mr. Lentz kill people with his bare hands?
The Wee Hours of Monday Morning: Most of the project is in a three-ring binder. Dan is getting cranky. Mike's mom has already volunteered to pick Mike up between four and five a.m. if need be.
The Darkest Hours of Monday Morning: Dan's eyes are glazed. He and Mike are probably still singing rather stupid buzz ballads off the radio. Dan's mother offers them both coffee. Dan chooses ginger ale, incorrectly assuming it "does the trick" as well as any other morning beverage.
Five A.M.: The project is... complete? Really? Mike can go home now? He and Dan look forward to the one hour of sleep they can savor before it is time to wake up for school. Dan is feeling that lightness in the head and limbs that can only mean the body hasn't slept. Does that mean he will vomit all day tomorrow? More importantly is he going to get out of doing his paper route at 6 a.m.?
Epilogue: Mike and Dan get an "A" on the ecological study of Wood Lot II.
The Moral Of The Story: Well, does it really matter what the moral is? Neither Dan nor Mike get enough sleep to this day.
It had been eighteen hours of typing, editing, drawing, and analyzing. It began on a Sunday morning and ended just before dawn on Monday. I had never experienced an all-nighter before. I thought an all-nighter was something that could kill you.
Imagine two high school freshmen everyone assumes will work hard for high grades doing their damndest to live up to the expectations set by one of their favorite teachers- Jerry Lentz, biology- and leaving themselves little more than twenty hours before the due date to do so.
It began in Wood Lot II. For those who don't know where that is it's next to Wood Lot I.
Wood Lots I and II were behind the centuries-old stone walls that bordered the high school athletic fields and the school's neighbors' properties. They boasted an imposing array of maples, red and white pines, elms, and oaks.
These trees had all the ingredients for an ecological survey and more: the new-growth sprouting in the canopies; the vines that added still more items to our damn "species list;" the sassafras and the shrubs in the understory that marked "forest gaps!" (dun, dun, dunnn!).
The more time Mike and I spent out in Wood Lot II the more overwhelmed we became by the diversity surrounding us and the immensity of the report hanging over us slated to be well over ninety pages. To a freshman a report over twenty pages long earned someone a doctorate.
And we did spend a lot of time out in the woods. We collected every type of leaf one who expect to find on the ground during autumn in New England. I would come home with a pile of humus and just drop it on my carpeted bedroom floor, all for Mr. Lentz.
This was a man who would speed walk through the woods in a fluorescent yellow running jacket and bright orange hat. You felt you were already failing if you didn't keep stride with him during our classroom trek through the woods and follow his rapid-fire gaze to everything of interest. He made you nervous.
Mike and I were nervous when we agreed to partner up for the project. We were nervous until we spent a Saturday morning out in Wood Lot II unsupervised and did what all well-meaning freshmen with no sense of what deadlines meant do. We just, well, goofed off. We threw rocks at one another. I sang songs about LSD I heard on the radio, and Mike sat in a tree and watched potheads go riding through the woods on motorbikes.
Had we kept on that track and not buckled down to do the work in front of us who knows what could have been. We could very well have ended up in a Seattle grunge band.
The weeks at school and weekends at home passed quickly. One Sunday in late October it occurred to both of us that a massive project was due the next day. We had made some progress- some. We had written a few paragraphs on succession and ecological borders. We had drawn some pictures of leaves we had discovered, veins and all. It did not amount to anything close to the ninety-plus pages we were staring down.
Shit.
The day before that dreadful Monday went something like this:
Sunday Morning: Mike arrives at Dan's house. He and Dan survey everything scattered on the carpet in Dan's bedroom, a mass of papers and graphs all needing a home in a three-ring binder.
Sunday Afternoon: Dan and Mike discover the art of delegation. Dan agrees to write the section on some topic or other. Mike agrees to write another section on something else.
Sunday Evening: Dan and Mike discover the art of procrastination. They don't like putting all this time into a project about stuff in the woods. They realize they would much rather be playing tennis. They do the next best thing. They launch tennis balls at one another from across the room.
Sunday Night: Dan and Mike focus themselves on typing up their report as panic starts to set in. What happens if you don't turn in an assignment like this on time? Does Mr. Lentz kill people with his bare hands?
The Wee Hours of Monday Morning: Most of the project is in a three-ring binder. Dan is getting cranky. Mike's mom has already volunteered to pick Mike up between four and five a.m. if need be.
The Darkest Hours of Monday Morning: Dan's eyes are glazed. He and Mike are probably still singing rather stupid buzz ballads off the radio. Dan's mother offers them both coffee. Dan chooses ginger ale, incorrectly assuming it "does the trick" as well as any other morning beverage.
Five A.M.: The project is... complete? Really? Mike can go home now? He and Dan look forward to the one hour of sleep they can savor before it is time to wake up for school. Dan is feeling that lightness in the head and limbs that can only mean the body hasn't slept. Does that mean he will vomit all day tomorrow? More importantly is he going to get out of doing his paper route at 6 a.m.?
Epilogue: Mike and Dan get an "A" on the ecological study of Wood Lot II.
The Moral Of The Story: Well, does it really matter what the moral is? Neither Dan nor Mike get enough sleep to this day.
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