Monday, November 05, 2007

Digging Deep into the Muck of Life

A couple of weeks ago, I had to re-pack some boxes so I could move them from one end of the house to the other. That has been one of my many jobs during the re-model, besides fretting and yelling a lot and subsequently weeping while I try to install tile. Put all the stuff we own into boxes and then shuffle the boxes around. It’s hard work for a couple of reasons: A) I’m a wimpy, wimpy man and the boxes quickly become heavy and I have to have our four year old help me lift them, B) once I start going through a box, I tend to wallow and just gander at all the crap we’ve accumulated.

To wit: I found my yearbook from junior high. Carbon dating places it sometime in the Paleozoic era (the early 80s), so you just know there are going to be some monumentally wonderful photos in it.

Let’s start with our hero (me!).

This is my eighth grade photo:

Yes sir, that little stud muffin is ME in eighth grade. The hair was an experiment in feathering and parting it down the center that went horribly awry. Sadly, it took about five years for the scientists at the lab (i.e. middle and high school) to figure out that my hair doesn’t really want to do that. Back when I had hair, parting it on the side really was the only viable choice, but I was stubborn and just had to try and be my own unique snowflake with my flowing blond locks flashing to the sides, JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

This is me, doing my thing on the tenor sax. The guy not playing there? With the cool white mouthpiece on his alto? Total a-hole and my nemesis during all of 1979-83. I’m not going to mention his name here for an extended and lingering fear that he might Google his name and land here and then come beat me up, even though we are both in our 40s, so you’d think we’d be over all that, but instead leave that whole drama for a later post. Seriously. Dude was a bully and evil and made me all sad inside. Though my vindication was sweet. Later, children, later; you’ll get that story. And the scribbling on the photo that I refuse to take the time to remove via my mad photoshop skillz comes from the signature of one of the trumpet players, who must have had a huge inferiority complex, because he signed his name ENORMOUS and OMNIPRESENT on everyone’s yearbook on that same page. Which means that my face probably has writing on it in a LOT of people’s yearbooks. But I’m not bitter; no, not me.

Finally, we have my very first real, live girlfriend. Laurie Sousa. This picture does not do her justice, trust me. She got her braces off by time we were “going together” and was, to my eighth grader eyes, hot beyond belief. Plus, she was very smart and laughed at my jokes.

“Going together” is a ridiculous term for what we were and did. We were 13ish, so we didn’t go anywhere. I walked her home until our paths weren’t going in the same direction anymore and we hung out together at lunch. Junior high is a weird place.

This is the story of my very first kiss, which happened to be with Ms. Sousa, may she forever be remembered for something other than this, I’m sure she would hope. In any case, it gives you something of a deep understanding of why my life turned out the way it has.

Programming Note: During this month of NaBloPoMo, I will be mining this junior high yearbook every Sunday. Something to look forward to! Though in all honesty, I could tell stories out of this book EVERY DAY of the year, that’s how traumatic, funny and weird my junior high experience was. And I’ll be mercilessly mocking the hair and clothing from that period of all the people I didn’t like. Golden!

Jon scribbled this mess on 11/05/07 at 12:53 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Photos Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

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