“You Were Geeky-Looking”
Hanging in my parent’s basement can be a real trip.
I remember, as a teenager, sitting on the floor of the storage room reading all the newspaper stories about JFK getting gunned down.
My Mom saw me there and I thought she’d be mad, but she was actually good with it.
On Christmas Eve, I noticed my kid in the same room. He was holding my year book. The brown one. My junior year.
“Wow,” he said. “You were geeky-looking. Tall and skinny and all that hair.”
He checked out my basketball photo. That was the year we were actually good. I didn’t have a whole lot to do with that, but when I looked at the photo...
...it all hit me like a tidal wave.
Then I read some of the signatures from my good friends, and a couple of girls that I really liked.
There was a group photo of a bunch of us and one young gal that I hung around with a lot back in those days had her arm resting on my shoulder.
She was wearing a great smile, and I thought about how much I missed her all of a sudden. I haven’t seen her in at least 25 years, and haven’t sent as much as a Facebook message in all that time.
“I hope she’s had a great life,” I said, to my wife who was looking over my shoulder.
And then I saw a message from a friend of mine back then.
Danny was the shortstop on our softball team. Probably two months after he signed my yearbook that year, he died. Struck by a car. He was wearing his softball shirt at the time.
“I’ve never met a kid with such good aim with a basketball or a rock at a street light. I look forward to all the fun we’re going to have as seniors.”
He signed it:
Dan “Yell” Alf.
I read that message about ten times.
“He never got to live his life,” I whispered.
“Was what scared the hell out of me with the boys.”
That was 1981.
38 years ago.
“It was another lifetime,” I said.
“It was,” Kathy said.
But this is the key to that:
All the love that I felt for my friends and those girls...
...it’s still there.
Just dancing around in the air that surrounds me. Just waiting for me to grab ahold of it again.
I felt the sting of Danny’s passing.
I could almost hear his voice.
“You always make me smile,” one girl I knew then wrote. “Don’t ever change. Stay happy because you make me happy.”
“We had fun,” I said to Kathy.
“Good for you, I hated school,” she answered.
I felt bad for her.
She missed out.
I remember, as a teenager, sitting on the floor of the storage room reading all the newspaper stories about JFK getting gunned down.
My Mom saw me there and I thought she’d be mad, but she was actually good with it.
On Christmas Eve, I noticed my kid in the same room. He was holding my year book. The brown one. My junior year.
“Wow,” he said. “You were geeky-looking. Tall and skinny and all that hair.”
He checked out my basketball photo. That was the year we were actually good. I didn’t have a whole lot to do with that, but when I looked at the photo...
...it all hit me like a tidal wave.
Then I read some of the signatures from my good friends, and a couple of girls that I really liked.
There was a group photo of a bunch of us and one young gal that I hung around with a lot back in those days had her arm resting on my shoulder.
She was wearing a great smile, and I thought about how much I missed her all of a sudden. I haven’t seen her in at least 25 years, and haven’t sent as much as a Facebook message in all that time.
“I hope she’s had a great life,” I said, to my wife who was looking over my shoulder.
And then I saw a message from a friend of mine back then.
Danny was the shortstop on our softball team. Probably two months after he signed my yearbook that year, he died. Struck by a car. He was wearing his softball shirt at the time.
“I’ve never met a kid with such good aim with a basketball or a rock at a street light. I look forward to all the fun we’re going to have as seniors.”
He signed it:
Dan “Yell” Alf.
I read that message about ten times.
“He never got to live his life,” I whispered.
“Was what scared the hell out of me with the boys.”
That was 1981.
38 years ago.
“It was another lifetime,” I said.
“It was,” Kathy said.
But this is the key to that:
All the love that I felt for my friends and those girls...
...it’s still there.
Just dancing around in the air that surrounds me. Just waiting for me to grab ahold of it again.
I felt the sting of Danny’s passing.
I could almost hear his voice.
“You always make me smile,” one girl I knew then wrote. “Don’t ever change. Stay happy because you make me happy.”
“We had fun,” I said to Kathy.
“Good for you, I hated school,” she answered.
I felt bad for her.
She missed out.
Comments