I know. This is what you've been waiting for. It's the good stuff. I hope I don't disappoint, but it ends up being personally disappointing.
Roz was a senior in high school when I was a sophomore. Roz was very thin, had short, black hair and wore glasses. At first, I thought she was Hispanic (because most of the school was Hispanic). It turned out she was an Alaskan native. At the time, she was the closest I was able to get to an Asian chick at the school.
I remember meeting her during the first week of Drama class when she and I were included of a smaller group of other students as we were learning how to improvise. None of us had been in the Drama class before, so we weren't quite aware of what it was we were supposed to accomplish. The teacher gave us a few words that we had to work into a scene. We agonized with how we were supposed to do that. Our group was not the only one having trouble. The teacher really was not very good at explaining many theatrical concepts to us. At the end of the class, we gave up. The teacher said we would try again the next day.
We finally put a scene together, practiced it a couple of times and presented it to the class. I only remember one of the words being "rabbit." Our scene involved a child telling a parent that he had brought home a rabbit as a pet. I was the child and Roz was the parent. Another student was the rabbit. It was really stupid, but not more so than the other groups. Eventually, we would all get better at improvising. (Yes, I do get the irony of practicing an "improvised" scene.)
When I was a sophomore, I always thought that the senior girls were unobtainable. For whatever reason, I got the idea in my head that NONE of the senior girls lived at home with their parents. I don't know why I thought that. It just seemed like they were all mature enough to have their own jobs, their own apartments, that they were grown up and ready to move on with their lives. They weren't going to let some snot-nosed sophomore boy interfere with that. As mentioned earlier, I also thought they all had boyfriends who had left high school a long time ago. However, I never thought the senior boys had obtained these levels of maturity. I knew they all lived with their parents.
As such, I didn't take much notice of Roz during the first few weeks of Drama class. One day, Roz started touching one of the other male students' arms in a rather sensuous way. One of the other girls in the class I was friends with pointed it out and said she was trying to turn him on. I thought to myself that it would be nice if some girl touched me that way.
A few days later, during practice for "Arsenic and Old Lace," Roz and someone she was hanging out with came and sat right next to me in the auditorium. There was no one else around and the auditorium seated 1400 people, so that means she must have really wanted to sit next to me. I pondered the possibility that she might like me that way.
I talked to a "friend" about this. That "friend" then confronted her when she walked by. He asked her if she liked me. She said she didn't know. He then asked he if she was going to homecoming. She didn't know. He then asked her if she wanted to go with me. She said I would have to ask her. So I asked her and she said yes. I never thought I would need a wingman to get dates, but I did then. I should have used a wingman for later on in life, but that opportunity never presented itself.
So, it was official. I had a date to the homecoming dance, and it was with a senior. I was stunned. I didn't know what was going to happen next, but as we find out in tomorrow's article, other people did.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Thursday, February 27, 2014
My first car accident
I was entering the big leagues at high school. I had a car and I had just gotten my driver's license. I was hot stuff. Even though my insurance would not go into effect for another week, Dad decided to let me go ahead and drive the car to school.
One week later (the day the insurance went into effect), I was backing out of a parking space after I had gotten out of Choir so I could drive over to the auditorium for my Drama class. This completely beat out having to run over the auditorium as I had done the first two weeks of school. The parking outside the music building was perpendicular. I backed out across the street so I could go in the direction of the auditorium. When I backed up, I heard a loud "CRUNCH." I realized I had hit someone's car. Someone else who was backing out saw me and yelled at me. I knew that I couldn't leave the scene.
I got out of the car and saw this vehicle with a huge gash on the car door. I figured this was the one I hit. I wrote down the license plate number and went to the principal's office.
They called the cops. I had to wait for them to arrive, which they did in five minutes. (It's such a small town.) While we were waiting, the Assistant Principal took me to my Mom's classroom to let her know what happened. Aftet the police showed up, we went out to the accident scene. They looked at the car I thought I had hit and said I hadn't hit that car. The gash was all rusted, like it had happened a long time ago. They looked at the other cars and saw one that had a dented fender above the rear tire. That was the car I hit. I got a ticket for illegal backing. I don't remember how much the fine was.
The principal looked up the license plate number and discovered it belonged to someone in my class. He told me to call her after school. I did call, and she was not aware that her car had been hit.
Because that happened on the very first day of my insurance policy, my premiums skyrocketed. My Dad was mad about the rates going up, but not because I had hit someone else's car. I guess he figured that was going to happen sooner or later. It would happen several more times. I'm not going to go into detail about all of them.
However, a few weeks later, I was driving around after school on Homecoming. I had my movie camera with me and I would take random film here and there. It was a very exciting day (for reasons that will become more more clear later on). At a stop sign, I filmed a car turning right. I had a big smile on my face as I shot the camera point-blank at the car passing me by. It happened to have the girl whose car I had hit. She was driving and her boyfriend was in the passenger seat.
I didn't really think anything about it at the time until about 20 minutes later, when the boyfriend called me and asked me if I was trying to catch her doing something wrong. I then remembered the accident. I said I wasn't trying to do anything like that. The incident was never brought up again.
The next week, I had developed the film. The part where I thought I had filmed the two of them together turned out to be a shot of the trees. I had aimed the camera lens too high. If I was trying to catch her doing something wrong, I would have failed. This means I failed without really trying. It seems like I do a lot of that.
One week later (the day the insurance went into effect), I was backing out of a parking space after I had gotten out of Choir so I could drive over to the auditorium for my Drama class. This completely beat out having to run over the auditorium as I had done the first two weeks of school. The parking outside the music building was perpendicular. I backed out across the street so I could go in the direction of the auditorium. When I backed up, I heard a loud "CRUNCH." I realized I had hit someone's car. Someone else who was backing out saw me and yelled at me. I knew that I couldn't leave the scene.
I got out of the car and saw this vehicle with a huge gash on the car door. I figured this was the one I hit. I wrote down the license plate number and went to the principal's office.
They called the cops. I had to wait for them to arrive, which they did in five minutes. (It's such a small town.) While we were waiting, the Assistant Principal took me to my Mom's classroom to let her know what happened. Aftet the police showed up, we went out to the accident scene. They looked at the car I thought I had hit and said I hadn't hit that car. The gash was all rusted, like it had happened a long time ago. They looked at the other cars and saw one that had a dented fender above the rear tire. That was the car I hit. I got a ticket for illegal backing. I don't remember how much the fine was.
The principal looked up the license plate number and discovered it belonged to someone in my class. He told me to call her after school. I did call, and she was not aware that her car had been hit.
Because that happened on the very first day of my insurance policy, my premiums skyrocketed. My Dad was mad about the rates going up, but not because I had hit someone else's car. I guess he figured that was going to happen sooner or later. It would happen several more times. I'm not going to go into detail about all of them.
However, a few weeks later, I was driving around after school on Homecoming. I had my movie camera with me and I would take random film here and there. It was a very exciting day (for reasons that will become more more clear later on). At a stop sign, I filmed a car turning right. I had a big smile on my face as I shot the camera point-blank at the car passing me by. It happened to have the girl whose car I had hit. She was driving and her boyfriend was in the passenger seat.
I didn't really think anything about it at the time until about 20 minutes later, when the boyfriend called me and asked me if I was trying to catch her doing something wrong. I then remembered the accident. I said I wasn't trying to do anything like that. The incident was never brought up again.
The next week, I had developed the film. The part where I thought I had filmed the two of them together turned out to be a shot of the trees. I had aimed the camera lens too high. If I was trying to catch her doing something wrong, I would have failed. This means I failed without really trying. It seems like I do a lot of that.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Music to wreck a wedding by
There are times when my brother Loyd can mess up a situation without even trying. This was one of those occasions, but as you will see, he could have fixed the problem by doing nothing at all and he couldn't even do that.
I mentioned earlier that I almost always had an issue with my birthday because it almost always fell on Labor Day weekend. My sophomore year of school, I was rather happy because we didn't going to go to the woods. Instead, it was the day my Aunt Cind had decided to have her wedding with Jid.
Cind asked me and Loyd to help provide the music for the wedding. She had selected Frank Mills' "The Poet & I" to march down the aisle, John Denver's "Annie's Song," and Chicago's "Colour My World" during the ceremony and Frank Mills' "Music Box Dancer" to return down the aisle with Jid. She did not choose any traditional songs. I played piano and Loyd played guitar. We rehearsed and got very good at performing the songs.
The rehearsal dinner was held the night before the wedding. A huge cake was purchased. It seemed like it was all the family there, all the same people who would be at the wedding the next day. My Mom purchased yet another cake for the rehearsal. It was a birthday cake for me. However, there was too much cake, and no one ate the one with my name on it. Maybe they should have cut back on the cake. Neither one was chocolate.
Mom had bought us shirts to wear for the wedding. They were white with thin black stripes. I got mad because she was making us wear identical shirts. At this point, I was fed up with Mom buying us stuff that would identify us as brothers. I wanted to scream, "WE ARE BROTHERS, NOT TWINS! QUIT BUYING US THE SAME OUTFITS!" The bad thing was that the wedding would not be the only day we would be wearing those shirts.
The wedding was held outdoors. There is a church by my Grandma Bend's house in Fort Sumner that has an outdoor garden. That was where the ceremony was held. The only problem was that it was next to the main highway. I was not looking forward to having to deal with the traffic.
Shortly before the wedding started, we rehearsed one final time. Everything went well, except that the person doing the singing got a little shock from the microphone and shouted "Holy F***!" which came out the PA system. Fortunately, no one else was around to hear it.
The wedding started. It was a very beautiful, sunny and warm day. The first thing I noticed was that there was no traffic. I found out later that Grandma Bend had the Sheriff's Department stop traffic on the highway during the ceremony. I couldn't believe it. My grandmother was a probate judge at the time, so she was able to pull some strings.
On the first song, I started playing the piano. Loyd would join in on the guitar after the first few measures. When he started, I immediately noticed that his guitar was OUT OF TUNE! I guess he had left it out in the sun and the strings expanded. He noticed the problem, but he continued playing. It sounded TERRIBLE! I wanted to shout at him to stop playing, but I hoped he would pick up the hint and stop on his own. He didn't. He didn't even bother to get up after the first song to try to re-tune the guitar. He just kept playing that out of tune instrument.
After the wedding, I asked Loyd why he didn't stop playing. "I didn't rehearse all that time to just not play my guitar."
Loyd ran off after the ceremony and did his own thing. I don't know where he went. However, when it was time for the family photo, he was nowhere to be found. He was not in that picture or very many of the other wedding photos, for that matter. History records that I was at that wedding, but not him. I felt vindicated. I just hope everyone else at that wedding forgot about the music being out of tune.
Cind and Jid remained married for 35 years before they divorced. They actually lasted longer than my parents.
I mentioned earlier that I almost always had an issue with my birthday because it almost always fell on Labor Day weekend. My sophomore year of school, I was rather happy because we didn't going to go to the woods. Instead, it was the day my Aunt Cind had decided to have her wedding with Jid.
Cind asked me and Loyd to help provide the music for the wedding. She had selected Frank Mills' "The Poet & I" to march down the aisle, John Denver's "Annie's Song," and Chicago's "Colour My World" during the ceremony and Frank Mills' "Music Box Dancer" to return down the aisle with Jid. She did not choose any traditional songs. I played piano and Loyd played guitar. We rehearsed and got very good at performing the songs.
The rehearsal dinner was held the night before the wedding. A huge cake was purchased. It seemed like it was all the family there, all the same people who would be at the wedding the next day. My Mom purchased yet another cake for the rehearsal. It was a birthday cake for me. However, there was too much cake, and no one ate the one with my name on it. Maybe they should have cut back on the cake. Neither one was chocolate.
Mom had bought us shirts to wear for the wedding. They were white with thin black stripes. I got mad because she was making us wear identical shirts. At this point, I was fed up with Mom buying us stuff that would identify us as brothers. I wanted to scream, "WE ARE BROTHERS, NOT TWINS! QUIT BUYING US THE SAME OUTFITS!" The bad thing was that the wedding would not be the only day we would be wearing those shirts.
The wedding was held outdoors. There is a church by my Grandma Bend's house in Fort Sumner that has an outdoor garden. That was where the ceremony was held. The only problem was that it was next to the main highway. I was not looking forward to having to deal with the traffic.
Shortly before the wedding started, we rehearsed one final time. Everything went well, except that the person doing the singing got a little shock from the microphone and shouted "Holy F***!" which came out the PA system. Fortunately, no one else was around to hear it.
The wedding started. It was a very beautiful, sunny and warm day. The first thing I noticed was that there was no traffic. I found out later that Grandma Bend had the Sheriff's Department stop traffic on the highway during the ceremony. I couldn't believe it. My grandmother was a probate judge at the time, so she was able to pull some strings.
On the first song, I started playing the piano. Loyd would join in on the guitar after the first few measures. When he started, I immediately noticed that his guitar was OUT OF TUNE! I guess he had left it out in the sun and the strings expanded. He noticed the problem, but he continued playing. It sounded TERRIBLE! I wanted to shout at him to stop playing, but I hoped he would pick up the hint and stop on his own. He didn't. He didn't even bother to get up after the first song to try to re-tune the guitar. He just kept playing that out of tune instrument.
After the wedding, I asked Loyd why he didn't stop playing. "I didn't rehearse all that time to just not play my guitar."
Loyd ran off after the ceremony and did his own thing. I don't know where he went. However, when it was time for the family photo, he was nowhere to be found. He was not in that picture or very many of the other wedding photos, for that matter. History records that I was at that wedding, but not him. I felt vindicated. I just hope everyone else at that wedding forgot about the music being out of tune.
Cind and Jid remained married for 35 years before they divorced. They actually lasted longer than my parents.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
High School Enemies: Pid
I don't know why it was, but I seemed to attract the morons who wanted to cause me mental anguish by acting like they were my friend, but treated me in a condescending and patronizing manner. Pid was the worst of them.
I don't know when I was first aware of Pid. I know we were in the ninth grade together, and I guess he had been in Artesia since the beginning of the 7th grade. However, I don't have a solid memory of his existence until the first day of high school, when he was in my home room. Somehow, we managed to stay off each other's radars until then.
We sat next to each other. During lulls in the first day, he tried starting conversations with me. Our student council representative made a presentation about the things that had been planned for the school and that they had a Citizen of the Month award. There would be one homeroom meeting every month, and each homeroom would take nominees for the award. Pid told me, "I'm going to nominate you for that!" I thought this was odd because I really didn't know him, but okay. It was nice to be well-thought of, and I wasn't about to pull that jerk move that Johd did the year before. Pid nominated me, but I didn't get selected.
I didn't realize until later what a big twerp Pid was the whole time. I was a little blind to it when it was going on (probably because of my likely Asperger's). Pid was not one of the Alpha males and he was not one of the best students. In that respect, he was just a little lower than me in the pecking order at high school. Maybe he just thought if he pecked hard enough, he would somehow rank higher than me on the social level. That's pretty bad when someone thinks they have to compete with me for status.
I guess the thing that really ticks me off when I look back and think of Pid is that he had a sister named Elz who was a year younger than us. Elz was cute and smart. I remembered thinking very well of her when I was in the ninth grade. I didn't realize until junior year that she was of any relation to Pid. I probably would have done more to pursue Elz if it hadn't been for Pid. He was already giving me a hard time about stuff in school. Imagine what he would have been like if I started kissing his sister.
I had Pid in Chemistry my junior year and in Physics my senior year. He didn't do so much to me in Chemistry, but it was in Physics (which also included Johd and Jend in the class) where he discovered he had a better platform for humiliation. There were other students who joined the war against me in that class.
I never saw Pid or Elz again after I graduated. From what I gleam off the Internet, they both wound up in Texas. He went to Lake Jackson and she went to Pflugerville. It appears that neither one of them married nor had children. That's starting to become a theme among certain people in my past.
I don't know when I was first aware of Pid. I know we were in the ninth grade together, and I guess he had been in Artesia since the beginning of the 7th grade. However, I don't have a solid memory of his existence until the first day of high school, when he was in my home room. Somehow, we managed to stay off each other's radars until then.
We sat next to each other. During lulls in the first day, he tried starting conversations with me. Our student council representative made a presentation about the things that had been planned for the school and that they had a Citizen of the Month award. There would be one homeroom meeting every month, and each homeroom would take nominees for the award. Pid told me, "I'm going to nominate you for that!" I thought this was odd because I really didn't know him, but okay. It was nice to be well-thought of, and I wasn't about to pull that jerk move that Johd did the year before. Pid nominated me, but I didn't get selected.
I didn't realize until later what a big twerp Pid was the whole time. I was a little blind to it when it was going on (probably because of my likely Asperger's). Pid was not one of the Alpha males and he was not one of the best students. In that respect, he was just a little lower than me in the pecking order at high school. Maybe he just thought if he pecked hard enough, he would somehow rank higher than me on the social level. That's pretty bad when someone thinks they have to compete with me for status.
I guess the thing that really ticks me off when I look back and think of Pid is that he had a sister named Elz who was a year younger than us. Elz was cute and smart. I remembered thinking very well of her when I was in the ninth grade. I didn't realize until junior year that she was of any relation to Pid. I probably would have done more to pursue Elz if it hadn't been for Pid. He was already giving me a hard time about stuff in school. Imagine what he would have been like if I started kissing his sister.
I had Pid in Chemistry my junior year and in Physics my senior year. He didn't do so much to me in Chemistry, but it was in Physics (which also included Johd and Jend in the class) where he discovered he had a better platform for humiliation. There were other students who joined the war against me in that class.
I never saw Pid or Elz again after I graduated. From what I gleam off the Internet, they both wound up in Texas. He went to Lake Jackson and she went to Pflugerville. It appears that neither one of them married nor had children. That's starting to become a theme among certain people in my past.
Friday, February 14, 2014
High School Enemies: Johd and Jend
Johd and Jend were cousins in my class. Separately, they were pretty decent people, but when they were together, they had a tendency to inflict cruel mental torture on me, and sometimes, it turned physical.
I had known Johd since the fifth grade when I had transferred over to Central. Over the years, he slowly became more of a bully. I don't know how this happened, but he lived with his grandparents. His grandfather was a police officer and his grandmother worked for the DMV.
I know that Johd was very poor. After junior year, he was among those of us who went to Boys State. This took place at the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. They had an amazing athletic facility. However, they told us we couldn't go inside if the bottoms of our tennis shoes were black because of the risk of permanently marking the floor. Johd was the only person there with black bottom tennis shoes that were made from recycled tires. He was not happy.
You may recall that I had a crush on a girl named Tez when I was in the sixth grade. You may also recall that in a retaliation, I referred to her and her best friend as "Queers." Jend happened to be that best friend. I had known her since the sixth grade.
They were both in band and the Drama club. Johd had taken part in the production of "Arsenic and Old Lace," in which he played "Teddy." Jend got involved in the Drama club later in the year, when we did the children's theatre production of "The House at Pooh Corner." Jend played Tigger and Johd played Eeyore. I was not cast in that show, but Rod (from the posts last week) wasn't cast, either.
Once in ninth grade, Johd tackled me and yelled at me because I nominated him for treasurer of our homeroom. I didn't realize that was an insult. However, looking back, I think he thought I had nominated him because I was gay for him. That doesn't justify it because I wasn't gay at all. I just thought I was doing something nice by showing him that I trusted him with money.
Once, Jend had these little pins with feathers that functioned as darts. She just started throwing them at me one by one, just for the heck of it. I got really frustrated and bent them all out of shape. I really wanted to throw them back at her, but I knew that would just get me beaten up by Johd.
During our senior year, she got a brand new pick up. I was carrying around my portable stereo and placed it on the hood of her car. She SCREAMED at me and accused me of messing up the paint job. Yes, there was a black mark on the hood where I had placed the stereo, but I was able to get it off with my finger and saliva. I wondered what the big deal was. I've gotten a new car, and while I wouldn't have liked it if someone scuffed it up a little bit, I certainly wouldn't have reacted that way. If I had been someone else, she probably wouldn't have done that.
I only ever saw Johd once after high school. In 1984, I was working on replacing the shingles of a roof with my father. I guess he lived next door. He saw me and kind of shyly waved. I waved back. I never saw Jend, but I know that at one point, she had gotten married to her high school sweetheart a few years after graduating, and it ended pretty badly. (Strangely enough, Johd had dated that guy's sister during high school.) From what I can tell on-line, she married someone else and became an emergency preparedness manager in Texas.
I guess the main problem with Johd and Jend is that, under normal circumstances, they would have been my real friends as we had Music and Drama in common. I guess my possible Asperger's probably caused me to rub some people the wrong way, to the point that they just could not tolerate me being in their lives, even just to be in the same room.
But I guess it doesn't matter who I was friends with as I have almost no desire to be in connection with anyone was in high school with me, with just a few exceptions.
I had known Johd since the fifth grade when I had transferred over to Central. Over the years, he slowly became more of a bully. I don't know how this happened, but he lived with his grandparents. His grandfather was a police officer and his grandmother worked for the DMV.
I know that Johd was very poor. After junior year, he was among those of us who went to Boys State. This took place at the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. They had an amazing athletic facility. However, they told us we couldn't go inside if the bottoms of our tennis shoes were black because of the risk of permanently marking the floor. Johd was the only person there with black bottom tennis shoes that were made from recycled tires. He was not happy.
You may recall that I had a crush on a girl named Tez when I was in the sixth grade. You may also recall that in a retaliation, I referred to her and her best friend as "Queers." Jend happened to be that best friend. I had known her since the sixth grade.
They were both in band and the Drama club. Johd had taken part in the production of "Arsenic and Old Lace," in which he played "Teddy." Jend got involved in the Drama club later in the year, when we did the children's theatre production of "The House at Pooh Corner." Jend played Tigger and Johd played Eeyore. I was not cast in that show, but Rod (from the posts last week) wasn't cast, either.
Once in ninth grade, Johd tackled me and yelled at me because I nominated him for treasurer of our homeroom. I didn't realize that was an insult. However, looking back, I think he thought I had nominated him because I was gay for him. That doesn't justify it because I wasn't gay at all. I just thought I was doing something nice by showing him that I trusted him with money.
Once, Jend had these little pins with feathers that functioned as darts. She just started throwing them at me one by one, just for the heck of it. I got really frustrated and bent them all out of shape. I really wanted to throw them back at her, but I knew that would just get me beaten up by Johd.
During our senior year, she got a brand new pick up. I was carrying around my portable stereo and placed it on the hood of her car. She SCREAMED at me and accused me of messing up the paint job. Yes, there was a black mark on the hood where I had placed the stereo, but I was able to get it off with my finger and saliva. I wondered what the big deal was. I've gotten a new car, and while I wouldn't have liked it if someone scuffed it up a little bit, I certainly wouldn't have reacted that way. If I had been someone else, she probably wouldn't have done that.
I only ever saw Johd once after high school. In 1984, I was working on replacing the shingles of a roof with my father. I guess he lived next door. He saw me and kind of shyly waved. I waved back. I never saw Jend, but I know that at one point, she had gotten married to her high school sweetheart a few years after graduating, and it ended pretty badly. (Strangely enough, Johd had dated that guy's sister during high school.) From what I can tell on-line, she married someone else and became an emergency preparedness manager in Texas.
I guess the main problem with Johd and Jend is that, under normal circumstances, they would have been my real friends as we had Music and Drama in common. I guess my possible Asperger's probably caused me to rub some people the wrong way, to the point that they just could not tolerate me being in their lives, even just to be in the same room.
But I guess it doesn't matter who I was friends with as I have almost no desire to be in connection with anyone was in high school with me, with just a few exceptions.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
High School Enemies: Byd
I've spent the last week and a half telling about friends from my sophomore year. Now, let's go to the other side and discuss some people that I was at odds with.
Byd was a senior and was in my Physical Education class. I considered him one of the worst kinds of bullies. He was one of these guys who would start off acting like he was your friend and later make snide remarks about you in front of every one else. I would rather get beaten up than be treated like that.
I hadn't realized at first, but I had heard of Byd when I was in the ninth grade. There was this girl in my class named Diad. She was one of the cheerleaders. She talked about how she was dating this boy in high school named Byd. She had written his name over and over in her notebook, like "Diad loves Byd" and so on, sometimes framed by hearts.
The way she talked about him, I thought he was a pretty cool guy. I was shocked beyond belief when I found that this jerk in my PE class was the same guy. I overheard him telling some of the other guys that he started dating Diad because he had heard that she was the hottest girl in my class. Then, he saw this other girl named Gwed from my class and found out he was wrong. He didn't know what to do.
He continued seeing Diad, but when I saw them together, I felt bad for her knowing that he would rather be with someone else on the basis of hotness. Diad and I were not good enough friends for me to tell her what I heard.
Fortunately, as I mentioned before, I only had to deal with him for one semester because I took Tennis after the winter break. I don't know what other classes he was taking during the day.
Byd had a sister named Miz who was a year older than me. She was very attractive and I always wondered why she never seemed to have any boyfriends. After I met Byd, I figured out that no one considered her worth dating because they would have to deal with him on a regular basis.
Byd also had another sister two years younger than me. A friend in my class got her pregnant and had to marry her. (This was the same friend from Hermosa who had moved to the Central district without changing schools.) When I saw the wedding announcement in the paper, I felt very bad for him. He was going to have to deal with two completely forms of trouble in his marriage. The first was Byd and the second was knowing that he could never be with Miz. I guess it was too much because it looks like she got married to someone else and had kids with him.
It also looks like Byd himself never got to reproduce. Judging by the obituary for his mother, none of her grandchildren had the same last name. I don't know if he got married, but if he did, there weren't any children, or at the very least, none who lived long enough.
I think we can all be thankful for that.
Byd was a senior and was in my Physical Education class. I considered him one of the worst kinds of bullies. He was one of these guys who would start off acting like he was your friend and later make snide remarks about you in front of every one else. I would rather get beaten up than be treated like that.
I hadn't realized at first, but I had heard of Byd when I was in the ninth grade. There was this girl in my class named Diad. She was one of the cheerleaders. She talked about how she was dating this boy in high school named Byd. She had written his name over and over in her notebook, like "Diad loves Byd" and so on, sometimes framed by hearts.
The way she talked about him, I thought he was a pretty cool guy. I was shocked beyond belief when I found that this jerk in my PE class was the same guy. I overheard him telling some of the other guys that he started dating Diad because he had heard that she was the hottest girl in my class. Then, he saw this other girl named Gwed from my class and found out he was wrong. He didn't know what to do.
He continued seeing Diad, but when I saw them together, I felt bad for her knowing that he would rather be with someone else on the basis of hotness. Diad and I were not good enough friends for me to tell her what I heard.
Fortunately, as I mentioned before, I only had to deal with him for one semester because I took Tennis after the winter break. I don't know what other classes he was taking during the day.
Byd had a sister named Miz who was a year older than me. She was very attractive and I always wondered why she never seemed to have any boyfriends. After I met Byd, I figured out that no one considered her worth dating because they would have to deal with him on a regular basis.
Byd also had another sister two years younger than me. A friend in my class got her pregnant and had to marry her. (This was the same friend from Hermosa who had moved to the Central district without changing schools.) When I saw the wedding announcement in the paper, I felt very bad for him. He was going to have to deal with two completely forms of trouble in his marriage. The first was Byd and the second was knowing that he could never be with Miz. I guess it was too much because it looks like she got married to someone else and had kids with him.
It also looks like Byd himself never got to reproduce. Judging by the obituary for his mother, none of her grandchildren had the same last name. I don't know if he got married, but if he did, there weren't any children, or at the very least, none who lived long enough.
I think we can all be thankful for that.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
High School Friends: Orld, Part 2
This is the follow up to yesterday's post about a friend I had as a teenager named Orld. My post-high school encounters with Orld were rather infrequent.
I know I ran into him in Artesia from time to time while I was in college. He got married to some woman from Carlsbad. She worked at the Tastee Freez. (An interesting side note: Dend, who my mother married after divorcing my father, was related to the people who owned the Tastee Freez.) He worked at one of the grocery stores in town. He eventually worked up to department manager. He and his wife had a couple of children.
I remember he came to a concert at Eastern New Mexico University on 10/31/86. This was after I had graduated from college. I was surprised to see him there. We caught up for a little bit and then I wouldn't really see him again for almost six years.
In 1992, I had come to Artesia for my first visit since I moved to San Diego. I came a few days before my class' 10-year high school reunion. I went over to the grocery store where Orld worked and found him. At first, he thought I was there for the reunion. We met up at his house later that evening. He said his father had given him his house. I was glad to see that he was doing pretty well, especially considering that my mother thought he was worthless. (By the way, I blew off the reunion. I had no intention of going.)
I continued to see Orld every time I came to Artesia, which was about once a year. At the time, he was the only person from high school I still had contact with. Then, in 1998, I had shaved my head. For the previous seven years, I had this incredibly long and bushy hairstyle that I was rather noted for. I had to shave it because it was damaged and I needed to get a fresh start on it. I went to see Orld. (At this point, his father had taken the house back and he was living in a mobile home on the outskirts of town.) Orld was watching a football game with some friends and was drunk. I had been around him before when he was drinking, but I had never seen him drunk like this. He kept commenting on how surprised he was that I had cut my hair. He made no attempt to act even a little bit sober and I got kind of irritated that he wasn't making an effort to be the friend that I came to see.
I don't drink and I've never been drunk, so I don't know how easy or hard it is for someone to just sit up and act normal for a few minutes after having a few drinks. I have seen people on LSD trips keep their composure when the time calls for it. However, I was there to visit Orld and it just wasn't happening the way I wanted it to. I decided to leave and figured that I could live the rest of my life without ever having anything to do with anyone I went to high school with. I guess I was just looking for an excuse to do just that.
I don't even know if Orld realizes what happened that day or that was the reason why I never came to see him again. I do know that in 2012, a couple of weeks after Wild had called me and Rad had e-mailed me, Orld tried contacting me at the station. When I asked my father to tell anyone inquiring of me to just Google me, I meant for them to send me an e-mail. He actually called. I was on the air at the time and the woman who was working in the newsroom at the time answered the phone. She IM'd me with his phone number. Thinking that she had written the number down on a piece of paper, I deleted the IM. I then found out she didn't write down the number. She put it directly in the IM. I don't know if I would have called. I probably would have felt obligated to explain what happened 14 years earlier. However, Orld never tried to call the station again.
I do feel bad that I broke off a friendship that had lasted about 23 years that point. I may have to look him up the next time I go to Artesia. That will be a story for a later time.
I know I ran into him in Artesia from time to time while I was in college. He got married to some woman from Carlsbad. She worked at the Tastee Freez. (An interesting side note: Dend, who my mother married after divorcing my father, was related to the people who owned the Tastee Freez.) He worked at one of the grocery stores in town. He eventually worked up to department manager. He and his wife had a couple of children.
I remember he came to a concert at Eastern New Mexico University on 10/31/86. This was after I had graduated from college. I was surprised to see him there. We caught up for a little bit and then I wouldn't really see him again for almost six years.
In 1992, I had come to Artesia for my first visit since I moved to San Diego. I came a few days before my class' 10-year high school reunion. I went over to the grocery store where Orld worked and found him. At first, he thought I was there for the reunion. We met up at his house later that evening. He said his father had given him his house. I was glad to see that he was doing pretty well, especially considering that my mother thought he was worthless. (By the way, I blew off the reunion. I had no intention of going.)
I continued to see Orld every time I came to Artesia, which was about once a year. At the time, he was the only person from high school I still had contact with. Then, in 1998, I had shaved my head. For the previous seven years, I had this incredibly long and bushy hairstyle that I was rather noted for. I had to shave it because it was damaged and I needed to get a fresh start on it. I went to see Orld. (At this point, his father had taken the house back and he was living in a mobile home on the outskirts of town.) Orld was watching a football game with some friends and was drunk. I had been around him before when he was drinking, but I had never seen him drunk like this. He kept commenting on how surprised he was that I had cut my hair. He made no attempt to act even a little bit sober and I got kind of irritated that he wasn't making an effort to be the friend that I came to see.
I don't drink and I've never been drunk, so I don't know how easy or hard it is for someone to just sit up and act normal for a few minutes after having a few drinks. I have seen people on LSD trips keep their composure when the time calls for it. However, I was there to visit Orld and it just wasn't happening the way I wanted it to. I decided to leave and figured that I could live the rest of my life without ever having anything to do with anyone I went to high school with. I guess I was just looking for an excuse to do just that.
I don't even know if Orld realizes what happened that day or that was the reason why I never came to see him again. I do know that in 2012, a couple of weeks after Wild had called me and Rad had e-mailed me, Orld tried contacting me at the station. When I asked my father to tell anyone inquiring of me to just Google me, I meant for them to send me an e-mail. He actually called. I was on the air at the time and the woman who was working in the newsroom at the time answered the phone. She IM'd me with his phone number. Thinking that she had written the number down on a piece of paper, I deleted the IM. I then found out she didn't write down the number. She put it directly in the IM. I don't know if I would have called. I probably would have felt obligated to explain what happened 14 years earlier. However, Orld never tried to call the station again.
I do feel bad that I broke off a friendship that had lasted about 23 years that point. I may have to look him up the next time I go to Artesia. That will be a story for a later time.
Monday, February 10, 2014
High School Friends: Orld, Part 1
This will be the last of the friends I profile for sophomore year. (There will be more during the junior and senior years.) Orld was a student I remember meeting in the 6th grade when we were in the lunch time choir practice sessions. He and I were the only two boys who were in choir every year between 6th and 12th grades.
Orld was a Hispanic boy who had attended Roselawn Elementary before I met him. He was short and a little chubby. In addition to choir, we were also in Drama together. Aside from that, we didn't have a lot in common. He wasn't a very good student, just being one of those who just kind of coast through everything. He was probably a lot smarter than he appeared to be. He probably had a lot more potential than he realized he had.
My mother actually thought he was pretty worthless. I'm glad I never had to bring him over to the house. I guess it was nice to have a friend that I didn't have to think about impressing. I felt I had to impress Rad and Rod. I didn't feel that way about Orld.
Orld appeared with Rad, Rod and myself in our Drama Club's production of "Arsenic and Old Lace." He played a policeman, like Rad and me. On the second and final performance, toward the end of the play. He forgot his line. You don't think of how important these small parts are when you're performing or watching a play, but it turned out we couldn't do a darn thing to move the play forward until he said that line. I had the next line and it completely depended on what it was he had to say. By the look on his face, he knew it was his turn to say something, but just couldn't think of the right thing to say. I tried whispering the line to him, but he couldn't hear me. We had people on the side who were shouting his line at him, several times. He finally understood, said the line and then I lost it with some of the other actors on the stage. We were all laughing. I'm glad we were in high school because that was just so unprofessional. Orld never goofed up like that again onstage.
During our sophomore year, the Drama Club decided to enter a float in the homecoming parade. They had entered a float in the parade to promote their production of "Our Town." Since homecoming came after our production of "Arsenic," we decided to do something completely different. The theme of homecoming was "Bulldog Dreams" and we came up with this idea for a giant rainbow surrounded by clouds. We built a wooden frame and surrounded it with chicken wire. We then put colored napkins in the holes to make it look like a rainbow. Unfortunately, we had a hard time making it stand up. After midnight on the day of the homecoming parade, one of the seniors got really frustrated and wanted to give up. However, Orld said, "No! We're going to get this to work!" He pounded more nails in the base and we managed to get it stay erect. It stayed up through the parade and many thought it was the best float. However, we did not win 1st prize. Our Drama teacher thought the judges did not think of us as part of the competition because we were a separate organization and not one of the classes of seniors, juniors and sophomores.
During our senior year, Orld was up on stage in Drama class reading out loud from a script. He was reading like a third-grader. The Drama teacher asked him what year of school he was in. He replied, "I'm a senior." "Then why are you having so much trouble reading this?" I felt bad. At this point, I was aware that there were a lot of students who had managed to progress through the grades without a strong grasp of how to read out loud. Many of them dreaded being called upon to read to the class. There was nothing wrong with their ability to read and comprehend, but they just couldn't combine that with having to speak out loud.
Orld did not graduate with the rest of the senior class in May. He was one-half credit shy of being able to participate in commencement. He did manage to go to summer school to pick up that credit, so his graduation year was the same, but it was kind of sad that he wasn't among the rest of us at the ceremony.
I continued to have contact with Orld after high school, but it doesn't continue to this day, and there's a reason for that. I'll write more about that in tomorrow's post.
Orld was a Hispanic boy who had attended Roselawn Elementary before I met him. He was short and a little chubby. In addition to choir, we were also in Drama together. Aside from that, we didn't have a lot in common. He wasn't a very good student, just being one of those who just kind of coast through everything. He was probably a lot smarter than he appeared to be. He probably had a lot more potential than he realized he had.
My mother actually thought he was pretty worthless. I'm glad I never had to bring him over to the house. I guess it was nice to have a friend that I didn't have to think about impressing. I felt I had to impress Rad and Rod. I didn't feel that way about Orld.
Orld appeared with Rad, Rod and myself in our Drama Club's production of "Arsenic and Old Lace." He played a policeman, like Rad and me. On the second and final performance, toward the end of the play. He forgot his line. You don't think of how important these small parts are when you're performing or watching a play, but it turned out we couldn't do a darn thing to move the play forward until he said that line. I had the next line and it completely depended on what it was he had to say. By the look on his face, he knew it was his turn to say something, but just couldn't think of the right thing to say. I tried whispering the line to him, but he couldn't hear me. We had people on the side who were shouting his line at him, several times. He finally understood, said the line and then I lost it with some of the other actors on the stage. We were all laughing. I'm glad we were in high school because that was just so unprofessional. Orld never goofed up like that again onstage.
During our sophomore year, the Drama Club decided to enter a float in the homecoming parade. They had entered a float in the parade to promote their production of "Our Town." Since homecoming came after our production of "Arsenic," we decided to do something completely different. The theme of homecoming was "Bulldog Dreams" and we came up with this idea for a giant rainbow surrounded by clouds. We built a wooden frame and surrounded it with chicken wire. We then put colored napkins in the holes to make it look like a rainbow. Unfortunately, we had a hard time making it stand up. After midnight on the day of the homecoming parade, one of the seniors got really frustrated and wanted to give up. However, Orld said, "No! We're going to get this to work!" He pounded more nails in the base and we managed to get it stay erect. It stayed up through the parade and many thought it was the best float. However, we did not win 1st prize. Our Drama teacher thought the judges did not think of us as part of the competition because we were a separate organization and not one of the classes of seniors, juniors and sophomores.
During our senior year, Orld was up on stage in Drama class reading out loud from a script. He was reading like a third-grader. The Drama teacher asked him what year of school he was in. He replied, "I'm a senior." "Then why are you having so much trouble reading this?" I felt bad. At this point, I was aware that there were a lot of students who had managed to progress through the grades without a strong grasp of how to read out loud. Many of them dreaded being called upon to read to the class. There was nothing wrong with their ability to read and comprehend, but they just couldn't combine that with having to speak out loud.
Orld did not graduate with the rest of the senior class in May. He was one-half credit shy of being able to participate in commencement. He did manage to go to summer school to pick up that credit, so his graduation year was the same, but it was kind of sad that he wasn't among the rest of us at the ceremony.
I continued to have contact with Orld after high school, but it doesn't continue to this day, and there's a reason for that. I'll write more about that in tomorrow's post.
Friday, February 7, 2014
High School Friends: Rod, Part 2
I'm continuing my experiences with Rod, one of my friends from high school. With today's post, things come to an end, but I'm certain he will be mentioned in future posts.
The summer after I graduated, I went to the International Theatre Arts Conference in Muncie, IN again. Rod went as well. I don't know why he went. He was in college at the time and this was a conference for high school students. There was another student who went two years earlier who was also at Eastern and he actually performed during the conference. Rod and I did not drive up together like we had two years prior. He had called to see if I needed a ride to Albuquerque, but I had already made arrangements to take the bus up and stay with a relative the night before so I didn't have to sleep in the car. He said he would be staying with friends up there.
During the three-day bus ride and the time during the conference, we didn't spend much time together. He acted like he barely tolerated my presence during the trip. I thought it was odd, but it didn't seem to matter that much to me if we were friends at that point.
About a month later, my father and I drove Mom to Lubbock, TX, where she was going to be flying the next day to some conference. We went in my car. We checked her into her motel room and were hanging out there for a little bit before we left. The next thing we know, Rod walks through the door. He said he had seen what appeared to be my car outside and came over to see if I was actually there. Mom said his hair looked really good. He sort of used to have a dorky hair style back in high school that looked like he was never able to get all the shampoo out.
I went to the same college Rod did after I graduated from high school. I found out that while he was one of the top students at Artesia High School when he graduated, he didn't extend the same level of effort in college. One of the other students, whom I refer to as "Toilethead" (wait for that post in a few months), made the comment that Rod would eventually withdraw from virtually all of his classes.
For my sophomore year in college, Rod did not return. He moved to New York City to try to become part of the Off-Off Broadway theatre scene. He had managed to get in with a gay theatre group and was doing a lot of volunteering with them, mosting doing stuff backstage.
During my spring break that year, my parents paid for me to go to New York City on a trip planned by one of the Theatre professors at Eastern New Mexico University. I got to see him there. He worked at a pet food store for a living. He got to accompany us to a couple of productions because one of the people on the trip got sick the first day there.
A few weeks later, he told my theatre professor that the production he was working on had one of its actors get sick, so he was called upon to take his place. I don't know how that turned out.
Keep in mind that Rod was 20 at this time, and was about to turn 21, at which point, he would inherit $100,000. He didn't know what he was going to do with the money.
The next thing I had heard about him is that he had moved to Santa Fe, NM and had set up a video store that specialized in foreign and art films. There was a market for that, but I don't think he was able to make it last.
I didn't have any contact with Rod until 1997. He was living in Albuquerque at the time. He was working at a Hasting's Music and Video store there. I was able to track him down and call him at work. We made arrangements to meet the next day for lunch. He was living with his brother Rand and I came by the house to pick him up.
The first thing I noticed is that he was wearing braces. Rod had worn braces in junior high school and had them removed. However, he never wore his retainer, so his teeth went right straight back to being crooked. In college, I was watching "Friday the 13th, Part 2" with some friends from the theatre department. During the scene in which you see Jason's face without the mask, one person commented that he had teeth like Rod. I hoped he had learned his lesson from the first time around.
He told me that the previous year, he had worked at the Hollywood Video in Albuquerque, but got fired after he got into an intense argument with the manager. Not long after that, a rather newsworthy event took place there in which three employees were murdered and the grandparents of one of the employees was killed in the mountains. Rod told me that when he worked there, he used to drive one of the employees home. After he was fired, his grandparents had to come and pick him up to drive him home. He also said that another one of the employees killed had to take over his shift after he left. He was aware that under different circumstances, he could have been killed with them and felt very guilty that others died because he wasn't there. Rod added that when the investigation began, he was the first person the police interviewed. He said he knew the police were just doing their job that that he had nothing to fear.
A few weeks later after I had returned home to San Diego, I called Rod and told him about an encounter with a particular celebrity. (I'm not going into details about celebrity encounters in this phase of the blog.) He said that he hoped that he would hear from me more in the future. However, I never called him again. I don't know why, but it probably had to do with the upheaval that was taking place in my life at that time. (Again, more details on that much later.)
In July of 2005, my mother called and told me that one of my classmates who lived in Artesia had been killed in a drug-related shooting. It was someone I remembered, but was not particularly close to. At any rate, I did a Google search on him and came upon the website of Artesia's funeral home. It listed people who recently had services held, and I saw Rod's name among them. I read the obituary. It was definitely him. He died at the age of 42.
I called Mom and asked if she knew anything about him dying. She said she hadn't heard anything, but she would find out. Rod's uncle happened to be the high school principal when we attended there and Mom called him. He had died of AIDS. His family couldn't afford to pay for the funeral, so his uncle was able to provide for it.
Rod was living in Las Vegas, NV at the time that he died. I did a Google search on him and found that he had been the floor manager at the Liberace museum. There was one article that told about how he had put on a costume and played Santa for the kids who visited the museum at Christmas. That was amusing because I never imagined him as wanting anything to do with kids.
I really felt bad that I didn't try to keep in contact with him. That's a regret I will always have to live with.
The summer after I graduated, I went to the International Theatre Arts Conference in Muncie, IN again. Rod went as well. I don't know why he went. He was in college at the time and this was a conference for high school students. There was another student who went two years earlier who was also at Eastern and he actually performed during the conference. Rod and I did not drive up together like we had two years prior. He had called to see if I needed a ride to Albuquerque, but I had already made arrangements to take the bus up and stay with a relative the night before so I didn't have to sleep in the car. He said he would be staying with friends up there.
During the three-day bus ride and the time during the conference, we didn't spend much time together. He acted like he barely tolerated my presence during the trip. I thought it was odd, but it didn't seem to matter that much to me if we were friends at that point.
About a month later, my father and I drove Mom to Lubbock, TX, where she was going to be flying the next day to some conference. We went in my car. We checked her into her motel room and were hanging out there for a little bit before we left. The next thing we know, Rod walks through the door. He said he had seen what appeared to be my car outside and came over to see if I was actually there. Mom said his hair looked really good. He sort of used to have a dorky hair style back in high school that looked like he was never able to get all the shampoo out.
I went to the same college Rod did after I graduated from high school. I found out that while he was one of the top students at Artesia High School when he graduated, he didn't extend the same level of effort in college. One of the other students, whom I refer to as "Toilethead" (wait for that post in a few months), made the comment that Rod would eventually withdraw from virtually all of his classes.
For my sophomore year in college, Rod did not return. He moved to New York City to try to become part of the Off-Off Broadway theatre scene. He had managed to get in with a gay theatre group and was doing a lot of volunteering with them, mosting doing stuff backstage.
During my spring break that year, my parents paid for me to go to New York City on a trip planned by one of the Theatre professors at Eastern New Mexico University. I got to see him there. He worked at a pet food store for a living. He got to accompany us to a couple of productions because one of the people on the trip got sick the first day there.
A few weeks later, he told my theatre professor that the production he was working on had one of its actors get sick, so he was called upon to take his place. I don't know how that turned out.
Keep in mind that Rod was 20 at this time, and was about to turn 21, at which point, he would inherit $100,000. He didn't know what he was going to do with the money.
The next thing I had heard about him is that he had moved to Santa Fe, NM and had set up a video store that specialized in foreign and art films. There was a market for that, but I don't think he was able to make it last.
I didn't have any contact with Rod until 1997. He was living in Albuquerque at the time. He was working at a Hasting's Music and Video store there. I was able to track him down and call him at work. We made arrangements to meet the next day for lunch. He was living with his brother Rand and I came by the house to pick him up.
The first thing I noticed is that he was wearing braces. Rod had worn braces in junior high school and had them removed. However, he never wore his retainer, so his teeth went right straight back to being crooked. In college, I was watching "Friday the 13th, Part 2" with some friends from the theatre department. During the scene in which you see Jason's face without the mask, one person commented that he had teeth like Rod. I hoped he had learned his lesson from the first time around.
He told me that the previous year, he had worked at the Hollywood Video in Albuquerque, but got fired after he got into an intense argument with the manager. Not long after that, a rather newsworthy event took place there in which three employees were murdered and the grandparents of one of the employees was killed in the mountains. Rod told me that when he worked there, he used to drive one of the employees home. After he was fired, his grandparents had to come and pick him up to drive him home. He also said that another one of the employees killed had to take over his shift after he left. He was aware that under different circumstances, he could have been killed with them and felt very guilty that others died because he wasn't there. Rod added that when the investigation began, he was the first person the police interviewed. He said he knew the police were just doing their job that that he had nothing to fear.
A few weeks later after I had returned home to San Diego, I called Rod and told him about an encounter with a particular celebrity. (I'm not going into details about celebrity encounters in this phase of the blog.) He said that he hoped that he would hear from me more in the future. However, I never called him again. I don't know why, but it probably had to do with the upheaval that was taking place in my life at that time. (Again, more details on that much later.)
In July of 2005, my mother called and told me that one of my classmates who lived in Artesia had been killed in a drug-related shooting. It was someone I remembered, but was not particularly close to. At any rate, I did a Google search on him and came upon the website of Artesia's funeral home. It listed people who recently had services held, and I saw Rod's name among them. I read the obituary. It was definitely him. He died at the age of 42.
I called Mom and asked if she knew anything about him dying. She said she hadn't heard anything, but she would find out. Rod's uncle happened to be the high school principal when we attended there and Mom called him. He had died of AIDS. His family couldn't afford to pay for the funeral, so his uncle was able to provide for it.
Rod was living in Las Vegas, NV at the time that he died. I did a Google search on him and found that he had been the floor manager at the Liberace museum. There was one article that told about how he had put on a costume and played Santa for the kids who visited the museum at Christmas. That was amusing because I never imagined him as wanting anything to do with kids.
I really felt bad that I didn't try to keep in contact with him. That's a regret I will always have to live with.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
High School Friends: Rod, Part 1
This is my second post about friends I had in high school. Today (and tomorrow), it's about Rod. Please do not confuse Rod with Rad, whom I profiled the last three days. Rod was not rad.
I first met Rod when I was in the sixth grade. Rod was a grade ahead of me. He was tall and had very blond hair. In fact, whenever I mention him to someone who may have met him, they always said, "Did he have blond hair? Yeah, I remember him."
We were both in choir in junior high school when I was in the eighth grade and he was in the ninth. He was one of the boys who initially decided not to return to choir the year after Ms. F taught. He was then one of those who returned with the hiring of the new choir teacher. Rod was an excellent singer and actor. However, this was judging by Artesia standards. Keep in mind he also had the same Drama teacher I did.
Rod's father had died when he was younger. I guess his father was rather wealthy. Rod was collecting Social Security and ALWAYS had money. Rod was also set to inherit about $100,000 when he turned 21. Rod had two older brothers. Rand was two years older than him and was someone I was familiar with. Nied was older than that, but I never knew he existed until later in high school. I never met him.
Even though he had money, he had a really cruddy car. It was a red Gremlin and he couldn't close the driver side door. He always had to drive with the window rolled down and his left hand holding the top of the door to keep it closed. Yes, he had to do this even on long road trips.
One of the things Rod did with his money was rent movies. This was in the late 70s and early 80s long before the home video market took off. What Rod would do is order 16mm films and watch them at his house. Sometimes, he would bring the films to Choir class and we would watch them there just to kill time for a couple of days. Renting 16mm movies was not cheap back then. They could cost almost as much as $50 or more.
I rarely hung out with him at his house. One time, when I did go there during high school, he had just gotten a VCR. He and a couple of other guys were watching movies he had recorded off HBO. I was looking at some of his books when they all left the room. I assumed they went to get something to eat and the VCR continued to play the movie they had left on it. After awhile, I heard coming from the TV, "Harder! Harder! HARDER!" Out loud, I said, "What is that?" before looking at the TV. I then saw PORN! Gasp! I was shocked! I had no idea Rod was into this kind of stuff. Rod and the others came back in the living room and were laughing. From their perspective, it looked like I had seen the TV and then asked "What is that?" Fortunately, we didn't watch any more porn.
The really odd thing about Rod watching porn was that I found out later he was gay. Those of us who hung around him had a suspicion about it. The main clue was that he never, ever talked about any of the girls we went to school with. When you're hanging out with your guy friends, the topic will inevitably steer toward the girls that you wouldn't mind if they paid some more attention to you. I never knew who he was attracted to. That trend actually continued into college, when I found out for certain that he was gay. He still would never let on who he liked.
I don't know how I would have reacted in high school if he had told me he was gay. There was an incident in high school (that I will go into detail later) that made me very homophobic for a few years. I think that once I matured into college, I was able to accept his orientation more because we didn't hang out as much.
Rod and I did quite a lot together with our involvement in Choir and the Drama Club. In the summer of 1980, we went on a road trip to Albuquerque, where we were going to meet with other students from the city to go to the International Theatre Arts Conference in Muncie, IN. It was a gathering of high school theatre students who were members of the Internationalal Thespian Society and came from all over the world. (I will go over the full details of that adventure in a future blog post.) Anyway, we didn't really plan it out very well. We took off late in the afternoon and somehow, we decided to spend the night in the car once we got there. I do not remember whose smart idea that was. We had hoped to stay a couple of hours at some 24-hour diner, but we wound up running out of stuff to do. At one point I suggested, "Hey, let's go find a couple of girls and get laid!" He looked at me weird. I don't know if he thought I was serious. We parked outside the home of the person organizing the trip and just simply could not sleep in that Gremlin. The back seat was full of our stuff, so neither one of us could sleep back there.
Rod had acheived a major accomplishment when he graduated from high school. He was the first student in the state of New Mexico to be awarded an International Thespian Society scholarship.
When Rod turned 18, he was given $10,000 out of his inheritance to buy a new car. It was SO much nicer than his Gremlin. However, a year later at college, I noticed that the hood was missing and he never got it replaced. How did that happen? I can understand not being able to close your car door, but how do you lose your hood?
Rod went to college at Eastern New Mexico University. He was cast in the Theatre Department's first production of the season "Lysistrata." Later that year, those of us in the Drama Club went to the Theatre Festival at the university and saw him perform in their production of "Arsenic and Old Lace." (Yes, the same play we had done two years earlier. He had the lead role in our production, but he only had the small part of the pastor in the beginning of the play at Eastern.)
Rod was definitely someone I had a lot in common with (although we didn't share the same taste in music), someone I did a lot with, but somehow, we weren't especially the best of friends. This became very apparent when we were in college together. I will be covering that in tomorrow's post.
I first met Rod when I was in the sixth grade. Rod was a grade ahead of me. He was tall and had very blond hair. In fact, whenever I mention him to someone who may have met him, they always said, "Did he have blond hair? Yeah, I remember him."
We were both in choir in junior high school when I was in the eighth grade and he was in the ninth. He was one of the boys who initially decided not to return to choir the year after Ms. F taught. He was then one of those who returned with the hiring of the new choir teacher. Rod was an excellent singer and actor. However, this was judging by Artesia standards. Keep in mind he also had the same Drama teacher I did.
Rod's father had died when he was younger. I guess his father was rather wealthy. Rod was collecting Social Security and ALWAYS had money. Rod was also set to inherit about $100,000 when he turned 21. Rod had two older brothers. Rand was two years older than him and was someone I was familiar with. Nied was older than that, but I never knew he existed until later in high school. I never met him.
Even though he had money, he had a really cruddy car. It was a red Gremlin and he couldn't close the driver side door. He always had to drive with the window rolled down and his left hand holding the top of the door to keep it closed. Yes, he had to do this even on long road trips.
One of the things Rod did with his money was rent movies. This was in the late 70s and early 80s long before the home video market took off. What Rod would do is order 16mm films and watch them at his house. Sometimes, he would bring the films to Choir class and we would watch them there just to kill time for a couple of days. Renting 16mm movies was not cheap back then. They could cost almost as much as $50 or more.
I rarely hung out with him at his house. One time, when I did go there during high school, he had just gotten a VCR. He and a couple of other guys were watching movies he had recorded off HBO. I was looking at some of his books when they all left the room. I assumed they went to get something to eat and the VCR continued to play the movie they had left on it. After awhile, I heard coming from the TV, "Harder! Harder! HARDER!" Out loud, I said, "What is that?" before looking at the TV. I then saw PORN! Gasp! I was shocked! I had no idea Rod was into this kind of stuff. Rod and the others came back in the living room and were laughing. From their perspective, it looked like I had seen the TV and then asked "What is that?" Fortunately, we didn't watch any more porn.
The really odd thing about Rod watching porn was that I found out later he was gay. Those of us who hung around him had a suspicion about it. The main clue was that he never, ever talked about any of the girls we went to school with. When you're hanging out with your guy friends, the topic will inevitably steer toward the girls that you wouldn't mind if they paid some more attention to you. I never knew who he was attracted to. That trend actually continued into college, when I found out for certain that he was gay. He still would never let on who he liked.
I don't know how I would have reacted in high school if he had told me he was gay. There was an incident in high school (that I will go into detail later) that made me very homophobic for a few years. I think that once I matured into college, I was able to accept his orientation more because we didn't hang out as much.
Rod and I did quite a lot together with our involvement in Choir and the Drama Club. In the summer of 1980, we went on a road trip to Albuquerque, where we were going to meet with other students from the city to go to the International Theatre Arts Conference in Muncie, IN. It was a gathering of high school theatre students who were members of the Internationalal Thespian Society and came from all over the world. (I will go over the full details of that adventure in a future blog post.) Anyway, we didn't really plan it out very well. We took off late in the afternoon and somehow, we decided to spend the night in the car once we got there. I do not remember whose smart idea that was. We had hoped to stay a couple of hours at some 24-hour diner, but we wound up running out of stuff to do. At one point I suggested, "Hey, let's go find a couple of girls and get laid!" He looked at me weird. I don't know if he thought I was serious. We parked outside the home of the person organizing the trip and just simply could not sleep in that Gremlin. The back seat was full of our stuff, so neither one of us could sleep back there.
Rod had acheived a major accomplishment when he graduated from high school. He was the first student in the state of New Mexico to be awarded an International Thespian Society scholarship.
When Rod turned 18, he was given $10,000 out of his inheritance to buy a new car. It was SO much nicer than his Gremlin. However, a year later at college, I noticed that the hood was missing and he never got it replaced. How did that happen? I can understand not being able to close your car door, but how do you lose your hood?
Rod went to college at Eastern New Mexico University. He was cast in the Theatre Department's first production of the season "Lysistrata." Later that year, those of us in the Drama Club went to the Theatre Festival at the university and saw him perform in their production of "Arsenic and Old Lace." (Yes, the same play we had done two years earlier. He had the lead role in our production, but he only had the small part of the pastor in the beginning of the play at Eastern.)
Rod was definitely someone I had a lot in common with (although we didn't share the same taste in music), someone I did a lot with, but somehow, we weren't especially the best of friends. This became very apparent when we were in college together. I will be covering that in tomorrow's post.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
High School Friends: Rad, Part 3
I have spent the last two days discussing my experience with my friend Rad from high school. Today, I'll wrap it up.
I'm going to start this part telling you about a crush I had a little later on in life. My junior year in college, I was in the student Senate. There was this girl I met there. (Sadly, I cannot remember her name, not even enough to do my little "z" trick.) She was very attractive with olive skin and dark hair. She was smart and well-dressed, but her pants were always baggy. I almost made the comment that she shouldn't wear pants like that because they made her hips look big. Well, I'm glad I never said that because I found out that she actually had big hips when I saw her wearing a skirt for the first time.
One day, I saw Rad in the passenger seat of a car that was on campus. He yelled out at me and I got into the car. That girl was in the car with him and they were holding hands. They were dating! I have no idea how he met her, but this was one of the few times our taste in women had converged. However, I knew that even if they broke up, I couldn't go out with her.
After graduating from college, I worked as DJ at a radio station in Clovis, NM. One night in 1988, Rad came to my house. He found me by going to the radio station and having them call me. I gave him the address and he showed up a few minutes later. He was also working as a DJ at a radio station in Hobbs, NM. I felt kind of bad because, even though I was the Music Director, I was stuck on the overnight shift. He was his station's Program Director and appeared to be having a blast. We ran around town that night and he met the girl I was dating at the time. (Her name is Maz, but I'll get to her much later.)
We talked a few times on the phone after that, and since we were both in charge of the music at our stations, we were both listed as the person calling in the latest chart activity on the hits at our stations for the Gavin Report. After I had quit working at the station because they didn't let me move into an earlier shift, I called him to see if he had any jobs available. I didn't flat out ask, but he didn't make any indication that he had anything to offer me.
I wouldn't hear from him again for almost 24 years. In an earlier post, I mentioned how my best friend Wild from fourth grade had tracked me down by calling my father. A few days after that, I received an e-mail at my work place. It was from Rad. He had just been thinking about me and decided to look me up on the Internet. He found me on the website for the radio station where I worked. I guess he couldn't tell from the picture, but he wasn't quite sure if I was the same Fayd Ogolon that he knew in high school.
He had become an actor of sorts, had appeared in some stuff (that I had never seen) and was a member of the Screen Actors Guild. He had recently gotten married for the first time and lived in Hawaii. We became friends on Facebook and have been keeping tabs on each other. His wife recently became an attorney.
I don't know if we'll ever see each other again. I don't have the money to go to Hawaii, and apparently, he doesn't have the money to leave Hawaii. He and his wife's most recent vacation was in the parts of that state in which they don't live.
I'm going to start this part telling you about a crush I had a little later on in life. My junior year in college, I was in the student Senate. There was this girl I met there. (Sadly, I cannot remember her name, not even enough to do my little "z" trick.) She was very attractive with olive skin and dark hair. She was smart and well-dressed, but her pants were always baggy. I almost made the comment that she shouldn't wear pants like that because they made her hips look big. Well, I'm glad I never said that because I found out that she actually had big hips when I saw her wearing a skirt for the first time.
One day, I saw Rad in the passenger seat of a car that was on campus. He yelled out at me and I got into the car. That girl was in the car with him and they were holding hands. They were dating! I have no idea how he met her, but this was one of the few times our taste in women had converged. However, I knew that even if they broke up, I couldn't go out with her.
After graduating from college, I worked as DJ at a radio station in Clovis, NM. One night in 1988, Rad came to my house. He found me by going to the radio station and having them call me. I gave him the address and he showed up a few minutes later. He was also working as a DJ at a radio station in Hobbs, NM. I felt kind of bad because, even though I was the Music Director, I was stuck on the overnight shift. He was his station's Program Director and appeared to be having a blast. We ran around town that night and he met the girl I was dating at the time. (Her name is Maz, but I'll get to her much later.)
We talked a few times on the phone after that, and since we were both in charge of the music at our stations, we were both listed as the person calling in the latest chart activity on the hits at our stations for the Gavin Report. After I had quit working at the station because they didn't let me move into an earlier shift, I called him to see if he had any jobs available. I didn't flat out ask, but he didn't make any indication that he had anything to offer me.
I wouldn't hear from him again for almost 24 years. In an earlier post, I mentioned how my best friend Wild from fourth grade had tracked me down by calling my father. A few days after that, I received an e-mail at my work place. It was from Rad. He had just been thinking about me and decided to look me up on the Internet. He found me on the website for the radio station where I worked. I guess he couldn't tell from the picture, but he wasn't quite sure if I was the same Fayd Ogolon that he knew in high school.
He had become an actor of sorts, had appeared in some stuff (that I had never seen) and was a member of the Screen Actors Guild. He had recently gotten married for the first time and lived in Hawaii. We became friends on Facebook and have been keeping tabs on each other. His wife recently became an attorney.
I don't know if we'll ever see each other again. I don't have the money to go to Hawaii, and apparently, he doesn't have the money to leave Hawaii. He and his wife's most recent vacation was in the parts of that state in which they don't live.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
High School Friends: Rad, Part 2
Yesterday, I wrote about my friend Rad in high school. The story didn't end there. In fact, I have to go back a little bit and let you know about an incident I missed in yesterday's post, but it had an incredible impact on our friendship and taught me how to be a better friend.
The Drama club's first production of our sophomore year was "Arsenic and Old Lace." We both played police officers in the play. Right before a dress rehearsal, Rod (who I will tell about in Thursday's post) had gotten the keys to the auditorium from the Drama teacher. When Rad went to the bathroom in the men's dressing room, Rod pulled out the keys and locked him in. (I have no idea why there was a lock on the bathroom that couldn't be opened from the inside.) Rad started panicking and pounding on the door. There were other guys in the dressing room and we were all laughing about it. Yes, I had joined in on this frivolity at the expense of Rad's feelings and I know he could hear me laughing outside the bathroom.
I guess the reason I had joined the gang against Rad was because I was glad it wasn't me locked in that bathroom. We eventually let him out. He stormed out of the dressing room and went outside. I went out after him. He was trying to leave before we started the dress rehearsal. He looked at me and had tears in his eyes. He said, "I expect that sort of thing from those guys, but I never expected it from you! Get away from me!" He then went home, still in the police costume.
Back in the auditorium, we were getting ready to start rehearsal. The teacher asked where Rad was. I told her that he got mad after we had locked him in the bathroom and left. She chastised us for doing that to Rad and told me to call him and get him back to rehearsal. I called his house. He was already home. (Because it only took ten minutes to get there. It's a really small town.) I apologized to him and asked him to come back. He said he would do it for me.
I'm not always the good guy in the blog. I've done some terrible stuff and I really want to avoid glossing over it. But when I'm not the good guy, I'd like to think I learn some hard lessons along the way. I had to learn to differentiate between the good friends and the disposable ones and stand up for those who need it the most.
So, tomorrow will be a Part 3 about Rad and what happened after high school.
The Drama club's first production of our sophomore year was "Arsenic and Old Lace." We both played police officers in the play. Right before a dress rehearsal, Rod (who I will tell about in Thursday's post) had gotten the keys to the auditorium from the Drama teacher. When Rad went to the bathroom in the men's dressing room, Rod pulled out the keys and locked him in. (I have no idea why there was a lock on the bathroom that couldn't be opened from the inside.) Rad started panicking and pounding on the door. There were other guys in the dressing room and we were all laughing about it. Yes, I had joined in on this frivolity at the expense of Rad's feelings and I know he could hear me laughing outside the bathroom.
I guess the reason I had joined the gang against Rad was because I was glad it wasn't me locked in that bathroom. We eventually let him out. He stormed out of the dressing room and went outside. I went out after him. He was trying to leave before we started the dress rehearsal. He looked at me and had tears in his eyes. He said, "I expect that sort of thing from those guys, but I never expected it from you! Get away from me!" He then went home, still in the police costume.
Back in the auditorium, we were getting ready to start rehearsal. The teacher asked where Rad was. I told her that he got mad after we had locked him in the bathroom and left. She chastised us for doing that to Rad and told me to call him and get him back to rehearsal. I called his house. He was already home. (Because it only took ten minutes to get there. It's a really small town.) I apologized to him and asked him to come back. He said he would do it for me.
I'm not always the good guy in the blog. I've done some terrible stuff and I really want to avoid glossing over it. But when I'm not the good guy, I'd like to think I learn some hard lessons along the way. I had to learn to differentiate between the good friends and the disposable ones and stand up for those who need it the most.
So, tomorrow will be a Part 3 about Rad and what happened after high school.
Monday, February 3, 2014
High School Friends: Rad, Part 1
The next few days, I will be focusing on the friends I had during my sophomore year in high school. Don't worry, I didn't have a lot of them.
Today's (and tomorrow's) post is about Rad. As I mentioned earlier in my post on the first day of high school, I met Rad during Drama class. I wound up sitting next to him in the classroom. He was not someone I had seen before. At first, I thought he was a junior or senior, but it turned out he was a sophomore like me.
He had moved to Artesia from Louisiana. He lived in a mobile home on property owned by the refinery. In order to get to his house, I had to drive through the refinery. He claimed that he had gotten his Louisiana driver's license when he was 14. However, he never showed it to me, so I don't know that it was true. I do know that even with the license, he was not permitted to drive in New Mexico.
About a week into school, I started hanging out with him during lunch. We were both very excited about the Drama class, acting and getting to perform at the auditorium. Rad and I started hanging out after school as Drama was the last class of the day. He came to my house one time. My Mom came home and was surprised to see I had a friend there. That didn't happen very often.
We did a lot of running around the town, doing goofy things. Once he came home and met my brother Loyd for the first time. For whatever reason, he thought Loyd (who was 12 years old at the time) was a junior in high school. I've mentioned before how Loyd would attempt to steal my friends from me. This was one of the times he succeeded. Rad started coming over and spending more time with Loyd than with me. Once, he spent the night and stayed in Loyd's room.
However, Loyd stopped the friendship after Rad ran him over with his car. Actually, what happened is Loyd was laying on the ground and Rad drove the vehicle over him, probably believing there was enough clearance for him to just drive right over him without hurting him. He wound up dragging Loyd a few yards before he realized that Loyd didn't come out the other end. Loyd was not hurt, but he probably got a lot of gravel in his pants.
Another thing worth mentioning is that Rad proved to be rather popular with girls and had no problems getting dates. However, they were not girls I would have wanted to have anything to do with. The two of us appeared to have completely different sets of standards when it came to choosing potential mates. I will say that, even though Rad had no issues with public displays of affection, he was rather discreet about his sexual encounters. He never once said anything to me about having sex with any of his girlfriends. I had, however, heard that one of his girlfriends told one of her friends that she and Rad did it six times in one night.
When the next school year started, Rad was the unfortunate victim of one of the biggest mistakes in the school yearbook. His photo was placed among the juniors. His name was also misspelled. AND that misspelled name was under someone else's picture, so he had a different name under his. The next year, he was in the correct class with the correct name.
During junior year, we didn't hang out as much, even though he had joined choir. Rad found another friend to hang out with. However, there was one Saturday night in which the three of us ran around together. This happened because Rad's car didn't work. We wound up at Rad's house. It was snowing and I didn't want to drive home, so I called Dad and asked permission to stay the night. He said I couldn't.
The next year, Rad moved to Roswell. He graduated the year after I did. I would stop by and see him during my freshman year in college. It was strange because I was in college and he was still trying to finish high school.
As with many of the friends I will go into detail about in this blog, I encountered him several other times following high school. I will go into what happened with Rad in tomorrow's post.
Today's (and tomorrow's) post is about Rad. As I mentioned earlier in my post on the first day of high school, I met Rad during Drama class. I wound up sitting next to him in the classroom. He was not someone I had seen before. At first, I thought he was a junior or senior, but it turned out he was a sophomore like me.
He had moved to Artesia from Louisiana. He lived in a mobile home on property owned by the refinery. In order to get to his house, I had to drive through the refinery. He claimed that he had gotten his Louisiana driver's license when he was 14. However, he never showed it to me, so I don't know that it was true. I do know that even with the license, he was not permitted to drive in New Mexico.
About a week into school, I started hanging out with him during lunch. We were both very excited about the Drama class, acting and getting to perform at the auditorium. Rad and I started hanging out after school as Drama was the last class of the day. He came to my house one time. My Mom came home and was surprised to see I had a friend there. That didn't happen very often.
We did a lot of running around the town, doing goofy things. Once he came home and met my brother Loyd for the first time. For whatever reason, he thought Loyd (who was 12 years old at the time) was a junior in high school. I've mentioned before how Loyd would attempt to steal my friends from me. This was one of the times he succeeded. Rad started coming over and spending more time with Loyd than with me. Once, he spent the night and stayed in Loyd's room.
However, Loyd stopped the friendship after Rad ran him over with his car. Actually, what happened is Loyd was laying on the ground and Rad drove the vehicle over him, probably believing there was enough clearance for him to just drive right over him without hurting him. He wound up dragging Loyd a few yards before he realized that Loyd didn't come out the other end. Loyd was not hurt, but he probably got a lot of gravel in his pants.
Another thing worth mentioning is that Rad proved to be rather popular with girls and had no problems getting dates. However, they were not girls I would have wanted to have anything to do with. The two of us appeared to have completely different sets of standards when it came to choosing potential mates. I will say that, even though Rad had no issues with public displays of affection, he was rather discreet about his sexual encounters. He never once said anything to me about having sex with any of his girlfriends. I had, however, heard that one of his girlfriends told one of her friends that she and Rad did it six times in one night.
When the next school year started, Rad was the unfortunate victim of one of the biggest mistakes in the school yearbook. His photo was placed among the juniors. His name was also misspelled. AND that misspelled name was under someone else's picture, so he had a different name under his. The next year, he was in the correct class with the correct name.
During junior year, we didn't hang out as much, even though he had joined choir. Rad found another friend to hang out with. However, there was one Saturday night in which the three of us ran around together. This happened because Rad's car didn't work. We wound up at Rad's house. It was snowing and I didn't want to drive home, so I called Dad and asked permission to stay the night. He said I couldn't.
The next year, Rad moved to Roswell. He graduated the year after I did. I would stop by and see him during my freshman year in college. It was strange because I was in college and he was still trying to finish high school.
As with many of the friends I will go into detail about in this blog, I encountered him several other times following high school. I will go into what happened with Rad in tomorrow's post.
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