High School

Guest Blogger Matthew Miller: ‘One Team! One Sound! One Family! One Regiment!’

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My cousin Matt sent me this piece he wrote about his recent trip, with his son’s marching band regiment, to the Band of America Grand National Championships.  I appreciate him offering his insights and pulling back the curtain into a world I know very little about.  So much work goes into these competitions, these entire seasons, and it’s nice to be reminded of how hard everyone, students and parents alike are working.  Great stuff, Matt and Congratulations to Renegade Regiment!!

 

This past weekend we attended the Bands of America Grand National Championships for high school marching bands held in Indianapolis.  This is the competition for elite level bands from across the nation.  Of the thousands of marching bands and of the 500 or so highly competitive programs, this event was for the top 100 in the country.  It is the Olympics for the marching band world.  Marching band has come along way from just doing parades and doing straight line drills.  There is pageantry, athleticism, and musicality all being wrought by students from grades 8th through 12th.  The Renegade Regiment, my son’s band, has been a finalist 11 times since the beginning of the Grand Nationals competition, at least once in every decade.  Our bordering neighbor, Broken Arrow, has been the champion twice in the last five years.  Other programs in our area are gearing up for the elite level competition.  Steel makes steel stronger!

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It is too large a task just for the school band directors to accomplish on their own.  Our school has a band booster organization established in 1979 with  23 board of directors to run an annual budget of close to a million dollars.  The board and other booster members are 100% volunteers, giving countless hours coordinating activities, fundraising, planning logistics for food, housing and travel, creation and movement of field props and being the behind the scenes crew.  These volunteers are mostly parents, guardians and grandparents of student participants.  Our club, the Union Band Parent Club, has been making strides to be inline with our band director and school’s vision and mission.  We do our best to remove the administrative and logistical obstacles, so the band directors can send the majority of the time providing quality instruction for our students.

I submitted the pieces below to our weekly parents newsletter.  The first was prior to our trip, the second was after riding the 13 hour charter bus ride back to Tulsa from Indianapolis.  These were to offer compliments, encouragement, thanks and realism for what we do as a parent organization to support our students.  Our band directors use a closing chant with the students: One Team! One Family! One Sound! One Regiment! I have incorporated the meaning that it has for us as parents, but it is more than applicable in anyone’s daily life.   I hope you enjoy and are enriched from these notes.

Reflection in Preparation

As we look forward to this busy upcoming competition week, take a moment to reflect.  The prospect of moving a small village to Indianapolis is a monumental task.  There are so many small details, logistic concerns, vendor issues, deadlines… the list goes on and on.  It is with good reason that we share this load of duties to make what we do, that allows our directors and students stay focused and primed for the competition.   Why do we spend the hours and hours each week to do this?  One reason: to let the students shine at what they do, at their highest possible ability.  Our students do their best at exemplifying our example: they are student leaders, athletes and scholars.  They work long arduous hours memorizing drill, music and choreography, all while attending school, completing homework, participating in other activities and working part time jobs.  In some cases, they are working  to pay their own way.  I stand in awe of what they choose to accomplish each and every day.  They do not hold back, in that way they stand tall against their peers.

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When describing what I do with the band to people, it is simple to explain that the time invested is going to our future leaders. Young people who know both victory and defeat and make the choice to continue to the best of their ability.  These young people will be the shapers and doers of our future, not just blind followers.  They have tasted the experience of being the best they can be and will not accept less.  The standards that they are learning now will carry them onward in the future paths that they explore.  They rest not on their accomplishments, but look forward to what they hold for the future.  Each of us that assist these students play a role in this achievement, be that involvement small or large.  Who is to say what they will accomplish, but be rest assured that it will be done with their personal best.

‘One Team! One Sound! One Family! One Regiment!’ is more than a chant or a saying, it is a way of living to the highest potential everyday.  Think on this as we prepare, can each of us make the same promise to be part of the One Team, One Sound, One Family and One Regiment.

Dignity * Grace * Pride

These are descriptive words for our Renegade Regiment students.  We received compliments from bus drivers, restaurant managers and employees, hotel managers, event workers, band directors and other band parents for our students.  They were outstanding ambassadors for the Renegade Regiment, Union Bands and Union High School. They embodied the points of the Union Band Parents Club Mission of having a culture of artistry, excellence and community.  These are the reasons that I am most proud of the students.

They exhibited  an infectious energy during performances and rehearsals.  In so many words they were fierce on stage.   Our students shined in the little things that they did.  They were humble, gracious and encouraging when interacting with other bands.  They shared excitement for other bands and their performances.  They upheld the Oklahoma spirit of community in cheering for Owasso and Broken Arrow band performances.

Most people will never know how the on-stage personas that were demonstrated are radically opposite from the students regular personalities. They are professional performers.  They did not show the shy and reserved normal personalities that some have – they were fierce.  The effort individually expended enhanced all of the performances.  The amount of energy expended was incredible – you did not see signs of illness or injury, just effort.  Performers quite  literally fell off field, having given all that they could.  There was not anything else they could have given – it was left all out on the field.

After all of this was done, the harsh realities of life were felt.  Injuries were attended to, sleeping and homework were started.  The joy of being an elite finalist in their field of performance was still present, an understated glow on each student.  For other students the reality came more harshly, an event of a restaurant patron being hateful and bigoted was overheard by our students.  The students exhibited grace and courage as they removed themselves from the situation, alerted the appropriate adults  so the corrective actions could be taken.  A bad situation was kept from getting worse by brave students knowing how to respond accordingly and where to turn to for assistance.

We are unable to shield our students from the world, but we can provide a safe environment for them to use in times of need.  We exist as a vehicle to provide encouragement and support as they students learn, grow and perform.  At times we provide the refuge from the realities of daily life.  I feel blessed to be part of an organization that has the passion and compassion to do what we do.  Thank each of you who are able to spend your time in the enrichment of these student’s souls.  The chant resounds again:  One Team! One Sound! One Family! One Regiment!

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The Darkness of Our Souls

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Michael-J-Pollard-The-Stripper-1963

One of the mostly darkly comic moments of my high school career was the day of officer elections for Fellowship of Christian Athletes. It was my junior year and I had been very involved in Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) since my freshman year. I went to every meeting, every weekend retreat, every Tuesday night bible study. I wasn’t really an athlete, but I sure was a Christian and I had every Amy Grant cassette tape to prove it.

If you are a person that remembers high school, you might remember how some clubs were a little nerdier than others. FCA was not a nerd club. I’ll never forget my freshman year, going to meetings, spellbound by the devotions given by junior and senior club leaders, popular boys and girls, who talked about how their relationship with Jesus really helped them get through the day. And also, to win games.

By my junior year, FCA was the one club I was most involved in. Many of the people I considered my best friends were also in that club.

When officer elections came up that year, I knew that I really wanted to hold some kind of office during my senior year. I aspired to be that upperclassman giving devotions, inspiring freshman about how Jesus really makes your day better. So I signed up to run for every office: president, vice president, secretary, treasurer. I think there was even something called stu-co rep that I threw my name into the hat for. I was sure that with all that putting myself out there, something would pay off. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

The day of elections, my first clue of the tragicomedy to come was that every FCA member in the school showed up to vote. While FCA boasted a large membership, meeting attendance was never mandatory and often not heavily attended. That day was the exception, every lumbering football player, towering basketball player and Aqua-Netted varsity cheerleader showed up to vote for officers that day.

The first office that we voted for was president. I don’t remember how many candidates there were, I don’t remember who won. I just remember it wasn’t me.

I won’t drag this out for you the way that afternoon dragged on for me, but each election bore the same result. Each time my fellow FCA members had an opportunity to vote, they voted for the other candidate. By the time we got down to stu-co rep, there were snickers that travelled through the auditorium when my name was announced as one of the candidates. Like Carrie at the prom, in the moments after that pigs’ blood fell on her head, I realized that whatever it was that I wanted from these people, boys and girls I considered my peers, I was not going to get it. By a show of hands, the vote took place. Someone other than me won.

That afternoon, after the calamitous election, I went home and took to my waterbed. I don’t remember crying specifically, but I probably did. What I most remember is laying there, heartbroken and embarrassed. In all my years of living in Independence, I don’t think I ever felt so alone.

My only consolation was that someday I would leave Independence and leave Kansas and show them all. I would have a wildly successful adult life and when I came back to Independence to visit, everyone would clamor around me, wanting to get close enough that my stardust might rub off on them.

And while I have left Independence and left Kansas, my life is just kind of a life. Not too glamorous, barely any stardust at all.

Did I have any idea, on that lonely spring afternoon, as I pouted in my bedroom, how many times I would think of that day in the 30 years to come? I don’t think I did.

On that afternoon, I decided I was not going to be a member of FCA my senior year. I would not be sharing my athleticism or my Christianity with people who did not appreciate it. And I held to that resolution. Instead, my senior year was filled with rehearsals and performances for four different plays.

It’s no wonder I loved being on stage, acting in these plays. The thought of becoming someone else is what I’d spent 17 years dreaming about.

One of the plays I did in that busy senior year was written by William Inge.  The play, A Loss of Roses, was Inge’s first big Broadway failure, the first of more than a few.

Inge wrote quite a bit about his hometown, my hometown. In his adulthood, he did not spend a lot of time in Independence. From what I’ve read, I don’t think he liked visiting. An overly sensitive man, a success who never stopped feeling like a failure, I think his visits home dredged up too much pain.

It’s always a little embarrassing to write about one’s pains, one’s sensitivities. Inge did it beautifully, but now, now that we know how much sadness he bore his entire life, it’s heartbreaking. Lola, always ready to play the victim, but stronger than she realizes. Rosemary, on her knees begging a man she may not even love to marry her because the loneliness is killing her. Millie, overshadowed by her beautiful sister, defiant that one day she would leave Independence and live a successful, decorated life.

Sometimes I worry that I am in a downward spiral, that the trip to the Menninger Clinic that William Inge and Deanie Loomis took might be in my future too. There are days that I am overwhelmed by my sensitivities. There are moments when I wonder, am I the only person bothered that no one stops at stop signs in Los Angeles?

I woke up at 5:00 a.m. this morning with the fear that everyone in my entire home town hates me now. Over something I wrote about in a blog yesterday. And then I fretted over that fear because who really thinks that way except for the delirious and the paranoid?  And then to try to make sense of it, I sat on my couch and typed all this out into my little phone. And then, later, I’ll go back to reread what I’ve written and judge it and decide whether I’m willing to share it, the ramblings of my overtired, oversensitive, quite possibly delusional brain.

Of course, you know I published it. You know I took that risk. It’s what we writers do, we risk revealing the darkness of our souls. Even us failures, especially us failures.  And vultures that we are, we all take solace in being reminded of others’ failures, because they are not our own.

Happy Endings

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betty-draper-coca-cola-mad-men.pngI’ve fallen into a pattern. In the last few months, I sit down to write a blog, write a few paragraphs, sometimes several paragraphs, and hit a wall. I go back and read what I’ve written and shake my head. Whatever it is I am trying to say, I can’t say it. So I save the draft and tell myself I will revisit it and then, of course, I don’t.

I started a blog on Sunday, before the Mad Men finale aired. I wanted it to serve as a prediction of sorts of how I thought the series would end. I had a title, Happy Endings, but again, whatever it was I tried to say, it did not come together.

The last few days, I have been sick and also I have been embroiled in the Mad Men marathon AMC hosted in the days leading up to the finale. I DVR’d every episode and had finished about 45 of the 92 before the finale aired. There was something about my feeling under the weather and my compulsion to binge re-watch these episodes that sent me into a bit of a downward spiral. In the last few days I have been rendered unable to talk about anything other than the lives of Don and Betty and Peggy and Joan and Pete and Trudy and Sal and Lois and Meredith and Miss Blankenship and well, you get the idea. And I’m not sure, but until this morning, I thought I’d lost my sense of smell forever.

My friend Linda texted me on Sunday with commiseration about Mad Men‘s end. She added that we needed to get together because it’s been awhile since we’ve hung out. (She lives 1.5 miles away from me.) I said, “Yes, let’s hang out soon.” But all I could think was I can’t make plans with people until I’m finished watching these 92 episodes of Mad Men. You know, priorities.

I could talk about the ending of the show, what satisfied me, what disappointed me, what confused me. But, you know, there is that chance that you haven’t seen it yet. Also, you’re not reading this to get my review. But I will tell you what I was thinking about when I woke up this morning, after I’d had a night or two to sleep on it.

On Sunday, between Facebook messages and texts, I had several conversations about how the series would and should end. I enjoyed hearing the theories, the hopes, the emphatic declarations of love or hate for Don or Betty or Joan. (Although, seriously, who could hate Joan?) I was in a Mad Mania and I loved it. Two of the people I communicated with on Sunday were friends from high school.

I’ll call them Bob and Emily. Now, I think it’s already been established, but it took a very, very long time for me to ever feel like I was more than just a Nick Carraway in someone else’s story. I’ve always felt like one of the Watchers sitting around watching the Do-ers do. I had been friends with Bob and Emily independently for several years when they got together sometime during high school. In true Nick Carraway fashion, I probably had a crush on both of them. Okay, not probably, I did have a crush on both of them. They both were emblems of everything I ached to be: good looking, intelligent, slim, funny, popular. Of course, there was something else about them that made them special, and it’s the kind of thing I never identified until I was in my 20’s, but, simply put, they always seemed to be in cahoots. Like there were a million things that made only them laugh and they could try to explain it to you, but it wouldn’t make sense. It was just between them. And while other high school couples might have been more glamorous or photogenic or romantic, Bob and Emily were what my high school picture of love should be. I’d go to sleep dreaming that my Bob or my Emily would come into my life. And we would be that couple. In cahoots.

Of course, Bob and Emily broke up when we were all in college. They each moved on, as far as I know. But for me, the Nick to their Jay and Daisy, and because I’ve spent little time with either of them in the 30 years since high school, I always see them together, whether they should be or not. Like Don and Betty, forever intertwined. I didn’t say that to either of them. These are not characters in a tv show or a novel or a movie, these are people.

In watching the early seasons of Mad Men these last few days, I was reminded of something that I had forgotten. We rooted for Don and Betty for a long time. For nearly three seasons, we all hoped that they could work out their differences. It broke my heart Saturday night to watch that scene where Don weeps about his childhood after Betty shows him the box. She rests her hand on his shoulder for comfort but you see in her eyes, it’s too late. She can’t love him anymore. And I sat there on my couch, weeping, because their love was real and it was never coming back. And, okay, small spoiler, but in the last episode, when Don called Betty and in the midst of their conversation, he called her Birdie, I lost it. It was the end and I, I don’t know, it just made me so sad.

Of course, I wasn’t just sad for Don and Betty. I was sad the show was ending. I was sad for Sally. Sad for myself because it had been a week and I was still sick. (Do I have lung cancer?) I was sad that couples that I thought should always stay together were not together anymore. Also, at that point, I was sad and worried that we were 20 minutes into the last flipping episode and Don was still in California.

I texted Linda later to tell her that she and a handful of my other good friends all came into my life the same summer that Mad Men did. We all met in a class. So much has happened to me since the summer of 2007. Most significantly, of course, I met Eric, who is a little bit Don, a little bit Peggy, a little bit Roger, a little bit Betty, a generous dollop of Joan and even a dash of Sal. And our relationship is as complex, imperfect, and on some days, jet-set, as any that Matthew Weiner has ever created.

Okay, this is the point where Don would make Peggy stay late, even though it’s her birthday, and they would drink and smoke and fight until they got the pitch for the meeting, until it all came together. You see, whatever it is I am trying to say here, it’s not exactly cohesive at the moment. It wasn’t cohesive yesterday when I worked on it either. Maybe I need a mouse (or a rat) to dart through my office for this to come together.

But just maybe I learned something from Mad Men. Maybe a neat ending is not always necessary, maybe sometimes it’s not even possible. Maybe, like in a phone call, I could just close by saying I’m really going to miss Mad Men. And you’re on the other end of the line saying, “I already knew that. Me too.”

Frozen

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Never-Been-KissedI’ve definitely been a little sentimental lately.  You might perhaps remember a post from last week where I mentioned that my job of 15 years is coming to a close this week, Saturday is my last day.  A few days ago, I had a conversation with my friend and co-worker Gabriel about another recent blog post.  He chided me that the title of the blog Class of ’84 Reunion caught his eye because he wasn’t even born in 1984.  (Very funny, Gabe!) But we talked about the post, about something that happened long ago, and he mentioned that that’s the thing about people you haven’t seen in a long time, they are locked in, frozen, as the person that you last had contact with.  Years, decades could pass, but they are still that 9th grader or 7th grader or whatever.

And because that particular post had a certain amount of resonance, I have heard from many, many of my classmates in the last 36 hours.  And it’s weird, because that thing that Gabriel talked about, that frozen in time aspect, related to those people too.  I heard from P—–, who when we were in 7th grade, we were in all the same classes.  She was the prettiest girl in the 7th grade and I had a crush on her just like everyone else.  She’s obviously an adult now, kids of her own, but in our exchange, all I could remember was the statuesque girl with the feathered, raven hair.  It was sweet.  And I heard from M—–who reminded me of arm wrestling in the school cafeteria.  He flattered me by saying that he thought I won, but I’m sure he did.  I got a message from H——, my neighbor growing up and I remembered our summer before 9th grade where all the kids in the neighborhood hung out every day.  It was the only summer that we did that, but I thought so fondly about it today.  I talked to S—– who was on the French Club trip to Canada, and T—– who was one of the stars of my summer swim league, and C—- and A—- who, with me, comprised 1/3 of the gayest T-ball team in Kansas sports history.  With a few exceptions, I have little contact with these people in my 2014 life.  They are frozen, at 12 or 14 or 15 or 17.

Also today, I’ve been thinking about one of my favorite movies, Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore, as Josie Geller who had to go to high school twice to really appreciate it.  I tried to find a video of her voiceover at the end, where she talks about the people from high school.  I couldn’t find it, but I did find the speech. “Those girls are still there. The ones that, even as you grow up, will still be the most beautiful girls that you’ve ever seen close up.  The athletes, and the immense sense of fraternity and loyalty that they share. The smart kids- who everyone else always knew as the brains. But who I just knew as my soul mates, my teachers, my friends.”  I feel like I had my Never Been Kissed moment yesterday, reconnecting with these people who were my bright spots of youth, people I admired the most in my formative years.  

And now I think about Gabriel and my friends from Barney Greengrass, AKA Barneys New York Restaurant.  It’s a graduation of sorts.  There is a possibility that many of us will be back in the fall in the new incarnation, but the truth is, who really knows what the future holds.  Yesterday, was the last time another friend Kristin and I worked together.  As she left, I hugged her tight in a somewhat successful attempt to make her cry.  “You’re not going to make me cry, Ray,” she said with misty eyes. And then we laughed. It was a nice moment that I hope I never forget.

I’m trying to tie these groups together, old friends from youth and these co-workers who’ve been my friends so long that they feel like family. Some will remain fixtures in my life and others, of course, will remain frozen as they are in June 2014. But frozen is not a bad thing when the memories are warm. (Get it?) If I don’t see Gabriel or Kristin or Rudy or Jonathan or Olya or the rest for another 30 years, they’ll always hold a special place in my heart. And it’s nice to know that in my heart, my sometimes embittered heart that has survived a few hurts, there is room for love for so many, old and new.

I told you I’ve been sentimental lately.

Class of ’84 Reunion

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The-Breakfast-ClubI grew up in a small town. I guess that’s been established at this point. On Facebook this weekend, the class of ’84 held a thirty year class reunion. I have many friends in that class, also my cousin is in that class. They were all seniors when I was a sophomore and I remember looking up to many of them.

A few years ago, at their 10 year reunion a class member drunkenly confronted another class member about being a jerk in junior high and high school. If I recall, the victim threatened physical violence on his tormentor. It was a story with traction, I heard about it several times from several sources in the years that followed.

It was a story that stuck with me because that confronted tormentor was one of my tormentors too. In fact, of all the verbal abuse I received growing up, I must say that Karl Johnson’s (pseudonym) words stung the most and had the most enduring effects. And before I go further, if you are thinking I should have let this go by now, let me agree wholeheartedly. I should have let this go by now.

What was Karl Johnson’s crime? Every day of 7th grade, he would call out loudly names like Fag and Gay Ray as I stood in the lunch line. He and his friends would sit at a table near the lunch line and make fun of various targets as they passed. Karl would call out the name and his cohorts would erupt into laughter. This lasted my entire 7th grade year, every day. It was something I fretted over every night as I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep, and every morning when I dreaded going to school.

So when someone else confronted Karl Johnson at his ten year reunion, all I really thought was, wow, good for him. I heard that Karl Johnson attempted an apology. In the years since high school, he’d become quite religious and considered himself a very good person.

I know that as far as bullying stories go, it’s a fairly average one. And I am okay. Since, I’ve started this blog, strangers have pointed out emotional and pathological issues that they think I have and I think you might be right. I am flawed and I am scarred. I try to move forward and love myself and make the world a better place, but, well, there is always a but.

When I saw the pictures of smiling Karl Johnson and his wife at the reunion, my heart started pumping and all I could think about was 12-year-old me and the fear I had every day. My cousin who had been friends with Karl Johnson and always sat at his lunch table, apologized several years ago about sitting there and never discouraging his friend. At a dive bar in Kansas City over pints of Boulevard hefeweizen, he told me he realized that must have been hard for me. I had to hold back tears because, I remind you, I was in a dive bar in Kansas City, but also, I didn’t want him to see how affected I was by his apology. I wanted to be manly.

Of course, I’m not really manly most of the time. I am sensitive, I do cry. My voice is nasally. I was and still am an easy target for people who want to call me names or point out my perceived flaws.

Maybe this is a story you relate to. I think some are better than others at leaving past hurts in the past.
Forgiveness is not really one of my strengths.

I do keep looking at this picture of Karl Johnson and his wife. I look at her, and while I may be wrong, she doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who would love that her husband was the bully of his junior high, flagrantly homophobic. (Although to be fair, wasn’t everyone flagrantly homophobic in 1980 Kansas?) Maybe he is a kinder person now, maybe she is the reason he is a kinder person now. I don’t know. I’ll probably never know.

I do feel little lighter. My heart has returned to a normal patter. In truth that reaction might have been partly attributed to this morning’s first cup of coffee.

It was all so long ago anyway. Let it go.

Frosted Hair and Feather Earrings

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madonna-80s“It’s so interesting that the people with the loosest morals in high school, college, and the mid-twenties always have the best bible verses on Facebook.”  My friend Alan, who is the king of Facebook, posted this statement on his wall about 6 minutes ago.  In that time, he has already received 107 likes and 20 plus comments. And counting.  He is a person who has a knack for striking the right chord, and I must say, his observation is, per usual, on point.

I have thought something along the same lines myself.  I could write about assholes in high school who now post “I support Duck Dynasty” pictures to their Facebook wall, which is a little interesting, but not surprising.  Instead, I would like to write about the first person who came to mind when I saw Alan’s post.  And let me just say, it wasn’t in a bad way, either.

I grew up in a small town in Kansas.  There were less than 800 people in my high school.  If you didn’t know every person, you knew of every person.  There was a girl I’ll call Pepper that I grew up with, but had very little contact with.  I think we might have been on the same bowling league when we were in grade school.  Pepper was one or two years younger than me and from as early as grade school, she had a reputation.  I cringe when I think of the labels that were placed on Pepper while we were growing up.  Wild, Slut, Whore, Stoner, Easy, Loose, Bitch, Drunk.  I have no idea if any of it was true, I had no first hand knowledge.  I do remember she was one of the youngest girls to get blonde highlights and she did have a propensity to wear dangling feather earrings that looked like roach clips, but hey, what do I know?

I have not been in the same room with Pepper once in the 28 years since I graduated high school, but she did send me a Facebook friend request several years ago, which I accepted.  Like me, Pepper spends a lot of time on Facebook.  And in the years between high school and now, she has become a deeply religious person.  Nearly every post is something about her faith, her walk with God.  If it isn’t about God, it’s about her family, which she is always quick to say is a gift from God.  If it isn’t about her family, it’s about the good friends that she is grateful for, more gifts from God.

One of the goals of religion, all religions, is to make the follower a better person, more loving, more compassionate, wiser, at peace.  And I read Pepper’s posts and I always think of Bible verses like 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”  She does not seem to be the girl I knew growing up, not that I really knew her growing up anyway.  Looking back, it does seem that she was a young person in pain, looking to find her way, something most of us can relate to.

Granted, I don’t really know her now, I can only understand her by what she posts and her message, quite literally, moves me to tears.  If she has posted anything anti-gay, I’ve yet to see it.  I think we all kind of have a Facebook persona. My friend Alan, for instance, is an acerbic mother hen, as if Bea Arthur had 2,574 children and her only contact with them was via Facebook.  My persona is, I don’t know, you could answer that better than me.  And Pepper’s persona is a woman who understands God’s grace.  I don’t know that that thirteen year old girl with frosted hair and feather earrings had any idea that her life would be filled with such riches.

The world is full of Peppers. Believe me, most of my best friends are Peppers. I’m a Pepper. And for the most part, we’re all just the adult versions of our thirteen year old selves, just trying to find our way. Grace.

Valley Girl

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vgs1I watched the film Valley Girl today. It’s the first time I’ve watched it in its entirety in probably 25 years. It’s not a perfect movie, but I still love Elizabeth Daily as love starved Loryn and Colleen Camp and Frederic Forrest as Julie’s parents and my favorite, Joanne Baron as the teacher who gives perhaps the best monologue in film history as she presents West Valley’s Prom King and Queen. “I remember my prom. I wanted to be queen. I wasn’t.”

I can’t hear the music from Valley Girl without thinking about my own high school years, when the thought of shopping at Sherman Oaks Galleria or eating French fries at Dupar’s or cruising down Hollywood Boulevard in a convertible was a pipe dream. Do I live here because of this movie? If only I’d watched Footloose a few more times, I’d have never left home.

In high school, I had a friend who brought the California to Independence. I’ll call her Cindy. She’d attended part of grade school in Independence, but spent several years in San Diego. She moved back to Independence in the beginning of our sophomore year. She had short dark brown hair, but had a little rat tail that she braided. (It looked cooler than it sounds.) If I recall, as the year wore on the braid grew longer and at some point she dyed it maroon. We formed a friendship over our mutual love of “New Wave” music and she introduced me to her favorites like Depeche Mode, OMD, Bow Wow Wow and Yaz (she LOVED Yaz!). I had a tendency to quiz her about all things California. For the life of me, I couldn’t get it through my head that San Diego was over 2 hours from Hollywood. Do you know Molly Ringwald? Have you ever been to a Facts of Life taping?

Sometime in the winter of that year, February perhaps, Cindy told me in the hall that she was moving back to San Diego. I was heartbroken, and more than anything, I wanted to flee Independence and move to Hollywood with her (I REALLY didn’t get the geographical difference). She told me that someone was throwing her a going away party and then invited me. One important detail which makes me sound totally arrested development-y to even point out: Cindy was popular, I was not. Cindy went to fun parties every weekend, Kansas versions of the ones in Valley Girl. I stayed home and watched Dallas and Falcon Crest or Love Boat and Fantasy Island, depending on the night. I was a little apprehensive about going and I should have been. It was a wild party, several people were drinking (alcohol!) and it made me very nervous. Also, almost no one talked to me. Cindy talked to me a little as did a few others, but mostly I sat in a corner wondering why I came in the first place. I didn’t belong. Late in the evening, there was a commotion. A few guys started shoving each other. They were both drunk and unfortunately, they were also near me. One of the guys, if I remembered his name, I’d tell you, looked at me, and thinking I was someone else, punched me in the eye. When I came to, there were a handful of people around asking if I was okay. The rest of the evening was a blur, I think someone might have driven me home. I don’t remember if it was that night or the morning after when my parents found out about the attack. I wouldn’t have been able to not tell them because I ended up with a black eye that lasted for 2 or 3 weeks. Ah, high school. I actually never saw Cindy again. We wrote occasionally and she once sent me a rad mix tape.

And now here I sit on my Los Angeles couch in my Los Angeles apartment with my Los Angeles life. And when I watch the movies of my youth that called to me like a beacon, “What’s your dream? Everybody comes to Hollywood with a dream,” I think about the 15-year-old boy who dreamed of a life beyond the intersection of Penn and Main. And I’m glad I didn’t feel like I belonged at that party, because if I had, maybe I never would have left. Fer sure.

Summer Camp Friend

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photo-26My friend Eboni left LA last week, moving back to New York with a promise to return to LA as soon as possible. I am one of many Angelenos who hope that she will be back sooner, rather than later. She moved here in February, in part, to take an acting class, that’s where we met. With a little help from me, she got a job where I work and as it turned out, she moved into my neighborhood. We became fast friends. And there was something about the intensity and brevity of our time together that made me think of several Summer Camp friends that I only saw in the summers, and to this day, they are among my favorite people.

Thanks to Facebook, a few of these people are still in my life. My friend Melinda, who was the second girl I ever kissed, btw, is now a missionary in Africa. Her sister Michelle is a published writer who wrote a book about her years working for a carnival in Tales from the MIdway. There’s also Dawn, who reminded me of Michelle Perry, the prettiest girl in the class of ’83 in my high school. At camp, I would follow Dawn around camp like a puppy dog and do anything to make her laugh. All it takes for me to trip down memory lane is to hear the word haven and instantly, I’m a 16 year old at Hidden Haven Christian Camp. It was the awakening of so much who I am or was to become. In my hometown, I was made fun of a lot, I held back from doing things because I didn’t want to be ridiculed, but at camp, I sang solos and wrote skits and “testified.” It’s where I learned that I liked being in front of people. I developed crushes on my fellow campers, boys and girls, and it was more than a little confusing at the time. In the boys dorms, I’d have a friend that we would talk into the night, so proud of ourselves that we could chat about so many things until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. In my world at home, I did not feel interesting, but at camp, when I spoke, people listened to me. It’s the first place I heard an Amy Grant song. And every Friday, after we said our goodbyes, my Mom would take me home and I’d take a long, hot shower, then tumble into bed for an afternoon nap. As I drifted in and out of lucid dreams my heart would still be electrified by the events and people of the week.

Anyway, seeing Eboni leave last week, it brought back those memories of camp. We had such a fun time getting to know each other, working together, sharing a class together, taking walks in the neighborhood. If it sounds like I’m boasting when I say I introduced her to some of LA’s best Happy Hours like this and this and this, well, then I have to own my braggadocio! Every day at work before she left, I’d sing Michael W. Smith’s Friends to her. I have a hope that Eboni will move back to LA and our friendship will resume and even grow, but we never know what life holds. She and I may never live in the same city again. Still, I’m grateful and electrified by the time we spent together talking mai-tai’s and Tennessee Williams and baked goods and Alfre Woodard. And regardless of geography, just like Michael W. Smith says, there are some friendships that are forever.