2 posts tagged “reflection”

Today one of my best friends calls me and tells me he's back in town.

Not my town, but in the town we grew up in. He's visiting his mom. And he runs into our 10th grade science teacher.

"Oh, so good to see you... so do you stay in touch with anyone from here?"

My friend realizes "What does it matter?" as his wife is telling him "You wouldn't remember any of them, anyhow."

My friend mentioned one guy: Leo. Leo was hard to forget.

"Oh, yes... Leo... good old Leo."

Leo probably makes more in one year now than this guy made in 4. Then, he asked about me.

"What about  the Admiral?"

"Yes,yes, I just spoke with him yesterday!"

Of course, he didn't mention my by my god-given regal title, but nevertheless, he remembered me. That was nice. Why? I suffered under this teacher. His unit conversions. His kilocalories. And his comet plots.

"He probably remembers you because of your comet plot... it was awful."

The thing was, my friend was about the only person in the whole 10th grade that plotted it correctly. And this is because he lived across the street from this teacher. And rumors played out that my friend traded sexual favors for this help. But these rumors were mean and unfounded.

In fact, Leo suggested as much.

So, yes, my comet was supposed to wrap around the sun. But what kind of 10th grader, except for Wesley Crusher, could accurately plot the course of an errant comet? My comet swung around the Earth, and then headed for deep space. Somehow, that wasn't right. I kept having to add extra pieces of graph paper to my already large piece, to keep the plot on going.

What an awful exercise. In today's schools, we'd write a script to draw these things. And in 3D.

So shit. That was a trip down memory lane. I hate that, through, saying "Oh shit." It's not an "oh shit!" something bad, but just "I don't know what to say, so I'm going to say "Oh, shit." Kind of like "Oh, shucks..." I get that from my mother. She says that all the time. So did my friend's mother. She used to say that word often; it turned my ears red.

She also would scream for my friend when he'd be entertaining me. She'd want caffeine free diet Cokes. She'd carry two to bed; one before, for sipping while she read magazines, and a second, for night time sipping, when she got thirsty. As I heard her yelling for him today on the phone, my mind went back to the good old story when she spilled coke in the bed at night.

"The whole damn sheet was sopping wet, Admiral, I swear."

I imagined her husband never cared for her cracking-open cokes in the middle of the night, and especially so, when she spilled it between them.

"What did you do?"

Smiling, and somewhat proud, she told me, "What could I do? I just turned over and went back to sleep."

Boy, those were good times. I miss that life during high school. The world was before us, life was simpler, and the hardest challenges we faced were comet plots. And our parents were singing shit like it was free, and making fools of themselves, when the world told us it should be us.

I so enjoyed today's call. I hated that teacher's comet plot, though, but a lot of what he had to teach me sticks with me still this day. He was a lot better than our 11th grade teacher, who wore COORS Beer belt buckles to class.

That guy was an ass.

I grew up in the 1990s hating Chicago. I never really entered it, but passed it on the so-called I-90 on trips between Cleveland and Madison, WI. It was a nightmare, and never looked very new or pristine.

I visited the downtown area for the first time in 2005, and liked it. Of course, I spent most of my time on Michigan Ave. around the trendy hotels and Hancock Tower. Who wouldn't like that?

This time around, my opinion soured again. The subway was scary--dirty, smelly, and the "L" is too loud. I visited the Art Institute again, but suffered from indigestion and fatigue. My stay at the Palmer House Hilton was okay, but the room was super small, and the environs looked depressed and not getting better.

Chicago has architecture. It has some great food. A local told me they have some good arts. But--is it a place for me?

I will likely cement my relationship with this city as an occasional tourist, and not a resident. But despite a warm spell in January--it was far more pleasant in the late summer.

My trip, however, was good... the highlight--having dinner with two old high school friends and X. We compared, after almost 15 years out of high school, who'd changed, what was going on, and what future plans may hold.

It put into perspective some things going on in my life. It was an excellent opportunity to start off this new year. I really feel now that 2007 is a new year and I'm ready to make some changes.