Wednesday: 28.May.2003

Blast from the past

Receive my first message from an old high school buddy, after registering at Classmates.com. I grew up on the East coast [Connecticut], but moved West, to the land of sunshine and surfboards, after growing weary of scraping ice off my windshield.

I can still recall that fateful morning: standing in snow up to my knees, at 5:30, heading to work, still pitch black out, wind howling ominously thru the trees, and having that yellow plastic scraper snap in my hand. It had rained the night before .. temperature plummeted overnight .. covering windshield with ice .. couldn't see squat.

More than that scraper snapped that January morning. Two months later, found myself heading West for a new job in SoCal. Bought a Best of the Beach Boys CD and played it the whole way. [And I don't even like the Beach Boys.] Bought a surfboard and took up the sport. [Much harder than it looks, unfortunately.]

But I did look cool driving around town with that 9-footer wedged into the passenger seat like a tall, skinny date, sticking out of the top of the Rad mobile [the top comes off]. Still have the broken scraper stashed away in my glove compartment. Whenever I get tired of living in Southern California [traffic here sucks], I take it out and fondle it. Helps me remember...

Haven't kept in touch with anyone from high school, and only a few buddies from my days in the Navy. Stopped flying home about 5 years ago. Seems like I was only returning for weddings and funerals. Funerals depress me and the dead never seemed to notice I had flown 3,000 miles to pay my respects. Last time I was there, I told the family, "Nobody is allowed to die for 10 years." [And nobody has.]

None of the weddings I attended worked out [not one] .. as if I brought bad luck. Every wedding I missed since boycotting the East coast has worked out .. every one of them are still married. Coincidence? You decide. You know what I think. Instead of flying home for vacations, I now go to places here like Yosemite, and do things like climb Half Dome.

Got tired of getting on the plane in Los Angeles [70-degrees and sunny], and getting off in New York [20-degrees and snowy]. So I saw no point in returning. There is one thing I miss however: the pizza. Anyway, the email from an old high school buddy got me thinking about life back then. I wonder how the heck they're all doing now.





Posted by Rad at May 28, 2003 12:51 PM

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