For most of my freshman year, I would say that I had an OK time. I mean, my favorite year in school was 9th grade, I enjoyed my time that year. There were so many new people that year, and luckily for Derek, I found a few new objects of interest.
For starters, I was taking wood shop, which was so much fun. I loved that class!!! I was in band, both semesters and we had a new teacher, Mr. Smith, and our drum major was pretty cool (although I still maintain that he wasn't, now, Pavlich will know the truth). I felt so good because the girls who were mean to me before, treated me like I wasn't a freshman, in fact, I was now a cool girl. How lucky for me. There was just so much going on for me and I had a great time taking it all in. In all honesty, band really was the highlight of that year for many reasons. I really loved doing marching band, concert band found me sitting next to this guy, whom, for various reasons, I still adore to this day. We went to Disneyland and marched in the Disneyland Parade, we went to Knott's Berry Farm and rode Montezuma's Revenge like 7 times in a day. We went to all of the football games and through all of that, we had so much fun... well, I did.
OK, let me back up. Band... Not everyone thinks the band is very cool. In fact, I would be willing to bet that most think band is a bunch of nerds who are the social rejects of the school (and thanks to American Pie, band camp will never be talked about as just band camp... There was this one time, at band camp... :), which couldn't be further from the truth. Go to any high school ball game, the band is there, (unless you go to a Show Low game, in which case, the superintendent Mr. Kevin Brackney, has pulled all music classes from the school, to give that funding to the football team... EPIC FAIL!!!) any school musical, the band is there, we even went to the basketball games to play jazz music for the team. We did competitions for marching band as well as concert band. It was, a lot of fun.
So, now let me get to the people that were with me in marching band. (Just so you know, despite what we played in marching band, the majority of us played a different instrument for concert band, myself included). There was Jessie, she played clarinet; Betsy, she did percussion with me for marching band; Bea also in percussion for marching band; Ellyn who played tenor sax in marching band; Mike Pavlich, who I just called Pavlich, even to this day, he was our drum major; Phil, who played sousaphone (it's a marching tuba); Mike O, who played trombone for marching band, and really there was a host of others that were there, but, these were the people that I most hung out with, or rather wanted to hang out with. Pavlich had a friend that was so funny, I loved talking to him, and listening to what he had to say, his name was Matt. I had a huge crush on Josh (another one right :), he played saxophone.
I can't say that I really remember a lot of that part of the year. We practiced a lot, the first game of the season, it rained. We complained a lot about how totally gay our uniforms were, (that was the exact term we used at that time), and made fun of Pavlich for picking out such incredibly dorky hats to go with them... At least Phil and Luke (the other sousaphone player) got to wear berets. They were purple cowboy hats with one side folded up and a long yellow feather coming out of that side of it. Really cool! I remember doing drills on the football field. I remember laughing at Pavlich a lot. At this time in our society, the hair styles were something kind of interesting for guys. There was one day that I was sitting on the football field and Pavlich comes over and I told him that he's got this glow about his head. He, trying to be cool said something about how it's his evil spirit coming out and I just laughed at him, saying no, it's more like a yellow glow about your head making it look, not very evil at all.
We were able to go to Disneyland that year to march in the Disneyland parade and it was a really long bus ride. I remember watching one of the flag-ets throw herself at Pavlich and I remember thinking how obvious she was being. I was at least trying to be subtle about it... yes, I did have a crush on him too. We performed for the Payson Longhorns band and when we got back onto the bus, Matt said something to the effect of : "Blue Ridge Marching Band, you just showed up Payson Marching Band. What are you going to do next? I'm going to Disneyland!!" I don't remember who I roomed with, I think Ellyn, I can't remember. Ellyn seemed to always be my friend. I think that with the group of people that we hung out with, it was inevitable that if you liked someone, one of your friends ended up going out with him... or maybe that was just my experience with females... maybe that's why I prefer to hang out with men vs. women... although, I do have some awesome girlfriends now.
I really liked each of these guys for so many different reasons. Pavlich was so cute and he tried to be mean, but really, he's still kind of a squishy pushover, I would gladly call him my brother, he's a good guy. One guy, who for reasons that are somewhat obvious due to the nature of this sentence, I cannot name, but, he was the bad boy that I always wanted to go out with. I was obsessed with trying drugs (which I have grown out of that phase, thankfully) and I remember asking him once if he would please hook me up with something, anything, to which he said no, flat out. I was a bit odd normally and he didn't want to really screw me up.. how thoughtful, right? Josh, the sax player, always had this thing that he was too good for me. And I so liked him. He was all Rico Suave, to me at least. He drove this 67 Mustang that was so pretty... That certainly never happened, though, many years later, he shocked the shit out of me by actually kissing me one afternoon... Talk about made my head spin for a while. And lastly, Mike O. He was the best friend out of any of the people that I knew in high school. He was smart and funny, really good looking, and he sat next to me after marching band for the rest of the year... lucky me :) We would write notes in our music and have the long conversation when we should have been paying attention. He was the only male in that whole school who made me feel like I was worth something. When I was going through a really rough time the next year, I found a note in my backpack saying that I was a beautiful person and not to compare myself to others (especially sister) because I wasn't like others. My parents should be so happy for the Jewel that they have in me... It wasn't signed and I can only surmise that it was him who wrote it... I knew the handwriting and he used to call me Jewels... kind of a dead give away, but, when I asked him, he said no... I still have that note. I still read it every once in a while too.
I know that aside from band, I didn't really have much of a life. Alicia and I didn't talk the whole year. Don't know why, we just didn't. I was still going to church a lot, like three times a week a lot. I wanted to be liked but, it seemed mostly elusive for me. I think I have a lot of trust issues with women from growing up with the ones that really did me wrong. I found that my calling of art was woodworking, and to this day, I can't wait to do something on the lathe. So glad my dad is going to let me use his! I thought about guys most all the time, in fact, that was all I thought about for many years... Now I only think of one all day long. I can remember the feeling of when I first liked any one of these guys. My heart would flutter a little and I couldn't talk to them. And if they found out that I liked them, it was so the end of my whole life! I don't know if they ever knew that I liked them... Josh for sure, Pavlich, I'm not so sure. Mike, that's a toughie, but, I guess either way, they all can read about it now. I have a certain amount of respect for them all now, except for Josh... for lots of reasons on that one. Mean, yes, but, whatever, it is what it is.
I used to keep little notebooks that I really started to do my freshman year. I would make little notes about people and things. I can remember one in particular was a note about a glass bottle of Heinz Mustard. It had the words "pourable mustard" on the label. I would think, well, it's a glass bottle, of course you would have to pour it, it's not like you can squeeze the bottle to get the product out, but more importantly, why does the glass bottle of ketchup not also say pourable on it? I mean really, if you're going to do that for one of the bottles, why not do it for both of them? In another note I remember thinking that I really hope that when we grew up, all the perfect skinny girls would have really bad acne and be super fat with lots of ugly kids, and be really unhappy... I don't wish that on anyone now, bad acne really sucks! I have these notebooks, these thoughts and ideas of my writing still hiding away. They are safe, they are waiting for me to revisit them and laugh at the nonsense of it all. I can't wait to get them out again, and read them all over again. I loved writing, and I really discovered that my freshman year. It was an outlet for me, to release all the rage that I had pent up. It was an escape from the real world because, at that point, I really needed one. For a low year was coming around, and I would need that escape to be able to cope with life. (Just to be clear here, my home life, was not unsatisfying. I was an unhappy child, and there was nothing that my parents or sisters could have done to change it... The change had to come from me... It did come, but it took a long time.)
I will put in here that during the course of marching band, Mike Rodgers moved away to Joseph City and I was crushed. We wrote to each other a lot, and once again, I have those letters because, he was my dream man at that point. I remember in one letter telling him about a guy that I liked and I was describing him to him... I never told that he was my ideal guy. He had a kindness and sense of humor that we seemed to share and he always kept asking me who was it.
Anyhow, that was the highlights from that year. We as a band were crushed when Mr. Smith said he wasn't going to be our teacher the next year, and equally upsetting that was Pavlich was going to be moving to Tucson for his senior year... Not cool at all!!! Church camp was coming up and I can't remember if I was looking forward to it or not. We were in the worst barracks of the entire place, I know that it was going to be a good summer other than that. Jessie had her license and a convertible that we would drive around in for hours listening to Blackhawk. Not the most epic summer, but, as with life these days, if I don't write down what's going on, the days just seem to run into one another with no real direction or anything. The year to come was to be the hardest in school that I had, and I was about to find the my little sister was truly my best friend... I'm lucky to have her really, despite all of her flaws, and we all have them, I love her!
It's late now, I have to be up early for work, and sleep has been eluding me for a few nights... maybe tonight it will come swiftly and take me away. Maybe I will see them there, in our goofy band uniforms playing the Star Spangled Banner... I had a solo playing crash symbols... maybe not :)
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