Sitting in my office doing my most favourite thing in the world, paperwork, I can hear the radio blaring Red Barchetta by Rush. For once it wasn't country music assaulting my ears but one of my favourite bands of all time. Like a comfortable pair of jeans, I may stray to all kinds of other music, but when Rush comes on I am invariably drumming and singing along.
So, air drumming away and letting the imagery of the song take me away to when I was in grade 8 I started reminiscing about high school. How music can trigger memories and emotions is wonderful; and the fact that I was going through old photographs of the good ole days the other night I guess I am in a looking back fondly kind of mode. So follow me down memory lane if you will....
I loved high school! For the most part I had a great time, made some excellent memories and still have a small gaggle of friends from that time that I treasure. I understand why people hated it, I get that, I'm just not one of them. I was too busy having fun. Maybe too much fun as my grades would have reflected, whatever! I discovered social life in grade 10, had access to a car in later grades and had a large but close knit group of friends to live and laugh with. As is so often the case these friends have mostly gone off in their own directions and over time contact has been lost. Sad but such is life I guess. But the memories are still there and the stories I could tell. Go on, you tell stories? Would have never have guessed....sheeeessssshhhhhhh
Exploits in my Dad's Nova. The band. The gang. Quebec and Wasaga, or Quebaga. Rudy watch the fucking cord. Ciupa. Spat. Guzzle. Sanford and Son Theme. 242. Random words to you but each one brings up a memory or two. I bet if I ran into one of the guys from back then I could say any of those words and a 20 minute laugh fest would ensue. Part of my tapestry for sure and not one moment of it would I change. Remember, no regrets. However, I do wonder about the road not taken from time to time. Again with the "what ifs" but now I want to think more about the ifs that did happen.
Are we feathers dancing in the wind of life a la Forrest Gump or is there a grand plan? Don't know. I like to think I'm meant to meet the people I have met and to be truthful, that gives me great comfort. Because some of the people I have met, loved and even lost are so part of me that I can't imagine what I might have been had it not been for these people. Those people that come along that can hold you up when you're at your lowest and bring you back to reality when you're being a dick. And you for them. Those that challenge me, that inspire me, make me laugh....make me a better person just by knowing them....you people rule.
Back to memory lane....grade 13. Yes Virginia, he said 13. Back then in Ontario we had grade 13. An extra year of partying and making memories. In English that year we had independent study as the main focus of our marks, which sounded suspiciously like teach yourself please we are too busy to bother. As per usual I procrastinated till the last two weeks before the due date. I had an idea but that was it. I wasn't worried as I had pulled things out of my butt at the last minute for most of my school life and still managed to get by. So I sat down one night at started typing away. What I thought I was doing was a study in the writing and influence that Ayn Rand had on Neil Peart and Rush. What I had done was regurgitate the same three or four sentences many times and in many forms for 5000 words. This of course wasn't apparent to me but it was to one of my best friends at the time, Connie. I asked her to read it over and suggest improvements. In true friend honesty, she handed it back and asked me if I had hit my head hard somewhere recently. You will fail if you hand that in. Uh oh
She proceeded to lambaste me for screwing around the past year. Spoken only as a friend could, what are you doing man? I know you're having fun and all that but what have you done for you lately. This wasn't about school work, it was about me. I used to fancy myself a bit of a writer guy and she asked me point blank, when was the last time you wrote? What are you thinking about? One of the glues that held us together was our time apart from everyone else in the group, that made her and I such great friends back then. Now, to be fair, I could have responded the same to her as she had started to change as well, and in not in a good way. There is a whole other story here that is kind of painful and sad for me but I guess what we were in the middle of was growing apart. But I didn't say anything because she was right, I was going to fail English. Bad enough my marks in Math were so piss poor but English? Time for a miracle. In three nights I had my study done and done well.
Tying the novels Anthem and We the Living to the Rush epic 2112, detailing the plight of the individual above the state or authority. To follow your passion and to always look to the light, whatever the cost may be. I look back now and cringe that I even read Ayn Rand after she had wrote Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. But I digress, the essay was, as my teacher had wrote, complex and ambitious. I liked that. I liked that she saw potential. An expanding mind.
While I miss the relationship Connie and I had, we have gone on in our own lives, leading the lives that maybe we were meant to lead, I have the memory of what we once were. And I have been fortunate enough to have a few friends like that, weaving in and out of each others lives over the years until you can not see each other for a year and still have the same connection when you sit down across from them. That's special.
A Rush tune on the radio and you get this long winded babble about a stupid essay 30 years ago. But really it was about Connie and everyone else that I have held or now hold dear to me. Ironic that it is 30 years since I really even attempted to write things and now I can't stop myself. A moment in time filled with fear and the unknown brings me to a blog to "put word to paper." Funny how life works.
Ciao
D
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