by Flack » Sat Mar 02, 2019 1:04 am
While digging through a stack of ancient floppy disks today, I ran across a document I wrote back in 1991. The file was titled "spring break," and it contained all of my plans for my final spring break before graduating high school.
In the first part of the file, I listed three potential spring break destinations and weighed the pros and cons of each one. The first was "South Padre" and the second was "Chicago." Under pros, I listed that "we" (more on that in a moment) could sleep at either one for free. In Chicago, I would have stayed with relatives. I guess my plan for Padre was to sleep on the beach or something. Under negatives, I wrote that neither I nor any of my friends owned a car reliable enough to get us to either of those destinations. Both Chicago and Padre are approximately 800 miles from where I grew up. At the time I wrote this file I was driving a 1979 Formula Firebird with bald tires and a big V8 that got just over 10mpg and went through a quart of oil every week. Another con I listed under Chicago is "not able to drink or bring girls," since I would be staying with family members.
The third destination, and the one that seemed the most likely, was my friend Andy's parents' cabin at Ft. Cobb. While not as exotic as the other two destinations, it was only an hour away from where we all lived. Plus, no adults meant we could bring our girlfriends and drink all the booze we wanted.
So, about that. Of our group of four -- me, Jeff, Andy, and Scott -- only two of us (Jeff and I) had girlfriends or drank at the time. Underneath my list of possible destinations was a second section where I planned out potential guest lists. Would spring break be an all guys trip, a romantic getaway for couples-only, or should I invite everybody? In this section I also listed pros and cons of each specific person. Things like knowing someone who could buy us beer or potentially letting me touch their boobies got them higher up on the list.
Below that part I included a potential list of activities. I must have decided on Ft. Cobb by then, and I sure put a lot of effort into brainstorming activities because my list was "drink, skinny dip, listen to music, play board games (D&D?) and Nintendo." I definitely knew how to throw a wild rager back then.
What I wanted to do more than anything was spend a week with Cathy -- my first seriously deep crush. I met Cathy in math class shortly after the beginning of my senior year. While I had dated a few girls before her, I had never felt the same way about any of them the way I felt about her. In one of my legitimately suave moments, I cornered her after class one day, told her she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, and asked her if she would be my girlfriend. I wouldn't say socially she was out of my league (we were both probably lower-middle class), but looks-wise, she was a knockout with blonde hair and a cute button nose, and I was a slightly overweight goof with a greasy mullet and crooked teeth. Maybe she liked the fact that I had my own car, or maybe she just liked the fact that some boy a year older than her was head-over-heels in love with her. Whatever the reason, to everybody's surprise, she said yes -- she would be my girlfriend.
My mind was on her while I was typing all those little spring break dreams into my computer. All those plans -- Chicago or Padre or a single-wide trailer parked next to an Oklahoma lake -- revolved around her. In my head, in every one of those potential scenarios, it was always me, her, and then some subset of the rest of my friends. I imagined what it would be like to share a bed with her, to sit around a fire late at night and look up at the stars with her. Good god, to be seventeen and lovesick!
Of course high school is a time when nobody really knows who they are. Cathy was our school's drum major, which meant she had to attend every high school football game and perform with the band. It never bothered me that she was in band, but I guess there was a lot of social pressure to "stay in your lane." Band kids threw band parties for other band kids, and pressured each other to only socialize with other band kids. They all practiced together and played at games together and went on bus rides together and before long I realized there was a pretty big portion of her life that I wasn't a part of.
For New Year's Eve, 1990, I made dinner reservations at a local restaurant and bought Cathy a dozen roses. She called me around 6 p.m. that day to let me know her mom wasn't feeling well, so she wanted to cancel the date. I said I completely understood. I offered to hang out at her house instead, but she declined the offer, afraid that I might get sick too. How thoughtful! About an hour later, I drove over to her house anyway to drop off the flowers. Cathy was already gone by then, out attending a band party. Her mother, who was feeling just fine, told me the news. I left the flowers there and went home.
The first day back to school after Christmas break was awkward. I had already changed desks and moved away from her by the time she arrived to class. I honestly don't remember what was said, but it was very little. I wasn't much on forgiving back then, especially when being directly lied to. I don't even remember if either of us officially broke up with the other one; it was just understood. The next five months were awful. From January through May, I had to see that beautiful girl in math class every single day. Some days I felt like crying and some days I got so mad my stomach would tie itself in knots.
Without Cathy, all my plans for a big spring break fizzled. That March, my parents went to Chicago to visit family over spring break and I stayed home by myself, alone. I threw a couple of parties that involved more D&D and Nintendo than boozing or skinny dipping.
I guess in the midst of all that excitement, I never got around to deleting that file with all my big plans.
[Epilogue 01: For two years after high school, I attended a local community college. In the cafeteria/lounge, I quickly discovered the other English/Journalism students, one of whom ended up being Cathy's mother. I spent two years engaging her in conversations and even buying her sodas. I hope she went home every day after school and told her daughter what an awesome guy I was.]
[Epilogue 02: Cathy had lots of friends in band, one of whom was a girl named Susan. When Susan heard that Cathy and I had broken up, she swooped in. Susan and I dated off and on throughout our senior year, and we saw each other from time to time over the next few years. In 1993 we moved in together, and in the summer of 1995, we got married. Susan is my true soulmate and partner for life, and I can't imagine my life any other way without her. This spring break, she, our kids and I are going on a cruise to Cozumel -- a far cry from skinny dipping in a cold, dirty Oklahoma lake.)
While digging through a stack of ancient floppy disks today, I ran across a document I wrote back in 1991. The file was titled "spring break," and it contained all of my plans for my final spring break before graduating high school.
In the first part of the file, I listed three potential spring break destinations and weighed the pros and cons of each one. The first was "South Padre" and the second was "Chicago." Under pros, I listed that "we" (more on that in a moment) could sleep at either one for free. In Chicago, I would have stayed with relatives. I guess my plan for Padre was to sleep on the beach or something. Under negatives, I wrote that neither I nor any of my friends owned a car reliable enough to get us to either of those destinations. Both Chicago and Padre are approximately 800 miles from where I grew up. At the time I wrote this file I was driving a 1979 Formula Firebird with bald tires and a big V8 that got just over 10mpg and went through a quart of oil every week. Another con I listed under Chicago is "not able to drink or bring girls," since I would be staying with family members.
The third destination, and the one that seemed the most likely, was my friend Andy's parents' cabin at Ft. Cobb. While not as exotic as the other two destinations, it was only an hour away from where we all lived. Plus, no adults meant we could bring our girlfriends and drink all the booze we wanted.
So, about that. Of our group of four -- me, Jeff, Andy, and Scott -- only two of us (Jeff and I) had girlfriends or drank at the time. Underneath my list of possible destinations was a second section where I planned out potential guest lists. Would spring break be an all guys trip, a romantic getaway for couples-only, or should I invite everybody? In this section I also listed pros and cons of each specific person. Things like knowing someone who could buy us beer or potentially letting me touch their boobies got them higher up on the list.
Below that part I included a potential list of activities. I must have decided on Ft. Cobb by then, and I sure put a lot of effort into brainstorming activities because my list was "drink, skinny dip, listen to music, play board games (D&D?) and Nintendo." I definitely knew how to throw a wild rager back then.
What I wanted to do more than anything was spend a week with Cathy -- my first seriously deep crush. I met Cathy in math class shortly after the beginning of my senior year. While I had dated a few girls before her, I had never felt the same way about any of them the way I felt about her. In one of my legitimately suave moments, I cornered her after class one day, told her she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen, and asked her if she would be my girlfriend. I wouldn't say socially she was out of my league (we were both probably lower-middle class), but looks-wise, she was a knockout with blonde hair and a cute button nose, and I was a slightly overweight goof with a greasy mullet and crooked teeth. Maybe she liked the fact that I had my own car, or maybe she just liked the fact that some boy a year older than her was head-over-heels in love with her. Whatever the reason, to everybody's surprise, she said yes -- she would be my girlfriend.
My mind was on her while I was typing all those little spring break dreams into my computer. All those plans -- Chicago or Padre or a single-wide trailer parked next to an Oklahoma lake -- revolved around her. In my head, in every one of those potential scenarios, it was always me, her, and then some subset of the rest of my friends. I imagined what it would be like to share a bed with her, to sit around a fire late at night and look up at the stars with her. Good god, to be seventeen and lovesick!
Of course high school is a time when nobody really knows who they are. Cathy was our school's drum major, which meant she had to attend every high school football game and perform with the band. It never bothered me that she was in band, but I guess there was a lot of social pressure to "stay in your lane." Band kids threw band parties for other band kids, and pressured each other to only socialize with other band kids. They all practiced together and played at games together and went on bus rides together and before long I realized there was a pretty big portion of her life that I wasn't a part of.
For New Year's Eve, 1990, I made dinner reservations at a local restaurant and bought Cathy a dozen roses. She called me around 6 p.m. that day to let me know her mom wasn't feeling well, so she wanted to cancel the date. I said I completely understood. I offered to hang out at her house instead, but she declined the offer, afraid that I might get sick too. How thoughtful! About an hour later, I drove over to her house anyway to drop off the flowers. Cathy was already gone by then, out attending a band party. Her mother, who was feeling just fine, told me the news. I left the flowers there and went home.
The first day back to school after Christmas break was awkward. I had already changed desks and moved away from her by the time she arrived to class. I honestly don't remember what was said, but it was very little. I wasn't much on forgiving back then, especially when being directly lied to. I don't even remember if either of us officially broke up with the other one; it was just understood. The next five months were awful. From January through May, I had to see that beautiful girl in math class every single day. Some days I felt like crying and some days I got so mad my stomach would tie itself in knots.
Without Cathy, all my plans for a big spring break fizzled. That March, my parents went to Chicago to visit family over spring break and I stayed home by myself, alone. I threw a couple of parties that involved more D&D and Nintendo than boozing or skinny dipping.
I guess in the midst of all that excitement, I never got around to deleting that file with all my big plans.
[Epilogue 01: For two years after high school, I attended a local community college. In the cafeteria/lounge, I quickly discovered the other English/Journalism students, one of whom ended up being Cathy's mother. I spent two years engaging her in conversations and even buying her sodas. I hope she went home every day after school and told her daughter what an awesome guy I was.]
[Epilogue 02: Cathy had lots of friends in band, one of whom was a girl named Susan. When Susan heard that Cathy and I had broken up, she swooped in. Susan and I dated off and on throughout our senior year, and we saw each other from time to time over the next few years. In 1993 we moved in together, and in the summer of 1995, we got married. Susan is my true soulmate and partner for life, and I can't imagine my life any other way without her. This spring break, she, our kids and I are going on a cruise to Cozumel -- a far cry from skinny dipping in a cold, dirty Oklahoma lake.)