(Editor's Note: This is the first part of a multi part series. I can't give you a timeframe for this other than the first 3 parts will appear before the Super Bowl)
The following is a story of creepy awkwardness, “love”, lust, and a refusal to think rationally. Of course, I am the one that had no rational thoughts for my last 2 years of high school, well other than acing tests and what not, but when it came to personal life. If there was an awkward route to take, I would find myself taking it. I am telling you this story not because I need to do it to move on personally, I have already done that, but to share it with you and so I can really put it all in a perspective in my life. Names in this story have been altered and changed in an attempt to protect the innocent.
Before you think that this is me trying to rip off of the success of Basketbawful’s Livin’ Large series, that is not true. I am not doing this as in attempt to jack up hits on my site. If it does that, then fantastic, if not, then fantastic. And while I can’t say that ‘Bawful had absolutely no influence at all on this piece or the decision to write it, he certainly inspired me and got me thinking about actually going for it, but he was only a small spark plug on an idea that I had been toying around in my head for quite some time.
Before we really get into this thing, you need to understand a little bit where I am coming from.
As a middle schooler, I always had trouble with girls. Some boys were starting to go on dates (I’m almost positive that a grand total of 0 dating relationships that were around then have survived 7 years) and I was left out in the dark. I was pubescent and all at the time, but I just did not get what made girls so special or why I should ever bother going out with them. I did not get excited looking at them, nothing.
However, one day, I saw her. The One. The girl that I was going to date and go out with, win The Amazing Race with, have kids, and live happily ever with. Yes! There was no stopping Jodie Sweetin of Full House and me from living the lives of our dreams! Except for of course 3,000 miles, a huge age difference, and crystal meth. Oh Jodie, why were you so cruel to yourself? Our lives would have been so beautiful together! You were so hot! Remember the time when I tried to send you an email? I was so close until I found out that the email address on the internet for you was really that of your agency. No! No one could have known about our secret love!
Okay. Enough of late middle school, early high school, JFein, as I think everyone just got a wee bit dumber from reading that last paragraph.
Now that you know how desperate I was for a girl, let’s set up the actual story. At my freshman orientation which required parents to go along, my dad incessantly bugged me to join a club. Nothing much interested me, but then he pointed out to me that Windy Hill High School (the name of my school) had a mock trials club. And why wouldn't he point out a mock trials club? After all, he is a lawyer. That did perk my interest more than anything else on the list, but I was still not sold solid on the idea.
Wanting to be active in his first son’s high school experience, he decided to contact the teacher that headed the program at the time, Mr. Wall. Sure enough, Mr. Wall had a lawyer position available for my dad on Team 2! Amazing how stuff plays out, isn’t it? Seeing as even at such a young tender age I realized that I need a good club on my resume for college, I decided to join Windy Hill’s Mock Trials Team 2.
While my dad was the lawyer adviser for the team the first 2 years, the teacher adviser for team 2 was a very nice man named Mr. Cann. Our team was made up a lot of other freshman like myself and about the most random combination of juniors and seniors (there were no sophomores on the team) that you could ever find. To this day, I’m not sure how we gelled together as a team, but we did, only our inexperience was clearly exposed when our first 2 years we drew the toughest teams in the county including the single toughest in the county, Mount St. Fiacre.
Each year, a team is guaranteed two trials, one to present the plaintiff/prosecution side of the argument the other the defendant/defense side of the argument. Our first 4 trials…..all losses.
The juniors and seniors graduated and my dad and Mr. Cann, while they genuinely helped us and we had a great time, were moving their separate ways. Mr. Wall never contacted my dad to come back for my junior year and Mr. Cann decided that coaching women’s basketball was more important than our little mock trial club.
Anyway, that left us with a bunch of holes, including replacements for the juniors and seniors on the team. We had a lot of people from my class, but not enough to field both sides of the team.
Luckily for us, the first meeting of my junior year, 2 girls just starting their freshmen year walked in the door.....
I thought I was the only one with a creepy crush on the girls from Full House?
ReplyDeleteBTW, you know I went to a small high school when the only clubs we had were FBLA and FFA and I don't even think those are classified as clubs. Of course since my dad is involved in agriculture I joined the FFA.
I'm a little bit older than you guys, so I was never into the Full House Girls(or the show).
ReplyDeleteHowever, I still remember the smart redhead from "Head of the Class." Robin Givens(who married Mike Tyson)was on that show as well.
And I think I too would choose to coach basketball over a bunch nerdy wanna be lawyers. ;-)
@KT: I was laughing at that as well. I grew up in a blue collar town with a blue collar father who worked a blue collar type of job.
ReplyDeleteAs I already said, my high school was so small that there weren't many clubs. But I can tell you one thing, a Lawyer club would be at the bottom of the list right next to doctor.
@ 49er16: They cast those girls well! ;-) I take it then that when I tell you that there were over 400 some kids in my graduating class, that's a lot. You should try going to the one 10 minutes from me. That one has over 1,000 kids per graduating class...
ReplyDelete@ kt: Actually I figured your generation would be the ones that were more infatuated than I was. I was never into the show until quite a few years after the series ended in 1995. It is how it is.
Come on! Mock trials clubs rock! What on earth is wrong with you people? ;-)
/Sarcasm
Belated P.S. to anyone reading who may have noticed and are wondering: Yes, I am aware of the fact that the name of the High School does not correspond with the one I have frequently mentioned as having graduated from. I have decided to use the Native American translation of said high school name in this narrative for a continued sake of anonymity.
ReplyDelete@Justin: Yeah my high school only had 500 total people. My class had barely had 90 people graduating (if you look at my Facebook friends, that's the people who I went to high school with). I remember when my cousin graduated from his high school in Dallas and there was over 900 people in his class alone.
ReplyDeleteLike I said, I grew up in the country, drove a pickup(still do), and always kept a shotgun in my toolbox(I don't do that anymore.)
@Keith no you just moved your gun to the gunrack. ;-)
ReplyDelete@JFein Full House was on in my heyday as a kid, but i never watched it. It was a revelation to me just how awesomely funny Bob Saget is in real life, because he was stuck playing such a dweeb on that show. Like I said I loved the redhead on Head of the Class(quick Wikipedia search reveals her name to be Khrystyne Haje) and the girlfriend on "Doogie Howser, MD"
Also, I ran cross country at my school, so I was about as big a dork as the mock trial lawyers
And I guess I shouldn't say anything bad about lawyers, seeing as I am looking for a firm that's hiring.
Gunracks are illegal in California. I just moved it to my backseat ;-)
ReplyDelete@ 49er16: Amazing the differences. I someone whose high school class consisted of 30-something. No joke.
ReplyDelete@ kt: It truly is amazing seeing Bob Saget on Full House and then watching his stand up comedy. It's like it's 2 completely different people. He tries too hard at times to shed the clean Danny Tanner image, but it is funny regardless.