What We're Gonna Do Right Here Is Go Back... Way Back... Back Into Time
Wednesday 01/24/2007 1:13 AM
 Found in my 1987 Anumpa, AKA The Rickards High Yearbook. This picture is taken from one of the many Brain Brawl matches in which I competed. Caption reads: File Under: Me; Photograph, Black & White; Scan; Someone Else's Image |
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I'm really tired, so I can't possibly write enough words to give this image justice.
Scanned from my high school senior yearbook, I give you the young puppy-like version of your friend and author, long before Chauncey, Candy, Prague, the Internet, 9/11, the second shuttle disaster, BEFORE THE BERLIN WALL CAME DOWN.
I was a driven competitor with these high school Brain Brawls (or Brain Bowls as they were sometimes called). My high school wasn't exactly renowned for its intellectual capacity, so we always got respect when we performed well in local competitions. There was always this one kid, though, that scored really high in the individual performance category for Rickards, second only to some guy from Maclay named Wyman Dugger (IIRC - if I recall correctly).
At some point (senior year) I ended up on the Leon county team and we went to Disney to compete with a bunch of other hormone-charged adolescents way too smart for their own good for a few days. We didn't win, but it was a hoot. My dad met me there for breakfast one morning and slipped me some cash to help with trip. Thanks, Dad!
Last, before I pass out, a confession. You see Angela in today's image? We knew each other for years from middle school through high. At some point we started liking each other, but it didn't work out. Still friends, though, we moved on and kept in touch for a while after school. I tracked her down a few years ago and she is now the Associate Director of Admission at Brown University, Rhode Island.
Angela, if you find this next week, next month, years later, I just want to say hi. I know career plans change from then to now, but I don't think I'm the only one that imagined you being in a lab coat by now, finding cures for the world's ills. Good luck and all the love that you deserve.
Oh, and I can't help being amused by the way I am slumping in my chair in this photo as that is my "fighting stance" when I'm sitting at my desk playing online poker. The slump of slumps. Though these days I sometimes mix-in an exercise Swiss ball to rest my feet on.
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