My social status in high school defied classification. I was a member of the chess, computer (a single TRS-80 with a tape drive), and Dungeons & Dragons clubs, yet I also ran Cross Country and was on the Track and Field team (discus and pole vault). I had a good group of friends, and while were definitely weren’t part of the “in” crowd, were weren’t ostracized either. If I had to classify myself and my friends, nerds would be my descriptor of choice. I was fortunate to appear fairly normal and have some athletic ability, but at my core I was pretty much all nerd.
Upon occasion, our true colors would shine through. The movie “Weird Science” was one such instance. The story-line was a nerd’s nirvana. Two high school nerds bring a hot chick to life, said hot chick Kelly LeBrock (pre-Steven Seagal/Celebrity Fit club) escalates them to the epitome of coolnes. Weird Science has one of the best lines from a movie ever:
“How about a nice, greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?”
I started college a semester late, having taken six months off for a trip to California, where I lived with my father in Sacramento. In January 1984, I returned to Maryland, and in February I started college at Salisbury State College (now Salisbury State University). I was in the dorms, and my roommate was a guy named Chris, also from Maryland. Chris was a goalie on the lacrosse team and, after being introduced to marijuana in college, had become a huge pot head.
The semester started promising enough, but as the days passed, Chris pretty much stopped going to classes altogether. Once lacrosse practice started in the spring, his days assumed a predictable routine: sleep until around three in the afternoon, quick trip to the chow hall to grab dinner as soon as it opened, then off to lacrosse practice until six or so. After that it was party time with his teammates, then back to the dorm around dawn and finally to sleep.
This cycle continued until about two or three weeks before the end of the semester, when Chris abruptly became cognizant of the fact that he hadn’t been to classes in months. Thereafter ensued a mad scramble, where he visited all his teachers in an effort to work out some way of not receiving a failing grade. He must have reached some agreement, because I one afternoon he came back to the room excited, convinced he’d found the solution and that he’d be able to implement it in the short amount of time remaining and “beat the system”.
Evidently his plan failed to come to fruition, for when I returned to school the following fall, I ran into his former girlfriend, who told me he’d failed out and was now working in a shoe store in a mall. And that was the last I heard of Chris.
Chris fancied himself a music connoisseur. He had a collection of (at the time) eclectic albums, and he wasn’t adverse to playing them at o-dark-thirty in the morning when he finally stumbled in from his all night carousing. On the one hand, Chris introduced me to some musical groups I might not have heard of. On the other, my appreciation for his pre-dawn music expanding efforts was minimal. Many was the time I jumped out of bed and pulled the plug on the stereo, much to his amusement. When stoned, he also had fascination with Crazy Glue, and would spend a considerable amount of time gluing things (shoes, books, keys, you name it…) to the walls and ceiling.
Crack the Sky was one of his favorite groups, and All American Boy one of his favorite songs.
There were three main hangouts my friends and I frequented at college: the Phoenix, the Flying Club and the Circle Bar.
The Circle bar was a friendly little hole in the wall joint with two pool tables, a shuffleboard table against the back wall, and a juke box. It was the place to go if you weren’t in the mood for the loud music and crowds of the Phoenix and Flying Club.
I was a pretty good pool player and Bob was even better. Once we got on one of the tables, were were pretty hard to knock off. We spent many an evening there drinking draft beer from frosted mugs and shooting pool or playing shuffleboard.
I wasn’t one to put quarters into the juke box, but there were always people there who were. Inevitably - and usually more than once - this song would play. When I hear it, I’m twenty again, back in the Circle Bar, Bob and I leaning on our pool cues drinking beer between shots during a game of doubles pool.
In 1979, Styx had just released their album Cornerstone. It got to the point where you couldn’t turn on the radio without the saccharine sweet tones of “Babe” oozing forth.
In the fall of my freshman year in high school, I had the my alarm clock radio turned to WPGC, a top 40 station out of Washington D.C. Their claim to fame was all the contests they ran where they gave away money, hence the clever play on their call letters “Where People Get Cash”. My alarm went off at 6:15, but I knew it was safe to stay in bed until I heard Babe, which the DJ faithfully played, every morning for months, at around 6:25.
Stacy and I began dating in the fall of my sophomore year. We met at the community center when she came over and asked me to dance. She was stop-and-stare beautiful, a tall and graceful woman who wore her blond hair in a short bob, had a passion for Pink Floyd, and an easy laugh that made you want to laugh too. We dated until fall of my junior year, had a year’s separation, then briefly got back together a few months before I graduated. I’d already made plans to move to California, and although we corresponded a few times after I left, we never saw each other again.
Stacy’s mother and stepfather also lived in Calvert County. Her mother was a leukemia survivor. Occasionally, my mother would run into one or the other of them. That was how I learned Stacy’s mother eventually died after a cancer relapse, Stacy had married and had a child, and, last I heard (which was years ago), lived somewhere in the Baltimore area. Her child was born after her mother’s death, and I recall thinking it was a shame her mom wouldn’t get a chance to see her grandkid.
One spring Saturday in 1985, Stacy and I drove to Ocean City, which was about 45 minutes from Salisbury, where we attended college. Most of the houses and businesses are closed and the boardwalk is empty. It’s a fine, warm day; we spread a blanket on the beach and enjoy the sun. Our arms touch. The ocean breeze tickles my skin, raising goose bumps. The forlorn and melancholy cry of gulls echoes over the sussuration of the waves. I wiggle, shifting the sand beneath me, getting more comfortable. I smell salt water.
Spring passes into summer, summer into fall, and fall into winter. Make your memories now, my friends….
Nobody on the road
Nobody on the beach
I feel it in the air
The summer’s out of reach
Empty lake, empty streets
The sun goes down alone
