Every now and then I think about people I was once really close to and wonder how (and sometimes why) so many years and miles have come between us. I'm not just talking about casual acquaintances but people I shared a significant swath of my existence with. Some of them I’m still casually connected to through social media, others I haven’t spoken with in years but the thought of them will occasionally break through the surface and swim a backstroke through my memories.
One of those people was Kevin Gales. Kevin and I had a strong and competitive brotherly bond. We met in 1979 at Fair Avenue Elementary, shortly after the Columbus Public School system was ordered to desegregate by order of the courts. We were eight years old and this is the first time I had to make new friends outside of the immediate neighborhood.
Despite having plenty of schools blocks from our house we were bussed across town into one of the worst areas of the city for fourth and fifth grades. Those first few days of fourth grade my stomach was tied in knots. The bus driver, Mrs. Love (her real name), blasted funk and soul music for the entire twenty minute ride and went extra fast over a certain bump in the road each morning so we’d fly off our seats.
That first day, as the school bus made its way deeper into the heart of the inner city the landscape became more littered and desolate. I didn’t realize it at the time but these years at Fair Avenue school were set to provide me with some of the biggest lessons and richest education of my young life, both inside and outside of the classroom.
One thing I’ve learned since then, if you’re scared as hell then you’d better believe that the source of that fear is going to be your ultimate teacher...if you let it. In fact, I would say the source of your greatest fears is where your most important life lessons are hidden...you should run towards them. Unless your greatest fear is a bear, never ever run towards a bear.
Kevin was every bit as nerdy as I was, this is probably why fate brought us together. We both strived for straight A’s in school, were stick thin, wore thick glasses, and played instruments in band. Each of us had a predisposition for cartooning, playing video games, and Dungeons and Dragons. We became friends quickly, rode bikes on the weekends, we each created our own original comic strips...his was called “Fad” mine was called, “Snibbly” about a fumbling English man and his dog.
During summer vacation Kevin and I would occasionally ride the city bus to downtown Columbus to a magic and joke shop called Yankee Trader then we would grab lunch at McDonalds then make a game out of seeing which tall skyscrapers we could ride the elevators to the top of. This was in the days before militarized corporate security. Most often if we asked security for permission, they would just tell us to go ahead. Sadly, I don’t have any pictures of us from those early days.
"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down." - Oprah Winfrey
We stayed close until around our sophomore year of high school. This was when our neighborhood fell into rapid decline. Kevin focused on his studies so he could get into a good college. I went the other route, focusing eighty percent of my attention on girls, and tried to change my entire personna to be popular and not get excluded for being a nerd anymore.
The summer before tenth grade I ditched the thick glasses for contacts, started working out two hours per day and eating enough to feed an army. By the time tenth grade began my weight jumped from 140 lbs to 170 lbs (eventually topping out at 230 lbs in 11th grade).
People who hadn’t seen me over the summer didn’t recognize me those first few days of school. I eventually quit marching band and stopped trying to excel in my studies. I started making a whole new group of friends and gravitating away from my old ones. This ended up being one of the biggest regrets of my life.
After high school we Kevin and I completely lost touch, although I always wondered how he was getting along. About seven years ago, through the magic of the internet, we reconnected. Kevin went on to earn several degrees and open a very successful marketing firm in Chicago. We exchanged a few emails over the course of a few weeks and for a moment I thought the friendship might be rekindled but it didn't happen.
I don’t often think of where I’d be if I stayed on that strict academic trajectory. The path I chose was oftentimes a whole lot of fun. It taught me its own set of lessons, some of them very difficult ones. I partied with college kids on Ohio State University's campus when I was still in high school. While Kevin was choosing a good college I was cutting class to go joy riding around the neighborhood. After graduation I went to community college and worked a succession of low paying jobs while trying for two decades to launch my writing career.
It was only through sheer luck and over twenty years of perseverance that I eventually found success as a writer. These last few years my life have drastically changed as a result of this newfound success, largely due to Steemit. As more demands are made on my time, I’ve had less time to devote to my circle of friends. Even still, I’ve made it a point to never again leave anyone else behind for the wrong reasons.
After all, the entirety of who we are is made up of not only what we add into our lives but also what (and who) we leave behind.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed these memories.
Yours in the Chain,
Eric
Steemit Blockchain Memory Project Rules of Engagement
- Share any significant memory you’d like to. Think about things that have shaped who you are or may be unique in some way. Think about memories you’d like your great-great-grandchildren to read about....now write posts about these memories in your Steemit blog.
- Use proper tags (see below)
- Share a link to this post in all of your Blockchain Memory Project posts so others can find the rules.
- Share your posts with your friends and family on external social media outlets (optional but encouraged).
Tag Suggestions
We want your memories to live on forever. We also want those memories to be searchable by those who might be looking for them in the future.
For this reason, I suggest the following tags for your first four - “Story Life Blog BlockchainMemoryProject”.
Your last tag should be very specific to what you’re writing about in your post, something that will help people who are searching for it on the internet.
I'll be sharing memories of my own along the way.
Prizes
Each month I will comb through the posts tagged with “BlockchainMemoryProject” and choose my favorites. The post owners will receive a surprise in their wallets...a portion of a monthly prize of 10 Steem! Note: all rules of engagement must be followed for your post to qualify.
As always, I thank you for reading.
Yours in the Chain,
Eric
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