Part XX

Arriving in a new state was not particularly unusual, but at that age, I thought everything would be just like California and it was not. Not worse, not better, just not California. I began school at Woodland Park Junior High on March 30th, 1981. Some have asked why I remember this date so well. The following story should inform.

My folks took me down to enroll in the morning. My brother, Darin, was in the 10th grade at the High School and Patti's son, John, was in 9th grade. At this time the High School and the Junior High were separated by some 30 feet and there were some HS classes in the JH and some JH classes in the HS. In a town with a population of 4000 people, the HS had 600, the JH 300 and the elementary (just down the hill) about 800. We nearly outnumbered the adults in town. But, it was to the JH that my Dad brought me and signed me in. Something was going on with the couselor, so Dad left them to decide classes for me and headed off to work.

There was quite a buzz right after he left and no one was paying me much attention, when I looked over to the library (which was not in a room but was built sort of in the middle of a great area just past the offices) a woman was wheeling a television so more people could see it. The people in the office told me I could just go watch if I wanted and we would get me signed up for classes later. When I walked over to the library and took a seat, I found out what all the hub-bub was about. Our new President, Ronald Reagan had been shot and was at the hospital. It was a noted moment in history and so it is easy to pinpoint the date.

As I got connected at the school, there were really very few people who treated me poorly as an outsider. Much like today, in 1981 Colorado had a great number of transplants from other states, so being new was not that unusual. Later on, it was my lack of good hygeine and social graces which caused me to lose esteem in the eyes of my peers but I don't remember ever being accosted for being new. On top of this, Darin had been here since the beginning of the year and John for a month, so I am sure people were not certain our family was done bringing folks into the school. Initially, many of the more popular kids in the 8th grade actually sort of took to me and that is who I hung out with, but I picked up friends across a wide spectrum.

That is where the rubber hit the road that summer, when I had to decide what type of a person I would be. I wish I had chosen better. There were two girls Kenit and Tabitha, who had taken to me and we would tlak and hang out. I really thought they were fun to be around, very intelligent and interesting. We weren't interested in one another romantically, we were just friends. One day that spring, one of the more popular girls came up to me after seeing me hang out with them and asked, "What are you doing with them? Don't you know that they're dorks? You can't hang out with us and them." I was in a predicament. It is these kind of choices which spring all of a sudden upon young men from 12-25 years of age which define who they will be as men. I had choices. I could tell the girl that I was just goofing. I could tell her that I choose my friends and whatever group I hang out with does not. I could try to get her to see the qualities which I easily identified. Or, I could act like a coward.

Hi, my name is Chris and I am a coward (everyone, "Hi, Chris!"). The next day Kenit called me at home to see if I wanted to hang out. My dad went to hand me the phone and loud enough so she could hear it, I said, "just tell her I am not here, I don't want to talk to her." It must have crushed her to be so rejected by a friend, to see that someone you liked hanging out with had no backbone. They were nice girls, kind girls, the kind of people who make you better for knowing them and I discarded them to be more popular. Also, it didn't work. Within a week or two, the group knew they could make me do what they wanted and this made me weak and not worthy to be a part of the group. So, I was relegated to the netherworld of not cool enough to be popular and not quite dorky enough to fit in there either. I had shown that I was not someone to be trusted and so, not someone to build a long-term friendship with.

From that point until a few years later, I had acquaintances and girlfriends, but never friends. Well, except for my brothers. John became my brother on June 6, 1981 when my dad and his mom hitched in a ceremony at the local First Baptist church. The three of us boys were the only attendees I remember, but there may have been a few more. Dad and Patti have few friends at any given time, prefering a type of solitary living where they only count on each other. They still live that way today and are still married. It turns out that Dad's third marriage was the charm. Who would have figured?