Part XXXIV

Christmas in 1984 was an interesting time. As a small ensemble (which I had auditioned for and rejoined at the beginning of my Senior year), we again sold Christmas Carols and participated in various Christmas themed contests, sang at malls and church gatherings. I was involved in a fun version of Charles Dickens' "a Christmas Carol" in which we played various roles and had a pretty good turn-out. I dated one co-star in the production, but dated another after the cast party. I also stole a number of my step-father's credit cards and ran up about $800 buying various Christmas presents for myself and friends. On Christmas eve, my Mom and I loaded up into the car and drove to my Aunt Carole's house. This was the only time I had seen the entire family together. Even my Uncle Reb joined us after not seeing his family for thirty years or more. My cousin Greg was about to turn eleven and we had a lot of fun playing football and just hanging out. For Christmas day, we had 10 adults and 9 kids with me as the oldest and my brother stopping by later in the night. My uncle Charlie, shocked by getting gifts, went to his trunk and picked up things which he then gave out to the kids. I got a screwdriver.

A couple of days later, we drove home. I never even asked why Bud didn't come with us. I was just happy he didn't. The first day back to school, the girl I had hooked up with at the cast party, Michelle, came and asked me to the Winter Formal Ball. I told her that I would go, as long as she paid for everything and she agreed. Michelle was very pretty but she was not really what I was interested in at the time. She was pretty, smart, dressed well, was in small ensemble and a co-lead in many plays with me and had a geeky quality that did not show at first glance. She was a nice girl and I treated her as poorly as about anyone I had up to that point. And that is really saying something. The week before the dance, a mildly more popular girl named Dawna asked me to go to the dance. The conversation went a little something like this:

Dawna: Hey do you want to go to the dance with me?
Me: I am already going with Michele.
Dawna: Couldn't you get out of that?
Me: Yeah, I could. Okay.

Michelle found out not from me, but from the grapevine. She was less than happy. She called me and put me on the spot, which I did not like, so I told her that I was going with Dawna. It was really not a fun dance and Dawna and I double dated with some toher folks who I knew but were not the party type. The dance was in San Francisco and was the night before the 49ers beat the Dolphins at Stanford Stadium for Super Bowl XIX. People were drunk and crazy and yelling out things like "niners!" all night long.

The following Thursday, we got report cards. I had always done as well as I wanted to in school and all I cared about my senior year was passing, so I often skipped classes and bent the rules to my pleasure. After all, I had enough credits that all I needed to graduate was one class for one semester. That class was American Government and I knew from the way the teacher graded that I would receive a B- from the work I had turned in and the tests I had taken. So, the day of report cards, my teacher handed them out personally. He smiled as he handed me a piece of paper upon which was written the district policy for attendance. It said, any student could be given an incomplete who missed 21 or more days of a semester, regardless of reason or the work completed. Thinking he was joking due to the smile on his face, I reached out for my grade. The paper said Goverment: Inc. Absences: 23. I was devastated and figured I could talk my way out of it, so I refused to sign up for another government class. Pre-season track was on and I began high jump, pole vault and long jump. On February 1st, Mom and I moved away from Bud for the last time and back to an apartment in Sunnyvale...Bud moved to an apartment in the same complex.