Life of Brian

1991   

There comes a time in everyone's lives when they think to themselves, what am I gonna do this weekend?  You thought I was going to mention something whimsical or insightful didn't you.  Nah, that's for a much later blog.  My third year of High School was pretty much no different than the second year, minus not breaking any bones.  I would skip trying out for the football team this year.  Basketball for me would end this year, I would not play as a senior.  I wouldn't even finish out the entire season.  School was just ok.  The harder classes were sort of winding down for me.  Now I was able to take things like consumer math.  Consumer is kind of a code word for, well, you weren't smart enough to even get through Geometry, so here's some life skills math for you.  We'd learn about budgeting, balancing checkbooks, learning how to figure out your taxes, and more general everyday stuff that every human on this earth eventually needs to know to live day to day life.  Unless you are an Engineer or some other smart person, can you really say that Trigonometry helped you day to day, or even decade to decade?  I bet not.  School was just a nuisance for me.  Of course, it's mandated by law that you attend some form of school up to the age of 18.  So, it is what it is. I would begin and end a career at Double J market.  It was fun working at Double J.  I was a box boy, and when I worked closing shifts, I'd get to sweep and mop the entire store, pull down screens over the produce, and generally put the store to sleep for the next day of business.  I'd meet my first girlfriend here in the summer of 92.  She would come into the store from time to time.  I finally had the grand idea to give her my number on a piece of paper.  I followed her out of the store and told her she dropped something.  Didn't even put my name on it, just my home phone number.  To my surprise, she actually called it.  She had attended private schools and was the same age as I.  She planned on going to Nordhoff in the fall.  We dated for the entire summer and into the beginning of my senior year.  Then she dumped me.  Funny thing, she went to Colorado that summer for a month or so, and I would meet a girl my age in the campground across from my house.  Just walking up the creek one day, I would meet her and her friend.  We actually ended up kind of dating for a few weeks.  Now, you could probably say this was cheating, and in all actuality, it really was, I guess, but we were all in high school and dating is dating.  Not like it was anything more serious.  So, I don't feel bad about it.  Getting dumped was interesting.  All of the sudden, someone who was basically my best friend, wanted nothing to do with me.  Didn't want to sit with me at lunch, didn't answer my calls, almost became a stranger.  That's how I knew.  I don't recall any formal discussion about breaking up, no letter, no phone call.  She just became a stranger.  I had a couple of other interactions with females before all of this.  I would go to prom with a girl that to this day, believes I had very bad intentions.  I couldn't believe she was going to prom with me in the first place, and I was probably one the nicest, most naive young men at Nordhoff that she could have met.  I had no desire to do anything else with her than to attend Prom and have a fun time.  A few other friends of mine and myself rented a limo for the occasion.  We would all meet at my house last, because I lived up the canyon of course, and leave for Prom from there.  My parents very graciously provided some drinks and snacks.  One of those snacks was onion dip.  Our family LOVES onion dip.  My youngest sister can practically drink it!  I thought it was a great idea and was the only one to eat any out of our group.  This proves how naive I was.  They knew this dip would give them onion breath.  I was oblivious, plus had no intentions of sucking face, or worried about the onion breath sure to follow.  So, I happily indulged.  The first hour or so of the night was just fine and dandy. Basically, just the limo ride down to Mandalay Beach Resort.  After that, things took a turn. She seemed aggravated, didn't really want to dance, basically became non talkative, and looked like she was miserable.  After prom the plan was to go in the limo up to Frimples in Santa Barbara.  This was the restaurant that had the big tree growing in the middle of it.  We made it up to the restaurant, ordered our food and dessert, the others were having a good ol time.  Even they noticed my date did not look happy.  I wanted to be able to talk to her in private to ask what the problem was, so I asked her if she'd like to go out to the limo.  Of course I don't know this for certain, but I think maybe she thought I was trying to get her alone in the limo to do some other things that didn't involve words!  This was far from being true.  I was not that type of guy, not then, and not to this day.  It is baffling to me what happened.  I still had fun regardless, I was with all of my friends.  I felt bad for her, she didn't have any of her friends there and must have felt alienated.  I'm really good at ignoring people who don't seem to want to interact, so maybe that was it.  I happen to know that she STILL holds resentment towards me to this day!  That's a sad fact indeed.  If by chance she ever ends up reading this, I wish her and her family the best.

Halfway through the basketball season, I ended up quitting.  I did not like my coach.  I felt as if he didn't know what he was doing.  I also didn't like the fact that he didn't play me very much.  The guys on my team had played organized basketball together for years now.  We should have been a very good team, but something always held us back from a winning season.  When I decided I'd had enough, I simply walked away from the bench, went into the locker room and began changing into my regular clothes.  This was during a game.  The coach had no idea where I had gone to.  I was very mad at the time.  I gave him my bag of uniforms and told him I quit!  It felt good in the moment.  But I would regret it a little bit in the following year.  I don't regret quitting his team, I do regret leaving my teammates.   Before quitting, our team went to a tournament in Santa Paula.  I drove my parents' car and took a couple other teammates with me.  During one of the games, as I was lunging for a loose ball across the key, someone's knee hit me right in my left temple.  The last thing I remember was seeing a very bright white flash of light.  Then I woke up and was laying on the ground.  I didn't play anymore that evening, and I had my friend Brad drive us all home.  That was a scary experience indeed.  I relate it to shutting off your computer by just unplugging it really quickly.  Must be the same thing.  Luckily my processor came back on, but I do think my RAM was compromised.  

Late summer of 92, I would get fired from Double J market.  Kids make poor decisions sometimes, and I was fairly good at it.  All of my friends were going to the beach.  I really wanted to go but had to work that day.  My friend Mike had a fairly adult sounding voice, so I came up with a grand idea.  I'd have Mike call Double J acting like my dad and call in sick for me!  I made the call, Mike spoke into the receiver, and explained that his son Brian would not be in to work because he was ill.  It was going superbly until my boss asked what was wrong with me.  This made my 'Dad' Mike, stumble.  He couldn't think of anything else to say but... "Uh, I'm not sure, he's just sick".  Doesn't sound very parent like does it.  My boss knew something was up, and I was no longer given any hours.  When I asked about this, I was told I was no longer needed.   I was beginning to loath that job anyway.  I had a girlfriend, I was driving, I had good friends to do things with, why did I need to complicate my life with a job anyway!  I'm sure my parents are thinking to themselves... money.   

Drivers ed at Nordhoff was a blast.  The classroom learning stuff was fun, the driving lessons were a blast!  I had two other students who did the driving lessons with me.  These two girls were not really my friends, I just simply didn't know them very well.  They were terrible drivers!  As one would expect as they had never driven before I'm assuming.  When they'd accelerate, we'd get whip lash.  When they'd brake, we'd get whiplash.  When they drove curvy roads, we'd go on to the shoulder, over the white line and hit ruts in the asphalt.  They eventually got better, but it was exciting at times to say the least.  I don't know how our teacher/driving instructor lived soo long, but he did.  I 'd see him walking with his wife for years and years after graduating from school.  My friend Brian and I would drive to the beach on a regular basis.  He had a girlfriend, and he also drove an older car, his parents old Maverick.  I'm not sure how this started, but we loved to rear end one another with our vehicles.  At a slow speed mind you!  One of our favorite places to do this was coming up to an intersection stop light.  It was even better if there were a lot of other cars already stopped.  The look on the other drivers faces as I slammed into the back of Brians car were PRICELESS!  It didn't hurt the cars; they were both pretty heavy older style vehicles.  The noise was loud though, and people obviously thought they'd just witnessed a fender bender.  Brians head would snap back a bit from the collision.  This was soo much fun, we couldn't help ourselves.  Sorry dad, I don't think it caused any damage.  None that was noticeable any way.  I do remember my dad telling us how the car had quit on him one day, and when he took it into the shop, they told him that oddly enough the motor had come off its mount!  Hmmm.  Wonder how that happened?  lol.  Whoopsie !

We may have traveled out to New Mexico in the winter this year.  I can't really remember which year this occurred, but it was indeed during Christmas.  My mom had a little wiener dog name Tammy, and we brought her with us on this trip.  Tammy was old and she would spend her last night in my grandparent's trailer on this trip.  I recall my dad and I going back to their room they stayed in, and Tammy was in her little bed.  She was deaf as a doornail anyway, but she didn't respond to his calls.  He picked her head off the bed and when he let go, she just dropped, so we knew she was dead.  It was a hard trip for sure.  I would also learn how to shave at my grandparents.  My dad would show me the ropes.  To this day, I am able to grow facial hair very proficiently.  I think I remember one more trip to my grandparents after this one.  That would be the last time I'd ever make it out to their house.

In 1991, a little country called Kuwait, was being invaded by the country of Iraq.  The U.S. got involved and sent troops to protect this tiny little country of Kuwait.  I seem to remember this war lasting no more than a hundred days, and the casualties were almost nonexistent on the Americans side.  It was a decisive victory for the U.S.  I recall wanting to enlist in the Airforce during this time.  There were numerous videos of airstrikes being carried out, and joining the Airforce seemed enticing.  I was nowhere near intelligent enough to become a pilot, this I knew.  But I still wanted to be a part of our mighty military.  Luckily, I never carried through on these thoughts.  My Dad knew very well that war is hell.  I'm sure he would have discouraged me from joining, but if that is what I really wanted to do, he would have supported it. Gasoline was less than a dollar a gallon.  Median home prices in the LA area were at $222,829.00.  Minimum wage was at $4.25 an hour.  At that wage, Americans were making just under $200 a week, less than $9000,00 a year.   A VCR cost four hundred dollars.  A new car averaged in price at $15, 475.00.  Food prices did not rise that much in comparison to the previous year.

Movies out this year included City Slickers, Terminator 2, and The Silence of the Lambs.  T.V. shows included Home Improvement, ROC, Dinosaurs, and Hermans Head.  Cheers was one of my favorites.  Top songs for 91 were "Everything I Do" by Bryan Adams, "One More Try" by Timmy T.  "More Than Words" by Extreme, and "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M.  My mom loved Hall and Oats and so did I.  We had a couple of their cassettes.  

1991 was a good year.  I'd learn some life lessons.  Driving was a blast and opened up a whole new world of exploration.  Everyone in my family was working.  I only had one more year of school left!  We'd spend most holidays with family which was always fun.  My wood splitting abilities were unmatched, I think my uncle would move his trailer on to our property this year and live with us for a while.  I remember watching a co-worker of my dad's tow that trailer over a bushy hill and down into our back yard.  I was amazed that he even made it back there.  I was still taking care of rattlesnakes around our house.  My parents purchased a satellite dish.  Not the small ones we have today, but a big full-size dish.  We were able to watch lots of T.V. after installing this.  I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life after high school.  

"I do wish we could chat longer, but I'm having an old friend for dinner."

-Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs.