Project 365 ~ Day 26 (January 26, 2009)

Today is actually Monday, January 26, although the post will read as though it were Tuesday, January 27 (rolling my eyes because I have not yet figured out how to change it). From time to time today I have been thinking about an odd dream that I have been having lately. Off and on since graduating from high school (let's not say how many "moons" ago that was!) I have been dreaming of classmates and school assignments (or would one say that is more a "nightmare" than a "dream"?), and the school assignments are not any that I have ever participated in! I am not sure if this means that I should be praying for them (perhaps the Holy Spirit is bringing these people to mind?) or I am missing them (even though many in my dreams I was never close to) or that it is possible that they are thinking of me, too??! And "they" do say that we only remember a small portion of our dreams. Makes me wonder what I dream about that may be even stranger than the ones that I remember?! I do know that we have a high school class reunion coming up this year. I attended our fifth, tenth, fifteenth, and 20th, but did not go to the remaining ones. I felt too sad to go to our 25th reunion because so many of my beloved classmates had passed on. These were the ones that I only saw at the reunions, but couldn't wait to catch up on what was happening in their lives, such as: Steve Heinz, Mike Hentze, Kraig Tallman, Lindsay Thomas, Ted Johns, Joe Wish, Herb McPherson, Doug Weeks, Greg Hurney, Tim Vicario, Tim Irwin, Chuck Hildreth, and that's just a few of the guys!; then the girls included: Patti West, Helen and Ellen Carpenter, Kim Shepherd, Sarah Young, Kathy Knack, Vicki Syler, Cindy Krouse, Sue Vicario, Toni Scott, JoAnn Brown, Kathy Ritchey, Anne Stockton, etc.
Hmmm.... looks like I may have had more male friends (just friends nothing more) than girl friends! LOL
A little background: Steve Heinz moved to Florida before we graduated. Actually, I don't remember if he moved when we were in junior high or in high school, but he still comes to the reunions (or at he least did) and is very handsome! I would say that he's kept his looks more than any of the other guys. And a plus: he's an attorney!
Mike Hentze and I became friends in sixth grade. I had a big crush on him! And we bonded over dodge ball! LOL Our sixth grade teacher was a dodge ball fanatic. He had divided our class into three teams (blue, red, and white) and each one of us had a number 1 to 5 within each color team. I don't recall our number for sure, but Mike and I had the same number (whatever number that was and I think it was "5") and we were on the blue team. I was so good at dodge ball that if I did not get out of the locker room as timely as Mike did, he would be yelling at the top of his lungs for my help! LOL I was good at dodge ball because I had a total fear of that ball and would do whatever it took to dodge it!! :))
Kraig Tallman and I became friends in junior high. He was a very likable guy until he was involved in a horrible automobile accident that left his face disfigured in high school. We all were devastated by what had happened to him. He had to have his jaw wired as it had been broken in the accident; he had to have facial reconstruction and plastic surgery and still never looked the same. He still looked as though someone had bashed in the side of his face, even several years later! After that, Kraig was not as friendly and jovial (as was understandable, of course). Kraig was our school mascot in high school. After graduating from college, he went on to New York and became a fashion designer of sports wear. Kraig died a few years later, and I am still not sure why except that some of our classmates had said it had something to do with his heart. We still miss him, of course! (BTW, his older brother, Cole, had a crush on me when we were in junior high. I was in 7th grade and Cole was in 9th grade).
Lindsay Thomas and I became good friends when we were freshmen in High School. We were in the same advanced english class and sat beside each other. We talked every day and shared a lot of our thoughts and ideas. One day that summer, Lindsay suffered a terrible tragedy when his brother was killed in a car accident. His brother, Tim, was a senior in high school at the time. Tim had been drag racing and lost control. It was a very messy accident. Even his head had been severed when the car hit a cement embankment and the body threw over (through?) a telephone pole at a high rate of speed. His shoe was stuck under the accelerator pedal. I remember seeing that picture in the newspaper! When the sheriff's department went to the Thomas home to tell the family, only Lindsay was at home. His parents were at work (his father owns a construction company, Thomas and Marker Construction). Instead of the officers waiting for his parents, they told Lindsay! Lindsay was only 15 years-old. How could they do that to that poor boy?
Ted Johns moved to our elementary school area (Western Elementary) when we were in fourth grade. His dad was on the police force. Ted was the cutest blond I had ever seen! LOL When my parents would go to visit good friends of theirs, the Kemps, I would visit my best friend Sarah, who lived only two houses away. Sarah and I would walk down to Hubert Gainey's house, who was about three or four houses from Sarah. (Hubert was my first "real" boyfriend and that was in first grade, unless you call my five year-old step-cousin that LOL)!
Ted ("Teddy") lived around the corner from Hubert (aka "Huey") and we would all play together. That usually involved playing in the creek or going for walks or playing hide or seek, or whatever we could find to do. BTW, Hubert was part Cherokee and dark and very handsome!
Joe Wish was a fellow redhead. He was next to the youngest in his family of many. His parents had a nice sized farm and he was very popular, as well as handsome. A classmate in high school once teased and said that he and I should marry some day so that we would have redheaded children! (My friend Sarah sat behind him in a class or two and said that she would count his freckles; LOL)!
Herb MacPherson was my fifth grade boyfriend! He was also very handsome and had light brown wavy hair and blue eyes. He was quiet and I was quiet (you wouldn't believe that about me now; would you? LOL)! He played trumpet and I (tried to anyway) played clarinet. One week I was out of school with the flu and came back with Herb very upset with me. It seems that our teacher moved our seats around and he and I were no longer seated beside each other. He was mad at me for it! I don't know that he ever forgave me for being out sick!!
Doug Weeks was the most handsome man in our graduating class (at least in my opinion) but also the first one to lose his looks (as well as his waist)!
I had a crush on Tim Vicario in high school. He had blond curly hair and blue eyes. His father was the mayor of our small city. Tim and I were friends but I didn't know then what I know now: he just was not into girls! After high school graduation, he went to nursing school and moved out west (Arizona I think). He died a few years later of Aids. His mother told me that when his father was sick, and I was taking her back and forth from The Park University Hotel (where I interned at the time) to University Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, where her husband (Tim's dad) was hospitalized with heart problems.
Tim Irwin was another redhead in our high school class. The only redheads were Joe Wish, Tim Irwin, and me! Tim's father was a veterinarian and Tim later took over his father's practice. Tim was (is) a very nice and decent person. He married a girl from our class, Pat Rinehart. Pat's an artist.
Chuck Hildreth was "in love" with me in first grade! He would write me secretive notes and leave them in my school desk. (Randy Schrechengost and Hubert Gainey also competed with each other for my attention by writing me notes, but not so secretively). At one point, our first grade teacher moved me out of the aisle and sat me by the windows by myself because of all the attention those boys were giving me!! Chuck later (after high school) dated a good friend of mine from my youth group at church, Connie Britt, a beautiful blond who became my matron of honor, and another "friend" of mine, Linda McClain, who was actually one of my dear friend's ( Linda Briggs) good friend. Small world! Chuck was also the first boy from our high school graduating class to go bald! He was so self-conscious about it that he had hair plugs for a while. The last time I saw him was when we both worked at Honda.
Last but not least, we come to Greg Hurney. I left him last on purpose. I had a huge crush on Greg from 7th grade through our freshman year in high school! He was one of the best looking and sexiest boys in our class (although the word "sexy" was foreign to me back then). Of course, he was also trouble, but not for me. He had stood up for me on several occasions, especially when other classmates would tease him about the crush that I had on him. He and I never dated and were only friends, if that, but I had wanted so much more! I wanted to go steady with him! Now I look back and am thankful that we didn't date. Greg was a "bad boy" and probably would have caused me shame. (His family, however, was one of the wealthiest in town, along with Ted John's family. But money is not what had attracted me to Greg. Money didn't mean anything to me as a teenager, of course. Not in those days! That was never something that attracted me to anyone, anyway).
That'll be enough on the reminiscing (for now, anyway). More will follow at a later date....