Originally posted on MySpace 6/3/2007
I was thinkin about back in the day, listening to my daughter talk about KHS now. Not much has really changed, except for the names. And even then, not by much. The only thing that makes me feel old is that I went to KJHS, or as my pops called it – “Grainger High.”
Way before that, it was Moss Hill Elementary. I came in the middle of fifth grade. The funniest thing I remember back then was meeting two girls named Tisha and Tasha, twins. I tried to date one while the other hated my guts. The one that actually liked me ended up moving away. The funny thing was they were to be the first twins named that I’d bump into growin up. Moss Hill was mostly about trying to get people to say my name right, educate anyone interested in Japanese American culture, and avoid as much fights as possible. Wasn’t easy, considering most of them were with my own cousins. I was the kid from California who hated being stuck in the country, so it was pretty easy to pick a fight with me, especially family. Kinda because of that, and a few other things, I ended up at Rochelle, instead of Woodington. The first thing I noticed was that the girls in the city were harder to talk to than out in the county. I know, that’s a loaded statement, so I’ll save that for a blog later. Rochelle sucked because I was immediately doomed to being “Ms Mainor’s nephew”, which was a lot easier to pronounce than “Yukio.” I already had a cousin named Chancey, and anyone older than me knew my dad by the same name, and at churches, that name was exclusively reserved for my grandfather, which we were all named for. I got into band wanting to play the sax, and was stuck playing the trumpet b/c I couldn’t afford the instrument rental (my dad had an old trumpet I found and used it). I ended up playing nearly all the brass instruments by the time I was removed from band, but all I remember was the excuses I got for not being put on sax. In fairness, we had a pretty good sax lineup as is. It was at Rochelle, though, that I made the friendships that are still intact today, though I met most of them at Camp Holloway the summer before. Rochelle sucked for a few other reasons, besides having an aunt on campus that everyone can snitch to. I no longer had my cousins, the friends I did make I couldn’t really hang out with b/c I lived off the bypass, and there wasn’t really any clique I could fit into – I was kinda the social floater. The whole time I went to city schools, I still went to county games and events with my cousins.
From Rochelle it was KJHS, where one of the few childhood friends I had in this town actually lived next door. Ironically, we kinda fell out over cliques that year. I spent most of that time hitting on girls who were way too old for me, introducing handball to everyone at lunch, fighting Mr Richburg over what instrument I wanted to play, sneaking onto the roof of the building to just kick it, and driver’s ed. Oh, and getting my ass beat by the same two guys for reasons I never really found out about. It was also when close friends became enemies overnight, the space shuttle blew up the same day as the campus boiler, crack was then what meth is now, AIDS just started to become a buzzword, and Emma Web was the spot to hit when we had to walk. The dollar theatre across the street just shut down, Raynors was in full swing, Piggly Wiggly was everywhere and Food Town became Food Lion with a cornball rapping lion on the commercials. My cousins’ house burned down, and they moved down by King Street, which sucked even more for me, and my city ass learned to fix and drive the tractor so my uncle didn’t have to do so much work. After all that, I’d ride my bike (or walk if I had to) from the bypass into town over the King St Bridge, up Heritage or Tiffany to get up the hill to hang out and play video games or watch BET Rap City with friends. After driver’s ed, it got a lot easier. I had my uncle’s orange camaro or my aunt’s Monte Carlo. Once I had a little gas money, we were gone.
By the time KHS rolled around, we were almost never in town on the weekends, unless we had to work. Goldsboro, Greenville, Jacksonville, New Bern, Wilson. At first, it was to catch up with girls we met on field/band/science club/track/football trips. By my junior year, I had more friends off-campus than on. But we got bored and started going out further. Elizabeth City, Va Beach, Richmond, DC, etc. I think the furthest we went on a whim was New Jersey, which is a series of blog posts all by itself. In fact, I’d bet it’d make a great screenplay, but noone involved would sign-off on having their part included. At KHS, though, I pretty much got tired of being stuck in the brass section of the band and nagging Mr Richburg, so I ditched for JROTC. Being an Air Force brat, it was a paradigm shift definitely in my favor. Again, another blog series. There’s also the science club, becoming emancipated, Pizza City deliveries, moving in with Terry (and eventually jason, and I can’t even remember the name of the other guy who nearly got us all killed), trips to New Bern, the Z, the Rocky, street racing (which is way different in the country than in California in so many ways). My ego was pretty much maxed out at that time b/c everyone kept feeding it by the shovelful.
Hey, Tim, can I PLEASE talk about Va Beach?! Or Dixie? Or East Orange? Or Havelock? Or . . . .
Man, come to think of it, we should write a book about the JaziJet Adventures.
Hi, excellant writing.