I turned 18 in December and my sister Ann wanted to invite my classmates over to our home for a birthday dinner. I remember wanting to invite the girls as well, specifically Meredith, Michelle, and perhaps even Cynthia. Looking back, it was less about trying to score time with the girls than it was about trying to connect and reach out. I’m almost sure that I sent them invites, but I can say with certainty that they were not at my birthday dinner party. I was bummed out about that. Instead, it was the young, mighty bucks of Chicago: Danny, Ranjit, Ismael, Javier, and yours truly the birthday boy.
Most people would imagine fine, virile stallions like ourselves would be out the door for adventures in the big city after dinner was served. This was not the case, at all. The celebration bore a closer resemblance to a birthday party for a 12- or 13-year-old. We ate dinner then put on the stereo in the front room and started cranking up techno dance tracks. There was a full-length mirror adjacent to the front door and we unleashed some of the most shameful dance moves in Chicago that winter night. Soul Train would have left us stranded at the stop for sure. It was all wrapped up by 10:30 that night. All of it was very innocent and silly, much like myself at the time.
My free time outside of school on the weekends was spent either hanging out by Danny or Ranjit’s house and hitting the respective malls. Ranjit lived in Lincolnwood, so we would head over to the Lincolnwood mall and scope out the sports clothing stores and music shops. Ranjit was still into Air Jordan’s at the time. I remember drawing a line in the sand and refusing to pay over $100 for a pair of shoes. By 1993, the Air Jordan’s were going for $125. I wasn’t as crazy about the design of the shoe, and I thought the price was exorbitant. Somehow, Michael got by without my $125.
When we were not at the mall, we were watching sports. Mostly college and pro basketball, but also the NFL. Hockey never crossed our radar. The Blackhawks were good, but we were indifferent toward a sport we never played. However, what took precedence over everything was when a big boxing match was on the calendar. Usually, once a month there would be a world championship fight on HBO or Pay Per View. Easily the most memorable fight for me was Halloween of 1992 when me and Ranjit watched Lennox Lewis vs Donovan “Razor” Ruddock at his grandparent’s apartment in Roger’s Park.
I was so amped up and nervous before this highly anticipated heavyweight clash. Lewis was my favorite fighter and the American press had little regard for him. HBO stayed faithful to the Halloween-themed evening by having the Crypt Keeper from their series “Tales From The Crypt” introduce the evening’s event. It was cheesy but great. The crowd atmosphere at Earl’s Court in London was positively electric. When God Save The Queen was played, the crowd sang in loud passionate unison. The intensity and volume of the singing swelled as the anthem reached its crescendo. It sent a shiver down the spine.
Lennox Lewis in the red trunks smashing Razor Ruddock
I watched the fight standing up as I was too nervous to sit down. When Lewis knocked out Ruddock in the 2nd round, I erupted with a visceral roar and ran around the small apartment like a maniac. Ranjit’s grandfather thought I had lost my mind and begged Ranjit to calm me down. Ranjit was too amused to be bothered with trying to tamp down on my unadulterated euphoria. Good times!
When I would head over to Danny’s house, we would hit the Brickyard Mall and follow a similar script. The music store was always the first stop. We’d have to walk through the Montgomery Ward to arrive at the mall entrance. Once we had picked up a cassette single (no, we were not yet buying CDs), we’d head back to Danny’s to hang out in his room where we’d play music and talk about girls. Danny had some weights there were obligatory workout sessions. Then we’d go upstairs to watch a movie. It was always an action flick, usually with the likes of Van Damme, Stallone, or Schwarzenegger. Simple stuff. No booze, no drugs, and no real monkey business to speak of.
The Brickyard Mall as it looked in the early 90’s.
We were now into 1993 and Valentine’s Day was on the horizon. To commemorate this day of love and amorous feelings, the boys and girls in the high school decided to create a rating system. That’s right, everyone was going to receive a numerical rating based on their physical attractiveness. There was excitement and uncertainty in the air. There was little mystery as to who would collect the highest scores on the girl’s side of the ledger. Lisa, Michelle, Meredith, and Cynthia were at the top.
On the flip side, the boys grudgingly knew that Bruce was going to collect the top scores. All I cared about was where I ranked on the list. The specifics of how I learned of my score escape me, but I do remember the deflating feeling when I was given a four out of ten. That was a punch in the gut that I had not expected. When I searched for insight as to why my score was so low, I was greeted with the ugly truth that I was already aware of: My eyebrows. Wait, let me issue a correction: My unibrow. There was no escaping the fact that I was always going to be on the outs with the opposite sex until I confronted the hairy nemesis that loomed over my eyes.
When Danny told me that Meredith said I’d be a NINE if I did something about my eyebrows, that sealed the deal. Strangely though, I would not immediately pluck my thick, dark brown brow. I was too embarrassed to take that kind of immediate action. There was also a stubbornness of not wanting to give people at school the satisfaction of taking an action that could be interpreted as desperate. The attack plan on Unibrow would wait until school was out for the summer.
As my senior year moved along, the realization arrived that I was never going to be able to replicate the fun and magic of 1989 and 8th grade. I had gone back to Chicago from Pittsburgh searching to rediscover the sensations of a time that I treasured. To my disappointment, I was learning that time moves on and indeed you cannot go home again. The landscape had changed, and I found myself feeling confused and out of place at times. In some ways, I was an outsider. The kid who parachuted back in to try and force pieces back together that no longer fit.
I began to look ahead as conversations about college were taking shape. But before college applications were to be submitted, I had to take the ACT test. The ACT being the comprehensive test in the United States used by colleges and universities when assessing a potential student for admissions. I traveled to Lane Technical High School for the test. The test took well over three hours. I normally worked quickly through multiple-choice tests, but on this occasion, I completed the test with only about 10 minutes to spare. The results would not be available for weeks.
Unexpected Fun
During the school year, I had a free period in the afternoon. I found myself volunteering to work with students new to the country who needed to work on their English language skills. Jenny Cho was a 7th grade girl from South Korea who had very limited English. Jenny was your typically studious Korean girl. She wore dark-rimmed glasses that were somewhat dated with medium-length black hair that had been curled. She was slightly plump with well-manicured fingernails. Most of the time I would work on her pronunciation while reading. We would also work on dialog and conversation. I would shamelessly laugh at her pronunciation at times but would always guide her toward the correct way to say the words. Whenever she would make an error, at which I would not hesitate to irreverently laugh, her hand would go up to cover her mouth, her fingers pointed straight up in stereotypically female, east Asian manner. Her reactions of innocent embarrassment were so comically charming in retrospect.
Teaching Jenny English by making her read boxing magazines amused me to no end.
I managed to bring my rabid interest for boxing into the English lessons by having her read excerpts from boxing magazines. Anything to amuse myself while trying to contribute to the greater good 😉. I was also aware that boxing was very popular in South Korea. Her eyes lit up in happy surprise when I asked if she knew of South Korean world champions Myung Woo Yuh and In Chul Baek. These athletes would have had celebrity status in South Korea. In another life, I think that I could have been useful as an English teacher in a foreign country. We were an odd pairing on paper, the high school senior normally so focused on himself and the seventh-grade Korean girl that tittered like a geisha. Since Jenny was Korean, perhaps it is more apt to use the word Gisaeng. Honestly, it was great fun teaching her English. I have to say that sitting with Jenny and talking with her was one of the unexpected pleasures of senior year.
Proof that I taught Jenny a bit of English 😉
Gospel Outreach also had a small school store. The store was situated in the hallway across from the three main classrooms. Danny and I somehow landed the plush assignment of manning the store. We sold basic school supplies along with various snacks. Truther be told, I ate almost as many candy bars as I sold. I looked at the candy bars as compensation for my time and indeed I was well compensated. If the school had ever tracked inventory, I would have been quickly fired and brought up on charges of grand chocolate bar larceny. What was fun about the store is that almost everyone would eventually come over to buy something. It was an avenue for social interaction that I enjoyed. There would be plenty of banter, playful flirting, and laughs around the school store.
Having a laugh with Danny after telling him I just ate 10 Milky Way bars for fun.
While in Pittsburgh I developed the routine of getting to school early and reading the paper. The same trend continued in Chicago. I would pick up a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times before getting on the bus. I would be in turn agitated by the smugly arrogant prose of Jay Mariotti and alternately lulled into a catatonic state by the bland views of J.A Adande. In later years both journalists would feature on ESPN. The Chicago Tribune had superior writers in Terry Boers and Bernie Lincecome, but the paper was constructed so that each section needed to be pulled out and unfolded. It was too ungainly to unfurl on the bus. By senior year, my favorite writer in the Sun-Times was legendary movie reviewer Roger Ebert. Smart, and approachable, he possessed a rapier-like wit balanced by an innate ability to assess a film’s merits based on the type of film it was. He strongly influenced my decision to see dozens of films during my college years that I would have otherwise never considered. It was always a pleasure to read his reviews.
As for family life, living with Ann and Greg was largely uneventful my senior year. As is normal with most teenagers, I didn’t spend much time hanging about with them. Aside from watching “I, Claudius” on PBS with them over the summer of 1992, there were little to no joint interactions.
The dynamics were different from the standpoint that their three-year-old son and my nephew Geoff was understandably their primary focus. My God, on the weekends I can remember being awakened by Geoff pulling out the pots and pans in the kitchen and banging them about. It was genuine torture for my eardrums.
Rambo, their black Labrador retriever was now seven years old and settled into dog middle age. He was still the friendly, easy-going companion he had always been. I would take him for walks that were never long enough. I feel bad about that looking back. Dogs live for those journeys. Greg would give him a proper outing, which is why Rambo was always happiest to see Greg walk through the door.
Speaking of Greg, he probably spent more time with the dog than with me. I don’t recall any significant interaction of note with Greg my senior year. I’m genuinely at a loss to think of any time of worth we would have spent together. It is difficult to speculate 30 years later, but he may not have been wild about the idea of me coming back to live with them for senior year. The indifference I picked up on in 7th and 8th grade continued my senior year. I suppose it could have been a lot worse. He could have been a raging asshole. Yet, the lack of effort on his behalf to establish any real connection hardened my heart.
With Ann, there were two sides of the coin. On the one hand, she could be engaging, fun, perceptive, and involved. However, she could also be very temperamental, capricious, and moody, with a unique ability to cut deeply with confrontational comments that hurt. There was an underlying tension that was increasing in our relationship. Ultimately, perhaps it was indicative of the fact that maybe I didn’t belong there anymore.
I must balance this by also acknowledging that Ann arranged a lovely birthday dinner for my 18th birthday as well as my high school graduation celebration at their home. Ann did fundamentally care very much and ultimately helped me in some important ways during my senior year.
Gospel Outreach School and High School Memories 1988-1992 