Back at Gospel Outreach, we were heading into the final quarter of the school year. One afternoon after school, I received a call from a woman who identified herself as being with the admissions department at North Park. Somehow, they had received my ACT scores before I did. She asked me if I wanted the scores given to me over the phone. I was never very good at waiting, so I gave her permission to reveal my scores. She informed me that I had managed an overall score of 24. The categories broke down as follows: Math 19, Science 20, English 26, Reading Comprehension 31. I was expecting the lousy results in Math and Science. There was also pride that I had managed to balance out the damage with respectable marks in English and Reading Comprehension. Although I hesitate to crow about my Reading Comprehension since that basically means you can understand what you read. I would hope that I had that ability. In any event, I was relieved and relatively happy with the results.
The next step was to determine where I wanted to attend college. I would be the first member of my family to go to college directly after high school. My sister Theresa had graduated from Northeastern in 1987, but she had done it the hard way going part-time, paying her own way while working. The rest of my half-siblings had stopped their formal education after high school.
When it came to choosing a university, I quickly ruled out going away to school. After the disastrous three years in Pittsburgh, I was not prepared to handle the prospect of being on my own. North Park College (North Park University since 1997) was an easy choice in retrospect. As a small, Christian college located at Kedzie and Foster on the north side of Chicago, there was a comfort level and familiarity the school offered that I needed. The bubble that I had grown up in for much of my youth along with my failure to adapt in Pittsburgh left me unwilling to venture out and test myself. I wanted safe, small, and close to home so I choose North Park College.
The administrative building at North Park University. North Park was less than two miles from where Gospel Outreach was located.
Meredith would also decide to attend North Park, but our paths would not cross very frequently. I don’t recall any classes with her or many interactions. She would leave North Park before the end of her sophomore year.
As the last few months of senior year unfolded, I found myself far less invested in Gospel Outreach. The second half of senior year had been less eventful than the fall. The unwelcome discovery that I couldn’t replicate the joys and sensations of 8th grade disappointed me. I was now 18 years old and dawning upon the delayed realization that childhood was ending. That may sound silly as that feeling should probably occur earlier in one’s teenage years. But at 18, I had yet to have a girlfriend or even kiss a girl! I had just secured my first job. I was late to the party in some significant areas of development.
Gospel Outreach did not organize many formal activities for the seniors. There was no prom or formal dance of any kind. This stayed in line with the strange, conservative policies that the school had regarding the interaction between girls and boys. There was a school banquet that took place. However, that seemed more of a celebration of the school as a religious institution. I had no interest in attending and I did not go.
After our graduation ceremony, the seniors celebrated at the Hard Rock Café in downtown Chicago. This occurred on June 9th, 1993, and the only reason I can recall the date is because that is when the Chicago Bulls played the Phoenix Suns in Game 1 of the NBA finals. I watched some of the game at the Hard Rock Café while hanging out with Danny, Ismael, and some of the other graduates. There were faces from the past who had come out to celebrate. Tim Hernandez, one of the kids who made junior high such a fun ride was seated at a table. I was happy to see Tim and he looked much the same to me. Oddly though his response seemed somewhat muted. At least that is what I remember. The Bulls won and there is not much else I can recall from that night. There was no drinking, there were no wild stunts or shenanigans to recount. Tellingly, there were no tearful goodbyes. I’m an emotional person by nature so this surprises me to an extent. But I had also distanced myself from Gospel Outreach mentally. Therefore, the emotional ties had loosened. The evening was laid back and fun, but unremarkable.
What does endure from that evening is the suit that I wore for graduation and the evening venture downtown. The occasion demanded a killer suit and decided to go out in style befitting of my personality. The green and black suit that I purchased for graduation night could have been pulled straight out of Arsenio Hall’s closet. The green jacket with the black rayon shirt and the big gold chain was so early 90’s. I rocked that suit and owned it. In many ways, it was a brilliant summation of the persona I wanted to project: Cocky, confident, ridiculous, and cool. Remember, this is what I wanted to project. I’m certain the only traits that I successfully conveyed were cocky and ridiculous. I will say that it took some nerve to wear that suit. It also represented an era that was coming to an end. Shortly after I began attending North Park, the loud, audacious clothing was put to the wayside in place for more conservative attire.
Going out in bombastic style with Mom and my sister Ann.
By the time graduation of 1993 arrived, I was no longer yearning to return to a place that had once served as a mental and emotional sanctuary. I was ready to move on to meet new people, have new experiences, step into a new environment and venture into college life. This was a natural progression. This was the way it should be.
What of my fellow graduates? There were but 11 of us. I cannot pretend to know the paths that all of them traveled following graduation. Danny took the decision to leave Chicago and go to a small Christian college in rural Iowa. It seemed an odd and baffling choice to me, but Danny had his reasons. He was committed to leave home and strike out on his own. Danny had been encouraged by his friend Chad to follow him out to the small school in Iowa. I remember having a lot of respect for Danny’s choice to go away to school. As much as I made fun of Danny and used him as a source for cheap laughs at times, he was one of my best friends that I had known since 3rd grade. I was going to miss him.
Ismael, the nice guy who was quick with a smile would attend DeVry Institute of Technology if memory serves correct. I think that by the end of the school year he and Jenny Hoendervoogt has called it quits. We would stay in sporadic contact and hang out occasionally up until around 1997.
John David would go on to attend Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Illinois. I would stay in regular contact with John and more particularly his brother Jonathan throughout my college years.
As for the rest of my classmates who graduated in 1993? I did not stay in contact with any of them. There were no lasting ties. That chapter had closed. In fact, I closed the book on Gospel Outreach for all intents and purposes after graduating from high school. As a church, I strongly disagreed with their version of Christianity and their narrow worldview. It was a clean break and aside from Javier, there was no one at the high school that it made sense to maintain communication with.
My single-minded obsession with coming back to Chicago from Pittsburgh was driven not just by nostalgia of a time gone by but by the friendships I had as a 13 and 14-year-old. I desperately wanted to reconnect and reignite those relationships. But just as the school year had failed to meet my own expectations, so had many of my friendships. Danny was a very good friend but was now moving on. We would stay friends, but our paths would diverge. While Ismael and Javier were new friendships I had developed, the duration had only been for a little over nine months from September to the beginning of June. Truthfully speaking, maybe if we had attended school together all four years the bonds of friendship would have been stronger. We didn’t have enough shared experiences to forge lasting friendships. Naturally, they eventually weakened and faded away.
June 1992 with Danny and Ranjit at my graduation party. Danny looks like he’s having the time of his life.
Really, the only friendship that had endured unscathed from 1989-1993 was with Ranjit. He was not even a part of my senior year at Gospel Outreach High School. Ranjit had always been a grade ahead of me even though we were the same age. Ranjit was now working full-time with no interest in attending college. We were still best friends. The two of us bonded by our obsession with sports. We shared similar interests and a subversive sense of humor. An odd duo on the face of it, the tall, Irish guy with the flat-top haircut, the unibrow and the desire to call attention to himself paired with the small Indian kid with the subversive mindset who was not comfortable in the spotlight.
It is quite fitting that the photo that best encapsulates the era is with Ranjit. The picture captures all of what I wanted to project at the time. A certain audacity for sure. The cocksure pose with the flashy suit and the gold chain on full display. The look on my face clearly embraces the ridiculous over-the-top ensemble. Ranjit’s slightly embarrassed expression where he looks to be holding back a laugh at the absurdity of my outfit. I don’t have many photos with Ranjit, but this one is money. Pure early 1990’s.
God, we look like we might be selling stolen electronics out of a van. Classic.
Mid-June of 1993 was for me an end to a very particular period: 88’-93’. The Chicago that I knew in the early 1990’s was still an extension of 1988-89 in many respects. As my senior year had concluded, the last embers of the late 1980s were dying out. My photo with Ranjit was a fitting denouement of the period.
This was reflected in Chicago sports as well. Mike Ditka, the iconic coach of the Chicago Bears was fired at the end of the 1992 season. Ditka would always be associated with the 1985 Superbowl winning team. Subsequent seasons would result in successful regular season records followed by disappointing playoff losses. The 1992 team that posted a 5-11 record was a pale shadow of the heady days of the 1980’s. Ditka’s time had passed.
Michael Jordan would unexpectedly retire in the summer of 1993 after the Bulls won their third consecutive NBA championship. The core of that team: Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, and Bill Cartwright having been formed in the late 1980’s.
Mike Tyson, the ultimate incarnation of physical intimidation of the late 1980’s was convicted of rape in 1992 and was sitting in a prison cell. Upon his release in 1995, he would spend the rest of the decade trying in vain to recapture his previous aura.
On the Chicago music scene, the influential club “Medusa’s on 3257 W. Sheffield closed in 1992. The music landscape would change significantly from 1993 onwards.
My affinity for hip-hop and sneakers had run its course. Two interests that had burned so brightly 5 years earlier had dimmed.
As absurd as it may seem to group myself in with these events, the parallels were obvious. The place and time that I had clung to so closely and had sought to recapture was definitively gone. There was no choice but to move on. Events happened in an organic manner to facilitate the inevitable change.
Senior year was a critical, transformative experience in my latent development as a young man. I was not transformed by one singular event. There was no seminal moment, rather it was a slow, gradual process with certain landmarks along the way. By June 1993, I had reconciled with trying to recapture sensations from the past. I was ready to move on and discover what was next.
Gospel Outreach School and High School Memories 1988-1992 