Every year about this time, I get a little nostalgic. Who doesn’t? It’s the end of the calendar year and time to move into a whole new four seasons of expectations, hopes, fears, and other unknowns. This year, with the close of the 1900’s, I thought I’d sit down and try to outline the most significant memories that I have retained since I’ve been alive.

I was born. Amazingly enough, I don’t have any memories of the event or the next couple of years.

I’ve got a picture of me wrapped in a 1973 banner. Baby New Year, heh! I kept the big ears through puberty. Significantly, the picture is taken with my favorite Teddy Bear. His name is Murphy and still is a good friend.

As the still shots of images come into my mind, I can’t really say if there is anything in that data bank from this year. Perhaps my memories of mother giving me baths in the kitchen sink were from this year, maybe. I could also claim that the memories of eating banana baby food in a high chair occurred here too. Believe it or not, I don’t remember anything going on in the world around me. Wait a second… what year did Gerald Ford stumble down the steps of that airplane. For whatever reason, I’ve got a memory of that.

I turned three this year. Again, nothing too outstanding from the ‘ole noggin. I do remember a vicious reoccurring dream about a witch and shark-man. The witch was trying to capture me on a wooden dock so the shark-man could eat me. Too much Scooby Doo and Jabber-Jaw I think.

The bicentennial year cometh. Here my brain has started to gel so that I do actually remember things from pre-school. Like making orange play-dough, sleeping on an orange nap mat, and my mom coming to help the pre-school move from one building to another.

I also have some vague memories of the fireworks on the fourth. Okay, so maybe just a few memories of sparklers in my grandparents backyard. And, another reoccurring dream… this one of one of the girls in the pre-school. I started flirting young, I suppose.

And the young flirting led to my first kiss this year in kindergarten. That girl was on my mind until I finally met up with her again twenty years later.

Since my memories are pretty strong from here on out, I’m going to have to start thinking of the most significant things to write, otherwise I’ll never finish.

This was the year of my first move -- from the county into the city. I wasn’t accustomed to so many people. And, keeping with tradition, I fell in love again.

Most significant to this year were the neighbor kids. Given that these would be my peers for the upcoming years, it was an important occasion. The first meeting was cautious and the relationships developed much into a love/hate thing.

My grandmother died this year. Oh yeah, that was significant. I was the first one to discover that she past away. I think at this point, I started becoming aware of the whole thing called life beyond my eyes and just how scary the "big thoughts" were. I used to drive myself crazy thinking about "eternity." It still boggles my mind to think about something that doesn’t have an end.

This was a pretty interesting year, I think. It was the first year I got a "C" in something (Math) at school and discovered that it wasn’t acceptable to my parents. The whole notion of that grade (and obviously anything below it) was to be a battle my parents and I would have throughout my entire educational experience… which still hasn’t seemed to end.

At the end of this year, I secured my first girlfriend. The relationship only lasted a month. I learned that a broken heart was not the easiest thing for me to survive. I ended up going home from that school that day with a bad case of being "love sick."

I also remember the mock elections we held in elementary school to elect our President. The race, of course, was between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Regan. We elected Carter.

For my First Communion, I received Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Sometimes I still wonder if that is part of the cause of the contradictions I sometimes adhere to.

The Space Shuttle was launched this year. I don’t know why I remember it so much, it seemed very significant. When I entered fourth grade in the fall, I discovered I had a great liking for Science class… electronics specifically. I used to go to Radio Shack and buy little red LED lights and 9 volt batteries.

For whatever reason, batteries became a huge stable in my life at that time. I’m thinking that this is also the year we got an Atari 2600, my addiction to video games was sealed. Empire Strikes Back was released and I became one of the masses that started collecting action figures. "Star Wars stuff" would grace my birthday and Christmas lists for years to come.

This is the first year I found that I actually despised a teacher. My homeroom teacher was just plain mean. However, E.T. came out that year and everything was cool. I believe arcades were becoming incredibly infused into our culture, but I was too young to go to them by myself. And my hometown had no less than ten video arcades. Oh, what happened to those days?

Michael Jackson and Thriller were going to be big this year. My parents moved me away from the Atari and instead put an Apple IIe in my lap. Again, what appears to have become a permanent hobby was begun. Sometimes I wish I would have always kept up to date with computers… but, it certainly has been a fun hobby. Was this the year Rubic’s Cube became a huge craze? I think so.

A-Team was big on my list of things to watch. Return of the Jedi hit the theaters and solidified my obsession with the Trilogy.

Prince released Purple Rain. I moved to Junior High School, and my mother had this brilliant idea of getting me a perm. I don’t think that was one of her more successful ideas to get me accepted by the fashion police.

I lost a student government election by one vote and doomed myself to not being one of the "popular" kids in high school. Shit happens.

Although I had known him for a few years already, this was the year that my best friend and I became, well, best friends. Even tonight, 15 years later, I’m looking forward to spending Christmas Eve with his family.

Regan won again. Geraldine Ferraro made headlines for being the first woman to be seriously considered as a Vice-President. Amazingly, our Executive Branch still hasn’t catered to anyone but white males. Why exactly is that?

I got braces and spent much of the next three years grounded from watching TV because of low grades.

I can’t quite say this was an extraordinary year. I do remember the eve of my 13^th birthday thinking, "I’ll never be younger than a teen-ager again." It was the beginning of my eighth grade year… the middle grade in our three year Junior High. And, I can honestly say that absolutely nothing really strikes me as significant except for maybe a foreshadowing of depression that I would suffer through during my high school years.

At least I and my buddy were allowed to walk four miles to the only real video arcade left in town. Summer band was good for getting girlfriends though.

Ninth grade was an interesting year. I almost got pretty beat up on a couple of occasions. One was after our Variety Show. I was in the jazz band and we played for twelve of the thirteen acts. After the show, a large gathering of us (like, seventy) walked to Dairy Queen where one of the morons flipped off a carload of high-school guys. Those guys thought it was me. For not really being "anyone" in Junior High, I was awfully impressed with the way that large group stuck up for my best-friend and me.

Bon Jovi was big.

This was the year all the fun began. Summer camp, getting to party and drive around with seniors, a whole new school, and a whole new attitude. Life was pretty good until the New Year hit.

For some reason, I have a lot of CDs with a copyright date of 1987. I think that was my favorite year of pop music.

During this year I also met my next best-friend and got into role-playing.

As this year started, I suffered a Pavlovian response to the attention received when I was in a bad mood. It started a long trial with melancholy… a depression and apathy for no reason other than it felt right.

I started my first job at Arby’s. I also got involved with my longest relationship thus far. It lasted about six months. I still hadn’t learned to deal with a broken heart.

My junior year in High School was again nothing to speak about. The middle year. Oh, something significant did happen… I started my current addiction to Marlboros and Mountain Dew.

I got my driver’s license, graduated high school, broke out of depression, suffered a grueling canoeing vacation with my father, turned into a legal adult, and went on to college.

Most significantly, a circle of friends was developed that still struggles to keep together.

Desert Storm was unleashed, the only "war" against another country I’ve lived during. Of course, there was also the war on crime, drugs, poverty, cold war and a little fracas somewhere in the Far East. At least we won Desert Storm.

I remember having a grand summer this year. Nothing really spectacular, but it just felt right. There was some partying, some girlfriend, some good friends, some fun nights and tired days.

This was the year I decided to forget about having a dorm room in college. I dropped out of Milwaukee, started college at Parkside, took on a full-time job managing that video arcade, and moved out with my best friend. Big mistake.

I started looking at the world with sad, cynical eyes again.

My best friend and I didn’t speak to each for the next two years. I moved again, this time into an apartment above my parents’ house. For the first time in my life, I felt content. I was nearly self-supportive (thanks to the meager $150/month rent my parents charged), and had only myself to make my rules.

This year, I had many supportive friends and finally attempted to do something creative. I published a newspaper. It only saw two issues, but only because of the fact that there was no one willing to make a hard-core effort to sell ads. Funny how in a capitalistic society, money is so desperately needed to make things happen.

I hit the big year: twenty-one! After two years, I decided to quit my job at the arcade and return to school full-time. That lasted for just that fall semester until I got kicked out for spending too much time at Brewmaster’s and in Student Government rather than in class.

My parents sold the duplex and moved into a single-family home. I acquired knew accommodations of the basement room with cinder-block walls that I’m currently writing from.

The black cast across my vision erupted fairly strongly.

Since I wasn’t allowed to be in school and, as luck would have it, my job was again available at the arcade. I went back to managing and leading a fairly worthless existence.

Although I did take out a loan and got back into my hobby of computers, which is something that I grew away from over the past few years.

I began speaking to my best friend again. And, he met this girl through his sister, he in turn introduced her to me and she became the most significant thing in my life for the next few years. Life wasn’t so worthless anymore.

I began slowly working my way back to school, and this time did very well. Things were beginning to move in the right direction, although I started getting the sensation that this girl wasn’t the right one for me.

I do have to admit, she was good for me. She brought me back to family. And because of her (perceived) irresponsibility, I learned to be somewhat responsible.

I don’t know when I stopped collecting Star Wars stuff, but a new line of action figures was released and she started a whole new obsessive craze with collecting those molded plastic icons.

Responsible in all things except for finances, she and I took a trip to Florida and New Orleans. I vowed I would never return to New Orleans unless I was single and with a group. I figured I’d never be back there.

The arcade closed down in the early part of the year since it wasn’t making any real money. I was unemployed for six months, then, as school started and I entered the education program, I began a job working security. That job proved to be very beneficial to affording me an income and time for homework. I, for the first time in my life, was a good student and began an unbroken streak of being on the Dean’s List.

Between work, school, and my girlfriend, this year didn’t have any outstanding moments. Oops, I take that back, we got engaged at the end of the year. I’m still not certain why, I spent an awful lot of time angry.

I was promoted at work during the summer. It wasn’t a big deal, but nice.

We broke up three days after New Years. Even though I spent two months in a haze, I’m so incredibly happy that we didn’t get married. We simply weren’t right for each other.

A few months after the break up, I became re-acquainted with my kindergarten love. It was like a fairy tale come true… all my hopes for love had been fulfilled. I was promoted again at work. I didn’t exactly want the promotion, but it was difficult to turn it down. I was given an office and it became a whole heck of a lot easier to get my school work done.

By the end of the year, the fairy tale had turned to unbridled realism, and I haven’t seen her since we graduated from college. At least it didn’t end with a broken heart, only a cynical view that ideal love actually can exist in this world.

This year began with no expectations. I was a single, college graduate. At the end of the year I would be finishing up student teaching and after that, life was to be unknown. I also started to strongly consider moving away from the area I’ve grown up and do a little exploring.

It was the first year that I walked into with no expectations, no ideas, no worries, just acceptance for each day… knowing that the summer would be free and the end of the year would be hectic.

The most widely anticipated movie of all time was released. Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace.

The idea of no expectations was wonderful. This has been the best year to date and I can honestly say that I’m happy and have learned many lessons. Just as my old circle of friends are washing away from regularly doing things together, I’ve found a whole new, larger family that is comprised of some of the most intelligent, playful, talented, and caring people that exists.

Brewmaster’s has been a sanctuary since I first mentioned it, and throughout the years, I’ve sat there with many good friends.

I’ve ended my employment as a security guard. After the New Year, I only have a couple of weeks left of student teaching and I have two job offers standing for me in the area.

2000 promises to be a good year, but, like last year, I’m not walking into it with any expectations. So long as I get a job early on and I keep smiling, life will be just fine.

The last note:

And, in these twenty-some years of existence, the only meaning of life that I can conclude to understand is that the best moments are enjoyed when we strive to touch and be touched by as many lives as possible.

This Page Last Updated:   12/31/99

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