Ahhhhhhhh!
Hey, everyone. If you're wondering why I'm starting this post with me screaming, it's because this is my 100th blog post! Ahhhhh! Actually, I'm not really that excited, but it is interesting to see how far I've gone/come in five or six months. I also want to remind you all that my play The Passion of Gloucester and Sinead is still available for free download. You can get it here.
Anyway, today is the 9th day of my daily writing. Let's get it started.
Wheel of Genres, turn, turn, turn! Tell me the genre I will discern!
Today's topic is... Non-fiction--Autobiography! Holy smokes. Just the other day I was thinking the wheel was fixed because I've gotten so many poetry ones and I've gotten cinquain twice. I was actually thinking of breaking the wheel down into three: poetry, fiction, and non, and then using them in order just to make sure I got some variety. But anyway, what the crap am I supposed to write for this? ...I know what. My high school reunion is the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so I'll write about my high school days.
Thirty minutes on the clock: 30:00. And... go!
***
So, my high school days were a little odd in that I didn't go to just one high school. That's not to say that I went to two at the same time, but I did have two high schools. See, I started out at Notre Dame High School in Harper Woods; a Catholic, all-boys school operated by the Marist fathers. In Michigan, there's another Notre Dame called Notre Dame Prep which was supposed to be NDHS 2, but I'm not going to go into the story of why and how because I didn't end up at Prep. I ended up at Bishop Foley Catholic High School in Madison Heights; a co-ed school mostly operated by laity (which is a huge drag) and with higher standards than ND. But how did I end up there?
Back in March '05, the Archdiocese of Detroit was headed by Cardinal Maida, and I can tell you that he wasn't very popular with Catholics in the AOD. The fact that in March he decided to close down 15 Catholic schools of all grade levels in the diocese didn't help much either. One of them was my alma mater ND, but we didn't go down without a fight. No, we made one hell of a racket and did whatever we could to stay open. In fact, three separate, individual, third parties tried to buy ND from the diocese, and each offer was bigger than the last. The reason for our closure was because of our massive debt and Maida thought he could sell the property ND was on because it was highly valued land. However, karma's a real bitch and that deal fell through which meant ND sat there, closed, for a number of years before a charter school bought it. So, as you can guess, we lost the battle and I was forced to attend Bishop Foley.
I tell you, this was not a transition I wanted to make. It's not a transition that many of my friends wanted to make either. When we made it to Foley, so many ND guys ended up there, someone joked it was ND Part 2, but obviously there weren't that many of us. But going back to the transition, a good chunk of us were bitter. It's possible we all were bitter, but some made the transition to Foley much more gracefully than myself and some of the others. As a result, we split into two groups and chiefly amongst my own was my friend John, best friend #1, O'Meara, Babecki, R. Hill, M. Reese, Roe Radik (his name Scooby-Doo style), and for a while, Gabe. (He eventually transferred out because he found it so abysmal.) But these fellows essentially became my comrades through the dismal two years we "suffered" through Foley. But what was so bad about it?
Well, there are quite a few areas where Foley didn't measure up to ND. For one thing, their food sucked and was expensive. A small box of fries cost $2, whereas at ND the fries were the main fare. For $1.25, or $.75 for a half order, you got a mountain of the tastiest and longest fries you've ever seen. Another problem was that Foley had a tougher grading scale and was more difficult in terms of academics. Some of us who were A- students suddenly became B+ students because 90-92 was no longer an A. Another issue was how many variants of the uniform they had: there was a perfect uniform which included either a sweater or sweater vest, there was casual Friday but our casual shirts had to bear the Foley coat of arms, and the uniform didn't make sense either. You were expected to wear khaki pants and a button-down shirt, but you could wear any sort of sneakers or tennis shoes you wanted. At ND, we had to wear to dress shoes and a belt, but we could wear any sort of dress slacks or dress shirts we wanted. And we only had to dress up, which meant "guys in ties" on days when we went to church. The Foley spirit week was also lame as hell whereas at ND it was a fierce competition the likes of which you've never seen! That's not to say Foley didn't have any school spirit; believe me they had tons and the class of '07 had the most--they won spirit week all four years and the girls Powderpuff team thrashed the '06 Seniors. The problem was the themes for spirit week along with the games they played. At ND, we were men, and so we had very manly themes and games. But Foley was co-ed, so...
But there were some things Foley did do good on. To be honest, I valued the more intensive spin on academics, and looking back, I do feel like a Class A douchebag for being a douchebag. Since I couldn't take my frustrations out on Maida, I aimed them unfairly at Foley. I never did anything really mean or cruel, I just wasn't very nice and I was complete ballast when it came to spirit week. I had no school spirit and everyone was going to know it. The people at Foley were very nice, very compassionate, and very welcoming. I was too pissed off to see that. I did calm down in my Senior year, so much so that in the days leading up to the start of the new year I relished going back, but I already had a reputation and I didn't know how to undo it. Back then, I probably didn't want to undo it. I was and still am proud of my days at ND, but I wish I had handled things better at Foley which is one of the reasons why I'm so looking forward to my reunion so that I may make reparations. There's at least one apology I should make in person.
So, when I look back, I can't help but regret the opportunities I missed out on by being such a douche. One of them was my first real chance to have a girlfriend. It wasn't until a couple years into college did I realize that I had gone to school with some of the cutest and prettiest girls in the world, and I knew that by how much better they looked just a few short years into college. They went from cute and bright-faced to mature and almost sexy. Now, I did have a school crush at Foley, but she was in the year after me, '08. Instead of focusing all my attention on her, I should've kept my eyes and options open to the girls of my own class. I wonder what they'll think of me now. (How you like me now?!)
***
Okay, I'm going to stop the clock there with almost two minutes left. There's not much point in starting a new thought/paragraph only to be stopped so soon. I hope you all enjoyed my reflection/confession. Wish me well at the reunion.
But anyway, that's it for today. If you want to use the wheel I made, you should be able to access it here. And if you have the time, please check out my books for sale on Amazon which you can find through my author page. The link is below. See you tomorrow.
Keep writing, my friends.
More About Bryan C. Laesch:
Amazon: My Author Page, My Influencer Page
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Twitter: BryanofallTrade
Youtube: Bryan C. Laesch, Bawdy Scholar
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