New School

Starting a new school is always hard. And as my parents were divorcing my father is leaving the country. He was already out of the country. Let’s face it. My parents paid for tuition for me to attend the school that I’ve grown up in for another year. I guess the thought was that my mental health was self destructing as it was. And another I don’t know, I think it was $3,000 a semester quarter or something would keep me there. That’s forever grateful for that. So I spent 10th grade there.

I came to the 11th grade I went to a school called Cedar Cliff High School, which was close to me. I remember I had some options I had visited West Shore Academy, which was a bunch of kids that I thought had no lives. I remember specifically shadowing for a day and thinking these people will have no lives. Because I just spent a season going to all kinds of dances and football games and all that stuff. And it’s like, Don’t you people go out. And then I shadowed cedar cliff. Met a girl named Stacy Eck and rode. My host was Chris Cashman. And it was just it was great. Great. And I remember a girl named Michelle shade and both of those girls caught my eye for whatever purpose. I think Stacy was a more academic one, and Michelle was the more troublemaking one.

But anyway, I remember 11th grade in particular, I liked this car named Megan small. She was like a ninth grader, right? And she didn’t like me back rejection again. Whoo. She had thing for black guys. She dated a guy named Kyle lane and that of course has its own set of problems. I think with our parents. But through her I met a girl named Shannon. And Shannon was awesome.

And Shannon was just a I think sympathetic to where I was at. father was an alcoholic. I had a car and we just hung out a lot and bonded I think through that process. I know that a lot of times towards the end 12th grade or so. It was always you know, Okay, last choice, call me but especially during the 11th grade, I couldn’t have had a better best friend as it were. She was awesome. I pick her up take her to school, I think in a largely end of 11th grade and mostly through 12th grade before she dropped out.

So every morning I would come get her spend time with her father Charlie who liked baseball. He has since passed. My her older sister Lisa, who’s somebody I still visit periodically. Lisa and her husband have a home in Camp Hill. Pennsylvania. They’ve always been welcoming of me. I try and spend a couple hours with them anytime I come to visit. I went to them right after my mother’s funeral, mainly to just kind of reset before driving to New York, which is basically what I did after her funeral at least has always been great. We’ll do lunch or talk.

Shannon. Yes. And then I spent every day with for quite a while. She had a thing for a couple of different guys, which was great. That was not my problem. But we did spend a lot of time together she actually had a spare key to my car. So I let her drive my car while I was at work after school and on weekends. Her responsibility was to come back for me and not leave me stranded. I think people thought I was crazy for that.

She had a friend named Lindsay which became my friend to kind of the number two. Occasionally I would go grab Lindsey and just hang out with Lindsay when Shannon wasn’t available. But it was Shannon and Lindsay Yeah, that was my my secondary high school experience just driving around with them.

There was a period of time when we weren’t all getting along. And I had Lindsay’s boyfriend’s younger brother, Mikey, Mike each up and we drove around for a season Mike each up Josh Dellinger and me I remember getting to go to Hershey Park on their company day for their dad. We were drive thru editors and everything I remember one night we ended up staying somewhere else because someone was after us or we thought but eventually reconcile with Shannon and finish that out.

It was kind of turbulent after high school as I was working and going to college and Shannon was she dropped out of school. I don’t know what exactly she was doing. But things just got messy. I was able to reunite with her briefly as I was making visits as my mother. My mother’s health was getting worse.

I do recall the last time we were supposed to connect which I knew pretty much was goodbye and she canceled as I was on the way back trying to get to her and that was the last that we talked I think to some degree I felt rejected again. So I just decided that was it. That was going to be the end of that story.

I think there’s a sense of need for control of that narrative. Because there wasn’t gonna be recapture the glory days we both grown she had a daughter. She had a guy that she was dating on and off again and I was basically wrapping up everything knowing that I wasn’t coming back to Pennsylvania. There wasn’t really any reason to.

So I did a final visit with Lindsay a final visit with Lisa. I’d hoped to find a visit with Shannon. But that didn’t happen. But I knew that that was going to be goodbye. Maybe she knew that too. I don’t know. But I just knew I didn’t want to leave that narrative unfinished. So I just told her fine, and that was that.

She offered to do a zoom but I declined. I just I just felt that was a good. That was the ending that that particular story was going to have but Shannon was my little angel in the 11th and 12th grade. I don’t think I could have made it through without her