Flywheel Society - Assignment Two (Analogy)

All it took was one.   The long-standing tradition at my high school of the girls asking the guys to walk with them at graduation had no formal timelines, and so it seemed that when the first girl thought it time to ask, the rest would quickly follow lest the available pool of boys shrink uncomfortably small.  Wearing gowns that would make most brides-to-be envious, the women of my tiny prep school would be escorted by their chosen tuxedo-clad classmates down a grassy aisle in the aptly named "Graduation Grove."  A small orchestra would play.   Stunning, really.  Usually it would be senior year before that first young lady thought to break things open, but sometimes a girlfriend confident in the ongoing trajectory of her relationship would jump the gun and create the frenzy early.

My junior year I was like an small upstart nation who had just purchased a nuclear warhead on the black market and was awaiting the status now rightly deserved.  Young and undersized for my class, I had slogged through the brutal years between seventh grade and junior year: the braces, the haircut, the clothing choices, the profound lack of athleticism.  But now I was coming into my own and felt that I was poised to launch from the middling second tier into the truly popular group.   Somehow I had shaken off the near-fatal misstep of asking out a girl who had been dating our mutual classmate for years (was she really so kind as to not spread that information and destroy me?).   I had yet to attend a single social event with anyone from the popular group, but it seemed like any minute, the phone would ring (my wife would later explain to me that in high school the phone never rings; you hear about a party and just go).  I had closed the gap in average height for our class and now weighed over 100 pounds (but just barely).  My potential was limitless.

Sir, the news just hit the wire, within the hour, the whole world will know we've got the bomb.  "Excellent.   They won't have the luxury of ignoring us any longer, will they?"

She walked up to me in a calm moment before the first bell.  Someone from my own caste; someone undesirable in my plans to social escalation.  It didn't occur to me then, but this was probably a well-rehearsed moment for her.   A decision which had required a great deal of that, perhaps some discussion with friends.  There may have been courage involved.  No small talk, just straight to the point.  "Andy, would you walk with me at graduation?"

I was in shock; frozen for a brief moment before quickly recovering and answering in a brutal and ungracious way, "Oh WOW, that's starting already?"   Not an answer.  That's not an answer.   I changed the subject, but the real one stood over us like a dense cloud until the bell rang and the five-minute timer until the next bell, burned into our subconscious over five years, began ticking - and sending us in opposite directions.

Sir, we've received a message following our press release about the new bomb.   "Excellent, I assume the Americans have invited us to join the G20, or perhaps take a permanent seat on the UN Security Council?"   Well, sir, actually.... it's an invitation to attend a summit on shipping lane security.   From a junior congressman.   Out of Rhode Island.

As I saw it, ignoring this request - if possible - through the summer would mean some sort of reset.   The girl would grow impatient or get the hint, and I would be free to ascend and take my rightful place: arm in arm with the prom queen or, at worst, one of her ilk.

Sir, I'm afraid I have more bad news.  The bomb was a fake.   We've.... we've be fooled, sir.  "Very well, very well.   Let the good people of Rhode Island know that I've always hated piracy."

Flywheel Society - Assignment One (Memoir)

They were mature trees – tall and grand enough to shade but without creating a foreboding darkness.  The woods at the bottom of the hill: where I spent countless hours as a kid, accountable only to those trees and my friends.  Our house was near the top of the long hill which lead down to the woods.   Once, my sister managed to get the parking break undone on the family car, with me inside as well, and I’m positive we’d have buried that car in the woods if Dad hadn't raced outside in time to stop us rolling.  He has zero memory of the event, which is unnerving since he can remember everything and everyone.

I spent all the time in those woods I could as a kid.   They were so close to home, and yet so unlike everything else around.   A creek ran down the middle of the woods, which rose steeply away from either bank.   At one end of the woods, where the subdivision was looming overhead, the creek vanished into a giant drain pipe.   We wouldn’t have to duck to walk into this pipe, but the pitch black married up with spider webs were enough to keep us out of there.   That and the fact that we sensed it would be against the rules to go into a drainage pipe, and we always followed the rules.

There were rocks and railroad ties aplenty in the woods; and so we had rock and railroad tie forts.  There never seemed to be any incursions into the woods which would require a fort, but preparation is always the key to repelling a large invading force.    Almost every rock in the creek had the look of a turtle.   In fact, if a turtle had a mind to hide, these woods would’ve been the perfect place to blend in.   That was small consolation to the 8-year-old boys seeking pets in vain, but it’s a fact.

I’m not sure if John Lewis was ever in these woods with me.   I would testify that he was, but he didn’t live close and I can’t say for a fact that we ever spent time together outside of school or baseball, not even once.  But certainly he was there.   John was the perfect kind of friend for me.   He was tough, having grown up with no fingers on his left hand except a partial thumb made of a hip-bone chip that doctors had inserted there shortly after his birth.  My first day of second grade I spent watching that hand and nothing else, since it sat at the desk in front of mine and to the side, along with John.   Since literally nothing came easily to John, he was resolute.   I was a wimp – younger and smaller than everyone around, so resolute fit with me very well.   Together we could rule the woods.

Those woods could contain our fun for days.   They allowed us to be boys.   We could go to the woods without any supervision or schedules, without plans or permission.   They were huge and dangerous and dark.  They went on in every direction without ending.  They were tiny, and safe, and close, and if I told you exactly where they were you wouldn’t be able to find them because they aren’t really woods.   They’re a tiny strip of trees, left untouched by the housing development only because the water runoff needed someplace to go, and a “wildlife preserve area” is good political cover for an alderman approving a golf course.   I’m having a hard time even locating them on an aerial map now, because you can’t zoom in enough to see them.   My how they loom large in my foggy memories of 1988.