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Tuesday, May 19, 2015

May 19, 1996

It's time for the third scheduled break in the retrospective that I've had going on all month long.  It's another regularly scheduled Tuesday Timeline entry, and the only clue that I will give you is this...



Think you've figured it out yet?  Well, we'll get to that in a second.  In the meantime, today is the nineteenth of May, and I found that a lot of things happened on this date in history.  Have a look!

1499 - A marriage by proxy takes place when 13-year-old Catherine of Aragon marries the twelve-year-old Prince of Wales, Arthur

1536 - Anne Boleyn is beheaded for adultery, incest, and treason

1568 - Queen Elizabeth I orders the arrest of Mary, Queen of Scots

1743 - The centigrade temperature scale is developed by Jean-Pierre Christin

1780 - At 10:30 in the morning, heavy cloud cover and thick smoke causes complete darkness to fall over New England and Eastern Canada

1911 - Parks Canada is established as the Dominion Parks Branch under the Department of the Interior

1925 - American activist Malcolm X (d. 1965) is born in Omaha, Nebraska

1941 - Director and screenwriter Nora Ephron (d. 2012) is born in New York City

1951 - Singer-songwriter Joey Ramone (d. 2001) is born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York

1962 - Marilyn Monroe sings "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in New York

1963 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is published in the New York Post Sunday Magazine

1984 - Michael Larsen appears on the game show "Press Your Luck", where he won over $110,000 in cash and prizes, thanks to his memorization of the light patterns on the game board

1986 - The Firearms Owners Protection Act is signed by President Ronald Reagan

1998 - Four months after his death, Sonny Bono is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, along with his former wife, Cher.

2001 - Jazz singer Susannah McCorkle dies at the age of 55

I hope you're ready for a long list of celebrity birthdays too, because it seems as though a lot of them are celebrating May 19 birthdays today!  Happy birthday to David Hartman, James Fox, Bobby Burgess, Tania Mallet, Peter Mayhew, Pete Townshend, Grace Jones, Dusty Hill, Archie Manning, Jimmy Thackery, Victoria Wood, Phil Rudd, Steven Ford, Bill Laimbeer, Gregory Poirier, Sean Whalen, Maile Flanagan, Jodi Picoult, Polly Walker, Kyle Eastwood, Jason Gray-Stanford, Jenny Berggren, Dario Franchitti, Kim Zolciak, Jessica Fox, Eric Lloyd, and Sam Smith.

So, as I explained in the last couple of Tuesday Timeline entries, my idea was to have all the Tuesday Timelines in May and the first part of June fall between 1981 and 2015 - as those are the only years that I've been alive.



And, we're going to be going back in time one day after my fifteenth birthday.  The date?  May 19, 1996.

Now, you probably might have figured out that based on the "General Hospital" credits that I posted up above, you're thinking that the Tuesday Timeline is linked to that show.  And, certainly it is.  The show's been on the air for fifty-two years, was the show that had the number one watched wedding in television history, and it's also one of the few soap operas to film an episode completely live (as the show recently did for the May 15 and May 18, 2015 episodes). 

But, May 19 isn't the actual anniversary date for the show.  The show actually debuted on April Fools Day, 1963.  But May 19, 1996 was a very sad day for cast members who were on "General Hospital" at the time, as they had to bid a permanent farewell to one of the show's original characters, as well as the actor who played him.

Here.  I'll show you an updated version of the "General Hospital" credits - these ones aired between 1993 and 2004.



Now, I want to draw your attention to the very first cast portrait shown, as well as the scenes which show a doctor bringing a patient into the emergency room.  That man was John Beradino, who for thirty-three years played the role of Dr. Steve Hardy.



Dr. Hardy was one of the show's original characters, and during his time on "General Hospital" he saved countless lives on the program and experienced the same things that other standard soap opera characters did including romance, betrayal, secrets, and scandal.  He wasn't the longest serving character on "General Hospital" - his 33 year record has since been broken by Jackie Zeman, Leslie Charleson, and Rachel Ames.  However, during his tenure, he was nominated for three Daytime Emmy Awards, and appeared in approximately 4,300 of the show's episodes.  And, he was also one of the few soap actors to earn himself a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, receiving the honour in 1993.

But to simply dismiss John Beradino as a daytime soap star would only be scratching the surface.  And while he eventually carved out a permanent place in "General Hospital" history, he did much more than that.

Giovanni Beradino was born in Los Angeles, California on May 1, 1917, and graduated from Belmont High School.  And, one thing that Beradino was very interested in from an early age was sports.

In particular, baseball.

You see, John Beradino didn't start off as an actor.  He began his career as a baseball player.  Don't believe me?  Have a look at this!



I'm not exactly sure when this photo was taken (and yes, his name was spelled incorrectly - and reportedly was for several years!), but if this isn't proof of Beradino's baseball past, I'm not sure what is.  And to Beradino's credit, his baseball career lasted quite a long time.  Aside from a three year break between 1942-1945 (Beradino served in the United States Naval Reserve during World War II), he played as a major league baseball player between 1939 and 1952, and played shortstop and second base for such teams as the St. Louis Browns, the Cleveland Indians, and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

TRIVIA:  Believe it or not, Beradino was part of a team that won the World Series.  He was a part of the Cleveland Indians when they emerged the victors in 1948.  Now that would have been such a tale to tell!

Now, it was right around the time that the Indians won the World Series that Beradino began to take an interest in acting.  And he did appear in a couple of bit parts in the late 1940s and early 1950s.  But it wouldn't be until he had suffered an injury on the baseball field that he made the decision to act full time, as Pittsburgh had released him from their roster because of the injury.

Now, if you watch the films "Suddenly" and "North by Northwest" very closely, you might be able to spot Beradino.  He had cameo roles in both movies.  He also made guest appearances in various television shows and dozens of B-movies, but nothing really made him stand out.



At least, not until he landed the role of a lifetime.  Dr. Steve Hardy.

And, I imagine that during his time on the show, he made an impact, not just with his co-workers and crew members of "General Hospital", but with the fans who watched "General Hospital" every weekday afternoon.  And, well...sometimes videos say it best.  Here's the tribute that an awards show gave him the same year he passed away.


Monday, May 18, 2015

Unsweetened Sixteen

So, here we are at the point in the childhood flashbacks that I was dreading.  And when you consider that this post is timed perfectly with my actual birthday, I kind of cringed.  After all, birthdays are supposed to be happy occasions, and yet here we are at the year that I very much consider to be my rock bottom year.

I admit that I was quite conflicted even writing an entry about it at all and I even considered skipping it altogether and go ahead with the 17th year instead.

But then I thought to myself...no.  As painful as the memories associated with my sixteenth year were, and as horrible a time as I had, the story needs to be told.  It needs to be told because of two reasons.  One, because it proved just how strong I was back in those days, even if I didn't quite see it that way at the time.  And two, because if my story can inspire other people to stand up for themselves and not remain silent when things happen to them that they don't like, then I consider reliving these experiences a good thing.

So, here we go.



Tra la-la-la-la la-la-la-la
Happy birthday, sweet sixteen
     - Neil Sedaka



Only mine wasn't quite so sweet.  My sixteenth year was pretty miserable, actually.  And, I'll explain one of the main reasons why this was the case in a moment.

In the meantime, let's see what was happening in the world of pop culture around this time.  Oh, and, yes, I have a snapshot for you all to look at.



Yes, one new addition to my face was the fact that I needed to wear prescription lenses.  I tried contact lenses, but hated them.  And since I can't afford laser eye surgery, I still have my glasses today.  But somehow, I made them work.



#1 SONG THE WEEK OF 5/18/1997
"Hypnotize" - THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G.

This was definitely one of his biggest hits - as well as one of his last.  He was actually killed two months before this single hit the top of the charts.  It's actually not a bad song, to be honest. 



#1 AT THE BOX OFFICE THE WEEK OF 5/18/1997
"The Fifth Element"

Absolutely loved this movie when I first saw it, and it still remains a favourite today.  I even had to do a project on this movie for one of my film studies classes.  Talk about a homework assignment worth doing!



#1 TELEVISION SHOW OF THE 1997/1998 SEASON
"Seinfeld"

Makes sense.  This was the show's final season, so a lot of people tuned in to bid it farewell.  Although, the show's finale still causes arguments among fans today.

Finally, I should also add that while sixteen was a really horrible year for me, it wasn't completely bad.  My second sister got married in October 1997, and my first nephew was born just a few days before my seventeenth birthday.  If anything, those memories are the only fond ones that I have of my sixteenth year.

Other than that, it completely sucked.



Let's see...there was the massive event known as Ice Storm '98 that gave us several consecutive days of ice rain which lead to transformers blowing and power lines snapping, which lead to a blackout that lasted several days.  Certainly not a natural disaster that I want to relive, let us put it that way.

And there was the time in which we had some really nasty rainstorms that summer, and the ceiling in my bedroom actually caved in on me.  The only consolation was that none of my possessions were damaged, but it was still annoying to have a quarter of my bedroom completely unusable for several months.

But those things pale in comparison to what I had to endure in school - things that no other sixteen-year-old should ever have to go through.

I could forgive the fact that I had my belongings torched in my locker.  I could forgive the fact that there was a smear campaign launched against me.  And, well...I could even forgive the nasty note that was sent to me telling me that the school would be better if I killed myself which actually lead to me seriously considering exactly that.

Thank goodness that I never went that far with it.  Otherwise, I wouldn't be here typing this out.  But that's how broken I was when I was in the eleventh grade.

I had absolutely zero friends to lean on in eleventh grade.  Zero.  Oh, sure, I had acquaintances, but I didn't trust them enough to confide in them too much.  Even the friends that I had during that time had their own lives and I felt it best that I didn't interfere with them.  Truth be told, I had a lot of trust issues that year.  I didn't trust in others to be there for me, and I didn't even really trust myself a whole lot during my sixteenth year.  I pushed everyone away, including members of my own family because I didn't think that I deserved to have anybody on my side.

You see...if all of these incidents had happened completely at random, it still would have been inexcusable, don't get me wrong.  But at the very least, it would not have hurt me so much.

What really hurt was that all of these actions - the locker fires, the smear campaign, and the nasty e-mail - were all done by the same people.  And one of those people I considered to be a really good friend.

Now, for the sake of argument, I'll use fake names in this piece, to preserve their identities.  After all, I'm not the "eye for an eye" type, and really, this happened eighteen years ago.  No sense in trying to seek justification for outing them now.

I first met "Cory" in our ninth grade computer class.  He seemed quiet, but he seemed nice enough for me to sit near him for the whole semester.  We became friends by the end of the year, and when some of the kids in the school picked on me, I was stunned to see that he actually comforted me, and stood up for me.  I didn't really have a whole lot of that growing up.  Usually, kids just turned around and looked the other way, or they joined in to avoid being outcast.  "Cory" was different though, or so I thought.  And "Cory" soon introduced me to a couple of his other friends named "Will" and "Sparks", and I admit that I was friendly to them, though I didn't get as close to them as I had with "Cory".  "Will" had a locker fairly close to me during the first year of school, so I spoke to him quite a bit, and in ninth grade music class, "Sparks" was seated fairly close to where I was sitting, so I got to know him as well.  I remember "Sparks" being very quiet.  Never really spoke a word unless he was directly spoken to. 

But, that was ninth grade.  In eleventh grade, I noticed that something had changed.  Something that didn't make sense.

It was right around the time that the first locker fire took place (there were three separate instances altogether which also included vandalism).  I noticed that "Cory" wasn't exactly the supportive friend that I had known from two years ago.  To be honest, I thought he kind of acted nonchalantly to the fact that my locker had been torched.  I mean, I was freaking out about it.  Not only because the fire caused me personal and emotional damage, but because the fire could have burned down the whole school, possibly putting lives at risk.  He couldn't have been bothered by the whole thing, and instead he spent his free time hanging around "Sparks" and "Will". 

At that moment, I should have clued in to what was going on, but by that point, the second and third fires took place, and there were posters being circulated in the cafeteria that were spreading lies about me.  And, by that time, I really didn't care to know anybody who was a student at that school.  I had even considered dropping out of school to take my high school equivalency test instead, just to get away from that toxic environment, but I knew that my family would have never allowed that to happen. 

I think they probably would have let me do whatever it took to make sure that I did get an education without being bullied, but since I never really told them the impact of how much I was hurting from it, they never really knew how bad it had gotten.  They suspected something was up, but never pressed further because I refused to talk.  They just chalked it up to sixteen-year-old moodiness.

By the time that I had gotten the e-mail message, I had enough of it, and I begged the school administrators to do something about it, but unsurprisingly they really didn't do anything to help me.

No, it actually took the efforts of two wonderful teachers to help expose the ugliness of the bullying against me in eleventh grade - and Mr. McDonald and Mr. Pearson, you have no idea how much you really helped me out, so thank you, thank you, thank you!

It was Mr. Pearson who caught the poster maker in the act in the school cafeteria, and Mr. McDonald who managed to use his computer genius to trace the origin of the e-mail address that sent the nasty message to my student e-mail account.  And what they found really shook me to the core.

The posters were being distributed by "Will", the guy whose locker was close to mine.  And, it was he who I initially suspected was behind the locker fires as well, as he had really close proximity to mine.  I ended up being wrong in that accusation, but that will come later.

But what really hurt the most was that the person who sent me the e-mail was "Cory".  "Cory", the one friend that I made in grade nine computers who actually defended me against some of the nasty kids in the school.  It was "Cory" who typed the words "why don't you kill yourself and make the school a better place".



This was worse than betrayal.  This was almost the equivalent of him taking a steak knife and stabbing me right through the heart with it.  He was one of the last people that I would have suspected that would hurt me like this, and yet there was the proof right there.

It made me sick to my stomach.  In fact, I think I did throw up the afternoon that I found out.  I put so much trust in him and "Will", and they completely ambushed me and treated me horribly.

"Cory" and "Will" ended up getting a week-long suspension, which to me was one of those cases in which I felt that the punishment did not fit the crime at all.  Had this happened in 2007 and not 1997, I believe that both of them could have been kicked out of school permanently.  They got off extremely lucky as far as I was concerned.  "Cory" did try to make amends and apologized for what he had done, but as far as I was concerned, he made his choice that day, and the friendship between us was pretty much over.  He went his own way, and I went mine.  And, well...let's just say that eleventh grade ended up being a very lonely year. 

I reckon that if I had enough black clothing, I would have done the whole goth phase during the rest of the year, as I really didn't have any school spirit, nor did I have any spirit towards any of the student body of my high school.  I just stopped caring.

I am relieved that I didn't go through with the plan that I had to end it all that year.  It would have devastated my loved ones, and besides...I wasn't about to give "Cory", "Will", and "Sparks" the satisfaction of knowing that they had completely broken me. 

And, yes...I include "Sparks" in this piece.  I come to find out that "Sparks" was the firebug that torched my locker, and that "Cory" had known the entire time and never told me who it was until high school commencement, which as far as I was concerned permanently killed any hope of continuing a friendship with him.  A real class act, wasn't he? 

I guess what I learned from this was that I needed to do a better job of choosing friends.  I became a lot more guarded after that experience, and while it was a necessary thing for a little while, I let that event turn me into someone who was cold and unfeeling - two adjectives that I never want to be described as.

I also learned that I can't let one horrible year define who I am as a person.  I was victimized in eleventh grade, and for the life of me, I never did get any sort of explanation as to why they went after me with such hate.  I may never get that answer.  But life did get better after my sixteenth year, and that's what I need to focus on now.

But you know what else I learned?  I learned that despite the toughness of my sixteenth year, I became tougher and stronger, and I swore to myself that I would never let anyone hurt me like that again.  "Cory", "Will", and "Sparks" were toxic people and they only wanted to hurt me.  Who needs people like that in your life?

Fortunately, by the time I turned seventeen, I started to make friends with a new crowd, as well as rekindled a bond with an old friend...and we needed to keep that bond strong as we found ourselves lost in Montreal.



But you'll have to wait until Wednesday, May 20 for that tale.  In the meantime, I think that I've written enough.  I wonder if there's any more cake?

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Year Fifteen - Oh My Nose!



'Cause when you're fifteen and
Somebody tells you they love you
You're gonna believe them
And when you're fifteen
Feeling like there's nothing to figure out
But count to ten, take it in
This is life before you know who you're gonna be
Fifteen
       - Taylor Swift

Ah, yes.  Taylor Swift's song "Fifteen" certainly sounds like a song that could describe how I felt at fifteen myself - well, aside from the someone telling me that they loved me.  I was the dateless wonder of high school.

Not that there was anything wrong with that, of course.



Of course, when I was fifteen years old, Taylor Swift was probably still in grade school figuring out what colour you get when you mix red and blue.  This of course, makes me feel super old now, but hey.  Birthdays have a way of doing that to you.

And, as the anniversary of the blog is fast approaching, we're heading into the year 1996, where admittedly a lot happened.  And as I post this snapshot of me from my fifteenth year of life, I'll tell you one of the three stories that I plan to tell in this piece.



Okay, so this photo is black and white because it was a part of my tenth grade yearbook.  I don't have a whole lot of photos from high school for some reason.  Anyway, my hair in this picture looks really good now, but I experimented a lot with my hair in '96.  I wore a bowl cut, I grew it out, I shaved it mostly off (a mistake that I will NEVER do again), and I put in all sorts of hair styling products to try and get it under control.  I now realize that with my hair thinning that I probably should have just left it alone.  However, I will say this.  I found that hair gel works best for me.  I think I probably used a hundred bottles of Dippity-Do between the ages of fifteen and nineteen!

In pop culture news around my fifteenth birthday...



#1 SONG THE WEEK OF 5/18/1996
"Tha Crossroads" - BONE THUGS-N-HARMONY

Oh, dear lord, I dislike this song.  I really, really dislike this song.  But I don't outrightly hate it.  There are worse songs that charted in later years.  Wait until the day I talk about turning 28.  That's all I will say about that.



#1 AT THE BOX OFFICE THE WEEK OF 5/18/1996
"Twister"

True story.  I saw this movie on my fifteenth birthday at the movie theatre and loved the whole thing.  Okay, sure, so the science presented in the film was far from accurate.  It's still an entertaining film.  Come to think of it, 1996 was an awesome year for movies.  Much more interesting than the music on the radio anyway.  I mean, the Macarena being a #1 hit for a quarter of the year?  What the hell?



#1 TELEVISION SHOW FOR THE 1996/1997 SEASON
"ER"

I guess that "ER" must have been one popular show when it first came on.  Once again, the show was number one.  And my confession is that I have only seen a handful of episodes.  The theme song still kicks butt though.

Okay, so what happened when I turned fifteen?  Lots of things.

Did you know that at the age of fifteen, I became an uncle for the first time?  My one and only niece was born in September 1996, and I have to say, I think I was the only kid in my whole class to be an uncle that young.  But, hey, look at it this way.  If my sister and brother-in-law hypothetically got pregnant the week after they got married, I would have been an uncle at nine!  And, actually, I have an aunt that is two years YOUNGER than my eldest sister.

Ah, age differences.  You gotta love 'em.  I can't believe that my niece is now eighteen years old!  Again, remembering birthdays does that to you.

And in 1996, I also was one of four people who scored high on a national mathematics contest (which I don't know how that happened, given that I nearly flunked math just a year and a half later - long story there), and had my name put on the main billboard of the school and had a huge picture in the yearbook.  Have a look!



But I can tell you that in addition to wearing a T-shirt that did NOT FLATTER ME AT ALL, I was also sporting something else.  If you look closely, you may see that I had a bit of a black eye.  Yes, there's a story behind that one.

We're going back to the tail end of ninth grade for this tale, just a couple of weeks after I turned fifteen.  My classes that semester were French, Science, Mathematics, and Phys Ed.  And, since the school year was winding down and the weather was getting warmer, our gym classes were held outside.  Now, the way that my school was, it was landlocked in a residential neighbourhood, so we didn't have our own track field or football field.  Instead, the field and baseball diamonds were built at the closest elementary school - which happened to be the school that I attended between 1987 and 1995!  So, whenever we had gym class in June, we walked to the school and played football (ugh), baseball (a little better) or volleyball (my favourite - see Year 13 to see why). 

For what it was worth, I never really liked gym class very much when I was in elementary school.  The kids teased me on my lack of athletic ability, and I always had low self-esteem whenever I had to take part in gym.  Though, part of it could have been because I didn't have great gym teachers.  Most of them were grouchy old coots who would rather have been drinking spiked coffee in the teacher's lounge than teaching us about good health and physical activity.

Mr. Corney was different.  He was my gym teacher for ninth grade, and he was anything but corny (pardon the pun).  You see, unlike any of the other teachers that I had in gym, he actually graded you based on how much effort you put in class, and how much you paid attention in the health education portion of the class.  High school gym classes devoted six weeks to in class learning, and admittedly, most of the jocks in the class slept through the class and became huge class clowns.  But I paid attention in class, and ended up getting a higher mark in gym than some of the more athletic people in the class.  I'm like, hell yeah!  Finally a gym teacher who cared and understood!

Oh, and one more thing.  He almost broke my nose.

Well, not intentionally, of course.  In fact, I remember him being freaked out at first until I reassured him that I was okay! 



How it happened?  Well, remember how I said that in gym class we had classes outside when the weather warmed up?  One day in June, the class played baseball, and I have to admit that it wasn't my best sport.  I didn't do too badly in the infield, but when it came time to hitting, I was definitely the strike out king.

It was my turn at bat, and Mr. Corney was the pitcher.  And what was good about his style was that he made sure that we were comfortable with the way he pitched the ball before he threw it.  It helped us get more comfortable with how to hold the bat, but also instilled good communication with our teammates - another reason why I liked having him as a gym teacher.

And by all accounts, the pitch should have gone well.  I was admittedly the weakest hitter in the whole class, and I had communicated with the teacher to throw it slowly so I had a better chance to hit it.  Again, it should have been an easy hit.

Unfortunately, in what seemed like a freak display of physics, the ball ended up bouncing upward when it hit the bat and smacked me right in the schnozz!

And blood.  Boy was there blood.  It's lucky that I wasn't a hemophiliac or else I'd have really been in trouble.  I was convinced that my nose was broken and it hurt like hell.

I'm really amazed that I didn't cry outright.  Yes, my eyes were filled with tears, but that could have been because the ball hit me on the side of my nose which caused a little bit of a black eye to show.  And, again, Mr. Corney was there to help me through it, stopping the bleeding, taking me off the diamond, finding me a place to sit the rest of the period.  He could not have been more kind. 

And you know what?  I'll give my classmates a lot of credit.  None of them laughed when I got hit.  In fact, I think some of them sympathized with me.  That also helped a lot, and it didn't make me feel like a complete idiot.  Not that I had any reason to feel that way anyway.  It was a freak accident.

And, after a quick trip to the emergency room of the hospital, it turned out that my nose wasn't broken.  Bruised, but not broken.  I just had to put some ice on it that night and the next morning it was fine.

So, yeah...fifteen was a year that brought some physical pain, but it healed.  But as fifteen became sixteen...well...let's just say that it wasn't a sweet year.

It was actually pretty sour.  You'll read one reason why in tomorrow's entry, as well as what I learned from that event.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Fourteen - Worst Birthday Ever?

Hello, everyone, and if you're living in Canada (as I do), I want to take the time to wish all of you a very happy Victoria Day weekend!  It's not often that we Canadians get to enjoy long weekends, so I hope that however you spend the weekend, you spend it doing something that you love.

In my case, my long weekend happens to last eight days!  I love booking vacation time from work!  Believe me, some days, you feel like you need a recharge.

And to kick off the long weekend, I'm about to tell you the story about the most screwed-up birthday that I think I've ever had.

Ah, but don't worry.  While this tale is filled with frustration and anger...it's also filled with happiness, love, and a trip to Canada's Wonderland.  Trust me, this read will be worth it.



Okay, so we'll get to the reason why my fourteenth birthday ended up being a colossal calamity in just a moment.

In the meantime, there's some other things that we have to take a look at.  Such as a snapshot from that time period.



Yikes...what the heck was I wearing?  That shirt is so loud, I think that I probably deafened a couple of people with it alone.  Oh, and to make the ensemble complete, I was also wearing pleated khakis and brown deck shoes.  Hey, nobody said that 1995 was my fashion-forward year.  The fact that I made it to the ninth grade in one piece was enough of an achievement in itself!

Now onto the pop culture stuff.



#1 SONG THE WEEK OF 5/18/1995
"This Is How We Do It" - MONTELL JORDAN

Okay, all you music fans out there.  Tell me this.  Was this Montell Jordan's only hit, or did he have others?  One thing for sure, I have to admit that I did like this one.



#1 AT THE BOX OFFICE THE WEEK OF 5/18/1995
"Crimson Tide"

Nice.  A movie that I have not only seen, but liked as well.  Though, admittedly, it took a little bit of time for the film to get interesting.



#1 TELEVISION SHOW FOR THE 1995/1996 SEASON
"ER"

Ah, yes...the show that made household names of George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, and Noah Wyle (I hesitate to put Anthony Edwards in this bunch, as he was already a well-known named movie star when he landed this show).  Can you believe this show ultimately ran for fifteen years?  That's exactly the same amount of time CSI lasted.  Oh, and the theme song?  Epic.

So, before I go into detail over why my 14th birthday was memorable for all the wrong reasons...well, I need to set up a few details.



One, things at school were quite hectic.  Never mind the fact that my 14th birthday fell a month before eighth grade graduation.  All of the seventh and eighth graders were doing a semester long project about how to invest in the stock market, and all semester long, we were grouped into teams where we had to earn Monopoly money for doing assignments, doing extra credit, answering quizzes, etc.  On the day of my birthday, all of the teams gathered in the gymnasium to work on a project where we could win lots of fake money to use in the actual buying and trading portion of the unit - which was to be held in the first week of June.

On top of all that, I was having issues with some of the kids in my class.  You see, all the classes that year were divided up into 7/8 split classes.  The good news was that all four of the boys who aggravated me last year were put into different classes from me.  The bad news was that a few of the seventh graders in my class were...well...jerks.  Remember this for later.

Now, this would have been enough stress to deal with on top of keeping my grades up and making sure that my report card was good enough to pass into the next grade.  But something happened in my family that caused me to have even more stress than the average fourteen year old should have.

You see, both my mother and my sister were really sick during the time of my 14th birthday.  In the case of my sister, her illness wasn't as bad, but my mother was in really bad shape.  I won't go into detail over what both of them had (they both were sick with the same thing), but you know how sometimes mothers will always take care of everyone else in the family before they take care of themselves?  My mother is the ultimate case study of this.  She was more concerned with making all of us happy and well that she always puts herself last.  And I think that was a reason why she ended up getting so ill.

In fact, she had gotten so ill that I was genuinely concerned that I was going to lose her. 

Both my mother and sister had to have surgery...and you know, I didn't plan this at all, but I find it a coincidence that the surgery date just happened to be on this date twenty years ago.  May 16, 1995.  If I remember correctly, my sister and my mother were operated on within four hours of each other on the same exact day, and it was certainly a tense time for all of us.  But both made it through the surgery okay, and although my mother had more complications, she managed to make as close to a full recovery as one could get. 

In a way, I was really happy that both were going to be okay...but I was really sad at the same time.  You see, their surgery happened to be scheduled two days before my 14th birthday.  This meant that for the first time in my life, I had to celebrate a birthday without my whole family being there.  Sure, I did go up to the hospital to visit them on the night of my birthday, but somehow it didn't quite feel the same.  Despite this though, I tried making the best of it, and try as they might, my dad and my other sister tried to salvage the day as best they could.

Like, for instance, they made sure that I had a cake.  Oh, sure, the cake was bought from the local A&P supermarket, and my sister's attempt to write "Happy 14th Birthday, Matthew" on the cake made her look as if someone gouged her eyes out with a Swiss Army Knife, but, hey...it was the thought that counted.

Seriously, I wish I had a picture of the cake.  It was pretty hideous looking.  Tasty, but hideous.



And for gifts, I made a special request for my 14th birthday.  I wanted all of my gifts in cash.  The reason was that my class was embarking on a class trip to Toronto, Ontario later that week, and I wanted to make sure that I had enough spending money to make the trip memorable.

(Aside from the fact that a pickpocket stole thirty bucks from me at the park, it ended up being a nice distraction from all that was going on.  I still had $115 hidden in my luggage anyway for safekeeping!)

See, everyone at my school thought I was dumb for losing money at the park in the first place, but the truth was that I expected it.

After all...I did have money stolen from me on my actual birthday.

Well, okay, it wasn't real money.  It was the stock market project money that was stolen from me.  And, I know that the seventh graders did it because they were bragging to everyone in our class about how they ruined my birthday.  Of course, I was the foolish one for leaving my back turned for just two minutes during the gym task.  That was my own fault.  I just hoped that my teammates who worked with me in the stock market task forgave me for my boneheaded mistake.

But you know, that was the last thing that I needed to have happen on that day.  My birthday was already bad enough with two-fifths of my family in the hospital recovering from surgery (which ended up saving my mother's life).  I didn't need to have this happen too.

And you know, I bet you that most of the kids in my class that year probably didn't even know that all of this was going on.  I didn't really have a lot of trust in most of my classmates, given what had happened in past years.  I don't even think that any of my teachers knew what was going on.  I only confided in two people in my class what was really happening, and a third person happened to find out only because she sat next to me in class.  Regardless, she never said a word, and she and the other two kids in my class really became a bit of a support system to me.  They were the ones who asked me how my mom and sister were doing, and they were there to get me through the hardest parts.

In fact, I want to recognize these three people in hopes that they'll see it, because I think that if it weren't for them, my birthday would have really sucked.  So, John, Orijit, and Rachel, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being there for me during a really horrible time of my life.  Your kindness meant a lot.  You know, actually though, I also want to thank some of the other classmates who stayed my friend through all the tumultuous years of elementary school, so in addition to those three, I want to send thanks to Jason, Sarah, Erica, Bailey, Jay, Nicole, Eileen, and Jennifer for just being there for me in some aspect.  Trust me, I never forget those who were kind to me, especially during that last year of school.  I hope I didn't forget anybody, but if I did, please forgive me.

And you know, my 14th birthday itself was a really big disaster.  I certainly don't want to have another birthday just like that one.  But I have to look at the big picture.  My mom and sister went through one hell of a day twenty years ago, and now that I'm almost 34, it makes me happy that both of them are still here to help me celebrate this birthday.

The stock market project could have gone better, I admit.  But I worked extra hard to earn back all the money that had been stolen by those seventh graders, and we managed to place somewhere in the middle of the pack.  At least we learned more about the stock market during the event...and it inspired me to invest in stocks some 15 years later - though I'm not that much of a risk-taker.

And you know, my fourteenth birthday signaled a lot of change.  It was the year I left elementary school and went into high school, and it was the year that I graduated with a near straight A report card, and it was the year that I was recognized for my abilities in English.  Most importantly, it would be the last time that I saw those terrible seventh graders who tried to wreck my birthday.  Maybe they were a really unfortunate side effect of my 14th birthday, but not even an entire class of them could have completely wrecked it. 

I suppose that while it wasn't the ideal birthday celebration, my fourteenth birthday wasn't a complete write-off.  So, maybe it wasn't my WORST birthday ever.

But as I said goodbye to my elementary school, I also bid farewell to the vast majority of a few friends, who had opted to go to a different high school than I had.  Orijit was one of the ones who moved over there before moving to a different city altogether, as well as quite a few who did treat me with respect.  Instead, I ended up with only a couple of allies, plus the four boys who made my life hell in seventh grade.  What the heck did I do to deserve this?  Oh well...it's only another few years to go, I kept telling myself.  Little did I know that these four boys would pale in comparison to some of the people I had the misfortune of knowing as high school went on...but that's a tale for another day.

But as 1995 faded into 1996, and I inched closer to fifteen years old, I did have quite a few things happen to me.  And in year fifteen, I became an uncle for the first time, I started to wear my hair differently, and my gym teacher nearly broke my nose.

I'm sure I can guess which of the three stories you want to hear about first.

Friday, May 15, 2015

Spiking The Hell Out Of Thirteen

Here's some advance warning for all of you who have been keeping up with the anniversary celebrations that are happening all month long.  We're about to enter the teen years of my life, and let's just say that they had the same trajectory as a boomerang.  They started off wonderfully, sort of hit rock bottom at the middle, and ended off on a fantastic note.  So, as we inch closer to the Victoria Day weekend here in Canada, it's going to be a rough ride.

You have been warned.



Anyway, here we are at the beginning of this really confusing time in my life.  The teen years.  Year Number Thirteen.  And, I have to say, thirteen was a definite godsend after the very awkward twelve.  My voice had finally started to change for the better, and I was beginning to improve my fashion sense - or so I thought I was.  It was 1994, after all, when everybody was dressed in their finest grunge.

I still had the face full of zits though.  Those wouldn't go away until my twenties.  Clearasil, you lie.  You lie like a rug!

So, unlike last year, I actually do have a photograph of me taken when I was thirteen...



...and, yeah, this grad photo did not turn out well at ALL!  This is probably one of the reasons why very few photos exist of me in my early teenage years.  So awkward.  And, yeah, just to clarify, our grad photos were taken in April, so I was still technically thirteen when this was shot.

What else was going on in pop culture that week?  Let's go back to May 1994 to find out.



#1 SONG THE WEEK OF 5/18/1994
"The Sign" - ACE OF BASE

Oh, yes, this is what ABBA might have looked like had they started their career in the 1990s.  But yet, 1994 seemed to be the year where Swedish dance groups took over the airwaves in a big way.  Well, at least in North America, they did for about five years before disappearing into the Stockholm night.



#1 AT THE BOX OFFICE THE WEEK OF 5/18/1994
"The Crow"

Two things I am reminded of when I see this film.  First, it was the final film of actor Brandon Lee, who died in a freak accident in 1993 while on the set.  Second, one of my sister's friends made me a T-shirt with the image of the main character on the front of it...and it ended up becoming one of my favourite T-shirts - I wore that thing until it fell apart.  Oh, I wish I had a picture to show you because it turned out beautifully!



#1 TELEVISION SHOW OF THE 1994/1995 SEASON
"Seinfeld"

The show about nothing was the #1 show of the year...and, while everyone at school seemed to watch it, it was one show that I could never get into.  I preferred to watch "The Simpsons" instead.

(SIDE NOTE:  Can you believe that Harry Shearer has decided to quit the show after 26 seasons?  What will the show be like without Flanders, Burns, and Skinner?  Oh, I don't want to even think about that!)

Okay, so now we get to the feature presentation of the blog, and it has to do with my athletic ability.  Or, rather, my lack of athletic ability.

Let me explain something to you.  When it came down to the eighth grade, it was without a doubt my best year by academic standards.  I had tried really hard in class, I had all my assignments done on time, and I earned the faculty award for English - which I suppose makes sense, given that I had aced every single spelling test that I was ever given except for one.  Even to this day, the word convenience trips me up if I'm not thinking about it.

How inconvenient.

And certainly my report card at the end of the year seemed to show this as I had gotten either an A or an A+ in every subject.

Every subject except one, that is.



Physical education.  C-.

Now, admittedly, I was absolutely annoyed at this because I had always wanted to get a perfect report card, and my lone C- completely kept that dream from ever taking place.

Oh, it's not like I didn't try to improve my grade in gym.  Heck, my teacher even suggested that I should try joining a couple of sports teams that played games during our lunch hour, and that if I did that, it would improve my gym mark significantly.

Yeah, gym teacher lied.  He lied like a rug.  Unless, of course, my original gym grade was actually an F.  In that case, good job, teach!

So, ultimately, the challenge then became...what sport would I sign up for?  I was not very good at any of them.  I signed up for basketball, and spent most of the time on the bench.  I signed up for floor hockey, and spent most of the time at the goalie net.  I signed up for three-pitch, and I kept striking out. 

I was beginning to think that I wasn't good at anything sports related, and I was just going to give up completely.

That is until I saw that the school was offering a brand new sport that I had never played before.



Volleyball.

Now, of course, I knew what volleyball was.  I saw them playing the sport in the Summer Olympics of 1992, and I do remember watching an episode of "Saved By The Bell" years ago that seemed to have volleyball as the main plot.

But, to be honest, I didn't really know how to play volleyball.  All I know is that you take a ball, and you hit it across a net, and try to keep it from hitting the ground.  But as I quickly learned, it was a lot more complicated than that.

Fortunately, I will say this about my volleyball team that I was on.  I loved every single one of those guys and gals.  You see, everyone who signed up was divided up into teams of nine (six on the floor, and three rotating alternates), and these teams were made up of the kids between grades five to eight.  So, the teams were made up of kids between the ages of ten and fourteen.

In my case, I was one of two eighth graders to be on my team.  The rest were fifth and sixth graders.  You might consider that to be a disadvantage, but it worked out great.  See, when I was in seventh and eighth grade, I admit that I preferred the company of fifth and sixth graders rather than the company of my own classmates.  Part of the reason could have been because by the end of elementary school, I was ready to distance myself from the lot of them, but another part was that the younger kids didn't seem as judgmental or cruel as the ones that were my age.

That's always been my style.  I get along with people at least 10 years older than I am, or 10 years younger than I am...but people my exact age, I cannot relate to at all.  Have always been that way, for whatever reason.  Maybe that's why I'm still single.

Anyway, I'm rambling.  Back to volleyball.

It took me a while to feel things out.  I learned what a bump, a set, a spike, and a volley was, and admittedly I didn't do too badly with any of those in practice sessions. 

But serving the ball over the net?  That took time.  Each time it was my turn to serve the ball, I never quite gave it enough power and I kept hitting it below the net (which of course, you can't do).  But you know, my team was surprisingly understanding about it, and we certainly had plenty of players who could serve with the greatest of ease.

Of course, it certainly didn't really help my self-esteem out any when it came time for me to serve, and the opposing teams were purposely moving towards the net, anticipating that my serve would completely suck.  In fact, I seem to remember one nasty little brat purposely sitting down on the floor while I was preparing to serve, and making all sorts of nasty comments - you know, the kind of comments made by incredibly egotistical and cocky people?

Well, after having to face him for a couple of games, and him not relenting, I decided that I had enough.  I decided that I would shut him up permanently and hit that volleyball with so much force, I didn't know where it would end up.

It not only cleared the net easily, but it was aimed directly at the cocky young man who was completely unprepared for the fact that yes, the fat kid could serve and serve quite well!  I scored the point, and everyone on my team just stared at me in complete shock.

Mind you, that point wasn't enough to win the game that day, but it made me feel proud.  You see, even though I had a hard time nailing the serve in volleyball, each time I tried it, I got better at it.  And while the comments of Kid Cocky probably drove me over the edge that day, in subsequent games, I never did one miss a volleyball serve.  In fact, I got quite good at the game.  To this day, I consider volleyball as the one and only sport that I consider myself an athlete in.

It's a wonder I didn't try out for the high school volleyball team.  I probably could have done quite well.  But as this retrospective continues, you will see that it wasn't in the cards.

But we still have time before that day.  Tomorrow, I talk about my fourteenth birthday, and why it was one birthday I won't ever forget...for both good and bad reasons.