Over the next few years in high school, we shared several classes culminating with Mr. Gevedon’s math class during our senior year, in which she sat directly in front of me. I was happy to enjoy her company as we would chat during class ‘down time’ every day. We even once worked on a class project together and had to go see a speaker at some location off campus.

Although she was no doubt the apple of many young male high schoolers’ eye, there had been only one whom she dated throughout high school. In fact, they had first started dating during her eighth grade year at Ferguson in 1986. His name was Mark Harris and he too was one of the nicest guys you would ever hope to meet.

I didn’t know Mark all that well during high school, but when all three of us attended Wright State University following graduation (although Mark had graduated the year before Nicole and me) – I was able to get to know Mark a lot better as we would often chat between classes. Our usual topic of discussion was music. He was also a fan of Depeche Mode and actually sold me his own Johnny Marr shirt, which I would wear proudly.

Today, as if in a fairy tale, Mark and Nicole have been happily married since 1994 - with two great sons (five-year-old Ethan and eight-year-old Kieran) and a third one on the way, due in February 2010. I hadn’t seen Mark and Nicole in well over ten years at which time I coincidentally ran into them when I was working at the Dorothy Lane Kroger. But on Saturday, August 8, 2009, I had the chance to meet up with them once again when they went over to our mutual friend Heidi Maynard’s house in Beavercreek for a cookout.

Kieran and Ethan…the wild boys are calling…

With Nicole, who twenty years later, looked about three years older

Enjoying some red cabernet with my old pal Mark

It was a great evening that saw their two boys intermingling with Heidi’s three girls on the trampoline, under the apple trees, by the creek, and around a somewhat weak campfire – but one adequate enough to make s’mores. I found it amazing to find that neither of them had changed in the slightest. Somehow only aging about two or three years over the last ten, they were both still two of the nicest and funniest people one would ever hope to meet. The only difference now was that they were now successful adults – in marriage, family, and employment. She’s a school occupational therapist in the Northmont school district and he’s an elementary art teacher in Kettering.

But we all agreed that it’s hard to believe that we are now officially adults. Time melted away somewhat that evening as we all just seemed to skip over the last twenty years just for a couple of hours. Mark and I still talked about music, but now we added the more timely and ‘adult’ subject of kidney stones into the mix. They are still two of the coolest people in the world, and it would be my pleasure to hang out with them again.

Old BHS churned out some pretty good folk. Me, Heidi, Mark, and Nicole. Lance couldn’t make it unfortunately.

Continue to the next reunion…

Return to August 2009…

Steve and I didn’t go to elementary school together, but we did attend Ankeney Junior High together from 7th through 9th grade, and then all four years at Beavercreek High School. I’m not honestly sure when I came to know Steve, but one of my distinct memories of him was during ninth grade when we ate lunch together every day along with our mutual friend Rob Bradford.

Every day was a laughfest of some sort as we liked to people-watch and make cracks about events that we saw. Once I noticed that a guy who ate near us always had his arm in one position every day, so I fixated on it in an attempt to amuse and annoy my tablemates. Also noteworthy were the days when Steve would get up from the table to get something and Rob would smash the Little Debbie snack cake that he would leave behind. I have a very strong feeling that I might have egged that on. In my ninth grade yearbook, one quip from Steve was “…it’s been a pretty fun year – especially in the cafeteria!”

Steve and I continued to be friends throughout high school and one of my most pleasant memories was our Cartooning class that we had together with fellow friends and students Jennifer Crum and David Graeter. While I came up with the character Brashley, Steve created a cartoon character named Fisherman Bob. All good times.

So I hadn’t seen Steve since those days when I located him on Facebook. It was difficult to arrange a meeting as he was getting ready to go on a new life adventure and move to Berea, Kentucky. However, I was determined to get a meeting in with him before he left sometime in between my trips and his packing. And so we finally made it happen.

After the initial pleasantries over a couple of beers (another plug for Strongbow!), we began to chat about some of our interests that we had developed over the years. Steve is a musician who writes his own songs and performs in local venues solo with an acoustic guitar. His musical prowess had really developed since his days as a drummer for the college band Pure Plastic Tree.

And also to my amazement was that Steve had become quite a film buff, taking not only an interest in vintage comedy such as Laurel and Hardy and the Our Gang, but actually collecting 16mm films. Our musical interests, political thinking, and life philosophies were strongly paralleled as well. So yes, it was great to arrange a meeting before he moved, but I couldn’t help but think what poor timing our meeting was…all these similar interests and now he was moving out of state. I asked where he had been all the time I was running my Sons of the Desert tent and showing vintage 16mm films for fifteen years!

Steve promised to keep in touch and look me up during his visits to Ohio with his wife and young son. I certainly hope that this will be the case.

Return to Memorial Day week…

Continue to the next reunion…

1992 began in grand style with a relatively large party at my house. My Mom and Bob had gone out to a New Years Eve party of their own that night and my Mom had made the mistake of giving me permission to have my own New Years party. I wasn’t yet 21 so she actually even assisted in getting us some of the beverages. And then there was the  car trunk full of various varieties of liquor that I had been toting around for a couple of weeks that had been a gift from my new friend/boss Keith.

Quite the oddball, Keith himself hadn’t been invited to the party – and most likely wouldn’t have come anyway. It would have certainly been strange to have this guy who was going to be my new ‘boss’ at this affair that included a rather wild and unruly mob of fellow Kroger employees and other friends. To wit, Larry, Carl, James Elsman, Jennifer Dearwester, Matt White, Jeff Flinn, the Dearwesters, Jon Petering, April Elder, Jessica Wenz, my cousin Susan, and of course my sister Denise were all there. Undoubtedly there were others, but it is rather hard to recall. In fact the whole night is kind of blurry and rightfully so.

I had set up my CD player so that one speaker was inside and one was out in the garage so that I was able to blast my Morrissey, Depeche Mode, Electronic, and other assorted gems throughout either location. With the amazing amount of alcohol on the premises, it is a small wonder that I can even remember Denise getting drunk for the first time, Matt White falling all over the garage because he couldn’t stand, Jeff Flinn telling me that it was the greatest party he had ever been to, kissing Jessica out in the street (as Mom and Bob came home and drove right by us), the elder Dearwesters (Cindy worked with us and her husband Jim was a BHS teacher) showing up to party with us, and finally the cops showing up just before my Mom had arrived home.

All was well that ended well and I think everyone involved (except maybe the cops) can probably still recall that party. I had kind of hoped that Jessica and I could begin dating, but she decided that she ultimately wasn’t interested. It obviously didn’t mean that much to me either as I was barely upset by the decision.

But life continued as I went back to school for my Winter 1992 quarter. One class of which I have no recollection was Accounting (3 credit hours, and although accounting would become my strongest trait at Kroger, my first college D). I also had the 4-credit hour Computer Science class and although I was utterly lost throughout it – and barely showed up for it - I somehow pulled a B. Management Science was really Statistics and I quite enjoyed this subject. I got a B in the 3-credit hour class. But by far the class I recall the most was my Chemistry class (4 credit hours, final grade C), but this had nothing to do with the subject itself. It had to do with my friend Amy Caro.

She and Shelly Benson had been in my previous Chemistry class, but only Amy was in this one. I had a great time  and looked forward to hanging out with her each class. Occasionally we would go out to eat McDonalds after the class and at least once I went over to her house to study. Each get-together always ended up with each of us laughing uncontrollably. It seemed as if we always talked about The Brady Bunch. As you can probably tell, I had a tremendous crush on her, but she had a boyfriend at the time, so it never amounted to anything.

The ABR situation resolved itself as I finally made the stipulation to Keith that I was tired of the runaround and refused to make any effort to ‘go with him’ to visit the office. I told him that from now on if he wanted me to see this supposed office that he was to call me when he was already there, I would drive there by myself, enter the office by myself, and meet up with him. From that point on, the job was never – not once – mentioned again. I kept the money that he had given me as his ‘employee’. With all the runaround and stupidity, I felt that I had earned it.

The bonus money bag remained in my car for almost the entire year. At one point in December, my friend Matt Bohlander was visiting and we were drinking and chatting and I told him this whole story. He was amazed by it and said that I just simply had to open that bag to see if there was any money it it. I didn’t do it that night, but finally did a few days later. I assumed at that point that Keith would never mention the job again. After simply cutting the locked bag’s zipper with a pair of scissors, I found an envelope with pieces of paper cut to the size of dollar bills. The band around it said “Brad Bonus Money”. There was also a note inside that said “Brad – You disappoint me.” How this would have played out had we still be ‘talking’ about the job when I opened it, I’ll never know.

As for Keith himself, I remained friends with him for the entire duration of 1992 and into 1993. I told them at the beginning that if he had wanted to be friends, there was no need to make up a story about a phony job. But he must have felt that he still needed to ‘buy’ my friendship, as soon he would begin to purchase all sorts of items for me whenever we would stop at CD Connection or go browsing for Laserdiscs. He would also buy lunch each day that we met and buy concert tickets that we would both go to. Had I not been a foolish immature kid at the time, I would have naturally declined such gestures.

I know what the situation sounds like, but there was honestly never any ‘inappropriate’ advances or behavior (other than the whole friendship itself) coming from him. I assumed that he was just an incredibly lonely guy who felt like he need to buy a friend. And I guess as selfish as it sounds, I was selling. I knew he was a flagrant and compulsive liar and should have nixed him at that point, but there never seemed to be anything harmful…at least not for a while.

I don’t have any photos from any of the events described above, but do have some others from the end of the Winter months of 1992. Ashleigh’s second birthday fell on Saturday, March 21. We had a gathering at my house most likely on that exact day, with Christi, my parents, and some of my Mom’s family attending. The only pictures that appear to have been taken were these black and white ones by my Dad.

Christi with Ashleigh and her two-candled cake

Ash and a new stuffed animal

Ashleigh’s had her hand in the cake. Uh-oh

Ashleigh reading her Garfield book…about the cat, not the President

Susan, Chris, and Grandpa Murphy watch some TV after the birthday proceedings

Ashleigh presumably with birthday cake leftovers (also as seen at top in a more ominous pose)

And finally, here are some photos from some of my Kroger friends at the time. I have had difficulty dating them, but as near as I can tell these were from the early Spring of 1992. Although definitely not up to the wild standards set forth by the New Years party, they certainly represent some of the times I had with this group of friends, hanging out and drinking on our patio.

This one taken in the garage should be on one of those anti-smoking billboards

James rides Ashleigh’s tricycle and Laurel wants to check it out

Larry and James whip out the obligatory Ouija Board. I think all the boxes of junk  on the patio were getting ready to be either sold or donated

Serene insanity with James, April, me, Carl, and Laurel

Trying to snag a kiss from April as James and Larry look on helplessly

April and Jennifer wave goodbye. At least they’re in the back of the car rather than the driver’s seat

1992 will continue…

Tony Curtis is a legendary actor who has met with varying degrees of success over the duration of more than fifty years in the business. At the top of his game, he was in such classics as The Defiant Ones (for which he was nominated for an Academy Award), Some Like It Hot, Spartacus, and The Great Race. During the 70′s and 80′s he was in lesser-known roles such as The Bad News Bears Go to Japan, the remake of Little Miss Marker, and The Last Tycoon with Robert De Niro.

More recently he has been relegated to low-budget films – one with the unlikely title of Lobster Man from Mars - and television appearances. But that shouldn’t distract from the legend who inspired Elvis Presley’s haircut and appeared on the cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

I had hoped to offer up a picture of me with Tony Curtis to display in this posting, as I was planning on meeting him at the Hollywood Collectors Show in Burbank in February of 2009. Unfortunately, those plans were cancelled. I have in fact met the first of his six wives, Janet Leigh, and that encounter can be seen here. I also just missed meeting their daughter Jamie Lee Curtis when she made a book-signing appearance in Beavercreek last December.

But for now, I have to be satisfied with the two nice photos that he signed for me through the mail, the first one seen above sent to him in October 2007 and the second nice one below from Some Like It Hot signed in 1998. Pity that I never got Jack Lemmon to sign it.

I did get another opportunity to meet Tony Curtis and get a photo with him when I attended the Hollywood Collectors Show in Chicago on Saturday, March 21, 2009. He was charging $20 to get a photo with him, which I plunked down. The guy collecting the money was at the other end of the table from Mr. Curtis and paying absolutely no attention to what was going on, so I probably could have done it for free. I did in fact sneak my friend Heidi in there and grabbed a photo of her with him as well.

I had the chance to see Mr. Curtis once again just over a month later when he made an appearance at the Chiller Theatre show in New Jersey on April 18, 2009. I didn’t obtain an autograph or photo with him, but my friend Peter did. I chatted with him for a minute at that time, telling him how my friend and I had just seen him in Chicago.

Autographs of 1997 will continue…

Celebrity encoutners from the Chicago show will continue…

So my earliest memory of this Christmas season involved all of these things, some of which I already mentioned in the previous 1991 posting: the visit from Keith and the ABR ‘accountant’ on the evening Mom was putting up the Christmas tree in the family room (and it fell over while my guests and I were in the living room), the ABR Christmas ‘party’ (am I overusing these ‘quotes’?), and the Gem City Classics annual Christmas party.

The latter had nothing to do with Keith or ABR, except that you can get a great look at my drastic haircut. But I do remember attending the party at the traditional site, the VA hall on Brown Street, and walking over to Second Time Around, scouting for Depeche Mode and Erasure CDs. These bands were so heavily in blood by this time that I bought about 25 CDs in a row relating to these bands throughout November and December. I don’t recall much else at the party, but there are some nice pictures from it below.

Me, Ashleigh, Bryan, and Denise belly up to the bar at the Gem City Classics Christmas party

Mom claims her gift-exchange gift

Denise and Santa

Ashleigh is anxious to get at the gifts…

…until she realizes that she might have to get near Santa – who is snubbed yet again

The Kroger Christmas party this year was another drunken melee held at the clubhouse of a fellow employee (Terry, our assistant meat manager I believe). I hung out mostly with my co-bagger Larry and I think it was here that we really started to become good friends. I recall sitting on top of the bar, poking fun of a guy whom we referred to as “Mr. Excitement.” This undoubtedly had something to do with the alcohol.

I also recall that I was rather generous in my gift-purchasing, because I had fallen into the windfall of money, which even though it was only a couple thousand dollars, represented quite a large percentage of my net worth. Oddly, I cannot recall many of the gifts that I received this particular Christmas – but the lists I have kept of my CDs and Laserdisc collection indicate that I didn’t get any of them for this Christmas.

Nor do I remember much of what I purchased for others - except for the obvious slide for Ashleigh that can be seen in the photos. The one item I do recall was a CD player that I bought for Christi. Obviously still hoping for a reconciliation at this point, I thought that a nice gift might show my feelings. I also gave her my entire collection of Depeche Mode singles on CD as I had just bought the remastered sets of them. This amount to over 20 discs so it was a pretty significant present. These were all gifts that I gave on Christmas Eve in our Winterset house.

Christmas Eve appeared to be the traditional gathering of my Dad’s family. The photos (seen below) are rather limited but it’s easy to see that  Grandma Range was most definitely there. I’m not sure if Carl & Arline or Harold would have come or not, but Bill & Dottie and Rob went up to Toledo to spend their Christmas Eve with Lora & Todd. At the time, Christi and I had the more tradtional verbal agreement that I would have Ash on Christmas Eve and Christi had her on Christmas day. It just so happened that Christi hung out with us for a while on Christmas Eve to watch Ashleigh opening her gifts before she took her home.  One very unusual thing about the Christmas Eve was that my family chose not to open all their gifts that night, but rather the next morning.

Ashleigh browses the gifts

Ash plays with a new doll and bike as we get ready to eat

Ashleigh seems to have quite the bag of loot as Grandma Range looks on. Not sure why we changed Ashleigh’s outfit midstream – food or poop messes most likely. Or maybe Christi arrived and didn’t think I had her dressed appropriately for the party.

Ashleigh hammers on the wrap

Dad and I watch little Ash feed her new baby a bottle

Christi and I watching Ashleigh on her new slide. Oh, to recapture that moment in time.

Dad came over the next day with Grandma Range and we enjoyed our traditional family gift-opening ceremony, the last to ever take place on Christmas morning. Mom took just two photos. Ashleigh was not present as she would have been with Christi at Bob & Joy’s house.

Denise apparently is miffed about the gift she is about to open on Christmas morning.

A survey of the wreckage on Christmas morning. Laurel looks on in amazement.

The Murphy gathering that year was at Diana and Tom’s house in Bellbrook. There were quite a few good pictures taken at the gathering, including a batch of family photos. I looked nothing less than brain-damaged in the pictures in which I appear, pulling my hands up into my Wright State sweatshirt sleeve. I think that this was a gift from Mom the night before.

Grandpa gets ready to pass out the loot

Grandpa shows off his new door plaque

Bev, Cathy, Debby, Lori, and her then-boyfriend Bill enjoy the Christmas Day festivities

Denise gingerly steps through the loot

Bev looks up to the photographer on the balcony

Nikki and Ed chat, while Bob, Darlene, Jacob, Zachary, Karen, and Tom make merry

Mom shows off the wildly appropriate Christmas gift from Bob

Denise questions…while Mom tries to explain the gift to Grandma Murphy

Grandma and Grandpa Murphy

Poor Bill ruins the family portrait of Lori, Diana, Debby, Danny, Cathy, and Tom

Denise, Mom, Bob, Bryan, and me in the new sweatshirt with the apparently never-ending sleeves

Ed, Susan, Karen, Chris, and Bev. Chris looks highly Chinese.

Jim, Nikki, Jan, and Ben. If anyone is actually looking at the camera, it might be Jim. But it’s hard to tell behind the tinted glasses.

Jacob, Bob, Brittney, Darlene, and Zac the simpleton

Bob and Bryan, before Bryan became a giant

Oh Bill, we hardly knew ye

A random shot of Raider Ben in the kitchen. As good a way as any to finish off the photos of Christmas 1991

Overall, a rather unbalanced Christmas due to the uncertainty of my future job and relationship. As I would for most of the early 1990′s, I was just coasting along…and would do the same throughout much of the upcoming year.

The early 90′s will continue with 1992…