So...about Brandon and Chad.
I don't think you could find three guys with more different backgrounds. I always viewed Brandon as "rich." You see, rich and poor made a big difference to me when I was a kid. We always had very little, and, at school (especially in Jr. High), i really felt the difference between the haves and have-nots. Anyway, i thought Brandon was rich because he lived in town and wore nice clothes. Chad and I had more in common, economy-wise, but I still felt that he had more than me. Anyway, it had a bearing on who I thought I could be friends with. As it turns out, and lucky for me, those guys could really have cared less.
Brandon was the smartest guy in school. He may not say so now, but I know that he was. chad and I weren't fools, but I don't think we were as smart as Brandon. At least, I wasn't (and probably still not).
The friendship formed slowly over time. In fact, I can't exactly remember when it started. I know we shared some classes together...and Brandon and I were on the track team. Brandon also played football, but i was too shrimpy to play football or basketball. Anyway, it started by us meeting in the morning before classes and playing cards in the library. We would play spades, hearts, pinochle, or bridge. I KNOW. Three high school guys in the school library playing bridge. Girls were throwing theirselves at our feet. The coolest time, though, was when the three of us would go over to the Shaw's on Sunday afternoon to play pong and Nintendo. I remember Chad and I working out the sequence to beat every character in Mike Tyson's Super Punch-Out. Remember, this was before Al Gore invented the Internet, so we couldn't exactly Google it. I remember losing every game of ping pong to Mr. Shaw that I ever played. I don't know that any of us ever beat him. I remember shooting baskets in the backyard with the two Shaw boys. Everything was down in the basement, and we would just show up, go downstairs, and pretty much take over.
This was all during our sophomore and junior years. I had alot of family drama towards the end of our junior year. Funny thing, I don't remember the major stuff...I remember conversational snippets and particular events very clearly, but I can't string them together into any cohesive timeline. The mind does funny things to defend itself. Because of the drama, our friendship changed, especially in our senior year. Plus, I got a serious girlfriend (at least, I thought it was serious). So you know how that goes.
Chad and I would also go out with a group of guys and get into various bits of trouble. Patrick, Steven, Marshall, Eric...just to name a handful. We would go bowling, or go buy toilet paper, saran wrap, and shaving cream to torture the guy who couldn't hang with us that night. Or the pretty girl of choice...it didn't matter. We would go to Patrick's house alot cause they had a pool table, and his dad would turn a blind eye to our shenanigans.
There's more, but I have a hard time dis-entwining it from my bad/lost family memories.
Okay, time to jump back into the way-back machine and come back to the present.
