I was three years old, living in Pittsburgh, when Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood debuted. I was just the right age and in just the right place.
I have seen enough of the show to know all the characters, both puppet and human, and I have always loved that darned owl. I watched it with my own children, too.
But my mother actually remembers me watching the show. She came into the room and saw me staring at the television as Mister Rogers discussed the possibility of being sucked down the drain.
“Are you afraid of the drain?” she asked me, thinking it was the silliest thing in the world. And I nodded, wide-eyed and terrified, waiting for Mister Rogers to assure me that I wasn’t going into that dark hole.
It was during high school – summer school actually – that Mister Rogers found me again.
After each class, I would sit on the wall outside of Central Catholic High School and wait for my ride.
On one such day, Mister Rogers happened to be driving out of WQED next door. He was just sitting there in the driver’s seat in his cardigan sweater.
Mister Rogers saw me on that wall – a scared, pained teenager – and he smiled and waved, like we were old chums. He had no idea that we actually were old chums, or that I felt utterly humiliated because I was in summer school after all the good things he’d taught me as a child.
I raised my hand in response, the world’s fastest wave, scared to death of what he might think of me.
A decade went by before I saw him again. I’d graduated from high school and college, and I wanted desperately to work in children’s television. After much ado, I got a meeting with the producer of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood to offer my services as a volunteer.
The producer walked while he talked, and I followed him around WQED-TV. Suddenly a man with glasses and a familiar smile appeared; it wasn’t until he spoke that I recognized Fred Rogers standing right in front of me.
My heart stopped for a moment as I shook Fred’s hand and whispered, “Nice to meet you.” I didn’t mention that day after summer school; I was afraid it might hinder my chances of being hired.
I wasn’t hired anyway, even as a volunteer, maybe because I froze and provided no witty banter.
Recently I’ve listened to a podcast called Finding Fred, which recounts stories from people who met Mister Rogers, and focuses on how he changed their lives. It’s a beautiful series and the only podcast that’s intrigued me since the word “podcast” became a thing.
It’s so beautiful, in fact, that I don’t want to listen to the last episode. I’m saving it.
It’s crazy to think that this man still influences my thinking, but he does – not because he waved or shook my hand, but because he taught me that we’re not all going to get sucked down the drain. He taught me that fear is okay, but so is courage. He taught me that grieving is okay, and so is exuberance. He taught me that I’m okay – that I’m okay – just the way I am.
And even though I buried that thought midway through the fifth grade, deep down inside of me, it still cries out quietly sometimes from very far away: I’m okay.
I think that’s why seeing Mister Rogers in person meant so much to me, and why I’ve cherished those two tiny moments for so long.
Mister Rogers says I’m okay. So maybe I am.
This past Christmas – Shane’s last in high school, and Dylan’s first as a 21-year-old – I wanted to create a lasting memory, one that encouraged me to overlook the devastating view of missing limbs on the Sequoia tree we planted when the kids were young. So we planted another tree: our Christmas tree.
It was tough finding a tree that we could transport home to be planted – and even harder keeping the tree healthy through the season. We couldn’t take it inside and decorate it; we left it in the garage for three weeks. Then, just before Christmas, we wheeled it inside, threw a tarp down and a bucket on the living room floor, and we decorated that tree.
It was four feet shorter than any tree we’d had before. We barely put on any ornaments. But this tree was going to last forever, so it was worth having a lower-key holiday.
As soon as Christmas was over, we tossed two strings of lights into their box, tore off the limited ornaments and the garland, and we wheeled that tree back outside. Having researched for weeks, we dug the appropriately sized hole and we put the tree where it could finally let its roots expand and find a place in the earth. We cut off the burlap around its roots with the utmost care, and allowed the tree its chance to shine.
Then we left it outside for the rest of the winter. There was plenty of water but it was bitterly cold. Spring came, and our clay-based yard flooded, as it does every year. Our yard was a swamp. The tree started to turn yellow from too much water, so I wrapped a plastic bag around its roots, hoping that would help. It didn’t.
Our beloved Christmas tree continued to turn brown in early summer but Bill said, “It has new growth! It has new growth!” To Bill, this meant that the tree was doing fine. So I contacted the landscaper who said it was normal to get some browning in early summer as the seasons change. It wasn’t bad, so I let it go.
Then, quite abruptly, in late July, a gust of wind came through that took out everything in its path. Fortunately, our Christmas tree was six feet outside of its path – but our neighbor’s 100-foot tree dropped right next to it. The whole world was stunned into silence.
Within a week, the tree guys came with their saws and their rage and they took away the tree that had fallen.
We don’t know if trees think. Obviously they don’t have brains; they don’t think in any way that we recognize. But right then and there, as soon as that tree fell, our little Christmas tree started to die.
There was a heat wave, too, right after the storm – a blistering, affects-everything front – where the humidity was unbearable and the temperature regularly neared a hundred degrees. There was no rain.
Since we planted it just out of reach of the hose, I carried buckets of water and poured them on its roots. Finally, Bill attached a second hose to the first one, so we could reach the tree. We gave it water in the mornings hoping to ward off its destruction.
Our tree is still standing in our yard – but it is half brown, and half green. We don’t know what to do. We don’t know how to save it. We don’t know if we can.
With Dylan long gone and Shane leaving in the fall, my dog lying injured at my feet, I don’t know if I can bear any more loss. It’s too much for me.
So there’s this guy named Scott. Technically his name is Charles – he is named after his father, who is 93 years old now – but Scott goes by his middle name. I wonder if his father influenced this decision.
Scott believes that he is above the law. Scott believes that what matters most is what Scott wants. He doesn’t care if his desires hurt anyone else. In fact, he expects that someone will get hurt, but this thought doesn’t change his actions.
Scott is 64 years old. He should know better, but he does not.
Scott went out for a walk with his dogs on Monday night. He has two very large dogs, pit bulls, but he does not see a need to put a leash on his dogs, even when he’s walking in a public park where parents stroll with their children and where other animals also stroll.
So when one dog – his white one – got away from him, it wasn’t a big deal to Scott. And when the white one started sniffing Loki, my poodle mix, Scott wasn’t even around. He was hanging with his black dog who, eventually, also appeared next to Loki.
Scott approached the three dogs without much concern. Loki got startled and barked; he tried to back away. But Loki wasn’t quick enough. Scott’s black dog lunged for Loki, grabbed him by the throat, and threw my dog to the ground like a chew toy.
Scott didn’t have a leash to pull back his dog. He didn’t have any recourse except to dive into the bloody mess that his dog was making, and pull his dog’s jaws out of my dog’s throat.
Loki was screaming, yelping, bleeding, crying out in pain, snapping at the air like a dying animal trying to break free from its assassin.
In the chaos, Scott was bitten in the face.
After Loki was wrenched free and being carried to the safety of his car, blood gushing over his white curls, Scott said, “Your dog bit me; I’m going to the doctor.”
Scott implied that, since both he and Loki were bleeding, we were all “even.”
He implied that being bitten in the face while wrenching his dog’s jaws out of my dog’s throat was payment enough for what happened to Loki. But nothing will ever be payment enough for what happened to Loki.
Scott took his dogs home.
We took our dog to the vet, where Loki spent hours in surgery. He came out with a drainage tube on one side of his neck, where blood was still pooling two days later. Loki has four puncture wounds from giant teeth being embedded in his skin. His neck is bruised like someone beat him with a tire iron.
Loki is lucky to be alive. We will never, ever be “even.”
Scott didn’t give us his name, or offer to pay the vet bills. He didn’t make sure our dog was okay. He didn’t even ask about Loki as he hauled his animals away. Scott is all about Scott.
It never occurred to Scott to apologize for his gross negligence. I wonder if Scott would know how to apologize for anything at all.
Loki is going to be okay. Scott’s dogs are also going to be okay.
Sadly, so is Scott.
When we press charges, Scott will have to pay a few fines. He might be ordered to pay some of Loki’s vet bills. The dog will be labeled as “potentially dangerous” and he will need to be leashed and muzzled outside.
But Scott will continue to do whatever he wants.
Both of my boys had somehow escaped COVID – until now.
Dylan lived in Tennessee for the vast majority of the pandemic, which means he went unmasked and didn’t care. He believed he’d be fine as long as he didn’t bring home the virus to his aging relatives. Two years went by with Dylan regularly spitting into microphones used by other singers, going to concerts and house parties and shows, and Dylan did not get the virus.
Then he went to Italy and came home with COVID. He was the only one in our group who contracted the virus, and we have no idea why, except that he was always the one person who didn’t have a mask when it was required.
Shane took a different approach. After more than a year of online school, he wore a mask at school every day. When the mask requirements were lifted at school, well into his senior year, he still wore a mask. He took it off to eat, far away from other people. He was careful and meticulous.
When he went to concerts, which was rare and recent, he stood in the back of the room away from the crowds. When we got a notification from the state telling him that someone at a concert he’d attended had contracted COVID, Shane was concerned, but not much. He’d spent the evening in front of an open door, wearing a mask.
For graduation, I stupidly bought Shane two tickets to a huge metal festival in Ohio, so that he and Dylan could enjoy four days of unlimited music. They stayed in an Air BnB and drove back and forth to the festival every day, even when it poured down rain on the last day. Because they were outdoors, in spite of the crowds, they didn’t bother masking. No one bothered masking.
Shane got COVID at the festival.
Both boys are doing fine now; they say it’s like a bad cold, but the first two days were pretty rough for both of them. I think back on my first few days with the same virus, different variant, before vaccinations were widespread and when desperation was everywhere, and I think the boys did pretty well.
I’ve spent a lot of time afraid of COVID. I was worried about Dylan, about his reactive airways disease. I was worried about myself because of my autoimmune disorder. I was worried about Shane on the day that he slept for 36 hours. I am still worried about my husband, who is older and hasn’t had it. Yet.
But I am less afraid now than I was before. I am hopeful that those who want to live will be able to be vaccinated, that the severity of the disease will lessen to such an extent that we can live with it, the way we live with a cold and the flu.
I don’t want to live with it; I want it gone. But what choice do we have?
The first time we visited Lawrence University, smack dab in the middle of the pandemic, Shane had a personal interview with an admissions rep. In spite of the barren campus, he was smiling so wide under his mask that it showed in his eyes.
Our tour guide was … interesting. With kind eyes and an almost palpable awkwardness, she was nearly bald, having shaved her head weeks earlier. Students were scarce, so we learned about the music conservatory, the science building, and academia.
At the end of the tour, Shane said, “I like it here.” For Shane, that’s a powerful emotional statement.
So we went back to visit Lawrence when the pandemic had waned. Our second visit offered a more traditional guide, and the campus was alive with busy students. Our guide seemed to know every one of them. The guide somehow hadn’t gotten a key card, so she asked students to help her get into buildings as we walked. She never skipped a beat, and her friends never blinked before helping.
By the end of that open house, Shane loved Lawrence. Everything was on-target with what Shane wanted. Students and professors seemed genuine and solid. They had answers – good answers – for every question. They described an academic experience fueled by its unique, close-knit community.
Lawrence was intuitive. Once I told Shane: “I wish I knew how many students came from other states, other than Wisconsin and Illinois.” Ten minutes later, I found a printed map on a table, detailing exactly how many students came from each of the states; I didn’t even need to ask. Best of all, the student population hailed from everywhere.
There were no mistakes, no issues, no challenges during the open house. And when we left, we were both a little sorry to go.
Shane did a number of informative, helpful Zoom sessions with Lawrence while waiting for his acceptance – which arrived with a hefty scholarship. There were phone sessions for students and parents – also helpful. Every time we did anything with Lawrence, it was good. No red flags.
Shane was concerned, at one point, that Lawrence was too perfect. So he asked the Zoom students, “What do you like least about Lawrence?” The students really considered this. Finally one said, “There’s not enough merch.” Other than the cold weather, they couldn’t think of anything else.
While Shane never wavered in his affection for Lawrence, the pièces de résistance was an email I received from the Director of Financial Aid, reassuring me that he understood what I was feeling. He had two kids in college and truly understood. It was brilliantly written and brought me to tears.
When we went back for the Lawrence University Experience – reserved for admitted students and their families – Lawrence had been Shane’s top choice for months. Before the event, Shane met with a student who showed him around for hours. Then, from Sunday through late Monday, Lawrence offered an opportunity for parents to choose their sessions while students attended classes and explored campus with their peers. The “experience” was – like everything else Lawrence did – nearly flawless. (We had some technical issues with one projector, so it wasn’t perfect.)
By the time we left, Shane felt like he belonged there. He’d spent hours and hours with “his people.” Lawrence offered him the perfect combination of intellectual enthusiasm and social inclusion. Still, he took several days to think it through, to decide if Lawrence was the right place for him. After seeing nearly a hundred colleges, he wanted to be sure.
By College Decision Day, Shane was sure. He will attend Lawrence University.
There are two small private colleges named “Wheaton” in this country. Shane and I chose to visit the Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.
We visited Wheaton for the first time while pandemic rules were still strict. We were not allowed to go inside buildings, so we met our tour guide in the freezing cold. While we were waiting, it started to rain. And yet, after listening to the tour guide talk about the classes, clubs and traditions, and wandering around the gorgeous campus, Wheaton was too beautiful and too compelling to dismiss.
We made a return visit when the campus was more fully open. By fall open house, Shane had done a number of Zoom sessions and he liked the students he met online. He just wanted to get a feel for in-person campus life.
Unfortunately, the fall open house was all … adults. There was no student panel. There were no student speakers. There were no students leading other students from place to place. The staff was great, but the campus was empty, other than a few hundred prospective students and parents. Our tour took us through empty hallways, empty rooms, empty buildings. After flying in from Maryland to see “campus life,” the only student we met was our tour guide! And the pandemic rules had nothing to do with it.
That’s when Wheaton started to lose steam. We’d been there twice and seen exactly two students. But the Zoom students continued to impress. So we went back for one final time: admitted students day.
We showed up for the one allotted admitted students day. The campus was swarming with prospectives; parking was dreadful. There were more prospectives on campus than the entire student population. The event was disorganized to the point that they ran out of water during the breakfast, and when I asked about it, everyone seemed surprised. No one mentioned the water fountain 50 feet away.
During Session One, all the students were separated from parents with no instruction on how to reunite. Shane went to sit in on a class – which was not actually a class but a discussion about class – while I sat and listened to more staff. They didn’t say anything unique or special. We’d been to a lot of open houses, but Wheaton was oddly generic.
Wheaton has a spectacularly loose curriculum that should have been the focal point of everything they said and did – but nobody mentioned it, other than our very first tour guide on that cold, rainy day. I had to look it up online to see if it was real. (It is.)
They randomly set loose the entire prospective population with limited options. It took us an hour to see the one dorm room on display for the masses. The only interesting session was so full, we couldn’t sit – or see over the people standing in the aisles. Lunch was a catered meal for prospectives only, so we couldn’t see what “normal” lunch would entail. The only students we saw were those directing traffic, and we were often sent to the wrong places.
At the end of the event – a chaotic mess which screamed for organization and leadership – there was an incredible, fun, exciting spring festival. And there were the students! They manned booths for clubs, smiling and happy, excited to be there, fun, intelligent, interesting. They played frisbee and catch and sang and danced and laughed. Finally! We got to see student life at Wheaton!
But by then – after three visits, three chances, and no other signs of life – it was too late. Wheaton was off the list.
Loki and I were out for a walk when something caught our attention. I heard it hit the pavement. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw it fall.
Loki raced over to see what it was. It looked a bit like a twig from a distance, but the way Loki was running to it, I realized it must be moving.
Assuming it was an errant frog just before the storm that was circling above, I tugged Loki back. He enjoys playing with frogs. But something didn’t feel right to me.
I really thought I’d seen it fall. So I looked up before I looked down. There were no tree branches, nothing above me at all. A car had passed a minute earlier, but there was no car now. In fact there was … nothing.
It fell out of the sky.
Then I looked down and realized it was a bird – a tiny sparrow. It was obviously dying, twitching in ways I don’t want to describe. It took less than a minute before it stopped moving completely.
I prayed for its soul because I didn’t know what else I could do.
Was there anything I could do? Could I have saved this bird? Where did it even come from?
I considered the possibilities. Maybe I hadn’t noticed a bolt of lightning. I hadn’t seen any lightning, but the whole world was black, even though it was only late afternoon. Thunder was rolling; there could have been lightning I hadn’t seen. Maybe the lightning hit the bird instead of hitting me or my dog. Maybe that bird saved my life.
Or maybe there was a hawk flying overhead; hawks have been known to grab other birds for dinner. Maybe the hawk got spooked and somehow dropped an injured bird. But I didn’t see a hawk, or even a shadow, and it fell so close to me. It seemed unlikely.
Or maybe the bird just … stopped. Maybe it had some kind of bird ailment, like a human heart attack, and it was just flying along and then – wham – it dropped out of the air in mid-flight. Maybe it was perfectly happy, having a great day, and then suddenly – its life was over.
As much as I didn’t want the bird to be dead, I mostly didn’t want the bird to suffer. And I thought that if it were just flying along – not being carried by a hawk or threatened by a storm – merrily flapping its wings and enjoying its life…. I thought maybe that would be the best way to go.
I thought of my life, much of it spent sitting around staring at a screen, when there’s a whole world to explore. When my last moment comes, I’d rather be flapping my wings and looking around, enjoying the breeze, than worrying about predators and lightning. And since I’m not a bird, I have that option.
I don’t have to just … sit because I don’t know what might happen. I don’t have to be debilitated by my fears, but sometimes I am. I have choices; I can do things.
I don’t have to fly, but I can do something. In fact, I can do virtually anything. I could jump out of a plane, write a love letter, swim in a lake, polish my coin collection, create a new song, take a painting class, travel, go on safari, go on a scavenger hunt, go grocery shopping. I can do anything.
That bird reminded me that any moment might be my last. I’d like my moments to matter.
——————————————————————————————
I’ll be doing some moment-gathering in the next couple of weeks, so my blog will have to wait. I hope my faithful readers will come back in July for some more installments, even if there is no breathless anticipation for those reading moments to occur.
Yesterday, with Pomp and Circumstance playing, I watched Shane walk to his seat for his high school graduation ceremony. Normally, I would try not to cry – but in this case, I didn’t feel like crying.
At first I thought, I’m just happy for him to be out of that school. I’m not fond of the new high school principal, who treats these nearly full-grown adults like they’re in elementary school. And I was happy that virtual learning appears to be behind us. So I am, indeed, happy for him to be done with high school.
I did cry a little when the commencement speaker – Shane’s favorite teacher – spoke. The teacher is moving to Singapore, and it breaks my heart to see him go.
But as Shane strolled across that stage, I found myself bursting with joy and pride instead of emotionally sobbing. And my calm revolved mostly around Shane just being Shane. I wasn’t crying because … I know that Shane will be completely fine after high school.
Shane has been choosing his own clothes since he was a toddler. He didn’t like all of Dylan’s hand-me-downs; he preferred a more professional attire. In elementary school, while I drove Dylan to private school, Shane got himself up, showered and dressed, made himself breakfast and prepared himself for school every day. He’s been doing his own laundry since middle school. During the pandemic, thanks to my new relationship with food, Shane started making all three meals for himself. And after working through his vision processing therapy in first grade, Shane never needed any help with his school work. He prioritized it, completed his homework on his own, and didn’t even ask for my help with large projects.
In other words, Shane hasn’t needed me to help him with anything for a very long time. He certainly has his share of issues, but Shane is independent in both thought and action.
I read somewhere that when a dog cries at the window as you leave, it’s not because he wants to go with you – although he does want to go. It’s because he thinks he needs to go with you, or you’ll be lost. You won’t know how to find your way back without him. You won’t know what to do while you’re out. Pack animals are big believers in needing the entire pack to be together in order to accomplish things.
I thought about my dog, Xena, yesterday during the ceremony. Xena would watch us drive away with the most perplexed look on her face. Why would you – how could you – leave without me? She thought she was in charge, that we needed her for every moment of every day. So when we left, she would break down and cry.
But with Shane sitting amidst the rows of other black-and-orange caps and gowns in Washington D.C., I knew he was going to be fine without me. He’s going to be out of the madness of immature high school students, and finally in school with like-minded peers. He’s been preparing himself for college since he was old enough to know what it meant.
I will miss Shane like crazy in Wisconsin. I will want to talk to him every single day, to hear how it’s going, to see how he’s doing, to know what he’s thinking. But I’m just so excited for him to go to Lawrence University. He’s going to grow, shine, thrive there.
And when he needs me, and sometimes even when he doesn’t, he will call.
So at graduation, mostly I smiled. It was that kind of moment.
The College of Wooster taught me possibly the most important rule in the college search: it’s not about the college; it’s about student fit.
When we arrived for our tour and admissions session at Wooster, we were greeted by a couple of admissions representatives and one of the college’s deans. They were professional but also very kind. They were enthusiastic without being pushy, happy to see us without being desperate, and friendly without being intrusive. In fact, they were awesome.
Our admissions session was similar. We were welcomed into a room where we could completely social distance, but we were close enough to the student panel to talk to them without yelling. All three of the students were shining examples of the special things about Wooster: amazing social organizations, a strong international population, and research opportunities unlike any in the country.
After the session, which lasted slightly less than an hour and included a lot of laughter, we headed out for our campus tour. If I remember correctly, there was some snow. One of the traditions at Wooster is to fill an enormous archway with snow overnight in order to force a “snow day” cancellation. I enjoyed this idea so much, I took several pictures of the (unfilled) archway.
Our tour guide was sweet and intelligent, the tour filled with information and humor. We walked all over the campus, admiring the architecture and landscaping, until we were led back to the admissions office.
As was always the case with Shane, he did not want to be questioned about his opinion until we were safely away from Wooster students and staff. Excitedly, I closed my car door and asked, “What do you think?”
“No,” he said.
“NO?!” I repeated, incredulous. “Why not?” I didn’t dare add my own opinion: This is one of the best colleges in the country! I love this place!
“Everybody is too friendly,” he said. For a moment, I thought he was kidding.
“Too friendly? What do you mean?”
“I mean the dean came out and talked to us. Everybody talked to us. The tour guide was happy, like, the whole time. Everybody was just too nice.”
This didn’t stop me from forcing him to look at Wooster again. On our way through Ohio on a different trip, we stopped in to see the campus on a hoppin’ Friday night. We found very little to suggest that the campus was “hopping” and when we finally found people having a good time, it was a group of three guys who were blasting bad music and smoking weed in the quad.
It wasn’t until we toured Lawrence University that I understood what Shane was trying to say about Wooster. Shane was looking for “his” people – and they were nowhere to be found at Wooster. In spite of its excellence and an incredible financial aid package, Wooster dropped to the bottom of the list and stayed there for the remainder of his search.
Shane went to his prom with two dates, a girlfriend (who was going with someone else), a bunch of friends, a new blond-highlighted hairstyle and a tuxedo that made him look even more dashing than usual.
But Shane’s prom wasn’t great. Sure, he had fun taking pictures before the dance. Like amateur models, hundreds of students stood outside snapping photos in front of a glorious lake at sunset. The results were breathtakingly beautiful, and the kids had a blast.
The dance, however, was … just a dance. Like all school dances, a mob of kids crammed into a tiny space with no room for anyone to breathe. Given that the mask mandate was lifted for this bunch of teenagers, maybe it was a super-spreader event.
Shane stayed out of the fray and spent much of prom alone. They played exactly one slow song; Shane danced with his girlfriend. That was the end of prom’s romantic side.
The after prom party was worse. Disorganized event coordinators hadn’t counted on how much time it would take for 800 people to write their names and phone numbers on three raffle tickets … each. Shane got in line – again alone – at 11:00, and was ushered inside after midnight. He found a few friends and played some games at Dave & Buster’s – but he was ready to go home two hours later. Most students left before he did.
Dylan’s prom was held elsewhere, but his feelings were identical.
It makes me wonder why they can’t fix the inherent issue with school dances: the fact that so many kids don’t want to be smashed like sardines onto a teeny dance floor full of sweaty bodies. The kids who have it all in high school – the ones who love school dances – are all out there, whooping it up. But the rest of the kids – like my sons, and like me – tend to stand outside. They are literally left out.
Shane could have forced himself into an uncomfortable situation, and maybe he would have had more fun if he had. But why couldn’t they just extend the dance floor so that all the kids could dance without claustrophobia setting in? Why couldn’t they play more than one slow song, so kids would have a chance to talk?
Here’s what I remember from my prom: I wore a beautiful dress, which my mom made. My dad gave me a special pair of earrings to wear. I took my ex-boyfriend with me – even though we were broken up – and my best friend took a virtual stranger for the same reason.
I remember being bored to tears at prom; I do not remember dancing.
At after-prom, I remember only boredom and exhaustion – on a beautiful river cruise that lasted until sunrise. A lot of my boredom had to do with a severe lack of alcohol; even at 17, I was desperate for a drink. Unsurprisingly, alcohol was not allowed.
I remember the trip home, when my ex-boyfriend fell asleep at the wheel. The car veered off the highway into the jersey wall on the median – which woke up the driver and his passengers, who’d all fallen asleep. We stayed awake after that.
I hope Shane has fonder memories than mine, but it seems as though only those who love school dances will also love the prom. This makes sense, but I wish there were events for those of us who are outcasts, but I guess that would alter the definition of the word “outcast.”
But would that be so awful?
