"Only a good-for-nothing is not interested in his past."

--Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)


I felt certain I had written something on this subject before, but since I've done a couple of searches and didn't find anything, you're stuck with old material. Ha!

As I mentioned before, this year is the tenth anniversary of my high school graduating class. I suppose it is most correctly celebrated in May, but we're so special we've decided to spread it out a little. Since this week has been so "past focused," there is little surprise that I'm also in a reflective mood (although going by my previous entries, I probably didn't need the excuse).

I went to visit friends of mine last week, and he had unearthed a couple of videos from the archives in his parents house. Doesn't it sound much more grand to say "archives," rather than "a slightly mildewed box in the basement"? Anyway, this was video taken by our band director in March of 1996 when the group went to England, and a video of the musical from the same year, "Camelot".

When the first frames came up from the travel video, it showed a guy I used to be friends with. One of those "every day, hang out" friends. I laughed when I saw him packing stuff onto buses, because I haven't seen him since the day we graduated. In my mind's eye, he still looks the same as he does in the video. I laughed because I know he's changed, but when I think about where he is now, I know he's ten years older, but I still SEE the high school senior working phones or training seals or whatever he does now.

And lo, into frame enters me. I remember that jacket! And what's with the hair? Sort of a Count Rugen from "Princess Bride" look, only flatter at the top and puffier around the ears. Like a pageboy if I were wearing around-the-back earmuffs under my hair. Weird.

And as the camera panned through the crowd on the high school steps, I was amazed at how many people I didn't know. Who was that guy? Was she even IN our class? My friend pointed out that we were seniors by this point; we didn't need to know everyone. I'd never thought of it like that, but it was immediately confirmed in my mind. When I was a freshman, I knew everyone who was older than I was, and I'm not sure why. But as I became the elder, I just knew some of the people younger than I. I guess that's what happens when you become more important.

As an aside, I had a similar experience two weeks ago when I sat in with a band in place of a friend. One of the trumpet players I sat next to (a young kid, first or second year undergrad), greeted me and said, "Nice to play next to you again, Doctor Andy." This took me by surprise, and I looked again at this guy (surreptitiously). No, he still doesn't look familiar. I'm searching through my brain.... did I know his older siblings? Have I played with him in a group before? Is he the kid who used to steal oranges from the supermarket in Columbia? I even looked at the name on his band folder, but it meant nothing to me. Turns out he was just in the same band I was last year. Not even the same section, but apparently, I was a much more memorable persona in the room than the average (trumpet) student. Who knew?

Anyway... just amazing to see people in these videos. Some people have changed remarkably. Some people HAVEN'T CHANGED at all. Freakishly, they still look like they do in these videos from high school. No wonder I have a hard time thinking of people as their proper age!

As Bill Cosby would say, I told you that story to tell you this one....

*** *** ***

Every time I drive through the state of Missouri, I pass through Columbia. It's a town of approximately 100,000 residents which rests on the main interstate more or less halfway across. I spent two years there doing my master's degree, in 2000-02. I spent less time there than I spent anywhere else I've lived, including Kansas City. But I can't drive through it without being stampeded with memories.

I experienced this acutely when I stopped for dinner during my last crossing. It was a restraunt I'd be in before, with a wide variety of people who no longer live in that city. This isn't a big deal at all; people tend to move around quite a bit. In Columbia, however, the awareness is tremendous. So, as I'm sitting there eating, I'm being visited by memories of many people, places, and things. It felt sort of like what happens to people in horror movies: they get possesed by demons only they can see and hear.

The reality is that it's not a horror film. These memories I'm experiencing aren't bad. Most of them aren't good, either! They're just memories, of things that used to happen in places I used to be. I don't want to create the impression that I'm dreading driving through a town, or that I've got some scar on my psyche that causes me to stutter when I say anything remotely related, like "Col...Col....COLumbus Day sale!" Far from it.

But Columbia does feel like a ghost town. Strange to say for a town with a ton of people living there, but it feels that way. It probably has mostly to do with the fact that I no longer know anyone who has a home there. The town, which once had many open doors and expectant faces in it, is now populated exclusively by "other people." Maybe it's because I now drive through it, rather than it being my destination.

Or maybe it's just the thought that a town I once knew as "home" is now just a place to eat and buy gas.