Ornoth

I lost one of my high school buddies recently.

I met Mark through some organized wargaming activity back in the day, and a half dozen of us quickly formed an inseparable pack that lasted for years, with perhaps another dozen occasional co-conspirators.

He was quick-witted, charismatic, and a mischievous instigator of the highest order, probably partially in response to what seemed like a difficult family situation. But whatever the psychological underpinnings, Mark made every day an opportunity for outrageous adventure, which was irresistible to us as a pack of bored adolescent guys.

While I can only relate a small number of our many adventures, here—to amuse my captain—are some of the memories I have of my time with Mark.

Swashbuckling Heroes

Bring in that Floating Fat Man!

Perpendicular Brothers

Summers spent on Water Street in Hallowell, caretaking his grandfather’s antiques shop. Then closing up shop for clandestine and nominally illegal group swimming trips to the local granite quarry.

Days at the local videogame arcade, particularly seeing his “MGE” initials filling the leader board of the Star Trek videogame. “Congratulations… High score!”

Numerous expeditions to some of the most memorable movies of that time: that perpetual source of quotes Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan; the iconic animated feature film Heavy Metal; the laughable ridiculousness of Krull and Beastmaster; and the ill-conceived and too-bad-to-be-funny waste of film called Caligula.

Of course, the hundreds of hours spent gaming. His persuasiveness at Diplomacy. The Fletcher Pratt naval miniatures engagements. Call of Cthulhu roleplaying sessions. Hands full of dice medieval miniatures. The planetary exploration and economics microgame Trailblazer, with its inhuman bookkeeping requirements, leading us to the long-remembered planet christened Fuck You All. And dozens of others.

Even spare-time sessions of “the dictionary game”, where we’d laugh until we pissed ourselves over definitions like “Kenny Kinnikinnick, inventor of Gnip Gnop” or my culturally sheltered inability to correctly pronounce “gifelte fish”.

Dozens and dozens of basement poker games, with stakes ranging from quarters to new wargames, computer disk drives, and upward of $300 in cash. And, of course, Mark’s introduction of his (and subsequently our) two favorite poker variants: Hurt Me and The Bates Motel.

He wasn’t above petty larceny, one night convincing us to steal the US flag from its pole in front of a Maine state office building, using the specious justification that it was a federal offense for them to fly it after sundown without proper illumination.

And then the coup de grace. We showed up early for an evening session at the local game store. While several of us kept Hal, the proprietor, engaged in conversation, Mark retrieved from a nearby top shelf the box containing the materials for a huge plastic model of the starship Enterprise, opened it up, loaded all the contents into his briefcase, closed the box, and returned it to its former location, where it remained unexamined for a year or more. Hence the righteous name of the operation, which will never be forgotten: Free Enterprise. It was really difficult keeping a straight face through the ensuing game session!

Mark left for college 30 miles away, but that didn’t preclude group shenanigans, thanks to careening, edge-of-control rides to Lewiston in Mark’s “Little Red Chevette”. There, he would found the Bates College Imperialists club and propagandize over his college radio show. He’d even open his own game store, which was the scene of my first date with my first girlfriend (appropriately, since we’d met one another at a gaming convention).

After college, I moved to Boston and didn’t have much contact with anyone in my old high school circle. Mark was one of the few of us who escaped Maine, but he might have overreached, moving to Japan to teach English, establishing his own language school, getting married, and bringing up a child. He pretty much fulfilled his vow never to return to the US again.

Although he was an infrequent correspondent, I did receive occasional emails from him. To my complete surprise, when I told him I was doing a bike ride to raise funds for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, he became one of my most loyal and generous supporters. He is one of only nine people who sponsored me in each of the 14 years I rode, and my sixth highest sponsor in terms of dollars given.

Less than four months ago, I was back in Maine and visited a few of our old buddies for the first time in decades, including Mark’s younger brother Josh. It was interesting seeing how much each of us had changed, and sharing treasured memories of our ridiculous high school antics. They also shared news about the rest of the guys who weren’t around; as you would imagine, Mark’s name came up quite often.

So it was a huge shock to hear from his brother a couple weeks ago that Mark had unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack.

As with my mother’s passing earlier this year, I’m really not sure how to articulate my feelings. Whatever you thought of him, Mark had enough personality for ten men. He was arguably the central figure in our circle, and one of the most important and memorable faces from our adolescence.

I will miss him greatly, and all of the outrageous adventures he launched us on.

What if you could go back to high school and have just one day for a do-over. One chance to go back and interact with those kids in a different way, without all the fear and risk. With more patience and a healthy sense of compassion. What would that look like?

Let me tell you about my weekend…

Friday afternoon I grabbed a rental car and drove back to Maine. I had a quick dinner with family, which was surreal enough, considering my brother and niece were visiting from British Columbia. But this post isn’t about my ambivalence regarding family…

After dinner I checked into my hotel and drove over to Margarita’s Mexican restaurant for the first of two gatherings of people from my high school class. Friday night was essentially a small pre-party before Saturday night’s main event, which would be the first reunion I’d ever attended.

After wandering around I finally recognized the organizer, Jamu (names will be altered to protect those who pretend to innocence). Thankfully, she was someone I knew, so it was nice to chat with her for a while. She also introduced me to the twenty or so people who had come, and was kind enough to hang with me while I dipped my toes in the edges of the proverbial social quagmire.

Over the next couple hours I talked a lot with Dido (a woman I’d never interacted with at school), and Debo (about yoga), and twin sisters Mave1 & Mave2. The likely highlight of the evening was a conversation with Rodi, who seemed reasonably interesting. But I got put off when I tried to talk to Kelo, the girl (woman) who used to sit behind me in homeroom.

If you’d known me in high school, you probably would have been surprised (as I was) to discover that I probably spent 80 percent of my time talking to women, rather than men. I guess I’ve gotten much more comfortable relating to women on the whole. It’s not really a huge surprise for the “me” that I am today, but it’s a pretty dramatic change from the “me” I was back then.

I did have brief conversations with a couple guys: Tola (our mothers are friends) and Deki (who has apparently become as rabid a Tolkien fan as I used to be when I was in high school).

Except for Jamu, I hadn’t known any of these folks in school, but it was nice to talk with them nonetheless. Apparently the people I remembered best weren’t showing up until Saturday’s official gathering. But it still wound up being a nice evening, and I was (surprisingly) one of the last people out the door at the end.

Two observations… Passing around the class yearbook, it became abundantly clear that all of us needed reading glasses, and none of us had brought them. And even in that small group, two of the women had recently been through cancer treatment.

That was Friday. After sleeping very poorly, on Saturday morning I got up early and headed out for a 40-mile bike ride from Augusta to Manchester, Readfield, Belgrade, and back. Since my annual charity ride is only two weeks away, I had to find some way to spend some time in the saddle.

I swung through the old family farmstead, which some time ago was bought, torn down, and replaced with a state government office building. I remembered picking wild strawberries in the fields, my first “hunting” trips in the woods out back, the old apple tree at the edge of our huge vegetable garden, the stand of pines out front, and the camp that my grandfather built. They’re all gone; the only thing that remains from my childhood (and my father’s) is a horrid-looking willow tree that everyone always hated. Figures!

The ride also included a lakeside rest stop in Belgrade, riding past the now-bare former site of Farnham’s (our favorite roadside farmstand), coming down Sand Hill at speed, and then the long and difficult workout climbing from the river’s edge up Winthrop Street to the airport. It was a nice ride, doubly so because it provided the only moments of and peace and “rest” (if you will) that I’d have all weekend!

After showering at the hotel, it was back to family-related activities, which featured sandwiches for lunch and then mini golf with mother, brother, and niece (yes, I won). I was incubating a headache, so I was grateful that my brother’s presence hadn’t drawn any additional family members. Even so, I pled fatigue and went back to the hotel for a quick nap before freshening up for the party.

Way too soon, it was time for the main event: the official high school reunion. I showed up fashionably on time, and did my best to step into socializing mode.

Again, I talked to more women than men, and there were a lot more folks that I actually remembered. The inseparable Nihe & Kamcca agreed with my observation that the inestimable Mr. Ayotte had taught us as much about life, philosophy, and wisdom as he had French.

To my chagrin Anqui and Diru (one of the few alumni in the Boston area) both firmly agreed that I was definitely not attractive in high school, but that I was cuter now. Oof!

Among the guys, I talked to Chrise and Ticho. Both of those could have been awkward conversations, but went fine, which was cool. Ticho works in Boston, and has been playing out in a band on and off over the years.

And I finally got to shake hands with Scojo, one of my earliest childhood friends, whom I rediscovered a few years ago when I learned that he too is a cyclist and serious cancer fundraiser, having survived testicular cancer himself. He’d even ridden the PMC back in 2008, but we hadn’t been able to connect. So finally seeing him was certainly one of the evening’s highlights.

Although I had hoped to, I didn’t get much chance to talk again with Rodi. And I again had difficulty cornering the elusive Kelo. Toward the end of the evening that was remedied when out of absolutely nowhere she trotted up to me and tried to pull me out onto the dance floor! I resisted, but between wanting to connect with her and hearing someone near me say, “Oh just go on up,” I acceded. I was flattered that for some reason she had called on me, and it was definitely a highlight. Even if, as I now believe, she had done it purely for someone else’s benefit.

Ironically, notable absences included all the people that I was closest to during high school: the popular Mika, Josa, Jemu, Jere, Keja, Chila, Meho, and others. That was a bit of a disappointment.

Another disappointment is that I really didn’t make use of the occasion to plug my PMC ride. I really should have been more forward about asking for donations, but it just didn’t seem to be the right thing to do.

As the night wore on, I started feeling exhausted by the effort of being social, and took more time to sit back and watch others, which was pleasant in and of itself. I hadn’t talked to all of the 120 alumni who had come, but I’d certainly done the rounds. Between the conversation noise, the increasingly loud music, and the sheer freneticism of bouncing from person to person to person for four or five hours, on top of visiting family, I was feeling pretty overstimulated, and—after two days of heavy use—my voice was as done as I was.

With so many people to talk to, conversations couldn’t get as involved as they had been in the smaller group on Friday, so in that sense I preferred the pre-party, although it would have been cool to have more of my friends in that group, rather than all strangers.

Overall, the reunion was interesting from a number of angles. Given the passage of so much time since graduation, most of the cliques that once separated people have dissolved, so it was nice to be able to relate to folks from a place free of group identities and social stigma. Only a couple people were fixated on status and career, and just one boor had a blatant goal of recruiting others to support his specious business venture.

Would I consider going to another reunion? Well, overall this one was good, but I think I’d prefer the opportunity to sit down and get to know a smaller number of select people in more detail, rather than have a hundred shallow conversations with lots of strangers. And I did renew enough connections to reach out to the people I’m most curious about.

As for future reunions: I might do another large event, but I would hope that the organizers continue to support smaller adjunct gatherings, like Friday’s pre-party. Although I did enjoy reestablishing contact with people that I haven’t seen in decades, I certainly don’t need to dive back into that big melee anytime soon!