Toby's Log page 119

lakewood class of 2000 folk

in

I went to Lincoln Elementary and, for sixth grade only, to Horace Mann Middle School. Those were some great years and I knew lots of cool people. Lots of things happened in my life then that made me who I am today. I really miss those days and all the fun I had. Some recent searching through various things I still have from then, after seeing a girl who looked like someone I had known, brought back many good memories. I had not thought much about that time period for many years.

When I moved away, things seemed to change for the worse. The shy person that I am, I had lots of trouble adjusting to the move from elementary school to middle school. Lots of my friends went to another middle school or had classes in a totally different part of the school. There were also lots of new people there, and classes were done much differently, with a teacher for each subject instead of one for most of them. One of my best friends had moved several blocks away and also was attending that other middle school. I was much more socially cut off than I had been during the elementary years. Then I moved to a new home. Suddenly, all of those people were completely gone, and everybody was totally new. I got one friend easily, because he was my neighbor. I had too much trouble reaching out to anyone else. I went through school hardly talking to anyone at all, except the one neighbor. He went to a private high school, so I then had nobody at school. I’ve never recovered socially from that, and currently have virtually no friends. I lack the social skills to gain any.

I’d like to contact some of you folk who were my friends then, at least to hear what had happened after I left. Phil Nash, David and Rena McCray, and Ian Howard were all my best friends back then. Some of my favorite times were with you. I had a bit of a ‘crush’ on Rena. Joey Machol, Morgan Bishop, and Ryan Overman were also good friends. There were lots of other really cool people as well. Angie Bowers was the girl I thought I saw at a recent show of my bands. I didn’t get a chance to ask her if it was her: I’m of course rather shy; I have a poor memory and was unsure if I remembered correctly ; I also wanted to wait until after the bands were done, but she left before then.

I tried to find information on some of you on the internet, but that never seems to succeed well. All I found were a few stories in the high school newspaper with quotes from Rena or written by Ian.

If any of you folk, especially if you remember me, would like to contact me, that’d be really cool. I feel this awful, melancholy feeling right now that what was once my life and joy has disappeared forever, leaving only a few pictures and papers and some faded memories.

accident and dead deer

in

My ride to band practice was both long and interesting today. The traffic was awful on the way there. I was in two seperate sets of stop and go traffic. Both times it took me somewhere around 10 minutes to go perhaps a half mile. The second traffic jam was caused by an accident on Graham Road. There were lots of emergency vehicles surrounding it, taking up two lanes of the four lane road, so traffic had to be averted into one lane of the other side of the road. It took a while for that to happen, so there was lots of waiting. As I drove past, I couldn’t see what happened, with all the emergency vehicles in the way, but I did see a stretcher with a group of people around it. They had very blank expressions on their face, so I couldn’t tell what was happening very well. I will have to look for some sort of news about the accident; I’d like to be able to find out about the accidents I actually see.

A little further on down Graham, the traffic was still pretty bad. A couple of cop cars drove by, one with flashers. I stopped at a traffic light. The road was clear on my side of the road but only partially on the other. A little fawn, of whom I have no idea how it got into that residential side of the road at that time of day, made a made dash to get accross. It was really flying. The cars on my side had been stopped, so they just didn’t accelerate fast and were able to avoid it. On the other side, a red car of some sort must not have seen the little thing speeding across and ran right into it. The fawn flew forward relative to the car a bit, flailing about, as well as forward in its direction of movement, so that it arrived right in front of a truck that stopped in time to avoid it and soon fell to the pavement. The red car sped along past, while the truck driver sat looking down at it. It seemed to happen so fast, yet take a long time. From a bit back, I thought the fawn was not badly injured and wondered why it wasn’t getting up. As I went past, however, I saw a large pool of blood that looked like it eminated from its nose. Not something I like to see. A frantic young life cut off. I drove past, so I don’t know what became of the deer or the truck driver sitting there looking at it. Damn red car driver.

mrs mouse

in

I have a friendly visitor to my house. She’s small, brown, and furry. I’ve seen her three times now. The first, I was sitting on the toilet, and she ran from behind it past my feet. It startled me a bit. Later, I saw her walking by my bedroom door. When she saw me, she ran back again. Later that night, I saw her run past my bedroom door the other way, so she must have snuck past at some point. She was in the kitchen end of the house, but I searched all my limited selection of stored food and found no possibilities of entry by a small rodent. She may have simply eaten crumbs off the floor or from around my toaster. I’d prefer not to have a mouse in my house, so I’m trying to get rid of all possible food sources for her in hopes that she’ll have to go elsewhere to eat. I’ve temporarily moved most food items she’d likely be interested in to places that’d be quite hard or even not especially possible for her to reach. I’d prefer to remove her and prevent her comrades from moving in by eliminating the habitat mice are looking for. I’ll do some research to figure out the best way soon

clear but windy

in

Went out again. Looks like this’ll be a weekly thing on Wednesdays, as I always have the day off for the Wednesday night Yars shows. This trip was just me and Paul. We both had strangely woken up at 06:00, the same time we woke up last week. I only got maybe four hours of sleep. We also both went onto AIM and talked to each other. So we decided to go sailing, and I headed over. We put up the sails while in the parking lot, which proved much easier than on the boat. The lake was about as calm as possible, with almost no waves at all, yet there was a good stiff wind coming from the north. It gave us plenty of power to speed around with. It is much easier to manuever around and set the sails properly with a good stiff wind. We started off heading toward Avon, but saw a mysterious tall colorful object far off shore that we decided to sail toward. It turned out to be the colorful spinaker of a larger sailboat. We then took turns single-handedly manuevering around. We did some figure eights around two buoys.

There were many other sailboats on the water. A large group of them were from some sort of sailing school. Lots of little kids in varying sizes of small sailboats were practicing manuevering around while instructors sped around in motor boats whistling at them. After a while, they all went in. Many other sailboats were going out and coming in as well. The Lager, a rather large sailboat, motored pretty far out and then motored back in, never setting sail.

We were a bit worried about storms coming, as they were predicted for later in the day, but the sky was quite clear. After a while, most of our wind died down and became very intermitent. We decided to go back in. We took down both the sails and the boom before heading in. I motored down the river for a bit, but there was lots of traffic. Another group of sailboats was headed out from the school, so there were sailboats sailing and being pulled by motorboats all over the one side of the river. There were also a couple of other motor boats, and then came along what must have been a school of young kayakers going perpendicular to us. This made for tough manuevering, so Paul took over.

A nice trip. I like manuevering around; probably the funnest part of it all. We were going to change the oil of our engine, as it has reached the break-in hours for the first batch of oil, but it looked too much like it would rain. Later we shall.

King Coopa band management

in

We just found out that King Coopa is in jail. He got a DUI. King Coopa, also known as David Cooper, was a guy we met back when we were playing with Double Barrel in the fall. He was managing their band, and had offered to do it for us as well, but we weren’t wholeheartedly interested, wanted to do it ourselves and keep the extra money. Now Dwight wants to take advantage of management services; he’s tired of having to do all that stuff himself and wants to focus more on playing the music. King Coopa was the only one any of us knew, but he’s not going to be available for another 11 months. Pretty crazy.

first great sailing trip

in

Yesterday saw our best sailing trip yet. Me and Joey went over Paul’s house early in the morning (about 3 am) and went right to sleep. We woke up a little after 6. After a breakfast of cereal and quick preperations, we headed off to Rocky River. I attempted motoring away from the dock, but it didn’t work out quite so well. Paul took over. The lake was fairly choppy, though not as bad as the last time. The waves were big, but also fairly wide, so most weren’t two bad. We did get hit by a couple that sent the bow mighty close to the waterline. Standing near the bow was mighty exciting, like riding a bucking bronco. There was a good stiff breeze though. When we raised the sails, they filled quite quickly. The jib by itself didn’t take us very fast, but with both sails up, we got going at a pretty good clip. We first set a straight (at least somewhat straight) course and worked on setting the sails to get us going the fastest. Then we practiced tacking a bit, just going back and forth. In tacking, the jib seems to really flap a lot, while the main goes quickly. We then messed around setting ourselves in various directions. We had trouble steering with the sails; it seemed to work, but not very quickly or easily. We also for some reason had trouble running with the wind. We were unable to fill the sails well. Running wing and wing was quite tuff, as the jib kept wanting to jibe back and forth with slight direction changes with the tiller. Four sailboats came out and soon were far out on the lake.

The wind started dying down; for a while there we had almost no wind. We got some gusts every once in a while that kept us going, but made it hard to set the sails properly. We headed back. As we got closer to port, the sails picked up again. Several more sailboats came out, in what looked like some sort of training course or something; a small red motor boat zipped around between them, blowing a whistle from time to time. We sailed a bit more, then headed in. We took down the main, then started the motor with the jib up. We took down the jib soon before coming into the mouth of the river. I motored us down towards port.

Paul took over near port. We didn’t dock up very easily. Paul had to take quite a leap to get onto the dock. We found ourselves swung to the end of the dock with me holding on. Joey had to throw the front dock line to Paul to get us pulled in properly. Then we had trouble getting the keel set into the trailer right. It took quite a few attempts. We’re getting quicker at setup and teardown now.

Very nice run. My first run that we actually had enough wind to sail well. It seems mornings are better for sailing, as earlier always seems to give us more steady winds.

Bridge to Terabithia

in

I read a book today. The whole thing. One I had read when I was a kid and remembered being good, but didn’t remember much about it. I had liked it so much as a kid, I even named my mouse Prince Terrian. The book was Bridge to Terabithia. Weird that it was in the kids section at the library though I didn’t remember it being so kiddy.

I read part in the afternoon before work. At work I got stuck on fry, my least favorite (read most disliked, perhaps only disliked) station. I’m slow on it, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to get home to finish reading. It was weird, as I’ve not in recent memory had a thing I so wanted to do that I ached to be doing it. I got home and stayed up late finishing the book. As I approached the end, I had an inkling memory of what happened in the end, facilitated by knowledge that something had to happen to end the book. I didn’t remember exactly what it was at first, but it came to me as it approached. I feared its happening but still wanted to read on. Strangely, though I knew what would happen, I was still hit hard when it happened. Harder than I’ve been hit in a long time. I cried, and hard, all the way through the ending. I hadn’t actually cried in a long time: I don’t even remember the last time full tears rolled down my face. I had thought I had lost all capability of emotion, that practicality and indifference had taken over with the realization that life happens, and occurences good or bad can’t be changed, only dealt with. That prudent stoicism has enveloped me as long as I can remember. But this story touched me and moved me to tears.

Perhaps it is because I have always want somebody to pop in to my life to take me off to Terabithia. No one has. Terabithia seems like the place I always wanted to go, that I wish I had gone to when I was a kid. The friendship and love lost, though common to many stories, felt so much more close because of the realism of the story. All the joy in Jesse’s life was in Leslie and Terabithia. When those were gone, he was left with seemingly nothing of value. Things of joy and pain can appear and disappear so quickly, and when gone leave nothing but a frail memory. Guilt is wrought when run a thought that a seeming small poor and insignificant choice could a hand lend to such a terrible end. It reminded me of a small occurence in another book, Ordinary People, involving a friend of the main character from the therapy he had recieved.

I’ve never been to Terabithia, and perhaps never will. Nor perhaps shall I find such a close bond as between Jesse and Leslie.

joey and vince

in

went out on the pw with my cousins joey and vince, as well as Paul. We all met at Paul’s the night before sos we could wake up early and get plenty of time on the water. We didn’t wake up early; Joey woke us up at 9:30. We ate breakfast and went out to sail, all squeezed into the big truck we’ve been towing with; Paul’s car needs the wire attachments for the lights on the trailer. We took care of setting everything up; Joe and Vince were just a long for the ride. We put up the boom as well as the mast this time in the parking lot. We set out on the river, which had ripples from the stiff wind, towards the lake. Large waves poured into the mouth of the river, and we knew it would be rough. We considered turning back, but decided to press on and see what it was like. The waves on the lake were mighty rough for the small boat, making it very difficult to manuever; the motor and rudder popped out of the water with each large wave. The bow would sometimes crash down nearly into the water. We were a bit worried of a capsize, though after a couple of waves we figured that was unlikely. We decided it was well too rough to put up even one sail. After a while of motoring around, we headed back to port. It was still rough until we made it well past the break wall. We passed by a group of young kids paddling along on kayaks. Docking was a little more difficult than last time: the trailer was angled and we had trouble getting the keel into position. Vince called his dad and found out there was 3 to 5 foot waves and a small craft advisory. We headed back. Paul gave me the drivers seat once we were near his house so I could practice trailoring. It wasn’t too bad on straight roads, except I tended to hug the yellow lines. Turns were a bit more difficult, and even by the end I had trouble turning wide enough but not too wide. Backing the trailer into a spot at Paul’s house was quite difficult, and after several attempt, I got it in a bit crookedly. Since we didn’t get to actually sail, I’m hoping we’ll get to go out again sometime soon. Next week we’ll probably go with the Shury boys (Joe and Vince) again.

Mimi’s hair

in

Every other Thursday, I take my grandma, who we call Mimi, out to get her hair done. She lives in a retirement type home, and the hair dresser at the one she lives at isn’t nearly as good as the one she used to live at, so she needs somebody to transport her over there. I go home or do something else while she gets her hair done, then I come back and we go out to eat at Park’N’Eat, El Rincon, or some other place.

She hasn’t been in the best of health for years now; that’s why she’s in a retirement home. She had a stroke a while back that has eventually led to her inability to walk. Last night, she went to the hospital, as she was having irregular heat beats. She felt very weak. They gave her some medication and are going to run some tests. Because of this, she will not be going to the hair dressers today. I’m hoping she’ll get better soon here. She’s getting fairly old now; wouldn’t want to stop a good thing.

New Drummer

in

I had been thinking about it for a while, the possibilities and problems. Two weeks ago, I made up my mind to tell them, but I didn’t get to see my band mates. Rockwood’s dad was leaving the house to move in with his (Mr. Rockwood’s) mother to help her with gardening in her old age. Rockwood and his sister, Connie, were thus given the house. Rockwood went to South Carolina or the like to help Connie move back to Ohio. So two ECC shows and one practice were cancelled. Friday was the first meeting of the Yars in two weeks, and I had waited to tell them the whole time. It allowed me to mull it over more and weigh the plusses and minuses. In the end, I decided it would be for the better.

I’m leaving the band. I will stay with the band until a suitable new drummer is found and learns the music or our last currently scheduled show on August 19th, whichever comes first. I plan to put up flyers in Kent seeking a drummer willing to play in an established band. We’ll probably have them come to one of our shows to see if they are interested in our music and the Yars in general. Then they can come to our practices and Dwight and Rockwood will talk to them in more detail about the band and find out if they will work out. I will show them my current parts to the music to give them an idea of the style wanted and also a starting point in coming up with their own parts. Hopefully we will find someone that can learn the songs and make parts for them quickly, parts that compliment the music well (perhaps even better than my own). They also must get along with the band members and be willing to play the music already written. Hopefully by August 19th.

Many things influenced my decision. I don’t have so much fun playing in the band now. Sometimes it is fun, but a lot of times it isn’t. I enjoy the music a lot, but I don’t neccesarily enjoy playing it all the time. I’m not the best of drummers at all, never having really gotten any lessons on the set (only on individual percussion instruments, requiring much less coordination), and the Yars music would likely be improved with a better drummer. Sometimes I don’t like the parts Dwight or Rockwood want me to play for the songs, or even the tempo or other aspects of the song, yet they may be better off with those changes, and a more experienced drummer may be better at telling what works well. I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now, and want to make some changes. Drumming for the Yars takes a bit of time and effort and ties me to it. I don’t necisarily like the place I’m in right now and hope leaving the Yars will allow me to find a better place. As my interests are less focused on the Yars and more elsewhere, I can’t be very dedicated to it. Hopefully the new drummer will be quite dedicated and more interested in the success of the band and going places rather than in playing some music for fun. I am very stingy, and drum equipment and other band costs can be quite expensive; leaving the band will allow me to focus my precious resources elsewhere. All in all, I think this will work out for the better of both the band and myself.

In other news, our former fellow band, the Living Deadbeats, got a bit of air time on 100.7 WMMS. MMS plays a ‘local bands’ type show sometimes. I was at work and was surprised to hear the Deadbeats popular (to fans) tune ‘Machine Gun Sam’. I was even more surprised to hear that it was on the radio and not a CD. This means they must be doing alright after we lost contact with them, following the Europe Gyro incident. Good luck to them. I’ll have to watch for them and perhaps catch another of their shows, as it’s been a little while.
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