some hills

When I was a freshman in high school, my brother Quoc was a senior. He had a car, a job, money, and a locker on the first floor. I had a lunch card, a backpack, a third floor locker and five out of seven classes on the first floor with five minutes between classes.

Due to his urging, I joined the tennis team. Something about it being "good for my college resume." He never played a sport in high school, but a mental midget like me didn't see the irony in what he was saying.

Because Quoc didn't play a sport, he had to either wait for me after school until practice was over or go home and come back. He hadn't thought about how it would inconvenience him or I bet he wouldn't even have suggested joining the tennis team.

Mental midgets, that condition must run in my family.

When tennis was over I joined the basketball team. My brother complained and made rude comments everyday. It started at seven thirty in the morning with the ride to school and continued at five thirty after practice. It was constant pissyness. A month into my basketball season, I quit the team. I stopped riding with him to school. I woke up an extra thirty minutes every morning and waited for the bus. Didn't care how bad it made me look on my college resume. I'd go to a trade school if I had to. Welding, that doesn't require an athletic resume.

One day my friend Susie Stoner and I were messing around and missed our bus. Middle of winter in Kansas, cold and snowy. We were walking home in the snow, and yes, there might have been some hills when my brother drove past us. Made eye contact and kept going. When I tell people this story, I always say,

"And do you know how far my house was to the school? It was a heck of a long way." Yup, that's what I tell them. But from this day forward, thanks to mapquest, I can say it was 3.34 miles in the snow with possibly some hills.

It took over two hours to get home. I got sick and missed over a week of school, gave me plenty of time to read up on welding.