When I think back on my life the things I remember don't add up to much. When I was very young I remember lots of things that involved trips with my family. A trip that we took to Lagoon, camping, my grandpa playing us songs on his guitar, spending day after day on the trampoline with my cousin Derek. I remember I used to go to my Dad's office and play Lords of the Realm 2. I LOOOOVE that game. I remember elementary school. I remember Mrs. Pehrson's class and I remember that I was the only in my family that did not have Mrs. Mikesel.
I remember playing kickball outside the kindergarten room and we called it a "bomber" when you kicked the high and far in the air. Sometimes we got to go play on the big kid's playground. We gathered around in a pit in the corner of the room and had story time. Those pits were in 1st grade too I think. After we sang songs and had lunch we would read stories in there. I remember Joey reading once. That may have been 2nd or 3rd grade, who knows. I remember that when Joey was reading I was sitting next to Megan Macdonald and I had a crush on her and I was finally sitting by her and I had gotten cut on the playground and I didn't know it and she saw my elbow and asked me what happened. I remember that Megan's sister would always pick her up after school and she would stand there in the doorway waiting for her.
I had Mrs. Gutke in 1st grade. She is my cousin Gentri's grandma. She used to own a bed and breakfast but then they moved away. Once I stayed at her new house once. She has an organ that you have to pump to play and she has a jukebox. Gentri and I watched Hook at her house.
In Second Grade I had Mrs. Shumway. Every day we would exercise and then clasp our hands together and take deep breaths. One time, while we were doing that, Ruth passed out. I remember that I almost became friends with Benny and Nache, and I did become friends with Trevor that year. I remember playing at Trevor's house a couple of times. I also remember when he lived in my ward and I remember when he moved. I remember once I called both Nache and Benny to play but neither of them could. Most likely that meant they didn't want to. In Mrs. Shumway's class we would play this game on the computer called treasure diver or something. I loved that game. And it was on one of those really old macs that existed before everyone had a pc. And the drinking fountains were in all the rooms. We would go to the library and have a story read to us, and then we would get those giant library cards. I read all of the goosebump books one year. I could never save my AR points though, I always spent them all every time I went to the AR store. I remember one year that Jimmy Tate moved to our school he got 27 AR points transferred to him and everyone else only had like 4 or 5 and we were all jealous of him. I remember that he didn't know when his birthday was and he asked me and I told him my birthday and he said yeah, that was his birthday. I remember how the girls would always chase the boys around the playground. And we would do that for hours and hours. Just run around and be chased and chase and in the end nothing would ever happen. Well, that is what I thought. Until I got pinned to the ground by Kelsey Bailey and she kissed me on the cheek. COOTIES! I remember sometimes we weren't allowed to go outside for recess on rainy days and so they would set up a TV in the hall and play a movie. One time we watched the Pokemon movie. Because when I was in 2nd grade Pokemon cards had just come out and had just become insanely popular. My cousin Kip had a whole bunch of them and he gave me some of his extras. There were like 40 of them and I remember that I took them to school and I was kind of tired that day and so I pretended to fall asleep at my desk and then everyone started to leave for PE and I decided that I wanted to go too so I "woke up" and went to PE and when I got back the Pokemon cards that I had left in my desk were gone and so I told Mrs. Shumway and she just said basically that there was nothing that she could do and that I shouldn't bring things to school if I didn't want them to get stolen. Sigh... I never bought or traded for or found or wanted another Pokemon card after that. I mean, what is the point? Now there are like over 500 Pokemon. What the crap?
In 3rd grade we got moved to the other side of the school to the big kid hall. We were also on the other playground now I believe. And they had just finished building a new playground and we got to enjoy it. Go us. I had Mr. Winder. He would play us songs on his guitar and sing. I must have heard Puff the Magic Dragon 100 times that year. That was the year that I was messing around with a little black bean and I put it in my ear and it got stuck there for like a month. Nobody believed me. We went to the clinic and the nurse told me that there was just earwax in my ear so my mom took me to the pharmacy and got earwax remover stuff but it didn't do anything. Obviously it didn't do anything. Then a month later I was sitting on my bed that I shared with my brother Taylor, a giant waterbed, and it fell out. I showed me mom. She was so surprised. I was so right. I remember that year that Mr. Winder taught us about his son that joined the Green Beret. I remember that is the year that Ryan Gardner moved to town and we spent hours at his log house playing Conker's Bad Fur day which is still one of the most amazing games eve
In 4th grade I had Mrs. Cahoon. I hated her and she hated me. We had an understanding. I hated that whole year. I do remember starting football in 4th grade though. I think that was the year we started. Tyler Nielson's dad was my coach. I was on the green team. We were hardcore. Well, probably not. But I do remember that one time Tyler grabbed the football and said let's play smear the queer and so I smeared him to the ground, hard, and he started crying. We were in pads and everything. I remember how much wearing those football helmets hurt at first. They kind of always hurt until a few years later. That never made sense to me. Maybe we all just had too small of helmets. I remember that we would always play bronco ball outside during recess and we felt so grown up when we finally got to play football in a league with pads and actual rules. Isn't it crazy how long kids can run around and not get tired. All they have to do is catch their break really quickly and then BAM they are off again. They could run around crazily all day long if they wanted to. I sure did when I was a kid.
In 5th grade I had Mr. Turk. He is still one of if not the best teacher I have ever had. I remember learning about the revolution and about the earth and making cakes that represented the fault lines that volcanoes come out of. I remember that Jesse Grover was our King George that we all hated and I was a Yankee and I memorized the midnight ride of Paul Revere. Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight ride of Paul Revere on the 18th of April in '75 hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friends if the British march by land or sea in the town tonight hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch of the north church tower as a signal light. 1 if by land and 2 if by sea and I on the opposite shore will be ready to ride and spread the alarm to every Middlesex village and farm for the country folk to be up and to arm. THERE! ha ha. I remember having Mrs. Adam's and Mrs. Robert's classes. I didn't have to have Mrs. Lyman's class. THANK GOODNESS! This year we did the DARE program and got pizza at the end of the year. We made rockets that we filled with water and shot off. They were awesome. He had awesome microscopes that I used to look at things through. This was the year that Natasha Bleak moved here and all the boys followed her around. This was the year that I broke 2 windows. 1 with a bouncy ball, 1 with a kickball. It was a very good year. I remember swinging after the day that we went to tour the middle school and talking about how we did it, we were done. Of course it wasn't even the beginning. This was the year that our dog Tazja died and I spent a day at home crying my eyes out. Then I went to school the next day and Ryan Gardner asked me where I had been the day before and I told him I was sick and he asked if I had puffy eye or something like that and I said yes. This was the year that I spent hours and hours sitting in my cousin Kip's room playing video games like Road Rash and Mario 64 and Zelda Ocarina of Time. Once in 5th grade I got sent to the office for kicking Curtis Black on top of the tower on the playground. I was kicking him because Natasha Anderson was mad at him and asked to me kick him so she could get back at him. Our Principal Mr. Barlow had moved the year before and there was a new Principal. Her name was like Ms. Johnson. I was sitting in her office and she called my mom and I started crying because I was so mad at her because she was the devil and I was only kicking Curtis because Natasha wanted me to. Besides we all thought Curtis was gay. Turns out that he isn't gay. He is actually a way awesome person. But I was 10 what did I know?
6th grade. That was... a year. As old as I felt leaving elementary is how young I felt entering middle school. That year is the year I met Kelly Davis. I walked outside on my first day of middle school after lunch and there was this crazy Jewish girl who I had never met or seen and she comes running up to me and gives me a big hug and goes "Talon how are you!?". I thought that hugging was like a sin or something. What did I know? I knew nothing. It is the year that I met Mr. Hughes. I had his class for 2 hours a day. So did everyone else, I wasn't dumb, that is just how it was. I just made 2 comma splices. I don't care. That was the year that I met Mr. Squires and Mr. Lyman and some other woman teacher. I still remember my locker combo was 44-32-18 and I didn't even know how to use it until someone showed me. Mrs. Lake was our English teacher for a term. She pronounced it Uhn-Glush. Then Mr. Tanner moved in and we had his class. His room was outside in the portable where special ed usually was. We read a book with him. I'm not sure what is is called but it was a mystery book. Ah well. This year Devon moved back and I started hanging out with him again. We played so much halo.
7th grade was a weird year. I bleached my hair blonde. I didn't get along with my father from pretty much that point on. I remember Mr. Bower's class. We read Tangerine. I love that book. We also read swallowing stones. I hate/love that book because the whole time I wish that he would fall in love with the girl but in all actuality he can't because he accidentally killed her father with a bullet he shot into the air. But guess what, that is impossible. The bullet wouldn't have killed anyone. Anyway, yep. This is the year that we did Much Ado About Nothing for the school play. I loved that play. This is the year that Dallas moved here. He had giant curly hair and massive braces. I spent lots of time in Devon's basement playing halo. I set up our xbox in my room and spent my time jamming to Linkin Park and playing video games. We also had tons of Halo Fests and Gardner's house. Oh my gosh those were sooo amazing and sooo much fun and sooo... epic. Also who could count the number of hours that I used to spend on MSN talking to people? It's crazy how fast everyone went from MSN and Myspace to Facebook. It seems like it happened overnight. I guess maybe it took longer than that. I remember people talking about Facebook and I remember thinking to myself that I would never do Facebook and that I would always stick with Myspace. HA.
8th grade is the year that I started hanging out with Eric. It was the year Mike introduced me to the guitar. I remember the summer after 8th grade was the most amazing summer ever. I remember that year hanging out at Jorden's house with her and Ruth and Ashkia and Stormi and Jordann and Devon watching movies eating pizza and playing Tekkan. We would play night games at the North Chapel almost every night. I remember getting perfect attendance 8th grade year because I wanted a prize and I remember missing lots of stuff I could have done that I didn't because I was going to school and in the end I didn't even get acknowledged for it. That was the year that I played football on the middle school team. We thought we were so awesome walking through the gym after practice all sweaty and tired while all the girls were practicing volleyball. This year was the year that I made the mistake of dating Jessi Palmer. I was young and innocent and didn't know any better. I remember that I had never really even hugged anyone before her, except for Kelly Davis that time in 6th grade.
Freshman year I made it a point to attend as little school as possible. I remember doing football which was retarded in the end because I hardly ever even got to play anyway. I remember once they put Eric and me in on defense for a play. One of us caused a fumble and the other one recovered it. So then they took us out and didn't put us back in. That is about the extent of recognition that we got. So I didn't do football after that year. I got hired that year to work for the school in the tech booth. I even made some money. This was the year that I thought I loved Kenzie. That was the year that we ditched school to work on a treehouse in my backyard that never even got finished, but it was fun all the same. That was the year that we left after one of the last days of school and drove around in my dad's jeep. I didn't have a license but I didn't care. That was one of the best days of my life. We ended up breaking the clutch on the jeep from push starting it so much but it was still awesome. This was the year that I started learning how to play the drums so that I could be in a band with Dallas and Greg and Ryan. We got pretty awesome in my mind. I dunno, it was fun. I loved it. But it didn't work out in the end. People couldn't get along with each other. But it lasted for awhile. This was the year that Mr. Berrett moved here and basically hired his students to help him build his house. I made like $1000 from working with him. I used most of that to buy my drums. I loved my drums sooo much.
Sophomore year was definitely... a year. It was the year that Failing Overpass was rocking. It was the year that I dated Stormi. That was the worst. I mean, it wasn't, then. I thought it was great. Of course, I didn't know anything. I didn't realize how unhappy I was. I didn't realize how mean she was. That was the year that Natasha and I would sit in the band room and jam Santeria on bass and guitar. That was the year that we did the musical Grease and I was in the greasy pit band. I played the drums. That was the year that I got a job at R&R Pizza. That was the best job ever! Especially when I worked with Seth and Coleman. We were the best. Alisha and Mykin and Felicia were also awesome to work with. My favorite night was the night that Coleman and I put a bucket of ice in Seth's fryer and it spilled all over his floor. He then dumped a bucket of oil all over my clean dishes. I also slipped on the greasy floor and landed on my back several times. Even though we had to completely clean the whole place twice we still got out by midnight, and then played baseball in the back parking lot. I miss that job. I miss those times. They were definitely full of emotion. It was around that time that I bought an iPod and started buying CDs. I fell in love with music all over again. I miss the pizza and the ice cream and the breadsticks and the sandwiches and the calzones and the zappoles and the vanilla pudding. I miss parking in the slanted parking lot and delivering pizza to people and making tons of money. There are times in your life that mean a lot and that you never forget because everything you do becomes ingrained in you. This year was one of those times. Maybe it was the hormones. Awe, if it was the hormones then I want them back! I wish that life was like that now. It was almost the end of Failing Overpass. We did sell a bunch of shirts and played some shows. We played in Montezuma Creek for Andrew Todachinni's graduation. We played at Jorden Gidding's birthday part. We played at the Park, and we played on the 4th and 24th. The 24th was one of the best shows we ever had. It was also like... the last. Dallas had left and it was just me, Greg, and Ryan. We played though. We rocked. I met Rachel that day though I forgot. I met her and her sister and her cousin. They liked Ryan's belt. This is the year that mike totaled his sister's car into a tree. We had to take another dumb color-maps-and-pretend-to-learn-so-I-can-pretend-to-teach-and-keep-being-a-coach-and-yell-at-football-boys class from Coach Lee and one day I came into class and he was sitting there all weirdly looking like something traumatic happened. That is what happened. I got a 1 on my tuba solo at state this year. I spent a lot of hours in the tech booth this year for plays and kygalia arts stuff.
Junior Year was another year. I was 17. I wanted to be graduated already. I wasn't very involved with anything. I didn't date anyone. I spent my time doing things that made Mr. Hendry mad like ditching school and not writing the writing assessment, which I got suspended for. Mike got his license this year and then he got a car. We cruised around in it all the time Jammin to Escape the Fate. We spent the summer before this year crusing around in Devon's cars and swimming in the pool in the middle of the night and doing all sorts of t hings that were illegal. I ran cross country this year. I don't know why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. I thought I loved Mackenzie Ward. I almost dated Kelsey Wilson this year.THAT was weird. I remember sitting on the grass and finding out about Billy Talent from Kelsey Bailey this year. I took music theory from Mr. Bake and I bailed on FIRST. Then summer came. I went to the premiere of the sixth Harry Potter with Samuel Shabadoo and I saw this girl with a neckerchief on her head and she looked familiar. Then I remembered that I had seen her at the concert that Failing Overpass had played the year before. Or was it 2 years? I dunno. Anyway, I was like Sam, who is that? And he thought that her name was Holly. But ACTUALLY her FRIEND'S name was Holly. HER name was Rachel. So I did what any stalker-type person would do. I looked her up of myspace. I remember the first thing that we did together was drive to comb ridge and we climbed to the top and threw paper airplanes off. Then we went back to my house and I tried to teach her how to drive my dad's jeep. Then we went with Jordann and Eric and I think Ryan and Sam to Preston's pond and threw rocks in it. It was an awesome day. I worked at Patio for a few months that year but I got fired because 1- I didn't work on prom night when I was scheduled even though it was written off a month in advance and 2- I wasn't there to cover for someone, I wasn't even scheduled, I just wasn't available to cover for someone because I was at the Big @$$ Show with Dallas. That was such an amazing concert. We saw Red Jumpsuit Apparatus and Unwritten Law and Single File and The Offspring and Billy Boy on Poison and The Airborne Toxic Event and some other bands too.
Senior Year. I was done. I thought I was done. I thought I would just take a few classes and that would be that. Turns out that I ended up taking 3 college classes and taking 1050 on the ednet is just awful especially when your teacher is Gordon Reeve. That was such a horrible class. Luckily Rachel was in it also and she showed me how to do everything. That and some cheating on some tests and I was able to pass. It was weird not having anyone older than us in school but it really did feel like it was time for us to be there and gone. Now we are gone. The last few months have been so awesome. All I did was sleep and eat and hang out with Rachel. It was amazing. It was bliss. It was all I ever wanted and I knew it couldn't last. Because I finally found a job. So did she. In Bryce Canyon, Utah. It's only... 7 hours away. Yeah. Oh well, I have 2 months left. It is weird working here. I sit here all night and sleep all day. Sometimes life doesn't feel real. Basically everthing about my current circumstance is the opposite of how I want it to be. Rachel is not here, I work all night, uh... well those are the only 2 things I can think of right now.
