All right, well,
Lisa's pissed... and rightly so, I'd say. It's a shame I don't post more. I'm really a very interesting person, and I have lots of interesting things to say. Unfortunately, she thinks I should say them more on my other blog -- the one I share with her and some other friends,
Science World '88.
Some of you have asked me what the hell Science World '88 (SW88) is. To you, I say,
"Uh-huh... uh-huh... uh-huh. Listen, shut up for a second." One day, back in the 1987-88 school year, my 8th grade Science teacher, Ms. Schouten, kept me after class and asked me whether I would be interested in filling out an application for a summer camp.
"An application?" I probably said, my voice cracking as a pimple suddenly and inexplicably appeared on my left earlobe.
"Yes, it's a
special camp, just for Wisconsin students who are gifted in Science," she may have replied (although I highly doubt she used the word "special" or "gifted").
This was when I was a member of the Young Astronauts Club at Longfellow Middle School. It was also when I first began reading Douglas Adams, listening to Sting, and I had just landed my second, third, and fourth of what would be many more roles in musical theatre -- Nicely-Nicely Johnson in Longfellow's production of
Guys and Dolls, Adam in
The Apple Tree, and Dick (well, "Tom" in our production) in
Dames at Sea. It was during this time that I would get to know folks like Devin Gensch, Matt Book, Lisa Dwyer, Melinka Curich; I would strike up what would turn out to be longtime friendships with Matt Cody and Brian Cantwell; and I would realize that I really, really loved theatre.
Up until that time, my summers had largely consisted of packing up with the family and driving from Wauwatosa out to our cottage on Coldwater Lake in Michigan for three months, where I would often busy myself with summer things and carelessly not miss the friends I had made or the things I could be doing with them. This opportunity to attend a camp for two weeks
outside of Michigan was cause for trepidation in me at the time. My parents encouraged me, though, and I swallowed hard and sent in my application.
When I "made the cut," it was actually published in our incredibly local paper,
The Wauwatosa News-Times.
When I attended Science World on Pigeon Lake in northern Wisconsin in the summer of 1988, I came out of my shell for the first time while not on stage. I realized that I actually
was interesting and that people -- absolute strangers at first -- could really like me for who I was. They didn't know me before those two weeks began. They had no pre-conceptions about who I was, apart from the fact that I enjoyed learning about Science... which was a trait they all shared. Okay, yes, we were a bunch of nerdy kids who were all thrown together and recognized one another's nerdiness for what it was. There were still cliques, though. Someone could easily have done a character study for a college 101 course that summer, taking note of how, even within nerdish subcultures, there exist the same arbitrary peer groups that they appear to be a part of themselves.
I met Lisa there. Lisa became my first
real girlfriend. I had had a "girlfriend" earlier -- Katie Holshbach, who lived kitty corner from me -- but it was in my relationship with Lisa that I learned what love was. This relationship took shape perfectly over the two weeks we had there (although Lisa would probably argue that it took
forever for me to finally "make my move"), and I was over the moon when we parted ways because -- since this was a camp for Wisconsin students -- I knew she'd be nearby. I was in Tosa, and she was in Franklin.
A week after we left Science World, I was in Michigan, talking with Lisa on the phone, and the stars fell from the sky. She informed me that she had just recently learned that she would
not in fact be so nearby to me soon -- her father had gotten a job in South Bend, Indiana, and they would be moving there.
As it turned out, that was still not too far away, but only when I was in Michigan. From Tosa, South Bend was halfway around the world when I was 14. But that move was not the end of us. Lisa and I dated longer than I've ever dated anyone since, until my wife. Long-distance relationships suck, but they're also wonderful. That's just another one of the life lessons I learned in my relationship with Lisa.
Now Lisa's acting more than I am. She's in Chicago, and I'm in Madison; we're closer now. We miss 1988 together, and we celebrate it at SW88. We're still tracking down alumni, so if you got to this post through a search for other SWers, head on over to SW88 and check in!
My friends know I'm melancholy. I live a lot in the past. It's probably because of my summers at the lake. I always missed things in retrospect. Come fall, I was always out-of-the-loop on some joke or some experience I'd only ever learned about second- or third-hand. I mostly let those moments go and lived for the times I actually did share with my friends; but I also tried hard to take mental notes at those times when I was involved. In fact, for a time, I actually brought a tape recorder along with me to capture the moments. Some of my friends rolled their eyes at the time (and probably still do now at my mention of this practice), but I have never regretted that. Talk about living in the past! I can actually all but
go back there, thanks to those tapes!
I wish I'd had a tape recorder at Science World in 1988. Or at Science Summer Institute in '89. Or at the Halloween party in Franklin, the Homecoming Dance at Tosa East, the cottage.... "The past is much more fun."
