AUGUST 18, 2006
TALES OUT OF SCHOOL

I'll never forget the Bosseigh High alma mater, and not just because we had to sing it all time at school events. I mean, look at it. Have you ever heard of school song so sadistic and poorly punctuated? Excruciating pain? What's up with that? And what's that colon doing at the end of the sixth line? I swear it's not a typo, that's the way the song was written, and for four years, I had to look at it painted in big letters on the wall of the gym. I brought it up to administration at least half a dozen times, all they ever did was give me a form to fill out.

Ask Shawn to sing the song, and he'll gladly oblige. He still knows it, too, and he'll sing it for you the same way he did then – at the top of his lungs, changing the last line to "If we catch your underwear." Some things never change.

The alma mater isn't the only thing I remember from high school. I haven't forgotten anything, and although it's never fashionable to say it, I really had a pretty great time in high school. And yes, you could say I was involved, if by involved you mean ASB Cabinet, Mock Trial Team, Latin Club, Junior Kiwanis and the V8 Society (a club dedicated to muscle cars, not vegetable juice), I also filled the second half of my senior year for the guy that made the morning announcements, after he got fired for playing "Whoomp! (There it is) one too many times over the school PA.

Shawn was involved, too, but most of the clubs he was in were clubs that he started himself. He was the captain of the napping team, ran an underground newspaper (for which he was the gossip columnist), led an unsuccessful two-day boycott of the Pythagorean Theorem and subsequently founded the Quadrilateral Appreciation Society. Oh, and he somehow lettered in Track and Field even though he wasn't even a member of the team.

You might think that with all our other commitments, Shawn and I didn't see much of each other, but it wasn't like that at all. We saw each other all the time because we shared a locker. Well, we didn't exactly share a locker, it was really more like he moved into my locker because mine was right next to Jacqueline Gurwitz' locker. But that's another story. What's more important to note is that Shawn didn't just move into my locker, he made himself at home and rigged up the locker with cool little stereo speakers. The bad news is that rather than the cool music of our high school years - TLC, Brian McKnight, or Dr. Dre, the speakers blasted all his post-grunge music - Spin Doctors, Soul Asylum and yes, The Proclaimers. You know the Proclaimers. They were those Scottish guys that sang "...now I'm going to walk 500 miles/and I'm going to walk 500 more..." I know. It's a good song. Unless it's blasting out of your stereo/locker for the 300th time.

Of course, there were a couple of tiny disclipline issues. Shawn was busted in March of our junior year for digging a big hole in the quad with a rented backhoe. He argued that since Flag Day is in July, he wanted to commemorate Arbor Day, the second most underappreciated holiday on the calendar by planting a redwood tree (which he planned to name after himself). He came back from his three-day suspension and announced that he found a better place to plant the tree, but wouldn't specify the exact location.

I wound up on the unhappy side of the principal's desk a year later, when I was reprimanded for vandalism. Shocking, I know, but I was fed up from getting the brush off about the misplaced colon in our school song, so I took it upon myself to spray paint over the offending punctuation mark myself. Right on the wall of the gym. Seems the janitor ratted me out when I asked to borrow his ladder. But everything turned out all right. Dr. Fox, our principal, said it was the first time anyone had ever damaged school property in the name of correct grammar. For my punishment, I had to paint the colon back onto the song. It may be grammatically incorrect, he said, but tradition is tradition.

Past Entries:

• (8/11) Nothing Beats Rock
• (8/4) The Problem With Dead
• (7/28) To the Aspiring Sales Rep
• (7/21) Singing. And Psych.
• (7/14) Job Satisfaction
• (7/7) What I Did on My Summer Vacation
• (6/29) Bandages and Plaster: A History of Shawn and Me