The Nineteenth Year - 1998

The summer of 98 was a good summer. I became a cashier at Megafoods and enjoyed what I did. All the other cashiers (a bunch of old ladies) loved me. Every week we had produce quizes we had to pass off (basically showing we knew what the produce was and then for a bonus what the UPC code was for each item. I was proud of myself for never missing a name and rarely not knowing the code. Of course now, I'd be hard pressed to identify half of the produce I once knew and the only code I remember now is bananas - 4011. I was fast too. I would still step down and help with bagging when needed, I was probably the best bagger that store has probably ever seen. I'm sure not everyone would agree with that analysis, but from a strictly logical standpoint on efficiency and the ability to bag like items - there's no arguing those facts - I was the best. One of my favorite things about being a cashier though was getting the money that came through. Not just money, rare coins and bills. I used to go through every quarter and set aside and buy the silver ones. I had quite a few come through. I also ended up getting a mercury dime, and a few buffalo nickles. One time I helped a customer at the video counter and he paid with a five dollar silver certificate. I couldn't believe it! I asked him if he knew what it was and he said, "yes, but I don't have any other money and I want to see this movie." Fine with me. I bought the five out of the till right then. My biggest purchase was a 1947 one hundred dollar bill - it kind of sickens me to say that I don't really know what ever happened to that. I'm sure - just like all those people that I got their rare money from - a greater need came up that I HAD to spend it... probably on Bethany.

My mom never liked her really. She says now that she never had a problem with her, but back then, it was clear to me she didn't like her. I didn't care much because her family loved me and so we spent all our time at her place. However, by the time school started up again, she and I were not supposed to be seeing each other anymore - but we still tried. One time when I was at soccer practice at woodland lake park, she drove by in hopes she'd get to see me out there. She was looking back and the road turned, but she didn't, and she crashed her car into a tree. Her brother came running up to me on the field - I was completely shocked to see him there - and he told me she was just in an accident down the street. I was expecting the worst. I ran to the wreck site to find her bleeding on her face. She cut her nose - but mostly wounded her pride I think. It was probably a good thing she wrecked that car, an old Ford - something - I don't even know if it had a name, it was a boat - but she ended up getting a newer little car after that.

Soccer was great. I played all four years in high school; and all four years we went to the state tournament - I think we were conference champs all four years too. We never did win state though. Our team was consistently cursed with the ability to play great soccer, without the ability to finish - score. Most of our games were won by defense - and I owned the field when it came to defense. In AYSO I always played in the forward position, but as I got older and the game progressed and the coaches got better, I was moved further and further back on the field - every good soccer player knows your fastest and best players play defense. My sophomore year I played a wing halfback, then junior year center half, then my senior year I was co-captain and the center full back - last line of defense before the keeper. I loved that position. I controlled the entire field from there.

In junior high, eighth grade, I did track and field - mostly just field - high jump. I LOVED it. However, in high school I worked year round - but I cut hours to make it work for me to play soccer, there was no way I was going to give THAT up. Every year I wanted to try high jump again - but my money needs always outweighed my "wants" to do track. My senior year I said, "to heck with it... it's my senior year, I'm livin it up!" I went out for track and made the team. We didn't have an official high jump coach because the coach that was doing it left the year before. One of the coaches knew a bit about it, but for the most part we were on our own. I used to watch tapes and highlights of Olympic high jumping and tapes about form - plus I remembered a lot of what my jr. high coach taught me. Before long I was kind of coaching the high jump teams - male and female. I also did long jump, triple jump and for one meet I did the 110 hurdle relay and the pole vault relay (because the kid that was supposed to compete walked off the team at the start of the meet and I volunteered to fill in). High jump was by far my favorite, and best, event - I won several medals that I want to put on display... someday. In all honesty I never really was able to jump that high, it was my form that got me over the bar. My best jump was six feet ten inches. I cleared that mark both on grass and during an indoor event. I'm sure if I would have lifted weights and trained a little better I could have done better. I was stupid. Looking back I had amazing talent and I probably could have gone to college for jumping. I always thought about trying to walk on to a college team, but my knees got pretty bad after high school - and I was afraid of failure, so I never did. If I have any regrets in life - not pursuing high jumping is definitely one of them.

Graduating was great. I never really thought I'd go off to college - I was pretty sure I was going to marry Bethany and stay on "the mountain" for the rest of my life. In my future plans announcement I wrote to be read during my acceptance of my diploma at graduation I said I was going to serve a mission and go to college - in all honesty, I didn't really think either of those things was going to happen. Technically, at this point, I'm into my twentieth year - so, I'll pick up on that story tomorrow.



Back to when I was much younger. I think I must have been about five or six. My Whatcott cousins and I (and probably my siblings) went down to Rainbow Lake to play. We were playing around the area where the lake flows under the highway. I was trying to catch small fish with my bare hands and I accidentally grabbed a piece of broken glass instead. I cut my middle finger on my right hand pretty bad. My cousin, Brian - who's about Tevia's age, wrapped my finger up with a cattail leaf and carried me all the way back to his parent's house to get it fixed up. To this day, I have a big scar on that finger where I cut it - it forms a double print on that finger, half arch, half loop.

We used to love to go (and even get) toilet papered. I'm pretty sure it was mostly us and our cousins that would just get each other, but really, that's what my world consisted of for most of my childhood (my cousins and I). One time, in high school, I think it was Shane and I, toilet papered Christine Webb's house - they were living just across from us at the time. There was a big willow tree in their front yard and we got it good - must have used at least 48 rolls! The next day I saw her grandpa, my great uncle, Ray (who must have been 90 at the time - or seemed like it) cleaning up the mess. I felt SOOO bad. I went over and helped him clean it up, and pretended I had no idea who did it - but they sure should be ashamed of themselves, whoever they are!

Uncle Ray. He was always my favorite of my grandpa's brothers. My grandpa, my dad's dad, was the youngest of his large family - and most all of them still lived within a mile radius of him (and me for that matter). As a result I had a LOT of cousins around growing up. As uncle Ray got older, even older than he was when I was born, he ended up getting his car taken away - he kept wrecking it. Instead he got himself a three wheeled bike and he kept on working. That man worked himself - well, to death really. I don't think he was super educated, I don't think any of my grandparents or their siblings went to college (I could be very wrong about that, but I've never heard otherwise so, that's my guess). I remember I would love to sit and watch my uncle Ray sit down with a pencil and a piece of cardboard as he did his math to figure out how much wood he needed to cut - not length, how many cords (amount). He did a lot of logging and wood cutting in his day. In fact, when I was in jr. high, I think, he cut one of his fingers off, well, smashed it off with a splitting maul. Accidents happen in that industry. His brother, my uncle Jay, who lived just down the street from Ray, broke his neck in a logging accident when I was in elementary school. I remember him wearing a halo for months - it kind of scared me, to see that contraptions bolted into his head. But he ended up being okay.

Ray had a son named Meb. Meb Webb. Meb was an inventor, I guess. I don't know how else to classify him. He created a device to roast corn nuts. He claims he invented them, and he very well could have - but I doubt it. I remember going over to his shop and eating them hot off the conveyor belt. They really weren't as good as the ones you can now buy in the stores, but back then, they were all I knew. I used to eat bags of them. Meb also invented a way to remove moles. Yes - this is the story of how I went from the Cindy Crawford look to the scarred up face most people know today. I had my mole pretty much as long as I can remember. As time went on and I got bigger, so did my mole. We never had health insurance, a family doctor, or even a dentist - so it shouldn't be surprising that I had no idea there was even such thing as a dermatologist - much less that I had ever been to one. So when Meb came to me one day claiming he could remove the bane that was on my face, I was interested. Meb showed me some indistinguishable scars on his face and body where he said he had removed moles. I bought in. He gave me some mixture of - something - and told me to apply it for a day or two and the mole should fall off. He said I may feel a little burning too - and burning I did feel! It felt like battery acid on my face. It burned the area pretty good. Sure enough, the mole came off - along with a good portion of the skin above my upper lip. To this day, Quentin gets a kick out of my experience with "Meb's Remove-A-Mole." The scar has softened, but is still pretty obvious - I'm sure I put too much on - mostly because I hated that mole so much I wanted to make sure it came off and I thought more would work better and faster - plus, for some reason, I thought it would only affect the mole, not the surrounding skin. What can I say, I was an idiot - this was the summer between my freshman and sophomore years, I think.

It's already almost 1:00am now. This post was supposed to be done yesterday (May 7). I do have picts that need to go with this, so I'll post them later after I get them scanned in.