Book of Days

Corduroy and elbow patches?
How did the ladies resist me?
Some how they managed.

Being a military brat, I spent the first twenty years of my life moving every thousand days. Between Kindergarten and Senior year, I attended eight different schools in two states and one foreign country. Always being the new guy, I came into the parade of new cities, schools, and military bases carrying this gnawing feeling that everyone around me knew something I didn’t. No one else seemed unsure, tentative, or insecure, like me. They were in on the joke, they knew what was going on and what to do. While I was an outsider, always floundering to keep up, looking for a way to fit in, for the place where I belonged. So there was this constant underlying sense that I was missing out on something that everyone else had.

My Big-Wheel was metal, my lunchbox was Tupperware, I got the Member’s Only jacket and parachute pants a half-size too small, and just as they were on their way out. My Izod Lacoste shirts were hand-me-downs from other families. In 10th grade, my Nikes were actually Pro-Wings with the tags cut off and the swoosh traced on and filled in with a sharpie. I pulled that off for almost a year before anyone noticed. In short, I perpetually felt less-than. Left out.

8th Grade Prom at the Parco Azzurro Ristorante Il Pentolone

As an adult, I realize that many of these perceived shortcomings growing up were caused by financial difficulties our family was going through that I was too young to understand or even realize were occurring. My parents co-signed a loan for a trusted family friend who got into drugs and welshed on the deal and made off with the Jeep. While we were stationed overseas in Naples, Italy, our home in Long Beach, CA was rented out to a charlatan who sub-let it to other tenants, who then became squatters while he stole their rent, sending the house to the brink of foreclosure. In the face of these things, name brand clothes are obviously petty concerns. But in their wisdom, my parents largely shielded us from the stress of those financial problems, and so the lack of vital social accoutrements seemed like capricious withholding, instead. One of the paramount injustices in all of human history, obviously.

One of the things I missed out on was the yearbook for my 7th grade class, ’83-’84. When I saw them being unpacked and distributed to all the other kids in school, my heart was filled with jealousy. It was the most beautiful work of art I’d ever seen. The front and back covers were embossed! What manner of sorcery was this? It looked exactly like a brick wall, with all the yearbook titles in spray-painted graffiti on the cover, all in our school colors. So cool! As they were being passed around for autographs and fond messages before we left for summer, I resolved in my heart never to let myself be left out like that again. And I never was, I collected each and every yearbook since then, but none of them were ever as good as the one that got away. 

Not even close.

So that one stayed with me all of these years, added to the small list of similar juvenile longings that I never outgrew. One of those little regrets you carry with you through life, no big deal in the scheme of things, really. I know everybody has those things, because my wife still laments the lack of an E-Z Bake Oven and Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine in her life. In addition to the yearbook, my own list included things like Kenner’s Imperial Walker from Empire Strikes Back, Mattel’s Magic 8-Ball, and a set of those wind-up chattering teeth that jump all over.

But then one day, in my early forties, a buddy of mine gave me that Magic 8-Ball as a gag gift and I discovered something. You know how all those things that you build up in your mind never seem to live up to expectations when they finally arrive in reality? Well, the 8-Ball totally did! It scratched an age-old itch and made for a great conversation starter sitting on my desk at work. After that, I decided to further test my theory and I bought a set of those wind-up teeth from Amazon. When they arrived, I set them out on the conference table at a morning staff meeting, and they totally killed. It made for a nice little icebreaker, and now I wind them up and let them jump all over my desk whenever I’m on hold for a work call. Surprisingly, this, too lived up to the hype.

Fast forward to last week. I was chatting with a couple of ‘89 classmates from my days in Italy, about the 8th grade Prom photos they’d unearthed during some attic spelunking in this lockdown. I mentioned that I’d always regretted not ordering this particular yearbook at the time, and so missing a little piece of my life’s history, especially of such a unique time and place in the world. One of them, my dearest friend Lisa, immediately did a quick search and came up with an eBay link to this little jewel. It had never once occurred to me to even try searching for it. I bought it on the spot!

Mail Call!

At long last, I would hold in my hands something that I’d coveted for thirty-six years! I was filled with real child-like happiness as I waited with baited breath for the postman to bring a treasure to me, previously believed completely unobtainable. And, true to form, it lived up to the hype. It felt exactly like I thought it would, holding all the nostalgic mystique of an actual trip through time. I perfectly recalled the moment that they were passed out to the class, on a Ferry during the class trip to Ischia at the end of 7th grade. I could almost smell the salt air of the Tyrrhenian Sea, and see all the faces of my classmates, satisfied and fulfilled by the magic Book of Days in a way I could hitherto only imagine.

Of course, I knew that I’d be purchasing a used copy. This isn’t exactly the kind of thing they make re-prints of, so I expected to find it filled with autographs and messages telling the former owner to stay cool, keep in touch, have a great summer, etc. All the earnest platitudes we dash off when we’re headed on to the next thing, when there could be mere hours left in our associations with people we may never see again. In the world of a military brat, there was just no way of knowing. 

As I awaited the arrival of that wondrous tome, I wondered who the original owner would turn out to be. Obviously, we were both brats, of similar age and station in life, both finding ourselves on the far side of the globe from our homes, in the exotic land of empires and ruins. Were we classmates, contemporaries, enemies? Was this one of the jock assholes that had stuffed me into a locker? Maybe one of the girls who had rebuffed my awkward, tentative advances? Perhaps an old ally with whom I’d traded comic books, or wiled away summer nights at sleepovers, maybe blowing shit up with firecrackers.

It turns out that it had belonged to a senior named Eric Lovett. He was known to me by reputation only, as our five year age-difference might dictate. He was a former football star, but otherwise I had little idea of who he was, or how I came to find his yearbook up for auction. A treasure I would surely never have released into the world to be hawked by some grubby eBay collector who specialized in random yearbooks and other high school memorabilia from around the country. 

I wondered if Eric might have come on hard times and sold some of his belongings, a situation that I can unfortunately empathize with, as I’ve parted with various stereo components and numerous different CD collections and over the years to make ends meet. I think I’ve re-bought The Cure’s Disintegration album five or six times over. It also occurred to me that perhaps, more tragic still, Eric had met an untimely demise, and this miraculous find from across the world was part and parcel of an estate sale.

Star Crossed and long lost. Alas.

As I was perusing the yearbook, looking at old photos of myself, my classmates, best buddies, bullies, and secret crushes, I came across a space in the autograph section that said it was reserved for a girl named Beth. I well recall reserving sections in my yearbook for those dearest to me back in the day, so I knew that whoever Beth was, she must have been someone special to Eric. Turns out that was a bit of an understatement. Because what followed was one of the most sincere and plainspoken declarations of love that I’ve ever read. Suddenly, I felt like I was trespassing in someone else’s story, or had illicitly read some stranger’s journal and found myself embarrassed by an intimacy I should not have witnessed.

So I went onto a half-dozen different Naples American High School sites I belong to on FB and posted about the find. I quickly discovered that FB would let me tag Eric, which meant that he was still alive and kicking. So I posted a few pics and a little history of the find, which lead to a lot of people, including Eric, chiming in about their yearbooks, their regrets, their wins-losses, and the old glory-days. Someone even figured out who Beth was and invited her to join in. I sent her a PM picture of the message she’d left for Eric and she told me the rest of the story.

It went about how you’d expect a tale of young love to go. Most of us don’t marry our first love or our high school sweetheart, and that becomes even more unlikely when you’re a military brat, living like a rolling stone, always on the move to the next place you’ll be from. She wrote those words in all sincerity, but ultimately broke Eric’s heart after they were separated by another move that summer. A pain she still regrets inflicting to this day. In the end, both of them are happily married and life has moved on pleasantly for all involved. Just one of those things you carry with you, I guess.

It turns out that Eric simply lost this—and a batch of other yearbooks and high school memorabilia—during one of the many moves that a military brat endures throughout their tumbleweed existence. Since I’m currently living in house number twenty-two, I can well empathize with the attrition of beloved belongings, evaporating into the ether where all the dryer socks now live. So I contacted Eric privately and have arranged to send the yearbook along to him next week. After I’ve had a chance to read it some more, take some pictures of the pictures, draw a moustache on Mr. Arena and black out a couple of his teeth. Clutch it while I rock myself in the fetal position. You know, completely normal human stuff like that.

The Book of Days. And what days they were.

It was nice to hold a piece of our shared history in my hands again, especially from a time and place in life that has so powerfully defined who I am. But it didn't seem very sporting to keep it when I know what that kind of loss and regret feels like, all too well. It’s really a part of someone else’s story, and I'd never want to be the kind of person who clutches at things that we're only meant to enjoy for a time as they pass through our lives. As it is, it set off a very satisfying chain of events and conversations with some cool people, which in turn seems to have completed the circuit and silenced the voice telling me that I missed out on something. And that’s the kind of thing you can’t buy for love or money.