92: The One Where Anything Goes

 As our class began our senior year, we arrived with the distinction of never having won anything. I’m honestly not sure we’d even come close, but I could be wrong.  We might have come in second at one of the picnics in previous years.  But I have my doubts.  The class of 92 had not followed the normal trajectory of a class slowly rising to the top of the high school athletic hierarchy.  The juniors below were full of muscled athletes, the sophomores were coming on strong.  The freshmen, I remember little about. But what I know is that we rolled into that gym Saturday night, August 24, 1991 as perennial underdogs. 

Chris Baez, Greg Wedel, J Carlos, Steve Jeffers, and clutching our original "sacred cow" class flag at Forest Lake Academy's, "SA Anything Goes Night" ( I can't make out the person pointing at the "cow."  I think it might Les LeBrun?  I admit this photo is blurry but I looked at the original and I still can't tell)

That night was Forest Lake Academy’s annual Student Association Anything Goes Night, the first school social event of the season. The stakes were decidedly low with the series of silly games that made up the evening of inter-class competition.  Our senior class made a very 90’s move showing up with signs that indicated our utter lack of caring about the outcome of the evening. Greg, Carissa, and I penned most of the signs that made very grungy proclamations like “We’re Seniors and You’re Not”, “At Least We’re Graduating”, and “So What?”  We were very much the anti-senior class, not the big bluff heroes that I recalled from the Class of ‘89 when I was a freshman. Kurt Cobain would have been proud. We had decided to lean into our loser status and declare ourselves winners by virtue of our status as seniors. 

But then something remarkable happened.  Here’s how I recorded it in my journal:

“Tonight was the S.A. Anything Goes Night. It was awesome. Our class kicked butt the whole time. We were all really hyped for our class.  Greg, Carissa and I made signs which we waved quite proudly. Carissa, Stacy, and I went out and toilet-papered Mr. Viar’s car. All in all it was great. . .“

As the games began, we won the first contest, and then the next, and the next. We weren’t just claiming moral victory--we were actually winning.  Amazingly enough our hardscrabble hundred managed to win the night! We couldn’t quite believe it ourselves. We were delirious with joy.  It was a fun night.

I went on to note in my journal that  “There was a lot of violence this year.  A couple of brawls between the Junior and Senior classes and Seniors and Sophomore class, but we still came out on top. . .”  

I actually don’t remember these brawls and I can’t imagine they were that serious. Nobody called the cops or anything. But this too, was our class.  We had that kind of punk attitude and weren’t about to be pushed around by any of the other classes even if they were bigger and stronger than us. With Anything Goes, we’d put everyone on notice that the class of 1992 had arrived and was not to be taken lightly.

We would go on to. . .lose all the other inter-class contests for the rest of the school year.  But you would never know it. Every one of those so-called losses were a massive victory as far as we were concerned.  What we lacked in ability we more than made up for in indomitable spirit.

92: The One about Yesterday

 

Thirty years ago yesterday, August 19, 1991, we began our senior year of high school at Forest Lake Academy.  

Thirty years!  That just seems crazy to me.  It feels like, well, yesterday.  

Let's put this in context.  Lately I've noticed the young folk wearing Nirvana t-shirts, especially the one with the blitzed out, "dead" smiley face. I don't know if it's just a fashion statement or if a new generation is discovering the pleasure of "Lithium" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit."  And it just hit me that Nirvana is to these kids what the Beatles were to us as high school seniors.  An "old" band from another era that some of us had rediscovered.  I was one of those people who started listening to the Beatles my senior year.  They were so old they were cool again.  Nirvana is the Beatles.  And the Beatles?  Well, they'd be like Duke Ellington was to us.  Ancient history. (Incidentally, I started listening to big band music during my senior year also--introduced to it through Harry Connick Jr, and then discovering the original old school swing masters like Duke).

Yesterday. I know some of us don't like to dwell on yesterday.  There's perhaps too much pain there.  "Yesterdays got nothin' for me," like Axl Rose sang.  For others, yesterday is perhaps a place we can't escape from--or maybe don't want to.  And still others of us simply long for yesterday--a simpler, happier time before the pain, responsibility, disappointments, and losses of grown up life.  All of these responses to the past are valid. 

But I believe in yesterday. I believe we can, if we choose, learn from our past. More importantly, I believe that there are relationships that we formed all those years ago that still have value today.  Maybe we've lost touch a bit, but I think going back--rediscovering some of those people that we've let slip away--has some value.  And I don't think it's wise to put it off.  We've lost three so far--Francis, Becky, and most recently Chandra, and one thing is certain:  The next one of us will always be sooner than we think.  You don't want to look back on yesterday and wish you'd reached out when you had the chance.

Between now and May of 2022, I'll be doing a series of blogs about our senior year of high school.  I'll revisit some of the highlights with excerpts from the journals I kept and some reflections on those times. These entries will be posted to our class Facebook page and accompanied by the photos from the albums I made of our senior year.  I'd like to begin that journey with yesterday's journal entry--thirty years ago:

"Monday, August 19, 1991:

Well, here it is, the first day of the last year of high school, my senior year.  The day has left me with mixed feelings.  It was good to see everyone again, particularly tonight at the Handshake but the fact that I was tired plus that fact that it always takes me awhile to readjust to a new daily schedule made the school part not so great.  I survived it all right though.

Pulled in at the old school about 7 this morning, ready to put the shoulder to the grindstone once again.  My first class was English. . .Not much to say there except Mrs. Hopkins is as sweet as ever and I'm out of that class and in to Honors English.  

World History was only slightly better.  Anita, Lisa, Heather Dunkel, Joey Gravell, and Shane were in that class.  Pretty much the same as American History in content.

Bible. . .[I'm not sure how honest I'm going to be in these blog posts. Are the teachers on this page also?  We'll just leave the ellipses for now]. . .Greg and Anita are in that class with me.

I had a free period which I used to switch into Honors English. A & P was the best although the hardest class. I dozed through half of that.

This afternoon I worked and tonight I went to the Handshake and it was one of the best I've ever been to. Talked to a lot of people. Got to know Mark Reams and Jenny Marashi a little better and talked to Eugene Armsted. Good to have him back. [Eugene attended our freshman year, left for two years, and returned for our senior year].  Talked to Chandra tonight a little. . .Okay, I've got to go. A waring to U-classmen & Juniors: Seniors 92 RULE!!!"

And so it began.

And so it begins.

Corona Chronicles: Groundhog Day

 We've been here before.  The surging cases, the overwhelmed hospitals, the pleas to just do the right thing and help stop the spread, the recalcitrant refusal to do anything that might actually help.  It's all so familiar.  Like the  movie, Groundhog Day, we seem doomed to repeat the same cycle over and over until we learn from our mistakes and finally do better.  Forgive me if I'm skeptical that we will ever learn anything. 

And as a result, I find I'm growing tired of writing about this. I've said all there is to say and I have nothing new to add. My final Corona Chronicles blog--at least as a regular entry will be next month.  That will mark a year of monthly chronicles of this seemingly endless pandemic. I may write occasional entries under this series, without the monthly updates on the numbers as the need arises. I honestly thought we'd be in a better place by now--but that too feels like deja vu.  I have repeatedly hoped we were finally getting ahead of this thing, only to have those hopes dashed.

I tend to think things won't happen to me. That's how I ended up breaking my left arm two weeks ago. I was on a ladder that slipped a bit while leaning against the garage roof I was about to clear of moss.  I thought about getting a different, sturdier ladder but then decided I'd be fine.  After all things like falling ladders don't happen to me.  But of course, it did happen to me.  A few minutes later, as I was  descending the ladder, it slipped again, crashing to the driveway and taking me with it. My belief that it won't happen to me failed me.  I tend to feel that I won't get COVID. Because, things don't happen to me. But I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't be so sure.  I just found out a good friend tested positive, after going in to get a test because she'd been feeling under the weather (Groundhog Day again. A year ago another friend tested positive right on the eve of the new school year as well!)  She's vaccinated, making her one of those rare (but not impossible) breakthrough cases.  Getting the call from her tonight, made me think twice about assuming that it can't happen to me.  It can.  Hopefully it won't.  While I don't like this merry-go-round pandemic experience, I don't want the lesson that breaks me out of my own personal Groundhog Day to be that I should have been more careful.

As of today, August 15 there have been 36,684,028  total cases of COVID-19 in the United States.  Another 2,751,878  new cases were added since July 15  This month's numbers represent an average of  an 8% increase in the number of new cases over the past month, and 2,242,896  more than I predicted. There have been 621,051 deaths altogether from COVID-19, with 13,686 of those occurring in the past month. This is a 2.2% monthly increase.  It is also 5,790 more deaths than I predicted.  The Delta contagion is proving ruthless in its onslaught of our, unmasked, sort of vaccinated nation. I'm hoping that we are reaching the peak of this surge and will see a drop-off in cases and deaths in the coming month.

 

If this rate of increase continues at its current pace, I  would expect 39,618,750 total cases by September 15 and 634,714 deaths.  

Cases are skyrocketing in all of our benchmark states, with Florida and Hawaii showing the most increase. Both states have obliterated their previous peaks. While Ohio, Illinois and Nebraska have showed big jumps in cases, at least their rate of increase remains in single digits and all under 5%.

Total Cases:

Florida: 2,877,393 total cases, 494,325  of which were new cases in the past month, an increase of 21%. This is 408,535  more cases than I predicted.  Prediction: Florida will reach 3,481,646 total cases by September 15, 2021

Ohio: 1,157,782 total cases, with 42,540 new cases being added over the past month. The rate of increase rose to 3.8%. This is 34,733 more cases than I predicted. Prediction: Ohio will have 1,201,778 total cases by September 15, 2021. 

Nebraska: 233,403 total cases, of which 7,803 are new cases, an increase of 3.5%. This is 5,998 more cases than I predicted: Prediction: 241,572 total cases by September 15, 2021. 

Hawaii: 48,376 total cases, an average of 11,201 new cases last month, an increase of  30%. This is  9,752 more cases than I predicted. Prediction: 62,889 total cases by September 15, 2021

Illinois: 1,462,088 total cases, 59,564 new cases, an increase of  4%. This is 48,344 more cases than I predicted. Prediction:  1,520,571 total cases by September 15, 2021

Only two states-Ohio and Illinois-have continued to see a decline in their percent of increase in deaths.  Thankfully, all the percents of increase in deaths are below 10%. Hopefully this continues to support the theory that while the Delta variant is more contagious, it is not more deadly.

Total Deaths

Florida: 40,766 total deaths, of which  2,484 are new deaths in the past month, an increase of 6.5%. This is 1,413 more deaths than I forecast. Prediction: 43,415 total deaths by September 15, 2021.

Ohio: 20,614 total deaths, of which 203 are new deaths, an increase of 1%. This is 123 deaths fewer than I predicted.  Prediction: 20,820 deaths by  September 15, 2021. 

Nebraska: 2,564 total deaths. This includes 29 new deaths, an increase of  1.1%. This is an average of 12 more deaths than I predicted. Prediction: 2,592 total deaths by September 15, 2021. 

Hawaii: 545 total deaths,  including 27 new deaths in the past month, an increase of 5%. This is 12 more deaths than I forecast.  Prediction: 561 total deaths by September 15, 2021.

Illinois: 26,092 total deaths, 289 new deaths, an increase of 1.1%. This 21 fewer deaths than I predicted. Prediction: 26,353 total deaths by September 15, 2021.