October

I have to point out from time to time that it is completely random which month I write about… half of the time, I flip a coin, with heads meaning that I write from the most recent four year period (ie.

I don’t remember a thing.

Where were you in October 1981?

I was in 7th grade, and had recently auditioned for, and cast in, the Junior High Drama Club’s inaugural production of The Wizard of Oz. I was to play the Wizard. The play quickly became my new social group and, between that and band, I must have asked five or six girls to go out with me.

Actually, for a moment of overlap… at the very end of September I vaccumed and finish cleaning out my house in Flint, met with the landlord and retrieved the deposit, and said goodbye to the 1600 block of Maryland Ave. I renewed my license, spent the night at my parents, and the next day my dad drove be down to Chicago.

I remember essentially nothing.

I was six years old and in 1st grade at the Valley School, in Gail’s class, and finally taking a few steps toward reading. Steps further into arithmetic. I would have been into dinosaurs, and drawing a lot of pictures of them, but I was also increasingly fascinated by space travel.

September 1999 had been a big month. I want to say that October began a few days after my Flint friends – Josh, Sarah, Sam, Mitch, and Bree – had headed home and I went down to the Pit for a ginger ale with Cynthia and Armand.

In October, 1987.

I don’t remember anything about October, 1987, really.

Actually, I do think I can scare up at least one memory with some reliability:

I would (I believe) have been a Wolf Scout in Cub Scouts in Flushing. This means that this would have been the month where I fell victim to an overactive imagination and got scared by thoughts of the headless horseman at a pumpkin carving Cub Scout meeting.

The randomization of these accounts of months has been weird lately… they almost seem to be pointing toward an actual narrative.

If you like you can pick up here from September 1995, and the huge house-wrecking party described at the end of that entry actually happened in October.