An answering machine greeting I'll never forget
One of my good friends as a kid, one of my closest early friends who I can really say “I grew up with him,” was a kid named Will. I can remember so much about him and his house and family. I haven't seen any of them in 25 years.
We were tight from first grade through eighth when his family moved to Pittsburgh, partly thanks to the reading-level groups Mrs. Reilly formed around the time he got to town. Then we saw each other once or twice after that through church youth group summer trips. I reflect now, literally just now as I write this, on how his parents must have organized their schedules and logistics so Will could come up to Corning for a few nights before he left town again with our friends for thrilling Presbyterian gatherings in North Carolina or Indiana. (Neither of us was particularly pious, and like many youth groups, most of us were there for social reasons more than theological ones.)
The family's answering machine greeting, in his 7-year-old voice, is seared into my long-term memory storage. The entire time they lived in town, it was the same: “Hello there, this is [their number, seven digits]. We're not home, we're probably at the mall. [Here, an echo effect kicks in] Please leave a message after you hear the funny tone, bye!”
I can't even estimate how many nights I slept over at Will's. Many times, just the two of us but also group sleepovers with Brian, Pat, and maybe another boy. The house was built into part of a hill, a short walk from our elementary school. The basement was on the same plane as the driveway. Will's two(!) play rooms, including TV and video games, were the entire basement. Despite ample space, we definitely goofed off in the furnace room too. The main floor had the kitchen and presumably a living room that I can't remember ever being in. Where did his parents watch TV? The top floor had at least Will's room with bunk beds. Where was his parents' bedroom? When his sisters were born, where did they sleep? It didn't matter to my times hanging out with him, so I don't know. One of the main reasons I visit Zillow is to see if their house ever gets listed: do I even remember it well? I haven't seen it pop up yet. After two years of this habit, I discovered I wasn't actually sure where, on a map, the house sits.
One memorable sleepover, we stayed up until 5am: playing Sega Genesis, gorging ourselves on pizza and cookies and root beer, and looking at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books. We finally let ourselves go to sleep around 5:30, then woke up at 11. We'd hoped to see The Addams Family at Crystal Cinema but it was sold out or we'd just missed it, and so we saw Kindergarten Cop. I cried when Arnold Schwarzenegger read from When We Were Very Young. My mom had had A Talk with me beforehand when the topic of the Addams Family came up. She wanted to make sure I understood that the movies would have some "dark humor" in it. In my laying out the weekend in question here, I tried to remember if we'd watched Wayne's World the night before, and I've discovered that the timeline for ALL of this now makes very little sense. For one thing, it's unlikely that The Addams Family and Kindergarten Cop were in the theater on the same weekend. For another, on the Wayne's World front, perhaps we saw it as a sketch on Saturday Night Live, one of my first viewings of the show? I may eventually look into this via microfilm at my hometown library, but don't get your hopes up, unless you'd like to offer me a MacArthur Fellowship to research my childhood movie times.
Will and I chatted via AIM & email a few times in high school and didn't keep up beyond about 1999. My very first class of college, I randomly sat next to a nice young woman who had gone to high school with him outside Pittsburgh. He's not on social media, though I've seen his wife tagged in things by a mutual childhood friend. At some point, I heard he became an airplane mechanic. I think of his parents when I see vanity license plates. I think of him when I hear the phrase "Let's blow this popsicle stand." I wonder what he remembers of seeing Kindergarten Cop.
Fast forward from the 1990s to January & February of 2023!
Reading: I read the lovely pair of YA novels Okay for Now and The Wednesday Wars via audiobook. I highly recommend both. Props to Martha Cooney for introducing me to them. I learned about a particular bumper sticker format that I've been curious about. I meditate about the value of bad coffee. My dad was fond of certain platitudes, like the one about whether things are okay in the end. I can't get enough thinkpieces about how music and its distribution have changed since I was coming of age. And I finally learned that "Killing Me Softly with His Song" was neither originally by Roberta Flack nor about Don McLean's "American Pie."
Eating: The pizza spot in town I'm most excited to try again is Dough Head. I went away for a weekend devoured the deservedly-ballyhooed Turkey & The Wolf sandwiches in New Orleans, and ate/drank several other delicious meals there, then shortly thereafter bopped over to Las Vegas for, among other indulgences, the strange experience that is the Caesar's Palace Bacchanal Buffet. (My spicy take: All the foods available there are done better in South Philly.) More enjoyable on the Strip: China Poblano. On the homefront, I've been making a powdered chai mix again. Kelsey & I got delivery pierogies from Mom-Mom's. I took a donut tour of Center City Philadelphia and enjoyed a slice of Paulie Gee's pizza afterwards. Soul & Busan has been popping up again, and has more fun in the works behind the scenes, eyeballs emoji! And, most excitedly, Kelsey and some friends bought up a private room for the Pizzeria Beddia hoagie omakase experience. The finest versions of familiar sandwiches, served in luxurious ways.
Beating: I revisited the weirdness that is the Grateful Dead's/John Oswald's Grayfolded mashup album. We listened to the new Sza album on repeat. I considered Don McLean's self-titled and Carole King's Tapestry albums for quiet winter moments. "Neil's Lawyer" Rob and I reveled in hearing Caroline Shaw and So Percussion in concert. A complex set of tips inspired me to sit down with the old Ben Folds Five album The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. Kelsey gifted me the Live Phish app for the holidays and I've been diving deep into mid-90s jams. I unearthed a 2006-era mixtape called Riot Control 8 from my hard drive and I can't track anything down about its original source! (There's also 10, 11, and probably others lurking if you want those.)
We were tight from first grade through eighth when his family moved to Pittsburgh, partly thanks to the reading-level groups Mrs. Reilly formed around the time he got to town. Then we saw each other once or twice after that through church youth group summer trips. I reflect now, literally just now as I write this, on how his parents must have organized their schedules and logistics so Will could come up to Corning for a few nights before he left town again with our friends for thrilling Presbyterian gatherings in North Carolina or Indiana. (Neither of us was particularly pious, and like many youth groups, most of us were there for social reasons more than theological ones.)
The family's answering machine greeting, in his 7-year-old voice, is seared into my long-term memory storage. The entire time they lived in town, it was the same: “Hello there, this is [their number, seven digits]. We're not home, we're probably at the mall. [Here, an echo effect kicks in] Please leave a message after you hear the funny tone, bye!”
I can't even estimate how many nights I slept over at Will's. Many times, just the two of us but also group sleepovers with Brian, Pat, and maybe another boy. The house was built into part of a hill, a short walk from our elementary school. The basement was on the same plane as the driveway. Will's two(!) play rooms, including TV and video games, were the entire basement. Despite ample space, we definitely goofed off in the furnace room too. The main floor had the kitchen and presumably a living room that I can't remember ever being in. Where did his parents watch TV? The top floor had at least Will's room with bunk beds. Where was his parents' bedroom? When his sisters were born, where did they sleep? It didn't matter to my times hanging out with him, so I don't know. One of the main reasons I visit Zillow is to see if their house ever gets listed: do I even remember it well? I haven't seen it pop up yet. After two years of this habit, I discovered I wasn't actually sure where, on a map, the house sits.
One memorable sleepover, we stayed up until 5am: playing Sega Genesis, gorging ourselves on pizza and cookies and root beer, and looking at Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic books. We finally let ourselves go to sleep around 5:30, then woke up at 11. We'd hoped to see The Addams Family at Crystal Cinema but it was sold out or we'd just missed it, and so we saw Kindergarten Cop. I cried when Arnold Schwarzenegger read from When We Were Very Young. My mom had had A Talk with me beforehand when the topic of the Addams Family came up. She wanted to make sure I understood that the movies would have some "dark humor" in it. In my laying out the weekend in question here, I tried to remember if we'd watched Wayne's World the night before, and I've discovered that the timeline for ALL of this now makes very little sense. For one thing, it's unlikely that The Addams Family and Kindergarten Cop were in the theater on the same weekend. For another, on the Wayne's World front, perhaps we saw it as a sketch on Saturday Night Live, one of my first viewings of the show? I may eventually look into this via microfilm at my hometown library, but don't get your hopes up, unless you'd like to offer me a MacArthur Fellowship to research my childhood movie times.
Will and I chatted via AIM & email a few times in high school and didn't keep up beyond about 1999. My very first class of college, I randomly sat next to a nice young woman who had gone to high school with him outside Pittsburgh. He's not on social media, though I've seen his wife tagged in things by a mutual childhood friend. At some point, I heard he became an airplane mechanic. I think of his parents when I see vanity license plates. I think of him when I hear the phrase "Let's blow this popsicle stand." I wonder what he remembers of seeing Kindergarten Cop.
Fast forward from the 1990s to January & February of 2023!
Reading: I read the lovely pair of YA novels Okay for Now and The Wednesday Wars via audiobook. I highly recommend both. Props to Martha Cooney for introducing me to them. I learned about a particular bumper sticker format that I've been curious about. I meditate about the value of bad coffee. My dad was fond of certain platitudes, like the one about whether things are okay in the end. I can't get enough thinkpieces about how music and its distribution have changed since I was coming of age. And I finally learned that "Killing Me Softly with His Song" was neither originally by Roberta Flack nor about Don McLean's "American Pie."
Eating: The pizza spot in town I'm most excited to try again is Dough Head. I went away for a weekend devoured the deservedly-ballyhooed Turkey & The Wolf sandwiches in New Orleans, and ate/drank several other delicious meals there, then shortly thereafter bopped over to Las Vegas for, among other indulgences, the strange experience that is the Caesar's Palace Bacchanal Buffet. (My spicy take: All the foods available there are done better in South Philly.) More enjoyable on the Strip: China Poblano. On the homefront, I've been making a powdered chai mix again. Kelsey & I got delivery pierogies from Mom-Mom's. I took a donut tour of Center City Philadelphia and enjoyed a slice of Paulie Gee's pizza afterwards. Soul & Busan has been popping up again, and has more fun in the works behind the scenes, eyeballs emoji! And, most excitedly, Kelsey and some friends bought up a private room for the Pizzeria Beddia hoagie omakase experience. The finest versions of familiar sandwiches, served in luxurious ways.
Beating: I revisited the weirdness that is the Grateful Dead's/John Oswald's Grayfolded mashup album. We listened to the new Sza album on repeat. I considered Don McLean's self-titled and Carole King's Tapestry albums for quiet winter moments. "Neil's Lawyer" Rob and I reveled in hearing Caroline Shaw and So Percussion in concert. A complex set of tips inspired me to sit down with the old Ben Folds Five album The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. Kelsey gifted me the Live Phish app for the holidays and I've been diving deep into mid-90s jams. I unearthed a 2006-era mixtape called Riot Control 8 from my hard drive and I can't track anything down about its original source! (There's also 10, 11, and probably others lurking if you want those.)
Deleting: After the holidays, it seemed time to do a bunch of household cleanup, including but not limited to sorting out some household hazardous waste, Obama-era paint cans and such. My friend Hannah de Keijzer helped me rethink my home office setup, and you can hire her too for your workzone! I also parted with some lonely socks. It's already time for another such process.
Retreating: Yes, I went to Vegas & New Orleans, but I also came down with COVID for the first time (surprisingly perhaps, NOT linked to those trips!) and watched a lot of Emma Cruises videos during my infection. Thank God for vaccines and the scientists who've gotten us this far in the pandemic.
Meeting: I talked about my funeral plans and high school physics homework with Chicago comedian Dave Maher for his podcast This Is Your Afterlife. This spring you can also hear me on episodes of Rotten Treasure and (un)common good -- these have been recorded already and the timing is delightful for each series in different ways. Go subscribe now to all those. I'll be onstage for the next First Person Arts storyslam as the scorekeeper. And you can find out at the start of each month where my Broad Street Review colleagues and I are popping up if you subscribe to our newsletters: In The Wild previews our plans around Philadelphia, what concerts and theater experiences we're heading to.
Who were your best friends in first grade, and where are they now?
Neil
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