A stroll down memory lane

This quote from an article about how The Pixies got back together reminded me of something similar I had to do in high school.

[Lovering] continues: "My yearbook in high school, they had this thing called Future Ambitions, you wrote when you were 17. And my future ambitions were: 1) to be an electronic engineer - I did do that; 2) to be a rock drummer - I did that; and 3) to tour with Rush. So Pixies and Rush touring together. Then that's it. It's all done."

Pop-quizzes in my English class junior year would involve my teacher announcing about 20 minutes before the end of class, "Clear your desks. Pull out one sheet of notebook paper and a pencil or pen." This was usually followed by a bunch of groans and sighs because the quizzes typically were one page responses to questions about specific ideas, plot points, or characters covered in the readings we should have completed prior to that days class. The only time he changed the format, and unsurprisingly the only quiz topic I can remember, was when he had us write about what we wanted to accomplish in 5 years time and 10 years time. This was completely out of left field and had no ties to any of the themes or topics we were covering in class.

I usually had a tough time creating an angle to attack the quiz questions we would get and this typically left me scrambling after the bell to complete my thoughts but for some reason this question was so easy for me, at 17 years old, to write about. For whatever reason this question really resonated with me at the time and instead of running down the list and checking off all the predictable things you would expect from an AP English student from an affluent high school (go to a nice college, get a nice degree, get a nice job, marry a nice wife, start a nice family) I laid out my real life goals, ambitions, the places I wanted to go, the people I wanted to meet. When the bell rang and everyone started to get their things together and turn their papers in our teacher had us sit back down for a moment. He told us that we wouldn't be turning the paper in because the only person who could grade our papers is ourselves in five or ten years. He suggested that we tuck it away somewhere and forget about it for a few years and dismissed class.

Most of my classmates threw their papers away on the way out but I took his words to heart and put my paper in the back of an old red notebook and hid it away at home. Around the end of 2000 I thought about that assignment and wondered if I could dig up that old red notebook and I was bummed when I could not find it. I would trade all of the crappy awards, newspaper clippings, and trophies that I still have stored at my parents house for that one page paper I wrote. A lot of "life" has happened since I sat in that English class in the spring of 1995. As I take stock in the things I've done, the people that I've met and the places I've been some ten years later I cannot help to wonder how close or far I am from living the life I envisioned then. I wonder if I'd be crossing off all the things I wanted to accomplish like David Lovering did on his list.

Filed in: nostalgia life