A Friend For Life

Starting grade 6 was a pretty big deal. I was in a new school, there were a lot of new unfamiliar faces and everyone seemed so concerned about fitting in, unlike grade school where we were dirt ball kids who didn't care about our appearance or being apart of some form of group. I used to roll to school with bed head on a daily basis, but now I was showering every morning to avoid ridicule. I was very interested in girls so I had to bring my "A" game with me  if I had any chance with the ladies. 

Continuing the previous trend, I was once again the class clown in my new school, saying and doing whatever I could to get a laugh out of my class mates. Needless to say I was sent out in the hall a lot or forced to sit behind blockers, large partitions that isolated you from the rest of the students. There was a very friendly girl who say behind me named Dorothea Myer. One day while wearing my Twisted Sister shirt, she started talking to me about music. Apparently her older brother Mike listened to all the same bands I did, I assumed he must have been a cool dude. I didn't know it at the time but many years later her brother would be one of my best friends and band mates. 

For halloween that year I decided to be a boxer. I wore shorts, shoes, boxing gloves and a robe. My sister did some makeup on me to give the appearance of a black eye. There was a boy in my class named Jerry. Him and I were the 2 biggest kids in the class and our height and frames were virtually identical. I can remember thinking he would be the only boy in the class who could give me a run for my money in a fight. On Halloween day Jerry asked if he could see one of my boxing gloves, I obliged in a friendly manner and handed him one.

The next thing I knew he put the glove on and started punching himself in the face with it! All the kids were laughing hysterically including myself. Amazingly it seemed like the punches weren't even phasing him, confirming my suspicions of him being a tough kid, not to mention a fellow class clown like myself. Jerry and I hadn't really talked much in class before that day, but now we had bonded in a strange way and had become friends.

jerry in "toys r us" circa 87/88

Jerry ended up being my best friend in that class and we would unknowingly go on to be best friends and band mates in the future. To this present day we are still best of buds and I couldn't of asked for a better friend. Jerry would literally give me the shirt off of his back, and be there for me anytime anywhere in any given situation.

A lot of people graduate school and never see their supposed best friends ever again. People get jobs, wives, families, and then drift apart from each other. We've had times in our lives where we weren't joined at the hip, but now over 25 years later we are still the very best of friends. Our loyalty and commitment to each other is undying even though we both have our own busy lives to manage. Friendships like this are one in a million and I wouldn't change that for the world...