APPLEHEAD

-Edward Young

‘Don’t go on looking at me like that, because you’ll wear your eyes out.’

-Emile Zola

Most of us met at Liberty High School before we moved up to the North Coast. I don’t know if it was ever intentional, this migration of sorts; the area seemed attractive and the schools were affordable.

Jake took me to the library at Liberty to show me the book about Booneville and the Boontling language. We both read volumes of books, so this at the time did not seem too unusual to me. At the time, it seemed like an extension of his interest in psychology. That’s when I learned of Boontling.

This was before Josh would talk my ear off about Bethany’s beauty, when he was shy about normal situations like love, but not nudity. Let me explain. Josh became a good friend of mine through Jake before the Mono record, before his briefs would become a regular visitor and familiar sight on the Arcata party circuit, before we would lend money back and forth while in college. Josh is the type of friend you can depend on when the chips are down. Josh was the type of person you could also expect to do crazy things at parties. I have seen his underwear more times than I could count, but I’ve never kissed him.

It was around the time Crossroads was airing in Liberty on Friday mornings that Garrett began hosting shows at the Butterfly café. It was like the Placebo, in décor. His parents let us use their remodeled garage for shows, due to lack of public venue for the younger bands in our part of the East Bay Area. I remember it being drug free, like the placebo.

Landon would win the Oliver K. Bascom award for his short story that year. I won it the next.

Garrett and his friends voted themselves into the Young Republicans club positions of President, VP, etc. etc. to the chagrin of my brother and his friends. Garrett Kelly became the Homecoming King when Jake and a handful of people tricked the homecoming committee; they voted again and again in favor of Garrett. Josh went to the dance with a blow up doll, refusing to dance with anyone else.

Jenny Bradley and I had met in a class taught by my favorite teacher, Rusty Erlich. He had earned his teaching credentials at HSU, then dilly dallied a little longer in the North Coast milking cows to maintain a pleasant lifestyle. We shared the same interest in road cycling years before Armstrong became nationally renown. We also, later, shared finding our jobs in the East Bay when I returned. My favorite bicycle ride was along Jane‘s Creek Road to the Arcata bottoms towards Mad river and the ocean beach. There is a side road bicycle accessible only to Mckinleyville and Trinidad that is gorgeous.

Garrett’s parents and my parents were familiar with each other through my mom‘s practice and my father‘s work with the city. My mother started her veterinarian practice when I was twelve, returning to college in her 30‘s when my dad‘s health began to go downhill. If she hadn’t had her practice when my dad passed away, I don’t know where my family may have been.

Of the many jobs I had while in college, I was a caregiver. My mother was a caregiver before she went back to college. A Freudian slip, at times I would say ’caretaker’ instead of ’caregiver.’ There is a reason. Before she went back to school, my mom was a caregiver. A couple times, when her clients weren’t responding to her calls and their door was locked, she would have to break into their home to see if they were ok. Usually, if they didn’t respond, they had passed away.

Although I was familiar with the majority of people from the Brentwood area, it was not until we moved to the North Coast that we became friends. However, I had seen Garrett lick honey off of a punk rocker, Josh and Landon drunker than skunks, Jake sharing his beautiful writing, and Jenny showing signs of exploding into a social butterfly before then. Landon had, as I recall, a most exceptional GPA.

As much as I have seen these people change, I still see them as I had in high school. By the time a person is 18, their personality is pretty much what it always will be. Generally, I feel everyone is on the up and up, but I found I didn’t set the bar too high for myself when I lived in the North Coast. I’ve changed that since I’ve moved back. I’m no better than I used to be, my priorities have just changed.

It is difficult to talk of everyone without talking of myself a bit too, to find a point of reference with which to map outward. While we were a good group of friends, I think we were all caught up in our own personal drama too. I admit, I was hard to be a friend to, and tended to isolate myself at times.

In many ways, our stories are intertwined, and as much as we have diverged and carried on with our own lives, we still seem to carry a bit of each other with us; if not in memory, then in spirit. I think of our group with love. Without play, without being engaged, there is no learning. So, let’s have some fun!