Friends and Nerds

Sometime in my junior high years I began to experience herding. Gaggles of folks began to herd together based on shared characteristics. The herds I was familiar with included but were not limited to: – geeks - nerds – athletes – farmers – beautiful people – misfits – band members I was in the nerd group and the band group - a band nerd.

Fellow members of the nerd group were Pat Sullivan, James Cole, Brad Norton, Dennis Epps, Mary Burns, Judy Walker and Jan Mickle. On the edge of the nerd group were Mike Brown and Guy Youngblood.

In junior high we typically spent time before school and during lunch hour in the library, We took turns reading science fiction and discussing books.

At this time I was a member of the science fiction book club. As a member I received a sci-fi book every month and I typically read and shared them. Favorite authors were Heinlein, Asimov, Clark… I still like sci-fi, but am more selective in my reading. Our knowledge of space, the planets and the moon has grown substantially since the mid-50’s and most of the youth sci-fi premises have fallen.

One of my favorites from that time was Have Spacesuit Will Travel by Heinlein. The title is probably a take off from a popular TV series of the era Have Gun Will Travel. Anyhow this kid discovers a used space suit and ends up on the moon. Oh, well.

Today in 2020, of the original 7 of us only three are alive. Both Brad and James perished by their own hands in the early 70s. Patrick, my best friend in the high school years, died of a burst aneurism in the 90s. And Dennis died of Alzheimers only a few years ago.

Side Note: Patrick married the mother of his date to our wedding. Aggie was at least 20 years older than Patrick and they were happy together.

Back on the herd stuff. I was not athletic. I tried out for little league when I was in 4th or 5th grade and could not make a team.

Poor reflexes and less than great hand eye coordination were limiting factors. So I was not in the athlete herd and pretty much disdained jocks.

I wasn’t chosen for the beautiful people herd. This puzzles me now when I look back at school photos of who was and who was not considered beautiful. I guess I see through the physical beauty to the souls of the folks and think we kinda got it wrong back then.