Part 2...Adolescence

If you have not yet read part 1, please do it first then read part 2. Thanks.

So with the sirens of the roller-skating rink firmly in my past, I set my sights forward to a bright and hopeful future. I thought I would be playing games every day of my life, but then 6th grade came, age 12, and life changed once again.

Long past were the Atari days of playing Asteroids, a new game system had exploded onto the market, the Nintendo something or other. I didn't have enough money to buy it, and at my partents urging I became more active in after-school activities with real, live, human beings.

I learned that I could play basketball. The first game I played in 6th grade was against our cross-town, bitter rival of the South side. Us North-siders had an air of superiority in us, no doubt, but I always tried to remain humble. I was still very shy and did not like to show off, that is until that first basketball game. The first 10 times that the other team had the ball I promptly stole it and dribbled down to our basket to lay the ball up and in. We ended up winning something like 56-6. And I think I scored 50 of our points.

I had no idea I was this good. I was alwasy bigger and stronger and faster than everyone else my age, I just never thought of using it against people. But I did...and it was great.

Obviously we made it to the championship game against the schoole we first beat 56-6, butunfortunately the game was only presided over by our coach and one other adult somewhere in the gym. The other team's coach wasn't even at the game and kids from their school were running the scoreboard. They played fiercly that game, trying to do everything they could to stay way from me and my Rogue-like hands of thievery. But every now and then I would look up at the scoreboard in the middle of a play and see a point or two added here and there.

I kept mentioning it to people but nobody wanted to listen. By the time we were done we had lost by 4 points. We should have beaten them by 10, at least, but the scoreboard showed that we lost. They got the trophy, and we were shamed.

I was mad, I still am, and I soon channeled that anger into my work to get better and sports. Games fell by the wayside, I became an All-State baseball and baskektball player by my junior year of high school. Everything was falling into place, I was on the verge of college athletic scholorships and all-around notariety.

Then I went to basketball camp in the summer of my junior year. During a scrimmage game on the outdoor courts I was pushed into the pole that holds up the backboard and heard a "CRACK". Yes, that was my kneecap hitting the solid, very sturdy, metal pole. Water built up in my knee within the hour, a crack formed in my patella, it was a very serious injury.

Having to leave early I came home dejected and sad at what that could mean for my Senior season. But fate stepped in once again. A friend who took pity on my situation spent day after day talking to me and helping me to cope with the possibility of not being able to play basketball that year. One night at her house we started to sign a Boyz-2-Men song in her living room, we were that comfortable with each other, and Bozy-2-Men were the hottest thing on the planet at the time. She said that I had a nice voice and should try out for the school choir. After much thought I dropped my physics class and took up singing. I couldn't play sports because I couldn't walk straight for 8 months. So I sang.

By the time I was done with High School I had gone from a gamer, to a jock, to a musician. I had sang in musicals and played in AAU competition. My life in the gaming world was non-existant. I also had an opportunity to live and study in South America, learn to speak fluent Castellano (that's the Spanish spoken in Argentina). My life chagned completely, games were a thing of childhood, trivial and time consuming. A waste.

My life was set, I started to study commercial real estate with the hopes of buying and owing my own community theater one day. I met a beautiful woman, once again employing all my powers of cuteness on here, and we married and had two perfect boys. Then things changed again, I grew up, and Part 3 of my journey commenced.

Stay tuned.