Fond adolescent memories

Tom Pinney

Going back to a place you left over a decade ago is like running into someone you dated over a decade ago but it ended badly.

It’s a little awkward, you almost don’t recognize them at first. Then, when you do, the lights come on upstairs and you just remember everything great about what you had, maybe do some “what if” thinking, and then you just go back to real life, grateful for the memories.

The interesting event is when you go to a place you left over a decade ago and run into someone you dated over a decade ago, but it didn’t really have a clear “end.”

My grandmother’s memorial service was held in my grandfather’s church in Las Cruces, New Mexico last Saturday, and since the cheapest flights I could get while minimizing time away from work had me leaving Thursday and returning late Monday, I got a chance to take a mini-vacation.

The story begins when my body wakes me up at an unusual time in an unusual place last Friday morning – 5:30 a.m. in a borrowed room in west El Paso. (Don’t worry, the place was planned.)

My internal clock was still set on Central time, and since I usually wake up at 6:30 a.m. – a half-hour before my alarm – my body was waking me up at 5:30 Mountain time.

So I went back to sleep for an hour or so, before slowly getting ready and heading out for the day. Though I wanted to see a few people and places, I had one main goal – to find a picture of myself.

I went to Americas High School for one year, and in that year, I was not only the first freshman from Americas to make it into the Texas Music Educators Association All-State Choir, but I was the first freshman from our area to do it. What that meant was, in ninth grade, I had my picture put up on the wall of the cafeteria. I wanted to see if it was still there.

As I drove through El Paso, I was flooded with memories of being in this city in my adolescence, and it all looked like there wasn’t much change. I arrived at Americas on the lower east side, and when I walked in, it even still smelled the same. I can’t describe the smell, nor how in the world I remembered it, but it was nice.

My picture was still there, and I got the picture of myself I wanted. But since I left the school in 2006, no one else had made it in.

So I stood for a second, doing my what-if thinking, then walked back to the office to check out. As I signed myself out, I received another blast from my past in the form of Eunice.

Eunice was a freshman when I was, and we both qualified to the state Solo and Ensemble contest with a solo and an ensemble. While on the trip for the state Solo and Ensemble contest, we had a little fling.

It was super little, too. We were both from conservative backgrounds, and we both liked each other. We shared several moments walking around a mall in Austin with each other. We were each other’s first kiss, in a doorway back at Americas a few months later, hidden from others because we were both shy about public displays of affection.

And then, two months later, my family moved to Ohio and I was gone. Eunice and I would keep in touch via email for a little while, and then, we just kind of lost touch with each other. No closure, no clean break.

And suddenly, as I was signing out, I heard her voice. “Tom?”

I was disoriented. No one who was at Americas when I went there worked there anymore; who knew my name?

She did. And somehow, though it’s been eleven years and I am not the nerdy, long-haired, acne-ridden teenager I was when she last saw me, she recognized me.

A short conversation revealed that she was working at the Americas library by day and taking piano lessons from our old choir teacher, who is now retired. She lamented the fact that I didn’t do anything with music in college.

As I left, I was flooded with the memories I had with Eunice. Stolen moments near the back of the bus, sitting together, listening to music as we waited to get back to El Paso from Austin. Waiting for our parents to come get us from the Tri-M induction ceremony, staring at the stars in front of the school. Eating lunch in the choir room, playing the piano and singing with each other. And I couldn’t help but think, what if?

What if I’d stayed in El Paso? What if I’d gone to Americas all four years, made it into the All-State Choir three more times, and stayed there?

How different would my life look? I never would have heard of Ohio University, likely would have dropped speech and debate at some point, and instead of going the political science track, I probably would have pursued a music education degree at the University of Texas at Austin and be directing a high school choir right now.

Or maybe, I would have pursued a degree in vocal performance and gone to Texas Tech. I always wondered what would have happened if I would have remained competitive with my singing, and Tech had a better vocal music department.

I love where my life is right now, and I love the direction it’s heading.

But Americas reminded me of a version of Tom who would have been a vastly different person than the one I became. And if the Multiverse Theory is true and we perfect dimensional teleportation in my lifetime, I’d like to go and see how he turned out.

If nothing else, I want to see if he had the guts to kiss Eunice a second time.

Tom Pinney is a news reporter for the Maryville Daily Forum