Postcards from the Funny Farm

Tonight I’m going where we up here in the High Desert call “Down the Hill.” For me it’s surreal to go down the hill because I grew up down there. It has been just over 5 years I’ve lived up here in this small-town Roy Rogers desert paradise. We’re going to a party with some lifelong friends of ours. When I say “ours” I mean my parents and another couple they have known since before I was born. The people we will see at the party will be friends and family that fit within those two in that amount of time.

My parents had friends that were another couple when they were just starting college. My dad used to teach guitar with the husband of the other couple. My mom was friends with the wife and they did stuff together like college couples do . . . going to pizza, bowling, poetry readings etc. They met at Fullerton Junior College. My dad had a special bond with the husband in said couple because the two loved the music of Bob Dylan and they both taught guitar together as they worked through school.

The other couples’ first child was born in 1967. Both couples doted over him. My parents tried for a couple years to have a baby and in 1969 I came along. The couples’ son was my best friend from that moment forward. When our families would get together, we were inseparable playing in the backyard and in the pool as kids visiting family friends do. Later in high school our musical tastes differred but he was still clipping REM articles for me and I Madness ones for him. He’s still my best friend.

We both started bands in the late 80’s. My band was like REM and his was more like the Specials . . . a SKA band. When nothing came of my band after a few years trying it hard, I resigned to attend college full time and get my degree. I wanted to be a lit teacher. My friend and his sister, a singer in the band, continued with their band and gave it their full fledged effort. they became local favorites and I can recall several times seeing them in the Calendar section of the OC Register and thinking to myself: “Wow, they are gonna make it big someday.”

In 1997 I started teaching 5th grade in Santa Ana and my friend(s) had their first huge hit. I was so caugt up in what I was doing there was no time to be jealous . . . but I was, a little.

Since then I’ve come a long way in my teaching career and I still play my music in local bars when I can. It’s still awesome to do so. BUT, now my life has become a new thing. I enjoy rolling on the floor with my kids and driving down the hill to get a glimpse of the OC life I was raised in. In all truth, it feels good to come home.

My friend(s) are now household words. The sister (who is also my dear friend) is on glamour magazines in the grocery store virtually every time I turn my head. They’ve both done well and I am so proud of them. Most people when I tell them we are friends have one of two reactions:

1. Can you get me something? A picture? An autograph?
-or-
2. They act like I am lying.

Through time I have learned to just keep it under wraps.

While the rest of the world might see the party I am going to tonight as some TMZ cosmic Hollywood/LA/OC experience, I see it as a chance to splash in the shoreline with my kids, bar-b-cue chicken breasts with BBQ sauce, and catch up with lifelong friends recalling moments and marveling at the amazing passage of time that lay behind and before us.

Some of you know who the famous person I have alluded to is. If you don’t and want to know who I am talking about . . . sorry . . . my blog is about me (lol). If you REALLLY have to know and it’s killing you . . . email me, I was never one to tease!