10-Year Retrospective: Thursday, February 18, 1999

It's day 21 of the 10-year retrospective, and the more I write this the more I think that this cannot possibly be interesting to people who read it. I know that some people have and I appreciate their feedback. I don't really think I'm doing justice to the time period. I remember it being a lot more interesting than it seems when I'm writing these entries. The attention to detail here and my writing style are probably the main reasons that this is not coming across as very interesting.

I am trying to make this as realistic and genuine as possible though. Most stories are told with just the highlights, with boring details edited out. In a lot of cases stories are filled with exaggerations and sometimes things that simply are not true. This is different. This is more of a documentary than anything else. I am reporting to you what happened as I can recall it with as much information as I have. I haven't gotten to the more interesting parts of the time I am documenting yet, but when we get to that point you might find that it's not so interesting after all. Again, this is not a made-up story and sometimes real life isn't as interesting or reader-friendly as works of fiction or sensationalized versions of real life stories. That's probably especially true with my life. I am not exactly a thrill-seeker and find that I'm content when things are moving at a moderate pace and there is time to rest, relax and reflect. In those days life moved at a good pace for me. Now it goes faster than I can keep up with. There are probably more interesting and entertaining stories that I can tell from more recent times, but most of those weren't really enjoyable times and they didn't hold a lot of meaning for me. On both counts this time period is different. Anyway, continuing on...

On February 18, 1999 we watched "The Lorax" in econ and while the tape was rolling we had assignment sheet with questions to answer about how different aspects of the video related to the movie. There was one quote from the movie that was said several times and me, Demetris and maybe Fabrice picked up on it. The title character in the movie repeatedly said "I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees." I remember going out to tennis practice that day and repeating that line. Things translated because Demetris, Fabrice and I all had honors gov't/econ and were all on the tennis team. I remember one time Demetris either hitting a powerful shot or hitting one over the fence and putting an exclamation on it by saying the line from The Lorax. It was pretty funny.

Also in econ class that day we had an activity on price elasticity and demand. In the third and final class of the day (at least for me), world lit, we completed an activity on sentence structure.

That evening my friend Joe from Ohio sent this e-mail which was a reply to my e-mail from February 13:

"Hey,
Whats up? Nothing here. I was suprided that you e mailed me back. that
is a first. Congrats on the basketball making state. the state tournament
has not yet began. they just now are going through regionals that will
take aleast two weeks. it's like first the football team and now the
basketball team. good luck with the tennis season. oh yeah one more quick
thing before I split, I might not come down in June. Me and mom are
possibly going to Gulf Shores, Alabama Labor Day weekend and I'll need a
week of vacation to be able to go. I get two weeks after September 11.
Well gotta split hope to here from you soon.
Joe"

I'm assuming that when Joe mentions the state tournament and going through regionals that he is referring to the Ohio state basketball playoffs. It's kind of mixed in with the Pebblebrook discussion, but it seems that Ohio was working their way through regionals about the time Georgia was getting ready for state. By the way, it had to have been nice when I read that e-mail back in '99 to see "September 11" and not think anything of it.

That day news broke that Braves first baseman Andres Galarraga had been diagnosed with cancer and would miss the entire 1999 season as he underwent treatment. It was bad news on two levels. For one, Galarraga looked to be a big part of the Braves hopes for a World Series title that year. Much more importantly though it was bad for Galarraga to face such a serious health threat.