The Fights of Grades 7 and 8 in Valdosta, Georgia

 I moved from Alpine, Texas to Valdosta, Georgia, in the summer of 1988. I was 13 years old.  We drove a big Dodge van and a U-Haul moving truck, and I think towed a car behind the moving truck. The van had two bench seats behind the cab area, with a majority of the back as rough, open space. In Alpine we had used the van for four years like a work truck. We moved construction materials from Alpine to Terlingua Ranch, where we built a small cabin in the desert below the Chisos Mountains. We used it to move construction materials for a car port, barn, and fence we put into the empty lot next to our house, and to move hay bales and feed for our horse, Painted Lynx. It was a utilitarian beater van and we piled it full of belongings, two dogs, and a cat for that long drive to Valdosta, Georgia. The horse stayed behind. We drove Interstate 10 most of the way, crossing desert, dried out hill country with scrub oak, pine barrens, cypress swamps, and more pine barrens. The geography went from flat where we hit I-10 near Fort Stockton in west Texas to flatter by the time we reached Valdosta, leaving I-10 somewhere in the Florida panhandle. I'm not sure even the Texas hill country displayed any remarkable elevation. We reached Valdosta in near the end of August, pulling into a large half circle drive with flanked by slash pines and dark green azalea bushes, at the back of which was a white ranch style home which looked rather elegant and formal compared to the simple ranch house we moved away from in Texas. Our Dodge van looked out of place. I remember opening the side door of the van and some plastic bags full of clothes tumbled out onto the asphalt driveway.  I had a ceramic painting of a battle from the England's War of the Roses wrapped in clothes in one the of the plastic bags that fell out of the van. It broke into pieces. It reflected me perfectly. 

I tell my daughters about how awkward I was in my teens. To illustrate this best, I tell them how my twin brother, Leif, and I started seventh grade in Valdosta, Georgia, at Valwood School.  During lunch breaks we stood behind a large bush next to the entrance of the cafeteria and slowly plucked leaves off, tearing each one into tiny little fragments. No talking, just plucking and tearing leaves. That's what we did on our lunch breaks for the opening several months of seventh grade, probably well into 1989. We were not hiding. We were in plain view of everyone walking in and out of the cafeteria. The teachers must have been worried. I can only imagine what our classmates thought of us. 

Leif and I had a hard time fitting in with the other kids. Valwood was a private school. Valdosta, population 50,000, was a large city compared to Alpine, which had under 5,000 people. The public schools in Valdosta were huge. The idea of moving away from Alpine had traumatized my twin and I so much that my parents agreed to send us to the small private school called Valwood where they felt we would feel more comfortable. With our older brother, Tor, there were three of us, so the school gave my parents a tuition break. Tor was going into 10th grade, played football and so had a scholarship for that. My grandma paid the remainder of the tuition. There were a handful of kids at the school like us, not well off and needing scholarships to attend. Most of the kids came from wealthy families. Leif and I didn't have a stitch of name brand clothing. We had generic shoes from who knows where. We had to bring our lunches from home rather that buying food from the rather well appointed cafeteria. I suppose we could have fit in if we tried, but that had never been our modus operandi. We were born shy, as our mom loved to tell us. We were built in friends of sorts, generally happy in each others company and could go comfortably for hours without talking.  

Among the boys in our grade there were two popular activities - hanging out at lakes on boats and hunting. The class nerd, Matt, perhaps also on a scholarship, liked to play with Legos. We just couldn't bring ourselves to do any of that with them. Tor did well. He was a hunter in Texas and could fish on the lakes in Georgia.  

A painful memory from that first year in Valdosta. My mom made a girl friend who had a younger daughter, probably five years younger than us. Leif and I had been awesome baby sitters for the three kids of family friends back in Alpine, so mom said we would make great baby sitters for her new friend's daughter. We sat down and watched TV with her for three hours, never saying a single word. At one point she started singing along to a bouncy Publix grocery store commercial, "...bring it all together at Publix..." We glared at her and she stopped singing. After her mom picked her up she broke into tears. Our mom lost a new friend. Yes, we were awkward. We were shell shocked into silence. Seventh grade was the worst year of my life. Several times we broke down in tears as my parents got ready to drop us at school. We refused to go, collapsed to the ground. We were 13 years old. 

Over the course of three years in Alpine, Texas, we had battled our way into acceptance and even to the margins of the popular crowd. I didn't get into any fights in seventh grade in Valdosta. My classmates had never seen fights. The concept of a school fight at Valwood seemed inconceivable to them. The boys often played touch football during morning class breaks. Leif and I enjoyed football and joined in with sixth and seventh graders. My mom had bought me a new cotton jacket, mint colored with a brass zipper, that looked rather preppy. I wore it everyday in the mild winter of 88/89. We were trying to fit in. (My mom also bought me my first pair of name brand shoes, leather deck shoes, and a t-shirt from Banana Republic.) During these touch football games one of my classmates, Micah, liked to grab and yank my jacket instead of doing a standard, simple touch. One day he started doing yanking on my jacket just to pull me out of plays and laughed derisively each time.  Then I was running a ball back, weaving, dodging, and Micah caught my jacket, pulled it over my head, and dragged me off the grass on onto the sidewalk that way, still on my feet, but unable to see. I stood up and kicked him in the balls so hard his nuts could have ended up in Scotland on dinner plates. Micah limped, doubled over, back into the school, tears streaming down his face. No one knew what to so say or do. They'd never seen anything like it. Micah shuffled around in pain for the remainder of the day. I still wonder if I caused him permanent damage. He never bothered me again. He never told the teachers what I'd done. I don't know why. That was my "fight" from seventh grade. 

Eighth grade was marginally better. We has several news students, none who seemed to be from wealthy backgrounds and may also have been on scholarships or reduced tuition. One, Becky, is without doubt the most award person I've ever been around. She always hid her face behind a screen of long hair, spoke in painful whispers that were normally inaudible, was hunched over, and wore Punky Brewster shoes. Another, Alex, vied for the position of class nerd, wore thick glasses, had an Afro and mustache, and occasionally did spontaneous ballet maneuvers on top of the picknick tables. The previous year, our classmate Eric, aka Rudy Booty, told me that no one like me. I still hear his words; "Why are you even here? No one likes you." Eric had his own struggles with being accepted and fitting in, and apologized to me later that day for his words. In eight grade I could imagine someone saying the same thing to Becky or Alex. 

In eight grade I got into one fight. It was with our PE teacher, Coach P. 

Coach Platania arrived in eight grade as our new PE teacher. He had a daughter who attended the lower school on a full scholarship. Coach P drove a small two door Honda or Toyota hatchback. He was bigger than the car. He was massive. He had a very obvious bump on one shoulder that was a fat deposit. We called it Freddy the Fat Deposit. He was bald, but always had a stubble of spiky hair on his shiny bald head. He had a beard, which was unusual in Valdosta in the 1980s. We wore glasses. He looked and moved something like a bald gorilla in glasses. Coach P was a nice man. For someone so large and overweight he was a very dedicated PE teacher. He coached the middle school basketball team. I don't know anything about his life before coming to Valwood except that at some point in the past he had been a bar bouncer. 

One beautiful spring afternoon Coach P had us in a combined class with the 9th graders, co-ed. It was a small school so boys and girls were always together in PE. We were playing baseball. Let's say the azaleas were blooming because I remember it was a beautiful day. Baseball frustrates me. I can't hit, throw, or catch. I'm sure I'd struck out once or twice this class already. But is was a beautiful day. My next at bat I hit a double, first time ever. It was so exciting. Kevin, brother to fraternal twin Geoff and sons of the middle school English teacher and dean, was playing first base.  Kevin and Geoff were also reduced tuition guys. As I rounded first base Kevin laughed and hit me in the face with his glove. Why? No idea. We were on good terms. As I ran on towards second base a rage filled in me. Kevin was still laughing. My face hurt. I turned around and sprinted right back into him. I was broken, almost two years of frustration with my life in Georgia pouring out as fists into Kevin's face. 

I have a vague sensation of Coach P yelling, then grabbing me off Kevin. He was yelling and pushing me backwards. When coach P was mad his whole head turned bright red. He was mad. "What the hell are you doing! You can't do that to people!" What are you thinking!" and pushing me. I was screaming back at him then; "I'm so fucking tired of this school, of these people! They never leave me alone!" I was screaming something along those lines, tears streaming down, and then charged at Coach P, shoved him backwards. I remember his next words exactly. "If you ever touch me again you will wake up in a hospital." 

Things came back into clear focus. There Coach P and I were squared off against each other, Kevin still in a heap on the ground not far away, Leif and Geoff standing nearby, the five of us surrounded by the rest of the 8th and 9th grades, all of the popular kids laughing and pointing. I had another realization as sharp as the one I'd had after chasing David to the top of a stranger's roof in sixth grade back in Alpine, Texas, a gang of classmates surrounding the corner of the house yelling at me to kick David's ass. Then I realized I was a bully. I had fought so hard to be left alone by kids being kids that I'd become the bully. No here I was two years later, my soul in anguish, Kevin hurt, Coach P threating to put me in a hospital and lose his job, Leif and Josh ready to intervene one way or another, and all those rich, well put together, popular kids laughing at the spectacle. We were always the losers. Fighting achieved nothing except to make us, the leftover losers, an entertaining sport for those rich people who always stayed clean, always had an easy time way up high above the fray.  

Coach P said we were going to the Principal's office, now. It was a hard edged order.  We set off, Leif right behind us. Soon all of our classmates were following. Halfway to the classroom buildings Coach P stopped. He looked at me, Leif, then all those other students. "I have a better idea. Let's just check on Kevin." That was the end of it. I think he decided that taking me to the Principal was a bad idea. The Principal would have heard that he'd been pushing me and had threatened to put me in the hospital. But I never would have told the principal that. I felt worse for Coach P than anyone else out there. We were the losers. I wanted to tell him him everything and never did. What was everything? That we were cut from the same cloth, Kevin and Geoff too, all the same. We were all fighting the wrong people. We were all fighting each other when there was no reason for us to be fighting. Fuck those rich people. Fuck this place, this school, this city, the endless rows of slash pines, the root bear colored water that stunk like turpentine, the mosquitos, sand fleas and no see'ems, the steamy air that sucks away the will to move, the extra boat houses on private lakes, tanned girls in their bikinis, gun clubs and country clubs, luxury cars, houses with five to ten bathrooms, and perfect hair. Fuck it all.  

I never said anything to Coach P. We stayed quiet, remained on decent terms without ever mentioning what happened that day. He left Valwood two years later. Leif and I became decent friends with Kevin and Geoff, who graduated from Valwood one year before we did. Leif and I stuck it out, graduating in 1994. The school, located on Gornto Road and surrounded by woods on three sides, is gone. It move to the countryside two or three years after we graduated to become a proper prep academy. Where the old school stood there is now a cinema complex. The woods have been completely replaced by neighborhood houses. 

That spring day in 1989, playing baseball on Valwood's football field, was the last time I ever struck someone in anger. My last fight, in other words. I hit people playing football throughout high school, and playing stickball in college, but that was all sanctioned violence in good fun without any of the deep, horribly raw emotions. The few remaining times in high school when I was tempted by anger to fight someone I stopped myself. I had reached the conclusion through experience that fighting ends badly even when you win. 

Book Review - The Patchwork Cloak of Kamal Bey

Feeling fuzzy on memories, it's time to do a book review. The Patchwork Cloak of Kamal Bey is written by a friend of mine, journalist, writer, and poet John Zada.  We were flat mates in Cairo, Egypt for about one year in the the middle 1990s. One chapter of the book deals with a horrifying episode we passed through together in Cairo. That event is in a book. John's version is not exactly as I remember it. However, it is there, a shared memory. It happened in some form or another. 

John told me about four years ago that he was working on this book, a memoir of his life in the Middle East. At the time I was living in Virginia. Last year he told me he told me he'd done it, finished his labor. I won't call it a labor of love. I think it was a sort of catharsis. It's not that the act of writing itself was laborious or cathartic. John is a writer by profession and has two other books published prior to this one. I believe this book was a challenge for him because it was so personal, was an attempt to unveil who he is, and it was a failed attempt. The book itself is very good. It's his attempt at self discovery that seems to have failed. John is from Toronto, Canada. His parents migrated their from Cairo, Egypt. But they were refugees from southeastern Turkey, part of the Christian communities purged from that country in a genocide at the close of World War One. John felt out of place growing up in an Arab Christian household in largely Jewish suburb of Toronto. He went off to find himself after starting college, thinking that the Middle East held the key to unlocking who he truly is. So, this book is about his travels through the Middle East, from Morocco to Turkey, over several decades. 

This book is not what I expected. I was actually a scared it might be a tell all of John's life in Cairo, of which I was a not insignificant part, and which included the first women with whom I truly fell in love, one of whom was John's deep love interest for a time, regularly spending nights with him in his room, just a wall and a door between us. This was not an amorous love I felt, but Plutonic love, a new respect for the opposite sex who taught me how to be emotionally normal. Still the jealousy was there, especially on those nights and the mornings after. It felt like a Leonard Cohen song. I thought this book would be John's Alexandria Quartet with a Cairo spin. But this book is not that. 

I've read several adventure/cultural collections from journalists recounting their travels and travails in the Middle East. This book is that to some degree, but so much more, woven together as an homage to John's mentor, Kamal Bey.  That was a surprise. I expected Kamal Bey to be a fictional character. John had never mentioned Kamal to me before. Beyond homage and travelogue, the book is that deepening identity crisis, a search for lost roots, a critique on tribalism, and a brief but meaningful history of genocide on the upper Tigris River. The arc of Kamal Bey's journey is very poignant. The arc of John's search is increasingly manic, and in many ways without resolution. 

The language in The Patchwork Cloak of Kamal Bey can be challenging. It is often lyrical and sometimes ornate. Maybe it strays too far from prose in places and tries for poetry where it should not. I love John's poetry. He used to sit up late into the dark of night in Cairo, our flat over the Corniche El Nil, the Nile River just beyond that, only a candle burning reflected off crystal chandeliers, writing hunched over a notebook pouring out poems sometimes until the first calls to prayer broke the stillness. He read them to us later the following day, or saved them until Fridays, when the city's rhythm slowed to a languid crawl. So many memories coming back. 

If I did not know John and had not lived one chapter of this book with him, would I have enjoyed reading it? Would I recommend it? Yes. For those who love travel or for those who are lost, this is a wonderful book. It works on so many higher levels than typical tales of travel to distant places. Take Fred Birchmore's Around the World on a Bicycle, for example, which I wrote about in an a earlier post. John's book is not passing through on an adventure and experiencing the exotic. It's a search for a part of him that was lost. It's a return. It's a rejection. In the end  The Patchwork Cloak of Kamal Bey left me with a haunted feeling, a longing feeling, which I believe most people who read it will identify with in some way. 

Cracked Memory

Large ceramic mug featuring a hand-painted cow with butterfly wings, cost over $30 USD. Very nice, but I'm cheap. I bought the mug a month ago because we had a free visit to a tourist trap highland cow farm with the opportunity to bottle feed some calves. My nephew works there pushing cows and shoveling cow shit. Because the visit was free for me, my wife, and our two daughters, I bought the pricey mug to support the my nephew. I use it at work. I was upset this week when I saw the interior glaze of the mug had cracked into a kaleidoscopic pattern, wondered if I was going to be drinking glaze flakes with my tea and die. I saw those cracks all week long, staring at me with every sip of tea. Today, the cracks were gone. The glaze appears completely whole. What happened? 

It gave me pause because I had another thought tickling my brain this week. Am I who I think I am? I saw a picture of eight-year-old me. It's old, the colors faded, looks like it could be from a 1960s photo album of my parents' rather than a photo of me in the mid-1980s. Is that me? These memories I have, are they real? At age 51, I finally feel detached from the me of childhood. There seems to be no relation between the two. My daughters are now much closes to the age of 23 than I am, the age when I met my wife. I feel divorced even from the me of my 20s. This week doing online interviews with foreign service officers bidding on my current position, I found myself fascinated by my own image staring back at me from the computer screen. That old man doesn't look like me. But that is me. Is the kid from my memories me? The man who fell in love with my wife, is that me, or some trick? 

Artificial intelligence and the risks it may pose to humanity finally captured headlines this week. Finally. Is that what got my brain so twisted, wondering if any of this is real or just an artificial creation?

Seven or eight years old, driving across Wyoming around 1983

First Time Commemorating 9/11, because I was in Singapore in 2001

 On September 11, 2001, I was in Singapore. It was early in the night. My wife, at the time girl friend, and I had just gotten into a banger of a fight. I can't recall about what. We were out on a date in a part of Singapore known as Clark Quay. I only recall that we had been admiring the Old Hill Street Police Station, a British colonial building now painted white while the shutters and window frames were  painted in a rainbow of other colors. Not long after that the argument began and we split in different directions, screaming at each other. I don't normally drink alcohol and a had a pittance of an English teacher's salary, but made my way to the Raffles Hotel Long Bar and ordered a Singapore Sling. Underwhelming. I made my way out to our HTB flat on Upper Serangoon Road, which we shared with two other flat mates. Shin was there. The TV was on. World Trade One had been hit and was smoking. We forgot our fight and watched the remainder of the events of September 11, 2001 unfold. 

I remember seeing footage of all the first responders - EMTs, police, fire fighters and their sea of vehicles with flashing lights surrounding the World Trade Center and thinking it was too much response in one spot, something terrible was going to happen. It did. I heard an NYC fire fighter address the issue this week on the 25th anniversary of the attacks. He said they could have pulled everyone out earlier, saving the lives of dozens, maybe hundreds of first responders; saved NYC Fire Department from their most tragic day in history. Then he countered by saying with no reservations that if had they pulled back and left regular people to die in the World Trade Center, that would have been the most tragic day in NYC Fire Department History, far beyond the loss of life of more than 300 first responders. They had a job to do. They understood it meant risking their own lives, loosing their own. They did it. 

I was far away from America on 9/11. I have never marked the anniversary and never paid much attention to it until this year. It's not that I didn't care. I did. I quit my job and returned to America. Rather, it's that I felt disconnected. That's why I returned. This year I did the stair climb in our Embassy with the Marine Security Guard detachment to commemorate the sacrifice of the first responders at the World Trade Center. After the climb I watched videos, hours of them for three days straight, about the attacks, the people who lost their lives and the people who survived. It was the first time I heard that counter argument to my fear 25 years ago in Singapore that the the first responders needed to pull people back, have resources to respond elsewhere. Now I can better appreciate what they went through and why they had to try, stood their ground in the face that looming, hellish catastrophe. 

Old Hill Street Police Station, Singapore

September 11 Memorial in NYC

Dungeons and Dragons Art Review - Top Tier Works from Jeff Easley and Keith Parkinson

Part two of my posts dedicated to the oil painters of TSR's the Pit - the Four Greats of Elmore, Easley, Parkinson, and Caldwell. Here I am covering Jeff Easley and Keith Parkinson. Where possible I have taken images directly from their websites. 

https://jeffeasleyart.com/

https://www.keithparkinson.com/

As a kid, Parkinson was my favorite of the group after Larry Elmore. I gravitated towards the natural world in many of Parkinson's paintings, especially his trees and decaying autumn foliage. Another bonus for Parkinson was that he made time to play Dungeons and Dragons, where as his peers did not. One of the painting's on my list for Parkinson is certainly inspired by playing the game. Keith Parkinson passed away from cancer at a early age of 47. With respect to Easley, I appreciated his work less because his human figures lack realism and their hair tends towards a big 1970s feel. Easley was by far the most prolific of the Four Greats, came to TSR's Pit first and left latest. Over time I've grown to appreciate his style far more. He departs the real word and becomes the most magical. His mix of dark against vibrant color is amazing. 

Jeff Easley's iconic 1983 second cover to the original AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide. 

In my previous post I included the cover to TRR's book The Art of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Fantasy Game. That was the book that first gave me real insights into these four oil painters with author/editor Stephanie Tabat providing little vinnettes into each of the artists, while each artist individually contributed a page of writing to their likes, influences, approach to painting, and more. It was fascinating for a teenage kid and made their art feel more approachable and real. The pencil portraits Easley and Parkinson come from that book.  My twin brother and I managed to convince our parents to buy two TSR art books at the same time. Below is the cover to my favorite of the two in terms of subject matter, The Art of the Dragonlance Saga. Unfortunately it had far less to say about the painters themselves. The cover to the book is one of my very favorite Keith Parkinson paintings. 

The Art of the Dragonlance Saga, published in 1987

Jeff Easley 

Top 3 paintings covered in prior posts:

1. The Magister, cover to the 1988 AD&D Forgotten Realms sourcebook 

2. The Wilderness Survival Guide, cover to AD&D source book 

3. Wizard and Dragon - cover to the AD&D 2nd edition Dungeon master's Guide 

Top 3 and an some honorable mentions yet to be covered in this blog:

Honorable Mention: Lords of Darkness, cover to 1988 AD&D Forgotten Realms Accessory

No one does skeletons like Easley. His are rotting, covered in growths, disgusting things. Easley has many memorable drawings and paintings that include skeletons. Dymark Dread is the creepiest, but Lords of Darkness is his best. It's the bending trees, dried leaves blowing in the wind, autumn welcoming Halloween. The effect of the skeletons echoing the trees in the movement and coloration is brilliant, and the movement of both is palpable, emphasized further by the leaves blowing through the air. Just brilliant. The subdued color pallet of fall really speaks to me. I'm not a fan of horror dead things come back to haunt the living, but I love this painting. 

Honorable Mention: Astral Encounter, cover to 1987 AD&D source book Manual of the Planes

Choosing between Astral Encounter and Easley's space-themed Spell Jammer cover painting wasn't easy. I enjoy looking at the characters in Spell Jammer more, but it also takes Frank Frazetta as a very strong reference. Astral Encounter is far more inventive and features Easley's wild colors, strange shapes and patterns. In this one the blue tunnel in the upper right corner is very interesting, as are the strings of planets and the polyhedral structures in the upper left. Seeing the human materialize out if the black void of space is a nice touch. The focal point of the paintings is clearly the monstrosity at center. It's fairly disturbing, which is why I prefer Spell Jammer. The barbed wire like spirals are odd. I'm such a softy, looking for trees and leaves. Overall there is a strong sense of forward movement. Well done. Astral Encounter's techniques and colors are so different from Lords Of Darkness. At first glance one might not think they were done by the same artist. This speaks well of Easley's talent. 

Number Three: Darkwell, 1988 Forgotten Realms novel cover  

It's challenging to find a decent copy of this painting. It was done as the cover for the third book in a relatively obscure trilogy of Forgotten Realms novels set in the Moonshae Isles. I think I am only aware of it because the painting was included in the AD&D fantasy art book. It's a wonderful example of Easley moving between extremely bright, vivid colors and dark shadow. The whitish light emerging from the well with the demon is the painting's core, and serves to highlight one of the demon's eyes. This is a painting I would love to see in person to get the full effect of that sparking eye. Also at play here are Easley's weird magical effects, that blue, viscus energy flowing off the demon. Very cool. So that's all lit, up causing everything else to be seen as dark silhouettes - the sky and trees in the background, most of the middle ground figures, the figures and vines in the foreground. This painting really works with Easley's strengths, emphasizing the demonic figure in the odd light with massive scale while the human figures are much smaller and in shadow.  

Number Two: Evil Tide, 1997 AD&D adventure module cover 

This number two spot was also challenging, both to find a decent image and also to pick the rank. I was tempted to place Easley's cover painting for AD&D's Monster Manual II here. It's a true classic. But looking through his vast collection of cover paintings for TSR for this post, I came across four or five beauties I had never seen or heard of before. Evil Tide is one. The tide rushing down the rocks in the background, weird lighting, and the person peeking over the bow of the boat moved this one ahead of the rest. A Hero's Tale, Combat and Tactics, Spells and Magic, and Heroes of Defiance were other candidates, plus the epic and more well-known painting Bloodstone Wars. In the end this one is more interesting, overall very well done, and ambitious. Oceans are always ambitious. What Easley does here is simply crazy. His figure wielding the chomped oar is better than many of his others, though those arm muscles are out of control. The face peering over the bow in utter fear, right in front of the viewer is a great touch. Placing Evil Tide in the number two spot is a shocker for me, but there it is.  

Number One: Legends and Lore, 1984 AD&D source book cover 

Back to the basics here. Legends and Lore is just beautiful. Easley did 13 cover paintings for AD&D core rule books and source books. This was one. All had orange spines and the new TSR and AD&D trade dress with the fire breathing dragon as the ampersand. I believe the D&D Gazetteers were the best designed series of books from TSR cover-to-cover, but these 13 books come close. I think Easley does a poor job with the human figure in general, but here he strikes gold. He takes easy liberties with musculature as the figure is a god, Odin. Still, Odin's pose and positioning on the mythical flying horse Sleipnir are excellent. And he certainly comes off looking like a god. The arrangement of the sky leads the viewer to the face of the Sleipnir, then to the magical spear Grugnir, and then to the face of Odin and his resplendent beard.  That sky is pure beauty. Easley fits in almost all of Odin's core imagery with his wolf and raven companions, flying steed, spear, and magical ring. What is difficult to see without viewing the painting in-person is whether Easley accounted for Odin's missing eye. I would love to see this painting up close to discover what Easley did with that eye. In summary of Legends and Lore: This is one of Easley's more technically accomplished works, and it is his most tasteful, classical, and beautiful. After looking through so many of his paintings, it was easy to place this as my number one.

Keith Parkinson  

Top 3 paintings covered in prior posts:

1. Horseman Near Lake, cover to the 1987 AD&D Forgotten Realms boxed set

2. Dragons of Desolation, cover to the Dragonlance adventure module

3. Queen of the Spiders, cover to 1988 AD&D adventure module 

Honorable Mention: Creature Catalogue, 1986 D&D monster source book

This is another piece of art that is hard to find on the internet, and unfortunately the copy is very poor. I have very fond memories of this painting and the book it accompanied, The Creature Catalogue, which, for my money, was the most useful book on AD&D or D&D monsters out there save for the original Monster Manual. This is the painting that shows Parkinson played D&D. I can see this scene playing out with many a gaming group. The gear on human and the dwarf also comes from a time when RPGs focused on resources and equipment. Being well supplied and prepared was half of the adventure. People generally don't go in for that sort of thing now days, and I've only ever seen snickers and snide remarks about this painting on the internet. I really enjoy this painting because of the transition from Parkinson's earthy natural woodland to that horrific tunnel glowing red. 

Honorable mention: The Savage Coast, cover to 1985 D&D adventure module 

We played this adventure module exactly one time as kids, probably ten years old. It baffled us.  We couldn't figure out how to have our characters overcome villages of natives who could muster one hundred warriors at a time. The point was to negotiate or become allies, but we were too thick to go that way. Look at that cover. It screams "Charge!" That's what we did. But I do love this cover. The faults are the lead white horse being too small, and feet. Parkinson always struggled with feet. Leave those aside, and this is a very fun painting that spoke to the way my twin brother and I approached the D&D game, which was through the lens of medieval English history. Here English type knights of the 12th century are thrown into a wildly different environment. The sailing ship abandoned on a desert cliff is so whimsical. How did it get there? What really makes this painting jump out for me is the charging horses, stones and dust flying.  Parkinson does it especially well with the second horse. The knight there with the flail is the strongest figure in the group. The movement in the flail's chain is impressive. I also enjoy the wizard type figure in purple robes carry a staff as a nice reversal from armed warriors. 

Honorable mention: Great Red Dragon, cover to 1986 Dungeon Magazine #1 

A third honorable mention! Yes, and I explain why when I reach my number one painting for Parkinson. So, Great Red Dragon is not one of my favorites, but it is iconic. The detail in the dragon and its treasure hoard is astounding and special. Maybe Parkinson put the extra effort and pure attention to detail because he knew this was the cover for the first issue of Dungeon Magazine? Who knows. But professional artists generally don't paint this way; it's not worth the money. This work of art is just pure dedication, fascination, borderline manic. The painting generally achieves balance through the dragon. Head slightly off center for interest, then tail, wings, and arms not only balancing the dragon but filling up the space in a nice balanced way, all leading to those crazy eyes.  So, there's that. The dragon is more gold in color, not red at all, and the cave is orange. That's cool. We know it's a red dragon because it looks evil and vicious as hell, but there is essentially no red in the painting. So, there's also that. Then there is the detail. The detail. Remember the ship from Savage Coast giving a sense of scale? Here we have a ship sans sails. So, there it is, Great Red Dragon. 

Number Three: Lord Soth's Charge, 1987 AD&D Dragonlance calendar plate

Parkinson's own words: "There is something romantic, something cool, something we all love about “the bad guys”.  Lord Soth is a bad guy!  I wanted to illustrate him and his band of merry men from the first moment I read about them.  I also wanted to do it in such a way that maximized visual impact.  This is not a scene that I invite the viewer into.  In this case, I wanted the horsemen to come right out of the frame and demand attention.  I’ve always thought that undead should be somewhat jerky and awkward at first glance too, so I was careful to put them in poses that brought that type of movement to mind." I think the painting mostly achieves Parkinson's vision. I do think the charging horse in Savage Coast has a greater forward force of movement, but the overall arrangement here of the riders is wonderfully wide angle cinematic.

Number Two: The North Watch,  cover to 1988 Dragon Magazine #137
 

This painting appears so static against the previous three. That's fine with me, because I love it! I feel the icy cold north. I feel the breeze lifting the pennant and chilling the bone. The landscape is so stark and simple. The positions of the rider and reptilian creature are static and simple. That's what makes this painting genius. It achieves such a strong sense of mission and of place with very little. I can't explain it more than that, except to compare it with The Great Red Dragon. The viewer can become unintentionally lost in the details of that painting and miss the overall feel, theme, story, etc. More does not mean better. The maxim is true in all media. Compare The North Watch and Great Red Dragon and I think this is obvious. We didn't have many Dragon Magazine issues, bought this one for The North Watch cover alone. 

Number One: Arcane Summons,  1989 cover to Palladium's Adventures in the Northern Wilderness

So with this painting, Arcane Summons, I broke my rules and went outside of TSR, thus the three honorable mentions earlier. Parkinson left TSR in the late 1980s, going freelance. Of TSR's Four Greats, I think Parkinson was the only one who really improved his painting technique after going freelance. Arcane Summons is a perfect example. In my previous post on Parkinson there are other post-TSR paintings that easily compete for spots on this list: Desert Wings, Demorgan's First Spell, and The Minions of Splewgorth. Here, Arcane Summons shows not only Parkin's fine attention to detail, technical adroitness with paint, and vision for composition, it also displays his imagination. Parkinson said of this painting: 

I had the publisher ask me how elaborate my modeling set up was on this project. They thought I had set up skeletons in costume then photographed them. Actually, I made up all the figures with no        reference shot for any of it. Ordinarily, I like to shoot as much reference as possible. On this project,    though, the images came from my imagination.

I think there is something strong to be learned from painting via internal vision and imagination as opposed to models and photo references. Strongly referencing models, especially human figure models, very often seems to block imaginative creativity and artistry. These four painters - Parkinson, Elmore, Easley, Caldwell -  struck gold when they let loose and left models behind, as did Frank Frazetta. I won't say much else about Arcane Summons. The reflective water is exceptionally well done, and is as central to the painting as the red-garbed wolf creature due to the strong tree form leading there twice. It can't be ignored. I also love the barren trees. They fit so well with the summoned skeletons.  

Goodbye to TSR's Four Greats!

Dungeons and Dragons Art Review - Top Tier Works from Larry Elmore and Clyde Caldwell

In the next two posts I'll go back to the Four Greats from TSR's Pit - Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Keith Parkinson, and Clyde Caldwell. Here I will tackle Elmore and Caldwell. Where possible I have taken images directly from their websites. 

https://larryelmore.com/

https://clydecaldwell.com/

I've been so focused on Frank Frazetta's art work over the last few months, but outside of my dad, these four guys remain my entry point to art, especially fantasy art. Ok, they might as well be called the Four Beards, prominent for their facial hair more than their art. Pouring over their extensive collections of paintings I see gobs of mediocre to poor work - puppet-like human figures removed from their midgrounds, meandering or thoughtless composition, lazy recycling of ideas, lack of imagination and ambition, static lethargy. Some of their stuff is embarrassingly bad, and most of that comes from their later years. It takes me back to youth being the font of creative energy. All of this said, these four artists created some amazing work that propelled TSR's Dungeons and Dragons to the height of success. They set the standard for commercial art in the 1980s. A select few of their paintings entered American cultural as iconic images. I can't ignore or forget them - Elmore, Easley, Parkinson, Caldwell. 

Some their their best and most loved paintings I introduced in previous posts on this blog. Here I want to hit more of their great paintings, my picks for top three paintings not yet covered for each artist, plus a few honorable mentions. I am not claiming these are their best works per say, just my favorites. I was reminded first hand at the Frazetta museum that brushwork, color, and materials of original paintings  cannot be reproduced in prints, at least not the quality of prints I can my hands and eyes on. 

Spell of the Winter Wizard for, a TSR 1983 Endless Quest book. This is a cool painting Elmore did early in his career at TSR when his style was looser, perhaps more free and imaginative. He took more risks. 

The foundation of my knowledge of TSR's Four Greats goes back to some TSR publications we picked up in 1989.  My twin brother, Leif, and I convinced my parents to buy us two art books from a game store in the Boulder's Crossroads shopping mall: The Art of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Fantasy Game (Art of AD&D), The Art of the Dragonlance Saga. I recall that it was the preliminary design sketches in the Dragonlance art book that we used to convince our dad, who is an artist, to buy the books for us. "Look, we can learn from the sketch and design process!" We poured through these books on a weekly basis, but my favorite was the Dragonlance book. We were still reading Dragonlance novels at the time and tried our hand at running adventures in the AD&D setting using 2nd Edition rules.  I loved looking at Larry Elmore's depiction of the main characters. He clearly had a special attachment to them, and indeed, was a lead designer in the original Dragonlance concept. The Dragonlance art book also had paintings from Jeff Easley, Keith Parkinson, and Clyde Caldwell - the Four Greats from TSR's The Pit. I was especially drawn to the many exposed female thighs and Caldwell's bikini clad Dark Queen. My imagination and hormones ran wild. 

That said, The ART of AD&D was the most revealing on the painters themselves. The Four Greats all wrote page-long excerpts on their painting process and interests. The book's author/editor was Stephanie Tabat, who did production design, layout, graphics, and cartography at TSR from 1986 to 1993. Evidently she worked closely with the art team in the Pit, and she provides her insights on the each of the Four Greats, plus newbie Fred Fields, and a few other contributing artists. The book's primary focus is Elmore, Easley, Parkinson, and Caldwell. Its Tabat's writing that revealed Elmore's wife, who hard dark, curly hair, was the muse of many of his most famous works. I was fourteen when I read that. It struck me and stayed with me all these years. The Art of AD&D is a great book, well worth purchasing for fans of fantasy art. I won't spoil more of its revelations here, but I will barrow the four pencil portraits of Elmore, Easley, Parkinson, and Caldwell that accompany each of their written pieces. 

Larry Elmore

Top 3 paintings covered in prior posts:

1. Waiting for Shadamehr

2. Ancient Red, cover to the Basic D&D box set

3. Death of Sturm - Dragonlance

Top 3 and an some honorable mentions yet to be covered in this blog:

Honorable Mention: Hidden Danger, 1986 Dagon Magazine issue #108 cover

An earlyish Elmore painting. The trees are more simplified, as is the sky, showing a bit of Frazetta influence. That's not a bad thing. I think Elmore's great departures from Frazetta are his beautiful landscapes and the detail he places on clothing, weapons, and armor. Elmore does not begin to approach Frazetta in dynamic human forms, but he normally makes up for this with strong composition and beautiful natural scenery. I like this painting for three reasons: One, the composition literally has the trees grab the viewer, leading to focus on the woman's face, and yet not leaving out the crouching beast. Two, the muse in Elmore's wife is on display. Three, this is one of Elmore's few paintings or drawings in which the monster looks and feels mysterious, threatening, evil.

Honorable Mention: Weasel's Luck, 1988 Dragonlance book cover

This probably does not make a lot of favorite lists. I love the composition, the direct, straight lines of the trees leading to the characters, dividing them from each other, their blades also going in different directions. I did not read this book and have zero familiarity with the story, but I get a strong sense that they are opposites who still need each other to survive. I could be completely incorrect. The mustachioed man with the sword and armor is some of Elmore's better work with the human form. It's not top notch, but interesting. You can see how the neck doesn't move naturally into the body beneath the clothing and armor. Otherwise it's a great pose, gesture of the hand and arm with the cloak. The colors of the trees and water give a strong sense of place. I love how Elmore treats the water soaking up their pants' legs. Very cool. Overall this is a subdued painting, not much about it that is flashy or yells "Look at me!" That's fine. The composition is very good, and it has a strong sense of story and place. 

Number Three: Star Frontiers, 1982 space opera science fiction role playing game cover 

Elmore is a fan of classic cars, fast cars, and space ships. He didn't get to do those with Dungeons and Dragons. TSR's 1982 sci-fi space opera game Star Frontiers gave him a chance to change genres. I don't know if the art directors said keep the spaceships to a minimum and give us something more like your D&D covers, because all we have here is the crashed, burning hulk of a small and speedy looking spaceship while the focus is on the adventurers. Regardless, this painting has energy and the geometry is full of angles shooting out in different directions from the core of the work, that spaceship. The colors are vibrant and compliment each other well. The characters have fun and ambitious positioning and Elmore didn't appear to use models here. If he did, his female character's twist in the hips and shoulders is exaggerated  beyond what a human model is going to give. Same for the crouch of the male character out front. You can capture that in a photo, but a model can't hold that position. In other words, Elmore let his imagination run with the figures and arrived at dynamism. This is top notch early Elmore. 

Number Two: Test of the Twins, 1986 Dragonlance book cover

This is a controversial pick, to be sure. I'm a twin, so this one just speaks to me. Beyond that, it's the most unique of Elmore's painting compositions, and it works. Why? The composition is essentially only what is necessary to know about the two characters. Virtually everything else is left out. Elmore has three only paintings that do this, and they are all book covers for this Dragonlance Legends trilogy. The composition suits the theme and the title perfectly. Even if the viewer is unaware of the underlying story, the dichotomy between the brothers is obvious. The sword and the staff reaching upwards, and Elmore occupies that background with a beautiful sky that reflects each of the brothers personalities and stories while not distracting from them.  Overall the faces, posing, and accoutrements are rather cheese cake and could fit on the cover of a romance novel, but at this point Dragonlance was drifting into romance novel territory. It fits. Finally, I just love Raistlin's eyes and Caramon's battered shield. Really well done. Elmore tried something new here as an artist, has yet to go back to it, and who knows why. I love that he did something completely different with composition and clearly poured passion into the composition, detail, and execution. 

1. The Crystal Shard, 1988 Forgotten Realms book cover

This is a masterpiece! It's comes from an early Forgotten realms novel cover that launched the career of the infamous dark elf Drizzt Do'urden, seen in the middle foreground, flanked by Wulfgar to the left and Bruenor to the right. I think Elmore and author R.A. Salvatore took their queue from the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers as Aragorn leads Legolas and Gimli the hunt for the two missing hobbits, Merry and Pippin. Here I see Drizzt as Aragorn, Wulfgar as Legolas, and Bruenor as Gimli. Leave that aside though. This painting just rocks. First, the composition leads the viewer down through the faces of the characters, then to Drizzt's finger in the snow, then to the trail of blood and menacingly large footprints leading directly to the viewer. It creates story, tension, mystery. Composition doesn't get better than this. The work exudes cold. Elmore is an expert with snow, ice, and frozen rock. This is one of his best examples. The handling of the characters, the strong positioning but weight carried in different ways, and realistic integration into the overall painting is some of Elmore's very best work with human form. He may have done this from human models. If so, this is the way to do it, poised for a group portrait rather than moving in action. I think this can easily be Elmore's best painting.

Clyde Caldwell

Top 3 paintings covered in prior posts:

1.The Elves of Alfheim, Dungeons and Dragon Gazetteer 

2. Captured! 

3. The Hands of Doom 

Top 3 and some honorable mentions yet to be covered in this blog:

Honorable Mention: Spellfire, 1988 Forgotten Realms book cover

Caldwell's art is not for everyone. It's very specific, mostly featuring blatant cover girl models in minimal fantasy trope clothing blasting energy bolts from their hands or gesturing with swords. To be honest, I'm not a enamored with a majority of his repertoire. I love his paintings that adorn the covers of the Dungeons and Dragons gazetteers. I think they are the pinnacle of art and design for TSR. What about Spellfire brings it to my list? It's an easy classic for Caldwell at TSR, instantly recognizable. The cavern has a nice sense of depth. The lighting (from the lightning) is dramatic and effective, drives the composition in terms of viewing. The dracolitch monster is certainly the star. The warrior figure in the foreground has an interesting tilt to his shield. It's a fun painting.

Honorable Mention: Grand Duchy of Karameikos, 1987 Dungeons and Dragons gazetteer cover

This is not Caldwell's best D&D gazetteer cover (which I think is the Elves of Alfheim) but it is his first and set the tone and style for all that would follow. I think these gazetteer paintings must all start as a design concept, with a bust taking center stage, and a color scheme around that, then deciding what limited characters will populate the foreground, or maybe focusing on some map details and other bits of scenery to create the background first. I don't know, but they all tie together so well. Unusual for this first cover painting, I can't say how anything here relates to the content of the gazetteer book itself except for the map background. I can live with that. I love the female warrior in black leather, love the enticing gaze from the woman at center, can imagine the knight thinking I'll fight for her, or I can hang out on this cover with these ladies all day. 

Number Three: Dragons of Faith, 1986 Dragonlace adventure module cover

So, here we have some of that amazing Caldwell thigh action. That's not why this painting is in my number three spot. Yes, the thighs and groin area of the central character, the elf princess Laurana, are spectacular, and draw the viewer to the focal point of the painting, which is Laurana's face framed by the body of a dragon and the spears and wings of the draconian guards. For me the painting makes the list because of the dragon, the only effective depiction of the five-headed chromatic dragon Tiamat, in this case a manifestation of the Dark Queen, the goddess Takhisis. The somewhat incorporeal body of the monster is effectively rendered, the five heads making a nice contrast to the head of the princess. This is an ambitious piece of story telling and Caldwell pulls it off. 

Number Two: Dragons of Dreams, 1985 Dragonlance adventure module cover

This is a great painting of torment. The only other work of Caldwell's that comes to mind that enters registers pain in the human subjects is the wizard Raistlin held captive by the Dark Queen in her bikini.  I'm realizing that Caldwell does some really cool things with lighting in this painting. The contrast between the elf king Lorac's hand and face is striking. Caldwell did not need to include the dragon's hands, but  that he does gives a stronger sense of  power over the elf king. The overall circular composition is very compelling.  There are many signature elements from Caldwell's works that just come together better here; the cobwebs hanging from the throne hint at a sense of how long the king has been trapped in his nightmare. The sparing use of the colored mist shifts the scene into a different reality. The bulbous gemstones are copied in the dragon's eye. It's a wonderful departure from most of the other Dragonlace paintings by TSR's Four Greats, and a very marked departure for Caldwell from his other work. Maybe that's why I like it so much. 

1. Dragons of Despair, 1984 Dragonlance adventure module cover

I did not expect every one of my picks for Caldwell to feature dragons, nor did I think my top three paintings would all be from the original Dragonlace adventure module covers. Dragons of Despair is the first Dragonlance adventure published, and Caldwell nailed it. The composition is a little scattered, but the waterfalls do a beautiful job of drawing the gaze downward, while the columns frame the dragon. The human figures (and dwarf) are fine, but nothing special. The dragon is spectacular, the sleek, deadly positioning of the creature moves to that powerful ejection of acid from its mouth. Overall the painting bottles the spirit of this adventure like lightning, and the ruins with waterfalls tumbling out of them are absolutely fantastic. There is a lot of classic Caldwell here, from the weapon styling to the dragon's face to Goldmoon's bare thighs, but this painting also has a classically artistic and romantic feel that most of Caldwell's other paintings don't begin to approach. It's my favorite of all the Dragonlance adventure module covers, and one of my favorite Caldwell painting outside of his Gazetteer covers. 

 

 

 

The Fights of Grades 3 through 6 in Alpine, Texas

 Looking through a box of old family memorabilia this summer at my Dad and Aunt Kathee's house, I found our year book from 5th grade. It was hard to square how young everyone looked; everyone except for my twin brother and I. We looked normal. Is this because it's us? We don't see ourselves growing older? Is it because I've seen so many younger photos of us growing up over the years that youngster me in 5th grade seems normal? 

One of the class photos with accompanying name jumped out at at me - Joey. Instantly the scene focused in my memory of boys surrounding me, a circle around me, their faces jeering masks, taunting me. I can't really member the words, just the faces. I felt trapped in their circle and I knew their goal was to hurt me, first my feelings, which was working, and then physically. It was 3rd grade. We had moved to Alpine, Texas, from South Dakota. My twin bro and I might have been warmly welcomed by many of our classmates. I don't know. We were shy. We didn't communicate well with anyone except each other. Soon many of the boys went out of their way to make us feel like unwelcome outsiders. That's what it felt like. Leif and I were in different classes. I think I had the worse end of things. 

Where was Leif, my twin, when that circle of angry, screaming boys surrounded me at recess? I don't know. I do remember turning in circles myself to look for a way out and it was a solid circular wall of jeering faces. Some were throwing arms at me, others darting in to push. I think Joey must have tried to kick me, because his foot ended up in my hands and I had my way out. Joey was a little guy, the smallest boy in 3rd grade. I easily yanked his leg into the air such that his body followed, then I had an ankle in each hand and swung him in a spinning circle, spinning faster and faster, using Joey as a club to knock the others boys down or out of the away. Their circle disintegrated. I opened my hands and Joey left me like a rocket, flying off into the distance before crumbling into a pile. I sped off and the boys gave chase. I was faster. At that age the school's playground and accompanying sports field seemed like an endless tract of real estate on which to escape pursuers. 

And so it went for the rest of 3rd grade. Our older brother, Tor, was in 6th grade, Alpine Junior High, home of the Fighting Bucks. He could go home for lunch, and rode his BMX bike past our elementary school everyday during our lunch recess, saw the commotion on the playground. He told our parents it looked like Leif and I were in daily hit and run battles with most of the 3rd grade boys on our heals. 

During fourth grade the fights were less frequent. We made some good friends and became more normal. Though less frequent, some of my bloodiest fights were in the fourth grade. Once my teacher spanked me just on the rumor that I had started a fight. It was not true. I cried as she walked me out of the classroom, paddle in hand. Benito, one of my greatest tormentors and the most popular boy in school, stood up and started clapping. It was a slow, baritone clap. It was one of those claps from the movies when someone in the crowd starts clapping for the outcast hero, recognizing that he or she had been right all along. Many of our classmates followed his example. But Benito and the others weren't clapping for me. They were clapping for our teacher. She must have felt vindicated, like she had truly caught the perpetrator and was metering out justice. Maybe in the larger scheme of things she had. But, I really had not been in a fight that day. It was a devastating experience. The spanking hurt. I think it was three solid whacks with the paddle. That clapping stung far longer. 

By fifth grade there we were in very few fights. One memory, which was not really a fight: Most of the boys in our grade playing soccer on the big sports field. I was defending our team's goal. Leif was on the far side trying to score a goal. We were on the same team, of course. The biggest dude in our grade, Walker, was on the opposing team. He grabbed Leif and body slammed him into the school yard fence, and then went to kicking Leif on the ground. Walker was huge. I can see his chubby, ruddy face breathing heavily, hair flapping back and forth and he kicked and stomped on Leif repeatedly for what seemed an eternity. I was frozen by the sight, unable to move my legs to get across the field and help him. I feel like it was the most violent thing I saw in our elementary school years. I felt the violence of the act inside me. I wanted to vomit. Leif doesn't remember it. 

On the last day of 5th grade I found myself in a fight with David, the class nerd, later valedictorian for Alpine High School's Class of 1994. He went into the U.S. Navy, was discharged for being gay during the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy days. I can't recall why we got in a fight. We hung out together quite a bit. At the end of the fight I had him on his back on the ground. I was kneeling over him, his head stuck between my knees like a vice. I gave him three or four half hearted punches to the face, bloodied his nose, and let him up. David was scrapy. It had taken a lot to get him down and make him give up.  

It was David who punched me in the face in 6th grade during recess, giving me a bloody nose. I deserved it completely. I had become a bully, picked him out to place in a head lock, which he spun out of then swung a really well placed and powerful haymaker into my face. I knew I deserved it. I told the principal it was my fault. I don't recall if I got spanked. By this point I had worked my way into the cool crowd. In the hallways between classes the cool crowd said I had to get revenge for the bloody nose, kick David's ass after school. They egged me on. The sense of urgency to maintain my hard earned place of hanging with the cool kids overtook that small shred of guilt I had felt for being the bully. I knew I deserved David's fist slamming into my nose. 

After school I led a crowd of 6th grade boys (youth, juvenile delinquents?) across the street to where David was walking home. After putting a block between us and the school I led the chase. Who was in that group of boys looking to see a fight, to make sure David got cornered before reaching his house so that I could take my shot at revenge? I don't remember. It probably included Benito and Walker. It probably included my good friend, Fred. I hope it did not include my best friend, Casey, who was a decent fellow and a friend of David's. I know the group did not include Leif.  We cornered David in an alley where he scampered up a fence. I grabbed his ankle as he pushed himself onto someone's roof, but he kicked free of my grip.

The group that had chased David with me circled around the corner of the house, jeering at David, screaming at me to kick his ass. David looked scared, but also had a sparkle in his eyes like he knew he had escaped. A man came out of the house and yelled at us, said we should be ashamed of ourselves. Go home! I'll call your parents and tell them what you did!

I was ashamed. I had come nearly full circle. I saw with ultimately clarity that I had become one and the same as the circle of boys who had surrounded me in 3rd grade. My parents' did not get a phone call. The man didn't know me or them. He didn't have to call them. The experience changed me, a change that has lasted until this day. I had fought so hard to not be bullied, to be a normal kid that was accepted, who didn't stand out like a target. I had fought so hard it earned me a ticket to hang with the cool kids. Nicole, the school crush, even said she would consider dating me, after she was done dating my friend, Fred. (That was another moment that stopped me cold, made me ask what the hell am I doing on this path with this crowd.) As I stood in that alley I realized I had become the villain of this story.