The Agony of Defeat

The agony of defeat… those were the words of great Jim McKay that opened ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Well I have been defeated in my mission to blog for 25 days straight. My blogging operation was defeated by one thing… the 4th of July holiday, ok maybe my old friend Coors Light contributed to my downfall as well. I had a wonderful break, but man it really killed my blogging abilities. I fully accept defeat in this task, so no more e-mails. The pictures are from the 4th of July festivities. All I can say is well played Uncle Sam, well played sir.

Mr. Lineback

I recently found out my High School Drama teacher Phil Lineback passed away earlier this year. Mr. Lineback (seems weird to call him Phil) was my favorite teacher. He was the kind of teacher who made you feel good about yourself, while still letting you know your better self was out there and within reach. He would yell (he was a stickler about memorizing lines) occasionally and was not afraid to show his true emotion. But you always knew he was trying to get the best out of you. He and Mrs. Rice (his office mate) always had an office full of students prior to the beginning of school. Why? Because they were the kind of educators that would make a student that may have felt like an outsider feel a part of something. It’s strange reaching an age when your teachers and friends parents start to pass and it not so much of a shock, as a fact of life.

Favorites - High School Edition

I love Facebook because it gives you chance to reconnect with old friends from high school and college. It's so interesting seeing what everyone is up to today as well as flooding you with memories of days gone past. Ahhh… Living the dream, the high school dream. Today’s blog will feature my favorite moments from High School (we will get to college soon enough).

Jr. Spec – North Central High School was filled with unique traditions and experiences, but one of the best is Jr. Spectacular. Better known as Jr. Spec, this theatrical performance (dude that is some stretching of the term theatrical performance) is written, directed, and performed by members of the Jr. class. Sounds nice right? Like “oh the Jr. class got together and put on a little show together.” How sweet? Nope you got it all wrong… the Jr. class divides themselves among social groups and competed against each other in a battle royale that is part social experiment-part drama camp. This is not to say that I did not enjoy it… in fact I loved it. The real fun was the summer before my Jr. year at our “writers meetings” which basically amounted to me and the other writers (again very liberal use of the word) seeing how much we could make each other laugh and deep discussion of how crazy hot Michelle Freckelton’ s mom was.


















Operation White Cloud – Another tradition at NC (not so unique) is Senior Skip Day, or Senior Slop Day (not sure on the origins of the slop term) as we called it. Now part of this tradition is pulling pranks on the school in the morning before taking the rest of the day off. I still remember some daring seniors releasing a greased pig in the lunch room my sophomore year. I was asked to participate in a secret mission known as Operation White Cloud. Which was your run of the mill toilet papering of the high school. But really it was so much more, as this was intricately planned attack with over 20 guys broken in to four squads of TP warriors… ok the prank kind of sucked but we had a wicked time doing it.

Prom – Oh so good looking… Yes, I was oh so good looking on Prom night. My date could barely keep her hands off of me. It was great seeing all the kids I grew up with cleaned up and looking PIMP. My date was not too bad either.

Radio/ TV Class- Three hours each day with Chris Ponder… sign me up, dude was a freaking riot. This class was so much fun because basically all we did was dick around for three hours and talk about the Wonder Years. Plus it was a great class to skip.

Repertory Theater – The most dope class in high school by a long shot. It was another great dick around class (what do you mean I need to learn my lines... blasphemy!) I may not have been much of an actor, but man I perfected my BS skills in this class.

And there you have it… Reavo’s Favorite High School Edition.