Sunday, September 26, 1999

Big couple of weeks. Hurricane Floyd came through on the 16th and rained so hard our street turned into a river, and Dad checked the garage with a flashlight every half hour. Everything was fine. Today we watched the Ryder Cup, and the U.S. came all the way back, and Dad, who doesn't even like golf, got up off the couch like it was Eagles 58, Lions 37. Last night there was a huge orange harvest moon over the development, and I went out back and looked at it for a while, the way Dad and I did with the comet.

Everybody keeps saying "senior year" and "the year 2000" at me like they're warnings. Mom already found out she's working New Year's Eve at the hospital, "just in case." Dad says the post office has been ready for Y2K since before I knew what Y2K was, and then he went out and bought more D batteries. So I'm making a time capsule. It's this entry.

A NOTE TO FUTURE DAVE (OPEN IN 2020)

Dear Future Dave,

Hi. It's me. You. It's Sunday night, September 26, 1999. I'm 17, I'm a senior, and I'm in the computer room (Chris's old room; the Flyers poster is still up) typing on the same Gateway, which everyone now calls "slow." You're 38. THIRTY-EIGHT. I have some questions.

1. Do you have a flying car? If not, a hoverboard? Back to the Future Part II said 2015, so somebody owes us an explanation.
2. Did the Eagles ever win the Super Bowl? If yes, did Dad cry? If no, leave this one blank.
3. What's the arena called now? It opened as the CoreStates Center and now it's the First Union Center. Two names in three years. By 2020 it's probably been called ten things.
4. Did we survive Y2K? Did Dad ever use all those D batteries?
5. Are you famous? Do you write a Top Ten list for somebody? Did Mrs. Albanese see it?
6. Pat's or Geno's? Has it been settled? (It hasn't. It never will be.)
7. Do you still have the N64? Do not sell the N64.
8. How fast is your computer? I'm guessing a whole gigabyte of memory. Does it still make the dial-up noise?
9. Did you ever talk to Spanish Class Girl a third time? (Actually, don't answer that.)

Dave's Official Predictions for 2020
- Jar Jar has his own movie. It's a trilogy.
- There's a Wawa on the moon.
- The Eagles have won at least three Super Bowls. We're due.
- Mike still hasn't baked the pie. Carmine still hasn't told me who Pete is.

Okay. One serious thing, and then I'll go back to being me: I hope you're happy, and I hope you still call Mike and Chris.

Tell Mom she can stop hitting Reload.

Your pal,
Dave (17)

P.S. If you have a flying car, come pick me up. I'll be at Wawa.

Thursday, September 9, 1999

9/9/99! The Sega Dreamcast came out today. I'm not getting one. My water ice money goes into the College Fund.

Greg got one. We played NFL 2K at his house, and the Eagles are bad in the game too. Very realistic.

Senior year started yesterday. I'm the guy with the beard now. (I don't have a beard. I have about eleven chin hairs, and Jimmy has named several of them.) This morning I held the door for a freshman and he said "Thanks, sir." SIR. I almost told him where the cafeteria was.

Mom took my picture on the front steps like she's done every first day since kindergarten. She said "Last first day," and then she went inside kind of fast.

Mrs. Albanese isn't my teacher this year, but she stopped me in the hall and asked if I'd thought about it. I said I have. I have.

Sunday, August 22, 1999

THE PILE: an update.

The college brochures started coming after the PSAT last fall and they have not stopped. Mom keeps them on the dining room table in one stack she calls The Pile, like it's a landmark. Tonight I measured it with the blizzard yardstick. Eleven and a half inches. The Pile has its own weather.

Every brochure has the same picture: kids on the grass, laughing at a book. Nobody in history has ever laughed at a book.

Where I'm thinking: I don't know yet. Rowan's fifteen minutes away, as Mom mentions "casually" twice a week. Dad says "Go wherever you want, as long as they've got a good communications program," which means Mom told him about Mrs. Albanese. I'm thinking writing. Or TV. Or whatever the job is where you write the Top Ten list. Somebody gets PAID to write that. Mom says nurses are always needed. Dad says the post office is always hiring. Then they both said "but do what you love" at the same time, like they practiced it.

Advice received this week:
- Mike: "Pick the one with the best food." Mom says that's not how it works. Mike says that's how he did it, and look at him. We all looked at him.
- Chris: "Go somewhere you can be a new person if you want to. But you don't have to." When did Chris get wise? I must have been at work.

Also, because of the new Regis show, Dad now says "Is that your final answer?" to everything. "You want more corn?" "Is that your final answer?"

Sunday, July 11, 1999

Jimmy's family rents a place in Wildwood for two weeks, and I get the couch every weekend I'm not working. I drove us down 55 in Mom's car, my first time on 55 as the driver. Dad's instructions beforehand included "The left lane is for passing," "The left lane is for passing," and "Dave. The left lane."

Yesterday we watched the Women's World Cup final on the little TV in the rental. Nothing to nothing after overtime, then penalty kicks, and the U.S. won. Jimmy's little sister screamed so loud the neighbors came over, and then the neighbors screamed. All night on the boardwalk little girls were running around in soccer jerseys like they owned the place. They do.

Boardwalk report:
- Fries with vinegar: yes.
- "Watch the tram car, please": approximately 400 times.
- Skee-Ball: 1,300 tickets, traded for a plastic whistle and a pencil. I gave the pencil to Jimmy's sister. It was a good pencil.

Everybody keeps telling me next summer is "the last summer before college." They say it like a warning. I'm choosing to hear it like a dare.

Saturday, June 26, 1999

I've been promoted. Third summer at Polar Pete's, and Carmine made me Shift Leader. Shift Leader means I have a key, I count the drawer at night, and I'm in charge of two new 15-year-olds who look at me like I'm a senior with a beard. (See September 1996, day one.) When he handed me the key, Carmine said, "Don't lose it, and don't worry about Pete." Three summers. Still no Pete.

The SAT is in the fall, so every night after work I do a section of the phone-book-sized SAT book Mom gave me for Christmas. It's changing me as a person:

Top Ten SAT Words I Used at the Water Ice Stand This Week
10. Ubiquitous (sprinkles)
9. Viscous (the chocolate syrup, when it's cold out)
8. Ephemeral (a water ice in July: about four minutes)
7. Ameliorate (what a lemon water ice does to a hot day)
6. Gregarious (Carmine, never)
5. Taciturn (Carmine, always)
4. Copious (napkins, please)
3. Deleterious (dropping a whole gelati on your sneaker)
2. Superfluous (the second spoon)
1. Benevolent (me, giving a little extra when Carmine isn't looking. Sorry, Carmine. Mike says they remember.)

The radio at the stand is a war. When Carmine's there it's his station, and he says he can't stand "Livin' la Vida Loca" and then hums it all afternoon. When he leaves, it's Y100 and "All Star."

Wednesday, May 19, 1999

EPISODE I.

Mom said I could go to the midnight show IF I went to school in the morning. Deal. Jimmy, Greg, Ant and I got in line at 8 p.m. (one guy had a tent). Jimmy brought his toy lightsaber, and there were duels in the parking lot all night. A guy dressed as Darth Maul was very serious about it. We respected him.

At 12:01 the lights went down and the music started and the whole theater went nuts. I've been waiting for this since I was 15 and Dad took me to the Special Editions.

Dave's Official Ratings
The pod race: 10
Darth Maul: 10
The lightsaber fight at the end, with the double lightsaber: 11
The music in that fight ("Duel of the Fates," says Greg, who owned the soundtrack before the movie came out): 10
Jar Jar: I'm going to be nice. I'm going to be nice. Jar Jar, you tried.

This morning Dad asked if anybody shoots first in this one. I said, Dad, it's mostly lightsabers and a trade dispute. He said "A trade dispute?" I said it's better than it sounds. It is better than it sounds.

Saturday, May 8, 1999

Junior Prom was last night. I went. I DANCED.

We went as a group: me, Jimmy, Ant, Greg, and four girls from our lunch table (who would kill me if I put their names on the internet). Nobody was anybody's date, officially, which is the best way to go, because nobody has to be nervous about anybody. Our parents chipped in on a limo, and we sang "I Want It That Way" very badly with the sunroof open.

The bow tie was a clip-on. Two years of learning to tie a tie, for nothing.

Mike called last Sunday with prom advice: "Dance. Nobody's watching you. Everybody's too busy worrying about themselves." In 8th grade I held up the wall at the spring dance and wrote "I'm going to dance at the next one" (here). It took three years. Last night I danced to "Livin' la Vida Loca," "...Baby One More Time," "Believe," and, as a joke that stopped being a joke, the Macarena. Nobody was watching me. Mike was right. It's the best advice he's ever given me, even better than the brake.

Mom took roughly 400 pictures in the front yard. They're at the drugstore. Home by 1, per the Rules. It was great.

Wednesday, April 21, 1999

No jokes today.

Everybody knows what happened in Colorado yesterday. School today felt different. The halls were quiet in a way they never are. People held doors. A couple of teachers didn't really teach; they let us talk, or not talk. Mrs. Albanese said we could write about it if we wanted. I didn't, in class. I'm writing this instead.

This morning Mom hugged me at the front door, which she doesn't do on regular days, and she held on a second longer than usual. Dad came home early and didn't say why.

I don't have anything smart to say. I just keep thinking that it was a regular school, like ours, with a cafeteria some freshman couldn't find on the first day.

I'll be funny again soon. Not today.

Thursday, April 1, 1999

Last night, a school night, Jimmy, Greg and I saw The Matrix. (The homework was mostly done.)

What is The Matrix? I can't explain it. That's kind of the point. Keanu Reeves finds out the world isn't real. There's a part where he leans back and the bullets go by in slow motion and the camera swings all the way around him, and the whole theater said "whoa" at the same time. Coolest thing I've ever seen in a movie. Better than the White House.

Greg has been saying "there is no spoon" all day. At lunch he held up his spoon and said "There is no spoon." Ant took the spoon. So now there really is no spoon.

Dave's Official Rating: 10 out of 10. Confusing for a while, then great, which is also how I'd describe junior year.

Friday, January 22, 1999

I HAVE MY LICENSE.

I turned 17 today. Dad took a personal day from the annex, and this morning he took me to the road test, which he booked back in November for the first day I was allowed, "so we don't lose momentum." I did the K-turn, I parallel parked (Most Improved, 1998), and I stopped at the stop sign like it was red for a reason. The examiner said about four words the whole time: "Left here." "Stop." "Park." "Passed." Best four words anybody's ever said to me. My license picture looks like I just saw a ghost.

When we got home, Mom was asleep after her night shift, so Dad took her keys off the hook, handed them to me and went inside, and I drove somewhere alone for the first time in my life.

I drove to Wawa. Obviously. I took the long way, five under the speed limit the whole time with both hands on the wheel, the heat on high and the radio off, like somebody's grandpa. I bought a hoagie and a coffee I didn't even want, just because I could. Then I pulled into the gas station on the corner and a guy in a hat with earflaps came out and pumped the gas while I sat there, because this is New Jersey and we don't do that ourselves. Ten dollars of regular. I felt like a king.

Mom was up when I got back. She'd been standing at the front window, she says, "for no reason."

Mike called tonight to say happy birthday and congratulations, and it turns out his first drive alone was also to Wawa. Then Chris called, and his was too. Three brothers, three first drives, one Wawa. Mike says it's "tradition." Everything's tradition with Mike. But this one really is.

Friday, January 1, 1999

Happy New Year. Welcome to the last year of the 1900s. (Dad says that technically the new millennium doesn't start until 2001. Nobody at the party cared, Dad.)

New look for the new year. No more black. I'm 16, almost 17, and I want a page people can read without squinting. The old versions are still up, for history. I can't bring myself to delete the construction worker. He worked so hard.

Top Ten Things That Will Happen at Midnight on Y2K (According to People at My School)
10. Every computer thinks it's 1900, so our report cards disappear. (Ant, who is hoping.)
9. The VCR finally stops blinking 12:00, because time is over.
8. Every microwave in America beeps at once.
7. Planes fall out of the sky. (Our chemistry teacher says no. Greg says that's what they WANT you to think.)
6. The Wawa stays open. It'll be the last thing standing.
5. All the elevators go to floor 1900.
4. The Class of 2000 has to do our diplomas by hand. With feathers.
3. Dad has bought a case of bottled water and "some batteries, just in case." We have never owned so many D batteries.
2. The Phillies still won't win.
1. Nothing happens, and everybody feels a little dumb. (Mike's prediction. Mike's usually right about things that make people feel dumb.)

The Eagles went 3-13. That's all I'm going to say about that.

Resolutions for 1999
1. Get my license.
2. See Episode I on opening night.
3. Figure out the future. At least a little of it.
4. Talk to Spanish Class Girl a third time. (Kidding.) (Unless.)