The best days of our lives
Jim was a high school classmate. He was handsome, captain of the football team, and senior class president. His girlfriend, Janet, was the extremely cute head cheerleader. “Remember, Kenny”, Jim said to me one day after school, “these are the best days of our lives. You should really savor them!” Oh no, I thought, if these are the best days of my life, I may as well jump off a bridge.
I was Jim’s polar opposite: nerdy, self-conscious, socially awkward, and without a girlfriend. Plus, my mother had died two years previously. And though he did the best he could, my father had very little idea of how to how to raise teenaged boys. All in all, I was miserable for most of high school.
I joined our synagogue youth group. My first outing was to a camp on the Chesapeake Bay. After dinner we hung around the campfire. Barbara, an exuberant girl a few years older than me, was talking about a guy she really liked. “He’s fantastic,” she gushed, “just oozing with personality.” She energetically flapped her hands as she spoke, as if to convey the considerable magnitude of the oozing. Simultaneously her eyes lit up and darted around the campfire, connecting with various members of the group as she said, “you know what I mean?. I guess they also had oozing personalities, so they undoubtedly understood exactly what she meant. But her eyes never fell on oozeless me, and I didn’t.
In addition to the youth group, I decided to try out AZA, which was called a “Jewish fraternity,” though I don’t think it was a real fraternity. One of its attractions was the rumor that the AZA brothers from time to time would travel to Baltimore, thirty-five miles to the north, to visit the Gaiety Burlesque. “It’s easy to get in” I was told, “they never card you.” But despite that allure, I was far too timid to go along, even in the unlikely event that someone would have invited me.
I did go to Baltimore with an AZA brother once, but not to the Gaiety. Rather, it was for a dance. Since I had major issues with dancing, I was intimidated right from the start. We were parceled out to a local member. The guy I stayed with was a Jewish version of Jim Ross. On his dresser was a bottle of English Leather aftershave—what an incredible smell! He wore a wide full-grain leather belt with a big brass buckle and prominent yellowish stitching. And a peek into his closet revealed not one, but several beautiful sweaters with suede elbow patches. These were things that I craved, but I didn’t feel worthy to ask my father to buy them for me. Not that he would have had a clue as to how special they were.
I don’t remember the dance at all. But to my shame, what I do vividly remember is dropping the girls off at their homes afterwards. My date was the first to be delivered. She was sitting by the window, and I was scrunched in the middle of the back seat next to her. She opened the door and got out. I said ‘goodbye,’ and she walked to her house. The brother sitting next to me shoved his elbow in my ribs, but I thought he was just shifting his position. Finally the driver, who was the guy I was staying with, said, “Hey, Kenny! Why the hell didn’t you walk her to the door?” I said I didn’t know I was supposed to. I could feel multiple sets of eyes rolling, and almost hear them saying under their collective breaths, “what a loser!” It was incredibly humiliating. By the time my mother died I guess I was still too young for her to explain basic social conventions to me, and I’m sure it wouldn’t have occurred to my father to teach me something like that. In fact, he never even taught me to shave, or that I should take regular showers; I had to figure out those sorts of things for myself.
Needless to say, that was my last experience with AZA, or any other fraternity. I fumbled my way through the rest of high school. Fortunately, I was pretty successful both academically and in student government. The next fall I left for college, apparently with the best days of my life behind me.
In fact, I’ve been truly fortunate in my post-high school life—I’ve had a satisfying career, done lots of travelling, lived in many beautiful places, married a really wonderful woman, and have fantastic kids and grandkids. I now know that it’s polite to walk people to their door, how to shave, and when to take showers. I even feel comfortable buying nice belts and sweaters.
I lost contact with Jim after graduation, and occasionally wondered what became of him. A recent Google search showed that he married Janet, then became a cardiologist. They had kids (who must be absolutely beautiful) and live near Annapolis, Maryland. Hopefully, Jim was as wrong for him as he was for me that high school days were the best days of our lives.