Land of Confusion

Cutter's Log - Stardate 0102.52.11
Current Song - Land of Confusion (Genesis)

A lot of people liked the fact that I had a great memory when I was younger.

I guess you can figure out the theme here.

This is one of those weeks when childhood friends come back to town from wherever they are. Those I haven't seen in months, and even years. I'd see them every day at school or every week elsewhere. Then we graduated high school and took the first train out of town following the graduation ceremony. I wouldn't see them for years.

In the five years since I graduated high school, a lot of things can change among us. Physically we get a little heavier, especially those women that have kids at the moment.

I saw many people I haven't seen in a while tonight at the gas station. My best friend from grade school, Jared, stopped by. I recognized him in an instant. Another friend, Corey, also stopped in. It went on for a while, up until about midnight.

There was this girl that came in and adressed me by name. Obviously she knew me, but I couldn't quite figure out who she was. I'm going through my database of friends inside my brain, and I couldn't come up with a match. Then she asked how Mike, Chris and Dan were doing.

I kind of figured out she was probably one of my friends from Sterling, considering that nearly all of my friends from Rock Falls don't know the names of my three brothers. Since she knew the names of my brothers, I figured it had to be someone near my graduating class that had brothers and sisters the same age as my brothers.

So who would know my three brothers? It took me a while and I thought of only one option, given the description of this girl. It just didn't seem like her.

Okay, so I thought of cousins from both sides of my family. Nope.

Then I thought of kids on my old block in Rock Falls, as well as my old block in Sterling. Rock Falls didn't turn up any matches. Then back to Sterling, where I lived from age 2 to age 7. There was only one possible person. Then I'm going, how would she remember Dan or Chris?

I gave up. I didn't ask her who she was, because I would feel stupid if it were someone obvious. Then there goes a rumor that I have alzheimers, and so on and so on ...

I've had these kinds of brain farts a few times at the gas stations. Whenever I do, it seems to be someone from Sterling. I, for some reason, remember my Rock Falls friends better than I do my Sterling friends.

At least I have some criteria to go by when trying to figure out who someone is without asking their name.

I think why this is happening is because I don't spend a lot of time around those that I have been around with back then anymore. A bunch of high school sports stuff pushes this kind of memory back deeper and deeper.

I still think back to my class reunion where someone told me that I don't get out a lot because I'm too busy. Then I try to eliminate some of this busyness. Can't do it. On the days I'm not working, I'm covering something. I dedicate the day to covering the event, and I have stats and story angles and such in continual thought for hours before the game.

Not trying to put an autistic angle to things, but it seems we all gather around a different group of people after we become disconnected from the long association that is K-12 schooling. It's taken my a few years to find my kind of circle, but I'd like to say that I have a lot of good sportswriting friends out there and high school sports friends (even if they don't consider me a "friend" but rather an acquaintence). Outside of sportswriting, I have a few friends from the gas station.

Those friends at the gas station I see more often than I do my sportswriting friends. Of the people I know outside of work customers, family, co-workers and these work friends, I see the area's sportswriters more often than I do friends from school. I think I've covered games with more than 50 sportswriters in the area I cover. Some I see at least 10 times a year, others less.

So there's this group of people that do the same things I do, and enjoy doing it. I remember moving back to Sterling after a few years in Rock Falls, and how hard it was to make friends. I feel the same way now with these people. It's extremely difficult for me to make friends, given my autistic nature. But I'm not going to let that restrain me.

Conversation pieces are abundant: from the high school sports scene, doing our jobs, and the inner workings of the game we're covering. I guess from there it expands outward?

I've always wondered how people I know take the fact that I go see high school sports events at someplace where I don't even know one person. If anything, the only person I know is likely the sportswriter or coach.