Lost Another Friend

I just got word that a friend from High School, Scott Hill, just passed away.  Scott and I had a sort of strange relationship.  After the 9th grade, I stopped playing sports, entirely, and turned even more moody and sullen than usual.  I never quite fit in with the jock crowd.  I didn't do enough homework to fit in with the braniac nerds. 

I started playing guitar and hanging out at the outcast table at lunch, just biding my time waiting for High School to end, so my life could begin.

"Outcast table" is a bit harsh.  We were just sort of a collection of odds and ends that didn't fit neatly into any of the other obvious groups at the High School.  We had a wrestler, a techie nerd (believe it or don't, there was a time when this was a really, really unusual thing in a High School), a new kid at school, me, and Scott.

I don't know what role I played in the group.  Maybe the underachieving slacker.  Scott was the stoner of the group.  I'm not sure that he necessarily did all that many drugs.  Just more than most of the kids in my high school, which meant that he did some.  Probably not a lot, especially by college standards.  Just a lot compared to kids who didn't do any.

It still sort of surprises me that our group got along so well.  It wasn't a clique.  Cliques control their membership and actually kick people out of the group or accept people into it.  Us?  We were, each in our own way, a bunch of loners, but who were social enough to want to hang out together with somebody at lunch.  Other than the techie nerd, everybody was pretty vocal.  We'd discuss a wide variety of topics and by no means did we agree with each other on much. 

I think the main thing was, nobody was judgemental.  We all accepted each other at face value, and there was a total absence of bullying or belittling of each other. 

I liked Scott.  Granted, he wasn't exactly the typical profile of somebody a future Republican would gravitate to, but he was easygoing, nice, funny.  He also played guitar, which gave us something in common. 

I bumped into him now and then in life afterwards.  In testament to the fact that for most people, what you are in High School has no bearing on what you are once you get to live life on your own terms, he eventually rose to be CIO of his company.  At the time of his passing, he had a beautiful wife and two beautiful kids. 

It was cancer that did him in. 

We re-connected via Facebook, and to be perfectly honest, it struck me as a bit astounding how he'd turned his life into something so overwhelmingly positive.  Not long after we touched base, his status updates indicated that he was pretty sick. 

Personally, I wouldn't re-live my High School years.  I'd go back to pretty much any time in my life, other than that.  I think a lot of folks think of High School as the best years of their lives.  I thought it was a miserable experience on par with being in prison.  I actually liked Army basic training more than I liked High School. 

If I had to guess, I bet most of us at that table felt the same way about it. 

There were some very positive things that came out of High School, though.  One of which was that I got to meet and interact with people who I very likely would not have, under most other circumstances.  I got to where I really looked forward to lunch period and sitting at the outcast table with my fellow untouchables. 

Scott was a big part of the reason why.  For the record, Scott had impeccable music taste.  He listened to Bad Company and was into Pink Floyd long before everybody hopped on their bandwagon after "The Wall".  He had a Gretsch guitar that he got from his Dad, I believe.  He was self-conscious about being thin. 

Mostly, though, he was a good guy and a gentle soul.  It's sad to think I'll never see him again.