I know them all. Because I was called each and everyone of them. Because I was and I will always be. That NERD.
I still remember Kay Smith. She was not the most prettiest girl in school. But she was real good looking, and I wanted her. But Ben Hemmond, the high schools archery champion, wanted her too. And she wanted his sweater.
She pass me up for a sweater! Oh yes, and a car. A 1956 Rambler American, two tone, black over baby blue.
I was a true sucker for Kay. I did all of her homework, helped her with school projects, and even washed her dog. And her dad gave me the opportunity to repair one of the first color televisions. I was a hit around Nerdsville after that.
Even at our local college, I was there for her. I would take her out when she could not get another date. Took her to McDonald's when ever she called. I even used my MIT (Michigan Institute of Technology) project funds, to take her to New York City, for the Rolling Stones first US concert tour. Then just before graduation. She married this guy in uniform. Heartbreak time. I thought I had a chance. A small one, but a chance. But what hurt the most, was receiving my degree, with only my Mom, my Dad, and my Sister attending.
I remained a true Nerd, for the next 8 years. Then one day, when I was getting off from work. I got robbed in the company's parking lot.
OK I thought; take my money, take my car even. Those items I could replace. But when he decided to take my life. For some strange unknown reason, I got mad. Killer mad.
I swung my heavy 1968 briefcase as hard as I could. And I continue to hit him and hit him with my briefcase. Not with the flat side. But with the corners. I nearly killed him. He was a bloody mess, laying outside my car.
Then the company's security people showed up. Not because I was getting robbed. But because I was beating the holy hell out this guy. They wanted to stop me, because by then, I was kicking him with my black hard leather wing tip Concords.
When it was all over, and I could go home. I sat down in my kitchen, and I ask myself why did I do it. And the answer was clear. I was mad as hell, and I was not going to take it any more. As well as having the fear of God looking me in the face.
The robber represented every cool guy in prep school, middle school, high school, and college that I had the misfortune of dealing with. And from that day forward. My life changed.
Kay showed up in my life later on, transporting her four children from the guy in uniform, and now divorced. I had became the division manager in the companies research department. I was now making a decent sum of money. So after visiting my mother, I dropped by her Dads home, where she was staying. I went there because I had to know why she married Mr. Uniform and not waited for me.
She told me that she went to college to find a husband.
We were sitting in a Burger King..., Kay, her youngest child, and I, having a meal, with the Star Wars Movie showing at the theater across the street. Kay tried her old charms on me. By requesting that we attend the movie together.
I sat there looking at her, thinking about my college graduation. I really do not know why women think and believe, that they can leave a good caring man, totally high and dry, holding his penis in his hands. Only to return years later, after being blown up in 360 degrees in every direction of their bodies; several times by other guys or the same guy. With the thought that they may not be as spanking brand new as before, But that they are still an A1 used car purchase.
I could not believe that she was willing to pass on her's and Mr. Uniform's problems and responsibilities on to me, if I allowed it.
But that event in the parking lot, had changed me and gave me a fresh new outlook, of who and what I am. And what I could become. So I just stood up and walked away; and went on to a much more fuller and less stressful life.
As a "Weird Kid (that is what they called us), I knew and experience the pain that others today are feeling, including the loneliness of sitting at home watching the other kids play outdoors. Wanting to go out side, but fearing a confrontation. Plus every school day, hating to get on the school bus, to endure a 30 minute bus ride, with the worse kids possible. Or riding your bike down the street, while those stupid (cool) kids threw rocks at you. With them not realizing that if they hit you with one of those rocks, it could kill you. And you start asking yourself. Is that what they want to do? Kill me!
Or even when you attended high school, wondering and searching for the answers to what makes a cool kid, a cool kid; and what makes you "weird". I know that the answer does not exist. Yet you could not tell me that in the 1950's, or early 1960's.
Well, it brains my friend. Brains. With the ability and the willingness to use them. To understand and to organize your thoughts, emotions, and ideas, plus to be able to look at a person with Autism and know that you may be looking at a possible genius. To sense that the first correct answer, is only the beginning to all the other correct answers, waiting to be unearthed. The ability to obtain decent employment that pays $70,000.00 a year in the 1970's, and $183,000.00 by the 1990's, and well over $190,000.00 a year, in the early 2000's; until one's retirement.
I often visit my old neighborhood, to spend time with my weird/nerd friends, that are now caring for their parents. Because they know that if they place them in nursing homes, their chances of dying, is a sure thing.
I also, ran into the much older, one time considered to be the (cool kids), struggling to make ends meet, and bitching about nearly everything. Yet half of them, do not even vote during elections.
I even ran into one former cool kid, who is still living his high school days. High School! Everything he speaks of deals with high school, and how cool it was.
Yea, right.
For whom?
He is still working at a labor job, and is the same age as I am.
Sad.
So there it is my Weird and Nerdy Bros. Lets talk, lets communicate. My email is listed below.
photobean777@gmail.com
Thank You
KennyE
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