Heres to the Night

My senior year began with the excitement one would expect for someone who even just a few years earlier was being tossed aside as a worthless statistic.  Now here I was head of my class, team captain for forensics, respected by students and staff, and above all else a very good looking guy.  They say that a senior year for a student moves slow.  Not for me. To be honest there are only a few minor things in my head that sticks out about my senior year of high school.

One was that for the first time TSB would have an independent living program that would teach students how to live on their own.  This was one of the most awesome things I ever participated in at TSB.  I had Nick as my roommate, and we had to fix our own meals, clean up after ourselves, do our own laundry, pretty much everything you have to do in your life at any given time.  Except in this case you were being inspected once a week.

As I said Nick was my roommate, Nick who happens to be a very talented musician.  He plays guitar, bass, drums, and on top of all the he has a great voice, and perfect pitch. He can play anything after only hearing it once.  He not only does all this amazing stuff, he does it while being completely stone blind. Nick and I became really good friends even before being roommates, somehow sharing a small space made us even better friends.

One of the other things that happened to me my senior year was something I haven’t talked about very much yet.  I was a really good wrestler, making it to the state championship several times during my scholastic career.  At one of these events I attracted the attention of a scout.  This scout’s name eludes me at this point, but I know he worked for Florida Championship Wrestling, a subsidiary and training facility for World Wrestling Entertainment, the biggest and best show on Earth.

The scout approached me sometime back in 2000 and offered me a development contract that would put me in line to sign with the WWE. I even got to meet with Vince McMahon, and we discussed a possible gimmick that would place me in a gothic environment with the name of Fantum.  I would grow my hair out very long, wear white robes, and have cat’s eye contacts. Unfortunately, I wanted to do something stupid like go to college and have a real career.  Oh well.

Close to the end of my senior year, we went on our senior trip.  We had been planning this excursion for quite a while, and we were all pretty excited.  The trip was going to be a 6 day extravaganza to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.  Lots of different restaurants, swimming, hanging out in our hotel suit, the whole trip was a blast.

Something else that occurred my last year at TSB, and this one is a shocker for many.  I actually graduated from high school. Not only that but I did it by missing valedictorian by 0.005 points on my GPA.  Congratulations Rojon.  I did graduate though and that was the important thing.  I am the only one in my family that has actually earned their high school diploma the legitimate way.

There was one other small thing that happened the year I graduated.  Jill moved to Tennessee so that we could be roommates.  I knew I would need help so that I could go to college, but not be swamped with bills.  Jill left her well paying job to move to Nashville so that I could go to school and she got a job at Target.  This arrangement quickly turned into more than just a roommate situation.  We became much more. Much, much more.

1. A Small History Lesson	2. Congratulations It’s A Freak
3. The First Five Years	4. It All Goes Up In Flames
5. School Daze	6. Say What?
7. A New Hope	8. Becoming A Sophisticated Redneck
9. A New Beginning – Literally	10. Back Into the Fray
11. They Like Me, They Really Like Me	12. 10011001
13. Let the Music Heal Your Soul	14. Taking My Sister to the Prom
15. My First Love, My First Broken Heart	16. From Zero to Hero
17. Livin’ On a Prayer	18. Moving On
19. Going Full Circle	20. The Rockford Files
21. Faith of the Heart	22. Partner, Friend, Lover, Wife
23. Turns Out She Was Right	24. A One-Legged Bear
25. Another Victim of the Game	26. Payin’ Bills with my Skills
27. A New Revell-ation	28. A New Page, A New Day
29. R We There Yet?