Friday, August 31, 2007

Going Old School

I'm not always quick to embrace the latest technology. Only about six months ago did I break down and get a cellphone. I do not own an MP3 player although I bought one for my wife. I'm still on dial up. (though that one is not by choice) I really don't like computers, even though I love what they can do. I still struggle with all those terms and their meanings. Bytes, megahertz, rams, roms, sis boom bahs. I don't really care how or why it works as long as it does. Yeah I know I'm supposed to know some of this crap for work and despite my resistance a have learned a few things, but my technological know how really isn't the focus of this post.

So what is? I'm not sure, but follow along cause this could be a long explanation.

I started this blog and created a MySpace page (stop in and join my merry band of friends if you wish) primarily to get my name out there, market myself as well as my writing. I love and have quickly became addicted to the blogosphere -- Myspace I find rather tedious and for the most part way more trouble that it is worth.

But Myspace does have its usefulness. Just this last week I logged on and lo and behold I had a new message -- From my best friend through much of my school years.

Jason moved to my neighborhood when we were in the fourth of fifth grade, I think. Maybe it was third grade. Funny how I can remember somethings with great detail and others not at all.
Anyway up until them it had been me and my friend since kindergarten Mark, who terrorized the street. Then in a short time Jason and a kid named Brian Koontz moved in.

I have always been prone to giving my friends nicknames. I trait I still have. Fiddler are your reading this? Anyway Brian Koonts became Cootie, and Jason, who was going by his step-dads surname of Grubb at the time became Grubworm. Yeah I know Cootie and grubworm aren't the most endearing of monikers but young boys aren't known for being all that endearing.

Cootie moved away shortly thereafter and we never saw him again, mark moved across town which resulted in us growing apart although I will always consider him a friend as well. Last time I saw him was at my tenth high school reunion back in 2001.

So that left me and Grub (the worm got dropped after a while) for a lot of years. I'm sure his name will come up in stories on this blog, quite possibly in future installments of Terrible Tuesdays with Travis. When we hit high school our directions veered a bit, but our worlds expanded with the ability to drive so we didn't see as much of each other but there are lots of things that will always tie me and Jason together, including my writing.

Remember that movie Red Dawn, with Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen about a Russian invasion of a small town in Colorado? There is a good chance you don't, but back in the day me and my friends loved that movie along with another one called Cloak and Dagger about a young boy with a military hero as an imaginary friend. We often acted out Cloak and Dagger, but Red Dawn we actually rewrote and that is the first time I actually remember putting pen to paper and creating a story. Even though we stole the plot directly from the movie we changed the setting to Amarillo and the characters to ourselves. Okay, so we were dorks, but we had a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

Anyway after high school Jason joined the Air Force went off to exotic locales like Hawaii and Korea and I enlisted in another government agency the US Postal Service and got to visit other exotic locales like Norman, Oklahoma and Childress, Texas. (More on this town in a future post)

Jason came back once about a year or so after graduation but that is the last time I had seen or heard from him until he found me via myspace this week. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and two kids and is some type of computer guru. Nowadays he goes by his actual name of Jason Adams and if you pop over to his blog today you'll find out he is a traitor to my commune which I shall call Carnivore Cottage. You'll also find out he's not as skinny as he used to be and that his wife just might be smarter than both of us.

In the last week or so me and Jason have exchanged a message or two via myspace, a phone conversation, and he has left a comment or two here on this blog. He has made me remember things I had long since forgotten. I'm sure we are both very different people then we were as childhood friends, but it was very good to reconnect with him and I plan to make every effort to stay in touch. Maybe we'll never crawl around in another huge sewer pipe together, or maybe we will now that we are both legal drinking age, but life is too shy of good friends to let any of them slip away forever.

17 comments:

Angie said...

I remember Red Dawn! [waves] One thing I really liked about that movie was that that one... Cuban guy? Hispanic, anyway. The Evil Commie Invader commander-guy, him -- they actually made him a three-dimensional character rather than just a cardboard villain. Pretty amazing for the sort of movie it was, especially since none of the kids you were actually supposed to be rooting for had much depth.

It was a fun movie, though, especially if you were a kid at the time, or at least young enough to be easily able to imagine yourself in the role of one of the adolescent heroes. Not that I ever did that, of course. [cough]

Angie

cher said...

i don't even know my friends real names.

cher said...

along with the names i make up for them is normally a certain voice for each name too.

Terrie Farley Moran said...

Travis,

I just popped over to Jason's blog on myspace and I told him what I'm telling you. I'm going to have a lot of fun watching you two talk to/about each other.

Terrie

Brooke said...

Totally sending you a friend request!

Sorry...myspace turns me in a 15 year old...

Phats said...

Wow that's cool that you go to reconnect with an old friend. I am not big on the whole myspace/facebook thing mostly because I am a HS teacher and most of the kids I teach are on there ha.

I don't own a cell phone either, but I do have a MP3 player!

Bubblewench said...

I have facebook and myspace and I rarely ever get on either. BUT this 'meeting' has inspired me as there are a few people I would like to find from 'back in the day'

Thanks! I think between the two of I can entertained for quite some time.

Anonymous said...

How nice Travis all mushy on us. If old Grub comes over to our house and starts singing Kenney Chesney that will be the end of that.

This post is as crazy as the one with Travis and Alex living on a mountain together. Making moonshine. Wearing overalls. I just hope Travis takes a razor and Alex wears chap stick. Travis will have owls and stuff living in his beard and Alex's lips will fall off.

alex keto said...

Ye Gads, Travis!
Red Dawn was a really, really bad movie.
We'll write that off as youthful exuberance or some such.

Monnik said...

What a great way to reconnect. I have a myspace page, but only to keep an eye on my daughter and her myspace moves.

How do you live without an ipod or mp3 player? A cell phone, i can sort of understand, but i'm addicted to my ipod. :)

Travis Erwin said...

As y'all see me wife is just full of love in her comments.

Hey Alex give me a break I was eleven whent he movie came out.

Anonymous said...

Red Dawn rocks! I have Cloak & Dagger, too.

Anonymous said...

I just like to keep the love spread out as far as I can.

You know I would shoo away the owls. I would also shoo Kenny away from you as well. I'v got your back as long as you do not sleep on your tummy.

It is a Silly Saturday.

Tena Russ said...

Hi Travis,

I'm interested in hearing more about your MySpace experiences. I hope you'll post about it. Maybe you can have a feature called Mondays on MySpace? Meanwhile, I'll try to navigate yet another technological mountain and sign on to your site.

Anonymous said...

Travis, to your credit, I was a total Cloak and Dagger geek when I was little, plus I thought that little boy was cute. Well, he didn't seem little at the time.

And as for Jen's comments... Ha.. I can totally picture Travis and Alex on that mountain. Lost.

And myspace works really really well to meet people. I have met so many literary like minded people, it isn't even funny. I have met an editor from a large literary e-zine, I got an editor position after meeting people on myspace, and I was offered the position of book reviewer on another literary e-zine from meeting some more people on myspace.

IT WORKS...

and as far as catching up with old friends, it is wonderful for that too.
And for all those on myspace, click on my name at the top of this comment and add me as one of your friends..

Yours,

me

Aaron said...

Cloak And Dagger brings back some memories?

And what was wrong with the plot to Red Dawn? Had to write yourself into the cript? :D

Aaron said...

er, SCRIPT!