[You will come down soon too]
Funniest thing in this week's Savannah Courier:
Saddest thing in this week's Savannah Courier:
A story about Jeffrey Hatley drowning to death near Pickwick. He was swimming with friends and he got a leg cramp, went under, and didn't come back up. I went to school with Jeffrey. We were in band together. I believe he played cymbals. He had a nickname (though I can't remember if it was a to-your-face nickname or one of those inside-joke names my friends and I used privately to differentiate between our classmates) that insinuated that he looked rodent-like. My most complete memory of him involves the time in middle school he stuck a magnet up to an outlet and it popped and turned the wall and his head black. Temporarily, of course.
I'm sad Jeffrey's life had to come to such an abrupt end. It was probably so unbelievably hot that day. He and his buddies maybe knocked back a couple and drove their trucks up to Pickwick lake for an after-work swim. A leg cramp and a mouthful of water did him in. They didn't even dredge to find his body until the next morning, because the friends lost sight of him and couldn't find him as it got dark, and the officials said it was too dangerous to dredge at night.
I read his death notice and his name pricked a nerve, way back in the back of my head, behind the smoke. I grabbed my yearbooks, which are the only things keeping me from completely forgetting names and faces of my past, and formed his face accurately in my head before finding his picture.
The older we get, the more familiar the names in the obituaries will become.
Funniest thing in this week's Savannah Courier:
Saddest thing in this week's Savannah Courier:
A story about Jeffrey Hatley drowning to death near Pickwick. He was swimming with friends and he got a leg cramp, went under, and didn't come back up. I went to school with Jeffrey. We were in band together. I believe he played cymbals. He had a nickname (though I can't remember if it was a to-your-face nickname or one of those inside-joke names my friends and I used privately to differentiate between our classmates) that insinuated that he looked rodent-like. My most complete memory of him involves the time in middle school he stuck a magnet up to an outlet and it popped and turned the wall and his head black. Temporarily, of course.
I'm sad Jeffrey's life had to come to such an abrupt end. It was probably so unbelievably hot that day. He and his buddies maybe knocked back a couple and drove their trucks up to Pickwick lake for an after-work swim. A leg cramp and a mouthful of water did him in. They didn't even dredge to find his body until the next morning, because the friends lost sight of him and couldn't find him as it got dark, and the officials said it was too dangerous to dredge at night.
I read his death notice and his name pricked a nerve, way back in the back of my head, behind the smoke. I grabbed my yearbooks, which are the only things keeping me from completely forgetting names and faces of my past, and formed his face accurately in my head before finding his picture.
The older we get, the more familiar the names in the obituaries will become.
posted by theogeo | 8/13/2005 02:08:00 AM
4 Comments:
Chile, how did you do that Currently Reading shit? I've been wanting to do that since for-evah.
Jeffrey Hatley drowned?! Jesus. I remember him. I even remember in class when he stuck the magnet in the outlet and it turned his arm black. I remember the sparks flying and the "shocked" look on his face. I guess instead of sadness we can only have gladness that he made it past that day in science class. Weird. I remember that happening in class, but I remember having that class with Crystal, not you. Strange how time can distort things.
Yeah. It sucks.
It's entirely possible that we were all in that class together. God knows I can't remember clearly.
I just realized that I wrote 'head' instead of 'hand,' which is quite different when speaking about turning black from electrocution.
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