Remembrance

I decided not to throw a birthday party for myself this year. Not because I didn't want to have folks over and have a party, but because I didn't feel like organizing anything. With my birthday falling just a few weeks after the holidays, it's tricky to get myself to send invitations in time for people to arrange to come, and I just wasn't enthused about putting something together.

I might have a party in the spring, though. When it's warmer and people can use my patio (which my cat-allergic friends might appreciate). No reason there has to be a special occasion to have a party...

What with turning 35 and all, I've been feeling a little melancholy about the past.

Of all the people I've known, I think the one I miss the most is one of my high school history teachers, Dr. Gottlieb. I actually had him for three years in college. Twice through happenstance, and the third time because I transferred out of the class of another teacher whom I couldn't stand (my friend Rob liked him, but I never understood it).

I think I instantly liked him because he was no nonsense. He didn't suffer fools gladly, and he also didn't feel a need to stick to a curriculum as long as he felt students were learning something. I remember he said that he'd be open to spending whole periods discussing current events so long as it was a worthwhile discussion. Sometimes people would take him up on this to try to get out of getting a lecture, but no one had boned up on enough knowledge to keep it going for a whole period - we couldn't "get out of" anything that way.

I'd like to say that Dr. Gottlieb inspired me and changed my life and was the best teacher I ever had. Sadly, I was a C+/B- student in his class (I was overall a so-so B student in high school, if you can believe that). History has rarely interested me as a subject of intensive study, and I was still a few years away from becoming much interested in politics at that point.

I appreciated his attitude, and that he was a smartass, much like myself (that may have been a detriment - I have a tendency to react to smartasses by trying to out-smartass them). And he was an entertaining lecturer and was full of trivia. He always threatened to give us a full lecture on the history of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringens, though he never did.

When I did get motivated to do some in-depth work in his class, it stuck with me, though. I did a paper on the Roman road system (encountered some truly musty old books in the city library, too). And we did a project on urban renewal, for which I built a scale diorama of Kenmore Square restructured to have a rotary to change the flow of traffic. I'm not quite sure what I was thinking, but I did get to glue together a lot of foam core. (Debbi was in that class too, actually.)

After I graduated high school, I saw Dr. Gottlieb a few times. I gave him a lift home one time, since I had a car and - as far as I know - he didn't own one. He gave me the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen lecture that time. Wish I could say I remembered more of it.

I miss him because he passed away, I think while I was in college, or shortly thereafter. He was only 50, but he had a heart attack. I don't really remember my reaction at the time, but I'm still kind of stunned when I think of it in retrospect.

I also miss him because - like many things in my pre-adult life - I didn't really appreciate him. I've been exchanging e-mail the last few months with another of my high school teachers, Mr. Goggin, and it's been quite a kick, talking in more depth than the usual, "back in high school for a visit, how are you doing?" 10-minute chats. I like to think I'd have appreciate Dr. Gottlieb's stories more, and his sense of humor and humanity more, had I known him once I'd grown up.

But I guess I'll never know.

I suppose it's only natural also to think about some of the women I've been involved with, or otherwise been close to in some way.

It's a bit peculiar to realize that I'm not in touch with many of them. My friend Karen is an ex of mine, and we're still close and in touch (I called her last night, in fact). My ex Colleen has an e-mail address and we very occasionally exchange e-mails. My first girlfriend, Kathleen, had an e-mail address a few years back, but disappeared not long after. Haven't heard a word from her since then, nor has our mutual friend and my ex-roommate John.

Way back in fourth grade, I was pretty good friends with a girl named Julie. Fourth grade is not a good time to be friends with a member of the opposite sex, socially speaking, and I know I took a lot of kidding from the other guys about having a "girlfriend". (No idea whether Julie had anything like the same experience.) We stayed friendly all the way through high school, and then lost touch. She was the first science fiction fan I ever knew, although I'm not surprised that she eventually headed towards the SCA (a trait she shares with Colleen). I e-mailed her at least once through her Web page, but never heard back, that I recall.

Yes, I troll the Web looking for pages of people I used to know. Occasionally I find them. Then I usually drop them a line. Sometimes they write back, often not. I'm a snoop, I admit it. But I also figure that info on the Web is fair game for snooping - especially if the person themselves put it there.

On the bright side, I'm quite grateful for all the old friends I'm still in touch with, if even erratically. My friend Rob who lives around here, whom at this point has been a good friend longer than anyone else I know. Another high school friend Matt, who's moving to California soon for Yet More Graduate School. The aforementioned John. Another ex-roommate Ed, now at the Evil Empire. Fannish and Madison friends such as Jim, Charlie, Tracy, and Bruce.

I don't always write or call as often as I ought to, but I'm very glad to know that I can.