Winter 1995: I was in second grade, and I was part of the “gifted program” in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which was called “LEEP.”
I can’t remember what “LEEP” stood for. Learning Something Enrichment Program. What was the something? Experience, maybe. Education. Enhancement. It’s not important.
The LEEP program was housed in its own building, with its own classrooms and its own teachers. This building was too small for every so-called “gifted” kid in the district to be in it simultaneously, so a schedule dictated when kids would or would not attend.
The schedule was way more complicated than it needed to be. Some days were designated “LEEP days” for certain combinations of schools; other days were not. Your LEEP day might fall on a Monday one week, and the next week it might fall on a Friday. Every so often you might have three LEEP days in a single week and then none for an entire month.
On a LEEP day you’d go to your regular school in the morning, and at 9:30 am there’d be an announcement on the intercom: “LEEP students, please walk to the front door. LEEP students, please walk to the front door.”
They always had to say it twice – in case you didn’t hear them the first time. And they always had to throw that obnoxious “please” in there – a way to pretend they were giving you a request, not an order. And always with that grating singsong rhythm. “LEEP students, please walk to the front door.”
You’d walk to the front door and there’d be a bus waiting for you. You’d get on this bus and it would take you to the LEEP building, which was three stories tall and made of weathered brick.
My first day of LEEP, I entered the classroom I’d been told to report to and discovered, to my horror, that I was one of only two students: it was just me and another guy named Phillip.
I remember nothing about Phillip other than that his name was “Phillip.” I don’t know what he looked like or what his voice sounded like or even whether I considered him my friend. I may have liked the guy, I may have hated him. I don’t remember.
I know I hated our teacher, though. Her name was Mrs. Wright. She had white, frizzy hair. This made her look kind of like Albert Einstein, but that’s where the similarities end. Einstein was by all accounts a pretty easygoing dude. Mrs. Wright was many things, but “easygoing” was not one of them.
She gave Phillip and me “journals.” She claimed these “journals” were where we’d record our “thoughts,” but that wasn’t how it actually worked. In reality, she’d just say something to us and then direct us to write whatever it was she’d just said into our “journals” verbatim.
To me this seems to defeat the purpose of keeping a “journal,” but hey, what do I know? I’m not a “trained gifted educator,” or whatever Mrs. Wright thought she was.
Mrs. Wright would assign us “work” that was always time-consuming and meaningless. Copy this down into your journal. Color this picture.
Once Phillip and I were sweating over this bullshit and Mrs. Wright was seriously just hovering over us, nearly shouting about how we needed to get “more work” done.
“Work,” she said, “is important. You boys have to do more work.” Even now, I still have to do “more work.” I guess I was already on this goddamn treadmill in 1995.
I only had Mrs. Wright in the morning. In the afternoon, I had another class. I think it was called “Reflections of You,” or something equally lame. It was a class I had explicitly not wanted to take, but somehow Mrs. Wright had wrangled me into it anyway.
Reflections of You. What the fuck was that class even about? I can’t remember. I think I had to make a family tree. I think I had to make a collage of “concepts” that really “represented” “me.” I think Reflections of You was a class about self-affirmation and empowerment.
I was the only second-grader in there; mostly, the other kids were older, and mostly, I sat in the corner, puzzled, watching them do baffling things. I remember the teacher was tall. Relative to me, I guess she was infinitely tall.
The classroom had a number of computers in it. Most of the time they were in use. When a machine was free, I’d sit in front of it and just kind of stare – not at the monitor, but at the words printed on the side of the computer itself: Power Macintosh. That struck me as a really ridiculous thing to call a computer.
They were very big on Apple at LEEP. A big part of that Reflections of You class involved taking pictures of shit with an Apple QuickTake 100, which was an early digital camera. I even remember Mrs. Wright forcing me to write a “journal entry” about how wonderful and advanced QuickTake was, like she was trying to position me for some future job as a fucking copywriter.
QuickTake. In 1995 almost every Apple technology had a clumsy compound name. QuickTake, QuickTime, QuickDraw. HyperCard. PowerTalk. Fourteen years later, they’ve ditched the compound words. Now almost every Apple technology has a name that’s trying too hard to be cool. Cocoa, Carbon, Darwin. Bonjour. Quartz.
In 1995, Apple’s latest operating system was called “System 7.” In 2010, it’s “Mac OS X Snow Leopard.” I predict that 2025 will see the release of “Mac OS XV Fusion Lion: Frost Nebula Synthesis.”
Reflections of You. One day we went on a field trip to a nursing home. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was for some profound philosophical reason. You know, to make us realize we’d all get old someday.
Some kids brought cookies to give the old people. I think I did too. I think it was required. I distinctly remember the infinitely-tall teacher saying to make sure our cookies were sugar-free, because “a lot of elderly folks have diabetes.” I didn’t know what the hell “diabetes” was.
And even now, although I’m in med school, I still don’t fucking know. I know a little, but not enough. Most med students would be able to give you all the details. Not me. Diabetes knowledge is something I really should, but really don’t, have.
We took a bus to the nursing home, where the infinitely-tall teacher assigned each of us an old person to talk to. I was assigned to a guy whose name I can’t remember. Call him Mr. Blank.
“You have Mr. Blank,” the teacher said. “He’s the second-oldest person here! Ninety-three years old!”
Mr. Blank was in a wheelchair, and his posture was such that it seemed like he was physically fused to it. It seemed like there were no bones in his body, like he was secretly a horror-movie blob of ectoplasm that just happened to be wearing a jacket and just happened to have a head.
He had a giant wooden cross around his neck. I think that was the first time I’d ever seen anyone wear a cross.
Mr. Blank introduced himself. He had a remarkably raspy voice. Then he asked for my name, and when I told him, he laughed.
“What kind of a name is that?” he said.
It was a good question. I’ve always hated my name. I’ve never been able to understand just what the hell my parents were thinking when they gave it to me.
Mr. Blank gave me a half-eaten package of peanut butter crackers.
“A gift,” he said. “It’s all I’ve got. It’s too bad. You should have been the last kid who came in here. I gave him a radio.”
He laughed again. I thought: man, I could have used a radio. What do I want this stupid half-package of peanut butter crackers for? Then I wondered if thinking that made me an asshole.
Mr. Blank asked if I had any questions. I pointed at the cross around his neck.
“What is that thing?” I said.
He looked affronted. “That’s my Jesus.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you have a Jesus?”
I admitted that I did not, in fact, have a Jesus. He gave me a look of something approaching scorn. At that moment, conveniently, it was time for us kids to get back onto the bus.
“Uh, goodbye,” I said.
“Goodbye,” he said.
Back at LEEP, I went to lunch, which was always kind of a depressing experience because I didn’t really have any friends there. I’d eat alone, and when I was done eating I’d scribble in my notebook.
I used to carry a spiral notebook around with me back then. I kept it in my backpack. It was a real “journal.” You know, as opposed to the fucking worthless artificial “journals” that so many classes have required me to keep over the years.
I used to draw aliens and spaceships. And imaginary planets. And designs for bizarre amusement parks. And dinosaurs, of course. When I was a kid, I thought it entirely possible that I might someday dig up dinosaurs and build actual spaceships and so on, because how hard could that be?
Now that fourteen years have gone by, I know my limitations. All I’m capable of doing is sleeping, playing too many videogames, and writing stupid shit like this to post on the Internet.
I still, in theory, carry a notebook around. A small one. I keep it in my pocket – in theory. Most of the time I leave it in my apartment. And even when I remember it, I forget to write or draw anything in it.
I don’t have ideas anymore. Every year since 1995 or so, my mind has slowed a little. The notebook I have now, I don’t do anything creative with it. I mostly just use it to practice writing in iambic pentameter because I’m a fucking dork like that.
If that old guy in the wheelchair was ninety-three when I met him, then he’s certainly dead now. He’s dead, and I don’t even remember his name. He’s dead, and I didn’t even particularly like the guy, nor did he particularly like me. To him I was a heathen foreigner. To me he was an old Jesus freak.
We were mutually inconsequential. Now he’s gone. I’m still here, but for how much longer? And when I die, what difference will it make?