Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.
It's been far too long since my last blog post.
I know!
But I'm back now, so let's get to it!
The year was 2001.
My Sophomore year of high school was about to begin.
But less than two weeks into the school year, something terrible happened.
The terrorist attacks of September 11th.
Everyone remembers where they were that day.
For me, I had just walked into school that morning.
Every room had a television, and all of them were on various news channels.
No one was teaching anything that day in my school.
People were trying to make sense of what they were seeing.
There were people who were crying, and others who were shocked into silence.
Everyone else was somewhere in between.
People lost their lives.
People lost their family members, their friends, and loved ones.
It's been over 16 years since that horrific tragedy happened.
Never forget.
It took a few weeks for things to at least seem to be getting back to normal at my school.
Once Thanksgiving and Christmas came around, I started to see smiles on faces that had not smiled in months.
That was a good thing to see.
Now that I had one of of high school under my belt, I knew the lay of the land.
The new Freshman class also had some of my best friends in it, so it was nice to be able to see them on a daily basis again!
I also now had Gym class three times a week.
That's a win folks.
I also had something else from the end of my Freshman year to expand upon...
My lollipop side business!
It started small the year before, with classmates trying to out bid each other for blow pops.
I knew I had to expand on that!
My inventory increased dramatically.
Now I had blow pops, paintbrush pops, starburst pops, dum dums, banana pops, caramel apple pops, crush soda pops, and hot chocolate pops!
My book bag was now filled with lollipops, and I would keep all of my school books in my locker!
Word of mouth quickly spread around the entire school.
I was now "The Candy Man".
It was INSANE!
My friends wanted them.
Other students that I never even talked to, FROM ALL GRADES wanted them.
MY TEACHERS WANTED THEM!
Every time I would walk into a class, I would always go to the teacher first, so they could have first dibs.
Once I had the teacher in my pocket, I mean uhh, once the teacher was given the proper respect for being my elder, I would then take my seat.
Then the hustle began.
People would pass quarters to me like they used to pass notes back in the day.
I know who liked what flavor.
All it took was eye contact.
I was dishing out lollipops with one hand, and collecting quarters with the other hand.
People would stop me in the hallway between classes.
Lunch time?
Forget about it.
It was madness.
I would sell out of everything every single day.
I'd take the revenue from Day 1, buy my new inventory for Day 2, and still have a nice big chunk of pocket change that was straight profit.
For a 15 year old with no job, no car, and most importantly, NO BILLS, any profit was good profit!
But to be totally honest, I got most of my revenue from people that I didn't know, who just ASSUMED that the lollipops were 25 cents each, and I never exactly confirmed OR denied that.
My friends always got them for free.
So did the girls, you know, because chivalry isn't dead!
I was providing a service!
Those were fun times!
Speaking of fun times, another new sensation was just starting to make it's way to the U.S. from Japan.
Three letters.
DDR.
Also known as "Dance Dance Revolution".
It's a music video game series.
Basically, you stand on a raised metal platform that has four colored arrows at your feet, and the video monitor is in front of you.
The arrows are Up, Down, Left, and Right.
You then pick one of the many songs in the game, (many of which are mainstream songs, or covers of mainstream songs) and the song starts, and a bunch of those arrows start appearing at the bottom of the scree, scrolling upwards.
The goal is to step on the correct arrow when that arrow reaches the top of the screen.
The concept seems simple enough, but that couldn't be any farther from the truth!
I remember the first time I saw someone play it at the Holyoke Mall.
I was already hooked.
Songs are given a rating of 1-10, with 1 being the easiest difficulty, and 10 being the hardest.
The harder the song, the more arrows (or "steps') it contains, along with the song usually being at a faster tempo, along with a much more complex pattern of steps that need to be hit in a very rapid succession!
Miss enough steps, and you fail!
When I first saw it being played in person, I thought to myself "I'd love to be able to do that, but there's no way!"
Then I found out that some of my very best friends had already been playing at a high level!
I knew I had to catch up!
I started off small, playing the home version of the game at my friends house, (which comes with flimsy plastic mats that slip all over the place unless you can secure them down properly) which allowed me to make a fool out of myself OUTSIDE of public view.
That went on for a few months.
I practiced as often as I could.
When me and my friends would go to the arcade at the mall, I would watch them play, because I was too nervous to try it in public!
Then one day, I went to the mall with my cousin, who was also getting into it, and he said "you're playing today".
I figured he was just joking.
He wasn't.
So, I played.
And I passed all of the songs!
I was out of breath, and sweating everywhere, but I did it.
At that point, I wasn't nervous anymore.
It was time to attempt even harder songs.
To build up my stamina.
I'll tell you right now.
I don't care WHAT shape you're in.
If you play the wrong song to start off your set, (usually 3 or 4 songs, depending on what your local arcade has set as the standard limit on your machine) you will be completely out of breath, your legs will be shaking, and your throat will be ON FIRE!
But I must admit, for me, it's one of the best feeling in the world!
Full disclosure?
I still play it to this day!
Between running my lollipop business five days a week, also called "school" I guess, and DDR, that pretty much took up all of my time during my Sophomore Year!
My Junior Year on the other hand, well, we will get to that next time!!
