Remembering Wendy Jordan

Remembering Wendy Jordan

            During my time in high school, I fell for all the wrong girls… Wrong may be harsh, it is not meant to imply that the girls were in and of themselves wrong, but rather just not right for me. I wouldn’t say that there was any one girl that was “right” for me but surely there were several that could have been closer. I fell for any girl who spoke nicely to me, paid me any attention at all. In short, I was a Napoleon Dynamite Dork.

            Then there was Wendy. I remember sitting in the movie theater watching There’s Something about Mary and thinking about Wendy. Wendy Jordan was Benny Jordan’s little sister. Benny Jordan was the all time biggest and oddly nicest football player I have ever known. He was like all Jock and heart; he called me- the ultra-dork, Buddy. Benny never made fun of me and there was a lot of me to make fun of. His resilience and friendliness made him one of my heroes in high school. This put his all too beautiful sister, Wendy, in a position of awe for me.

            Wendy, was and is in my memory, a beautiful blond girl in a her brother’s letter jacket and 80’s blue jeans with soft skin and bright eyes surrounded by late afternoon sunlight that makes her glow. A fantasy I know but I always held her above sexual fantasy and base daydreams. Why? Because she was always the best person she could be around me. Like her brother, never an unkind word for me and what’s more I felt like I existed in her universe as opposed to the other girls of whom I thought I was in love with at the time.

            I should have fallen in love with Wendy when I was with her, instead of my memories of her. Memories tend to soften the blow that reality that reality brings. With trepidation I returned to Knoxville and ultimately to the ten year high school reunion. It was at once great and disastrous. First, I chose the worst clothes for the reunion- a shirt and pants ensemble- that apparently unbeknownst to me made me look like I had joined the clergy. Second, despite a promising start, the reunion boiled down into the cliques of the old days with the in (and married) crowd on one side and the out (and single or otherwise undesirable) crowd on the other. My friend Don, a successful Netscape programmer, left in disgust at what happened. And there I was on the outside again voted “the most unchanged” since high school which translated as “gee Mike, you are still a loser and a dork” award. Needless to say I was put out.

            Then she walked in. Wendy Jordan still had “it” and what is more she had much, much more. She had grown from the soft sweet all American girl into the most beautiful and mature woman I had seen since the tabloids. Of course, I had allowed myself to be regulated back to the loser table so I just sat in awe feeling like that damnable dork I was in high school. I later left in disgust and defeat at what became a sad disappointment of a reunion. Later, I heard that things Wendy did not bond with her former classmates either which pleased that petty part of me.

            Now having said all that let me explain a few things. No one deliberately separated me from the others or labeled me as a loser or dork. We all just fell back into old patterns as we began to socialize again with each other. Don was too impatient having grown a lot since high school and expecting everyone else to do the same. I was, at that point in my life, lost. I had fully realized my generation X potential- which of course, was nothing, nowhere, and no how. I didn’t know who I was or what I had really wanted and when paired up with people who seemed at least to know who they were and their spouses and children are, I paled by comparison .

            Things I wish I had done in high school:

1. Gotten into football: sounds weird coming from the ex-Dungeons and Dragons Dungeon Master, but after hearing about it from various people over the years it would have done me some good:
1. gotten me into shape
2. probably gotten some grudging respect from the jocks
3. gotten to be better friends with Benny Jordan
4. allowed me to get even with Chris Lusby on the field in many inventive and creative ways
5. built some real confidence that I have sadly lacked all my life
2. Quit Horticulture after my freshman or sophomore year. I wasn’t a redneck and had a even more worse time trying to be one than I would have had trying to be a cheerleader. Boy! I miss all that spitting and dipping and cussing and slouching and spitting- did I say spitting?
3. Paid more attention to English and Academics than Art (turns out I am not an artist!) and Horticulture (not a farmer either). I actually kind of cheated at drawing to make up for lacking real talent. All that drawing should have been writing instead as I am a much better writer than I ever was an artist.
4. Not fallen for Wendy Shearer- she later became a good friend, but she was a mess in high school. Not fallen for Coco Easterbrook- she was married! Not fallen for Sandra Collins- look how she turned out sleeping with a former customer of mine who is at least 10 years her junior! How could I compete with that? Not fallen for Beth Tipton who was so small and thin and cute that I would have broken her in two just like her overly jealous boyfriends would do to me when they caught me mooning at her in health class. Not fallen for Meshelle Conners who was having every other guy in the art supply room. Not falling for Sheri Brooks, and THAT is a LONG story right there, nor Stacey Boomers who was engaged to a guy in college, not falling for Christy Davenport who I had relentlessly teased with cruel names and references then held out the doozey poem of all time The Knight of the Lost Rose- a real award winning sappy despairing poem of lost unrequited love and sadness and death- and thank god I left that silly pretentious knight far, FAR behind both for me and for poor Christy who didn’t do anything wrong but grow into a beautiful woman. There were others but most were passing, although I will hand it to Julie Carabia for the most interesting date of all time. That was the one where her and her Jehovah’s Witnesses Minister came over for tea and interviewed me as a possible convert and date material. There was no second date however. I have run scared of Miss Carabia ever since.
5. Started writing for real, I feel like I missed story after story and opportunities by thinking I was some great artist. At best I was a mediocre artist and a great faker. I learned to trace earlier and illustrate well, give me a model and I could transform it into something wondrous- I have a file cabinet full of models and tracings of them.
6. Gone somewhere for summer break, I was too much of a coward to leave home and go anywhere. I had a real fear of abandonment at that point having had my father walk out on my mother and me my freshman year. I was so sure, unconsciously for sure, that my mother was waiting for a chance to split as well. My hat’s off to her for sticking around to see me spiral out of control,
7. Had a girlfriend- even if she had been a ultra nerd- of course I must remind myself there were no girl nerds I knew of until the idea became more popular. There were the nerds and all the other women- problem was all the smart girls I knew tended to act really dumb to appeal to the stunningly handsome but incredibly dumb jocks- you guys know who you are. I needed someone to suffer through my teens with, I had friends who were girls but none ever crossed over for me. Of course I was a lovesick dork, so that’s no surprise. I had no clue what American girls were like except what I saw in the movies- and all of those girls were from L.A. imaginations not East Tennessee.

            So now I look at another reunion coming along twenty years later and ask myself what has changed? There will be those of us who will come so that we can hold up all that we have accomplished against everyone as if to measure and compare to see if our lives have been better or more successful than everyone else’s. They will come armed with proof that they haven’t wasted the last ten years and need reassurance that they made the right decisions. People will come for various reasons ranging from curiosity to boredom and some may come for a chance for redemption for the past. Most will come for the nostalgia of those long gone days and a chance to renew old acquaintance.

            I will come with all those reasons, but I come this time without guile. I don’t need that approval, I know who I am now and I am not what I once was. I have found completion in the knowledge that I can evolve and grow further. I know now that I will observe and record all that happens and is said with the idea of writing about it later. I am a writer, it’s what I am, it is what I am going to do.

            I am coming to see all of you, the good, the bad- if you decide to show your faces- you know who you are- that is, and the unfortunate. I am coming to see one of the original Ziggy customers; I am coming to the greatest country music star I have never heard of; I am coming to see the parents of my future fans; I am coming to see the man who chases a chef a round Knoxville with a camera all week; I am coming to see if anyone remembers me; and I am coming to see you- I hope- Wendy Jordan, perhaps for the first time ever.