Archives for 1990

Yes, That Really Happened: How I (Almost) Got Beat Up My First Week of High School in Ohio

01/18/2012 by me in Schools, Writings | Leave a comment

I’m not a violent man.

No really, I’ve never been involved in anything remotely violent. I got into a shoving match in a hallway during my Freshman year of high school, but no punches were thrown. And that’s it.

So that makes what happened my first week at Chagrin Falls High School so unusual, because it’s the only instance I can recall of ever letting my anger erupt in violence toward another person in my life. And boy, did I pick the wrong person.

The back story is: after the end of my Sophomore year at Williamsville South High School, my family moved from the ‘burbs of Buffalo, New York to the ‘burbs of Cleveland, Ohio, specifically Chagrin Falls. It was a tough adjustment. I wasn’t in love with the move, and the first few days at my new high school went as awkward as possible.

Despite being quite uncoordinated and lacking athleticism as an adult, I was fairly active as kid, playing little league baseball, pick-up games of football and basketball, and even indulged in six-month of soccer before wising up. So gym class, that was something I actually looked forward to. Dodgeball? Bring it on. Softball? Sweet. Flag-football? I’m down with that. Or so I thought. I hadn’t counted on one thing: Tom O’Malley.

Tom O’Malley was brother to several other O’Malleys, spread through the grades at Chagrin, and had earned a reputation akin to a Boston mob family that might appear in a The Departed. You didn’t mess with them. Unfortunately, this information was not presented to me prior to this particular gym class.

Teams were split up for a game of flag football, and it started amicably enough. At some point after a play had ended, I picked up the football and carried back our huddle. Unbeknownst to me, the ball had been sitting at the line of scrimmage after plays, so as a walked back our huddle, Tom followed me. I reached the huddle and realized this, and made a comment like “can I help you?”

“I go where the ball goes,” Tom replied. I was not aware of this particular aspect of flag football, and so I responded with the best thing my 16-year old brain could come up with as I shoveled the ball into his stomach: “Then get it the fuck outta here.”

This did not go over well.

Tom lunged for me, yelling, “what’d you say big nose?” Now, I know I don’t have a small nose, but I’m no Barry Manilow. Almost immediately, people got between us, but that didn’t stop me and Tom from whiffing on a few punches and more “big nose” insults.

In what seemed like forever but was more like a few seconds, Tom walked back to the defensive huddle and we re-huddled as well. I suggested a running play, and went out to play wide-receiver. Of course, across the line matched up against me was my new friend, Tom.

As I lined up, Tom notified me that he would be on my ass all the way down the field, to which I replied, “I don’t think so, you know why?”

“No, why?” Tom asked incredulously.

“Because it’s a running play,” I responded as the ball was hiked, and I jacked Tom in the chest with two hands as hard as I could.

And with that, my interaction with Tom ended. Afterward, I was informed by my fellow Juniors that Tom was a Senior who had many brothers, all of whom would be looking to kick my ass for what had transpired. This never occurred, and managed to survive my year thanks to a class schedule minus any interaction with any O’Malley, as well as a crafty decision to avoid the cafeteria by eating in the library.

In retrospect, that decision might have been influenced by the fact that I knew nobody and wanted to avoid the embarrassment of eating alone, but it’s all irrelevant at this point I guess.

As it stands, that’s been my only brush with one-on-one violence, and I hope to keep it that way.

Schools, Part 3: Chagrin Falls High School

11/23/2011 by me in Pictures, Schools | Leave a comment

Chagrin Falls High School: Junior – ’90-91, Senior -’91-92

For as much as going from a Catholic grade school to a public high school was a culture shock, moving from the suburbs of Buffalo, New York to the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio in between my Sophomore and Junior years of high school was equally, if not more, jarring.

First is that Chagrin Falls is sparse, full of lots of country roads that lead to a picturesque small town. The second was that many of the residents of Chagrin Falls were wealthy, not top 1% rich, but being upper-middle class was something I was now apart of but not at all familiar with.

My Junior year was, when you get right down to it, a disaster. The first week I nearly got into a fight with a Senior in gym class during a game of flag football. I had a hard time making friends and would avoid going to the cafeteria by eating my lunch in the library, ducking into a desk cubby and reading the USA Today. Now, it didn’t help that as soon as I joined the school newspaper I managed within a month to get most of the school to hate me. Lemme explain.

I started writing for the Chagrin Fall High School newspaper in October of 1990. My first column, entitled “New York State of Mind,” was meant to provide a newcomers perspective to the town and school. The first article was me interviewing me. Kinda clever. The second column I wrote started with this sentence:

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed at Chagrin Falls High School which was the same at my old high school is that kids think that for some reason drinking beer is cool and driving around drunk is perfectly acceptable.

That’s a stellar way to make new friends. I wrote some more columns, stuff about raising the speed limit, the need for a national energy policy and some sports articles about the Browns, World League of American Football and escalating baseball salaries. My Senior year I was made co-Sports Editor, but still cranked out opinion pieces that include deft commentary such as “LA Riots Must Not Happen Again.” My true piss ‘em off piece came in November of 1991: “Pumpkin Roll Changes Needed.” Essentially, the “Pumpkin Roll” is when all the high school kids acquire (legally and illegally) pumpkins from around town and then on a selected evening late in the night, like 3am, dump the pumpkins down the large hill in downtown Chagrin and, after downing lots of alcohol, slide down the hill on the pumpkins innards. It’s a tradition. It’s a past time. And I, the outsider, attacked it. I’ve rarely, if ever, feared for my life. The death stares I got after that one, well, it got real chilly.

Somehow, I managed to overcome this transgression and ingratiated myself back into the good graces of my classmates by the time Spring semester rolled around, to the point where I was even comfortable hanging out in the “Senior Lounge” in the cafeteria that featured a ping-pong table. It might have helped that ping-pong was kind of competitive, and I was nerdy enough to start keeping track of win/loss records to the point where I was able to keep up an updated ranking of players. This nerdiness even got mentioned during our graduation ceremony, the same ceremony my Dad was stung in the eye by a bee and had to be rushed to the hospital. Yeah, that’s how Chagrin Falls ended for me, kind of appropriate when I think about.

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