Monday, May 06, 2019

Fritz & Jim - High School Memories

Memories of high school hanging out with my friends Fritz & Jim:
  • Running jokes:
    • Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe: someone realized "left-waffle" sounded hilarious
    • VGA vs. Super-VGA graphics (?) I think this was an advertisement in a PC trade magazine
  • BBS door games:
  • PC games:
  • Sega Genesis:
  • Board games:
    • Risk
  • Sports:
    • One-on-two basketball in Fritz's mom's horsebarn
    • Tennis at the 6th St & 3rd Ave courts (now gone)
  • Random:
    • Fritz's house:
      • His mom had a fridge in the adjacent basement room with horse semen, as she bred horses
      • The basement smelled like potpourri: on 2021-11-07, I smelled a potpourri jar at World Market and it brought me back--the label read, "Pomegranate/orange, filled with notes of pomegranate, orange, cinnamon, clove, vanilla, and cider".
      • Two Boston Terriers: I forget the names, but remember them snuffling a lot
      • Jim and I would sleep on the floor on opposite sides of Fritz's bed; I remember the noise of the ceiling fan 
      • We'd stay up well past midnight, but as time went on Fritz seemed to want to go to bed earlier
      • Sometimes I'd get up first and head downstairs and play Civ 
      • Remember getting excited about hearing how the federal government had mandated fuel efficiency standards going up to something like 50 mpg in 10-15 years ... it would take a bit longer, but we're getting there
      • Fritz's brother Alex came home from military training and showed us what he called his "anti-rape glasses" (basically chunky black frames)
      • His family liked white chocolate
      • Sometimes we'd eat at the dinner table upstairs with his parents
      • The tank above the toilet overflowed at one point, and I was clueless about how to fix it
      • Broke my glasses one night playing basketball
      • The horse barn lights took a long time to illuminate enough so we could play -- it was cold
      • Played basketball on packed earth in the far corner of the horse barn
      • We'd walk over to Memorial Medical Center where Stephen Bechdolt worked as a pathologist and watch TV (Batman: The Animated Series), then Dr. Bechdolt would drive us around town
      • I remember Fritz and his dad talking about attending a family reunion in Germany, and remarking on my surname as well
      • Fritz's dad was thinking about buying an AK-47 before a gun ban went into effect (unsure if he did)
    • Jim's house:
      • At Jim's house we'd sometimes play Nerf basketball; I think Fritz brought over his PC, so we'd at least have two
      • Milk in clear plastic bag in a pitcher (remember because it had a distinct taste from what I was used to)
      • Surviving relative: Jeff
    • PC's:
      • Fritz had two PC's, I think: 
        • One dedicated to running a BBS
        • Two lines in his house
        • One had an Intel 80486 and the other an Intel 80386, I think
      • Turbo buttons, heh
The social aspects and gaming sparked my decision to go into Computer Science after high school. They were my people and closest friends in high school.

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