Hello, I remembered something that happened to me about a year ago around the middle of Fall. It was basketball season, everybody in the school was excited because it meant going to games and showing school pride. However for me, it meant I got to play in the band during the short intermission between varsity and junior varsity games. I was not particularly excited for it but I could talk to all of my friends, who were also in the band, outside of a formal setting. Even if I had to go to the games at seven in the afternoon and walk home at eleven, I still had fun.

 

This was the third game and after we were done playing our line of songs, everybody went back to the band room and ate the pizza that our director ordered for us (since there were usually only ten of us who signed up to come). After I was done, I put my sousaphone back in the case in the auditorium and was on my way out when a girl approached me. I couldn't remember her name until I looked closely at her face as she began to talk to me. Her name was Cheyenne and the only thing she said was "Hey, wanna go hang out?" She was a senior at our High School that year and extremely beautiful. Her long blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and slender figure gave her the extravagance of a Greek goddess. Naturally, I wondered why she wanted to hang out with me, even if I occasionally talked to her after band and we got along with each other. Despite this I oblige and we walk to her car.

 

The first thing she said when we got in was: "I'm going to take you somewhere very special to me." Without anything to say with the combination of curiosity and confusion I reply with a simple "Okay." Cheyenne starts driving towards the Junior High School and stops in the parking lot by the town-owned park in front of my house. We got out and she motioned for me to sit on the swing next to her. I asked her why this was the very special place and we sat for a few minutes in the silent, cold, darkness. "Do you remember when I first met you?" I looked at her with a stare that wondered why she would ask that. "You were in the sixth grade and I was in the seventh. It was your third year in this district and you didn't have many friends." All I could say was: "Yeah, I had a hard time fitting in." 

 

"You played football with my boyfriend that year and one day before a game we were playing here with some friends." Still wondering what she was getting at, I looked at her with confusion. "You were taking a walk through the park and some of the kids started yelling at you. They were yelling terrible things and of all people, I didn't expect my boyfriend to join them." When I finally remembered I said: "Oh, I think I can remember the day you are talking about now. I just kept walking because that kind of thing happened all the time." She nodded and continued, "The part you don't know is that I broke up with my boyfriend at that moment and when I ran up to talk to you I heard you crying. I thought it was better for me to just leave you alone so I went home. That, is why this place is special to me. It is a perminate reminder that all people are not generally good hearted."

 

A minute passed and she took a cigarette out of her pocket and began to smoke it. "I was not always like that though, I used to pick on kids all the time. So I guess this is my way of getting retribution for all those years." I was amazed that she had decided to tell me this but I still listened on. "If you plan on playing low brass and woodwind instruments, don't smoke. I can feel it when I play Barry White (her baritone saxophone that I helped her name). I can't take as deep breaths or play as long without getting winded as I could a year ago. Logan, for being the example that I needed in order for me to understand that bullying is wrong, I want to be the example for you to under stand that you shouldn't smoke. Of course, that's not the reason I started smoking in the first place. But I want something productive to some out of this."

 

I told her that I would never forget it, and so far I haven't. I can remember it as vividly as if it happened yesterday. Cheyenne is currently studying at a nearby college and I have not seen her in six months. I don't know why I was thinking about this, maybe it is because my English teacher has been talking about transcendentalism a lot and perhaps this memory is one of the things that make me an individual. Whatever the reason, I am just glad that I can say for certain that I haven't forgotten.

 

-FunnyCop