Meeting Doug - cont'd

.......It turned out to be... well, hugely fun. For the next few weeks Doug and I felt each other out to see where we were with things. I helped him as much as I could. I learned the BOCES routine of requesting video's (yeah BetaMax and reel to reel), 16mm flicks, on and on. Our 'club' had movie days where we'd order some risque but acceptable flick and end up watching it projected onto one of the walls in our 'office' (closet). It was always very strange to spend lunch and study hall in our clubhouse only to emerge hours later into a hallway filled with students rushing between periods. We never again experienced or incurred a lateness against us. It was always assumed to be due to our involvement in AV. Make no mistake about it, We were geeks. Some of us piano playing, dancing, football playing, team sport, swimmers, and Letterman. Others were the stereotypical version of what you'd imagine an AV geek to be. It was a fun few years doing that. With experience came an increasing level of responsibility and privilege. We opened the first school store. We video taped the girls gymnastics teams (what they got from what we taped I have no idea since most of it was a teenage version of the money shot.)Just when we were getting past the sideways glances and beginning to accept each other we were thrust into having to rely on each other outside of school. We actually had to interact with each other one on one. Our friend Alan was going to be bar mitzvah'd. He sent out invites and low and behold I got one too. Wow, virtually never before had I seen or been driven by a synagoge, and now I was invited to go inside one. I had to wear a yalmulka to boot. Doug was invited as well, and we immediately clung to each other for support in that teenage geeky kinda way (god I hope Doug's sons don't end up reading this for a few years.) This was a foreign experience for two gentiles. We huddled and planned. During our first huddle session Doug invited me to his house for dinner. I accepted and met his family. We ate in his kitchen with Mom Dad and youngest Sis. Doug showed me his room and his stereo equipment and then his CB gear. Hey, he was actually more of a geek at that time than I was. He even had a scanner. In the coming weeks, we'd spend hours planted in front of that scanner waiting for the 'tones' to go off. These tones would be our cue to dash to the appropriate phone book map and see where the fire or rescue was. If it was within striking distance for us to bike before the alarm was over, we'd head out and pedal as fast as we could to get there. This was cool because it gave us a common goal and started to establish our bond.We went to the Bar Mitzvah, wore our beenies, said the appropriateness, and had fun dancing in the hall at the synagoge (since dancing at these things was mandatory). (Back then at least, Bar and Bat Mitzvah's seemed to be more of a gathering than an right of excessivness they seemed to have become today. As a speed ahead to the future topic, my wife used to work at a conference center where these types of celebrations were had all the time. When you rent the broadway cast from A Chorus Line, or retain the Barnum & Bailey Circus for your son or daughter's religious commencement for a few hundred thousand dollars and invite your closest 300 friends, I think things might have taken a turn in a very strange direction.)Anyway, so that's how we started our friendship together. Many stories both titilating and mundane can be offered and I'm sure will be into the future, but right now, its just a quick summary.That year was one of the best in my life. As I classify different encounters, it was a life moment. As it turns out, that chance meeting at a cafeteria table changed my lifes direction forever. While fervently coupled to my new found friend Doug's hip, we together started making those most important of choices for career, enjoyment, a great deal of humility, and the beginning of our choices for women-folk. God I love this guy (not in that way you freak).