I was approaching my first year as a teenager quite rapidly. My preteen years refused to go away without a fight. From my world being flipped upside-down, to the goodbyes, the move, starting a new school, life kept coming like an unleashed locomotive. 2003 still had a handful of stories to write and I'm going to retell them.
It took seven days. Seven days of public school for me to decide I wanted to fake being sick. It was my second Monday I was supposed to attend school and when I woke up that morning, I simply didn't want to go. My dad came in the room and told me it was time to arise. I let out a weak moan. He asked if everything was all right. I mumbled that I wasn't feeling well. He asked if I was sure and I answered yes. That was not the truth. My brother Tim still shared a room with me at this point. My dad turned to him next as he wasn't getting up either. He groaned and said he wasn't feeling well either. For a reason unknown to me, Dad took both of those responses as legitimate and called the school, telling them that Tim and I would not be coming in today.
I knew for my ruse to fully work, I had to be lethargic all day and that was not a problem. That Monday came and went without much fanfare. I discovered I had a potential get-out-of-jail-free card. But it was a card that still had to be played carefully. I wasn't going to play it two days in a row, so I reluctantly went to school on Tuesday. That's when I found I had made a slight error. Just because I missed a day of school did not mean I got out of schoolwork. I found out that being a lesson behind could be a bit problematic and two days worth of homework was no fun. Some kids handle this well. I did not. I hated the feeling of being behind and having extra work. My goody-two-shoes side had learned a lesson. Don't skip school unless you can handle the consequences. It still surprised me that it took only seven days.
One early evening I was walking through the kitchen. Suddenly, there was knock at the door. I was still in the phase where racing to answer the door or the phone before your siblings was the thing you had to do. I flung the door open and there stood Jim McNaughton. Jim, his wife Cindy, and their three young children (Abby, Channin, and Sean) all lived across the street from us. They were one of the many families we met through the church when we moved out here. Jim was holding something in his hands. I looked down and saw a big colorful box that was labeled Nintendo 64. My eyes grew big. He promptly placed it in my hands. "What's this?" I said rhetorically in an elevated voice. "I don't know." he said with a bit of a smirk. Jim then walked away as quickly as he appeared.
For a little context, at this point, my parents still did not allow video games in the house, but they were also a little lenient with gifts. I started shouting in excitement. "Look what we got!" Instantly all of my siblings appeared in the kitchen. Once they saw what I had, they went nuts. My dad heard the commotion and entered the scene. "Look what Jim gave us!" I watched his expression carefully to determine whether or not my excitement was in vain. I could tell he wasn't too pleased, but was giving it a lot of thought as his response was very delayed. Then he began to speak. We all became quiet, awaiting the verdict. "There will be strong restrictions..." before he could finish the rest of his sentence, we exploded with joy knowing that those words meant we could keep it. "Fifteen minutes a day per person. That's it." Knowing how much we played video games when at Grandma and Grandpa's, that seemed awfully short. But it meant we finally had a foot in the door that would one day hopefully crack a bit wider. You may be wondering if we broke the 15 minute rule. Of course we did. But we mostly tried not to as it meant day bans that could also turn into bans lasting a week.
Contrary to popular belief, my Dad had video games when he was younger by way of the Atari. So he was no stranger to them. We discovered not long after owning the N64 that he liked to play Mario Kart. This gave us a plan to hatch. We decided to ask Dad to play with us which would almost assuredly go past the 15 minutes of allotted time. He agreed. There was one problem. There were five kids and one adult, but only four controllers. To solve this issue, four people would do a race. The two that finished 3rd and 4th would swap out. The other two would stay in. We'd end up doing 8 to 12 races in the beginning, but would eventually eclipse all 16. There were lots of laughs, playful aggression, some taunting, but overall, lots of general fun. We thought we were beating the system. But I believe Dad truly enjoyed being able to spend all that time with his kids, even if it was through those dastardly video games. I still remember some nights as I headed off to bed where I could hear the Mario kart music and the sound of Yoshi's voice as he drove around the track, controlled by Dad who was finding his inner child once more from years past. Jim may have been simply trying to give away something he no longer desired, but what he really did was gave us pure joy and memories for a lifetime.
We got our first PC in the mid-late 90s. I remember one day it was having issues and my mom called her genius cousin. He walked her step-by-step through the process and suddenly Windows 95 appeared on the screen. I heard my mom shot "Ahh WINDOWS!" She was so excited because she could now electronically type documents and save files. Us kids were excited because we could play games. Word Muncher and Troggle Trouble Math were two of the games that our PC could run somewhat okay. But we never had internet because the PC was too slow and it wasn't affordable to my parents at the time. So all our world wide web surfing came from being at Miss Alice's and at at the library. Enough back story. When we moved out to Cleveland, we had to get up with the times and get internet. My parents decided on Netzero dial-up. If you've heard of netzero, brownie points to you. If you can recall the awful sound dial up made, welcome to the club. Having internet was going to introduce me to many doors to the world. Some good and some bad, but all part of the life experience.
One of the first things I did was download programs I knew I wanted. The first was this chat program (they weren't called apps yet) called AOL Instant Messenger (AIM for short). How it worked is you first created a screen name (a fictional name used as your identity on the internet). Then you logged in and a side-bar would pop up on screen. You added your friends screen names to you chat list and as soon as you messaged them, BAM. A window would pop up on their computer screen with your message. It didn't matter what they or you were doing. You could be watching a video, doing homework, playing a game, and message your friends all at the same time (this was before cell phones and texting were a big thing yet). It was a game changer because I could socially interact with my friends more than the few times a week I saw them. What was my screen name you ask? Being twelve when I created it, I was into knights, sword fighting, jousting, basically that era in history. I called myself...theswordmaster...except that name was already taken. Shocker. The program gave me suggested numbers to add to it and I took the lowest one I saw. The number 13. Thus I became theswordmaster13.
AIM became a big staple in my life and on nights I didn't feel like surfing the web or playing games, I would spend hours chatting with my buds. While it seems like AIM was my golden ticket in the world, it would also become the channel to some very crazy moments. The one I'm going to share with you now happened at a time most unexpected. I was home by myself and took the opportunity to get in some extra computer time. I had AIM set to auto log-in when I logged into my account on our family PC. The sidebar popped up and no one was really online because it was mid-afternoon. A few minutes after it had logged in, A message from a screen name I had not seen before appeared. Now I being young, dumb, and not really knowing what internet safety was (this will come into play later as well), I responded to the "hello" I received with "who's this?" Another message "Josh Watkins." My first thought was a friend had gotten my screen name from someone else and was playing a prank on me. "No you're not," I replied. "Seriously, who is this?" Another message appeared. "Seriously this is Josh Watkins. I'm from Wellington, OH. I went to the screen name search bar, typed in my name, and it gave me a list of a bunch of screen names associated with the name Josh Watkins. I started messaging them because I thought it would be fun." My mind was blown. We did chat for a bit more, but I can't recall what was said. That moment was brief as we never messaged each other again.
After the mysterious Josh Watkins signed off, I tested the search feature he had mentioned. When I typed in my name, a ton of random screen names appeared that had accounts with the registered name being Josh Watkins. I thought about messaging one, but decided I didn't feel like talking to another stranger. Looking back on that experience years down the road, I realized a few things. As incredible as AIM was, some of it's features were huge security issues. By being able to search for screen names based on someone's real name, it sort of defeated the purpose of a screen name. AOL later removed the feature probably due to security issues. Even though it was cool that you could message your friends, there was nothing really in place to prevent anyone from adding your screen name and messaging you. You could block people, but sometimes a message from a stranger popping up could be a bit off-putting. Lastly, it opened a door to my world where a lack of internet safety existed. I didn't think chatting with a stranger was a bad thing. I also didn't think that sharing some things about my self was a big deal. Thankfully nothing came from those juvenile missteps, but my ignorance would cost me something and teach me a valuable life lesson, But we'll get to that when I get into the year 2004.
November appeared as it always did and I kissed my pre-teen years goodbye. I turned the big 13 and was officially a teenager. I felt like I had matured many years, but the reality was I simply turned a year older. The gift my parents got me that year was a black and green snowboard with plastic, gray straps. I guess my daredevil years of going downhill standing up on a sled were too much for them to bear. That snowboard became the key of a lot of winter fun, insane rides, and even some pretty close calls. This gift would definitely fall in the category of memorable and timeless.
I did also end up having an extended party that year. It was my first sleepover in Ohio. I invited Timothy and Jeremiah, as well as two other fly dudes close to my age named John and Sean. Like many of these new folks I'll introduce throughout this journey, I met them on that first night we moved. Throughout the first few months, I got to know them pretty well too. Enough that I invited them over. I did come to learn that Sean's birthday was two days after mine and the same year. As for the party, we ended up eating a lot of snacks, playing a lot of the N64 (restrictions were off for this special occasion), and I believe we also watched a movie. John couldn't stay over but I was still glad he could come. We stayed up pretty late and didn't get up until close to noon the next day. It wasn't long before they all had to go, but I would see them later that night at the young people's meeting. As this story shows, I was still failing at this whole "trying not to make close friends" thing.
I'll close the book on 2003 with a memory that I hold dear to my heart. Since we moved to Cleveland in August, this was possibly going to be our first Christmas away from my grandparents and the rest of my Dad's side of the family. I wasn't ready for that and I don't think my Dad was either. As Christmas approached, my Dad informed us that we would be going back to Pennsylvania to celebrate the holiday. My heart exploded with joy. This was something I so desperately needed. My mom could not join us for this trip as she had been working at a nursing facility for only a few months and had to work the holiday shift. My Dad somehow managed to get five young children and all of our stuff packed into that old Chevy Lumina and drive 6 hours back to the homeland. You'd think after a long journey that we'd be beat. But pulling into Grandpa and Grandma's driveway like we had done so many times before and seeing the Christmas decorations on the house, we couldn't exit the van fast enough once it came to a halt.
We entered the house and were warmly greeted by Grandpa and Grandma. The smell of baked goods filled the air and the twinkling Christmas lights in the kitchen were playing jingle bells, just as they had done in years past. The tree was in its usual spot at the bottom of the basement stairs, already adorned with ornaments and lights. Presents were also spread under the tree. While we would have to wait until the next day for the festive fun, the atmosphere made it feel like we had never left.
Night turned into day, and then back into night on the eve of Christmas. We all once again assembled in the basement and my grandfather had another roaring fire in the fireplace. I don't fully remember all the gifts that were exchanged that night, because for one of the first times in my life, I was lost in the moment. Taking in the atmosphere. Enjoying the company of my family on my favorite holiday. Realizing it may be one of the last like it was. Maybe my first year as a teenager did dawn some wisdom on me. Because it was in that moment, that I really began to appreciate the moment and the people I was with more so than all the fanfare that came with the holiday. And that's what made that Christmas so special.
And with that, we have come to the end of 2003. I had survived nearly half a year in the 216 and to my surprise, I was mostly doing fine. But as for the approaching year of 2004, it had a lot in store for me that was going to once again, reshape and define my life. Because as the saying goes, "life ain't always beautiful, but it's a beautiful ride."
