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Thursday, November 10, 2011

"I was a hunk?" 'Michael Herr' (Aloha Friday)

Renowned author Michael Herr is back guest-blogging on this awesome Aloha Friday about a little  secret he never  knew about himself in High school.... Make sure and check out Michael's website at; http://www.michaelherr.com/


ALOHA FRIDAY
November 11

It's Aloha Friday.

"I was a hunk?"

Before I retired, sometime in either '98 or '99, I was working late at the Adult School where I was the Director. I was helping with registering students for a new quarter.

After I registered one student, a woman of about my age, said that she knew me and that we had been in high school together. I didn't remember her but vaguely recalled her when she told me her name. As she turned to leave she said something like this: "You know, all of us girls thought you were a real hunk back in high school."

After she left I went back to my office to puzzle through this new piece of information. Girls at my old high school almost forty years ago had thought I was a hunk? Damn, how come none of them told me that back then?

When I was in elementary school I was definitely not a hunk. I was chubby. I was one of the first kids in my class to have to wear glasses. I was uncoordinated and awful at baseball and football and basketball. My hair was terrible; my mom started me out on crew-cuts early and I never was able to grow my hair long enough to comb it with any success. Girls were a mystery; a delightful mystery I constantly wished I could solve.

But after this encounter with a classmate from my past, I decided to review my high school yearbook. Wow, I sure looked different then. By high school I had lost my chubby baby fat. I had muscled up from participating in swim team and wrestling team. I actually looked good. So why didn't any of the girls back then tell me so?

I had one girlfriend in high school. A pity-girlfriend that one of my buddies set me up with (his chubby cousin). I tried dating only one other girl in high school. Took her to dinner and a theatrical play in the city. When I pulled up in front of her house at the end of the evening she jumped out of the car and was in through her front door before I even got my door opened. Never knew why she reacted that way.

If only. If only the "girls" had told me they thought I was a hunk. If only I had been able to step back and look at myself objectively. If only I could go back in time and tell my high school self what I know now. If only.

Ah well, at least I now know that once upon a time the girls all thought I was a "hunk".


Much aloha.




check out Michael's website at http://www.michaelherr.com/  buy all six books for only $18, they make great Holiday gifts....


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