1999 Memories: Freshman year, glasses, and a signed baseball

Wow, we’re already a full week into 1999! Where does the time go? I remember a few things about my personal experience from that year I’d like to share. What are some of your personal 1999 highlights?

School

Back in the real 1999, I was graduating middle school and strapping in for big scary high school. I was sad to leave ol 8th grade behind, the “Devil’s Ocho” we called it. We didn’t, but I wish we had. I liked 8th grade okay. I remember being in home-ec (home economics) class and sewing together a stuffed rock from a kit. We all had to build a stuffed animal but my rock, later named Rocky, was a real hit. Everyone else had cute stuffies like penguins, kitties, unicorns, or tigers but I had a fucking gray rock with two dead eyes and unsettling, worm-like legs.  I still think about that guy sometimes.

“Work it, work it! It’s okay, I’m 14.”

In that same class we had to create an advertising project centered around what we wanted to be when we grew up and I chose… pornographer. Looking back now, I can’t believe the balls I had to go through with that. I think it was partly because the boys I sat with in the class were good at encouraging my seldomly bold behaviors and also because our home-ec teacher was this hilarious, tall, boisterous woman named Mrs. Chamberlain who was good at riffing with the best of them. She said that pornographer was a fine choice for me because I’d never make it on the other side of the camera anyway. Got my ass.

Going Blind

That spring I learned that I needed glasses. I didn’t realize I was having trouble with my vision but there were plenty of red flags I should have picked up on. I remember thinking our TV at home was going out because I could no longer make out the scores during sports games. I had played baseball my entire life and had really excelled at it but over the previous few months my performance at the plate had severely diminished. I went from cleanup hitter down to 8th or 9th in the lineup, no longer able to make contact. Coaches from other teams were even trying to help me out, all assuming it was something mechanical or mental. No one guessed that I just couldn’t see the ball anymore. I was extremely melancholy about this. I kicked dirt, I cried in frustration when no one was around, I lashed out at my teammates if they made eye contact after I struck out. “WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT BRANDON? YOUR DAD IS FAT! SHUT UP!”

That’s right Brandon. Walk away.

I could still pitch okay and because of my decent arm, I played catcher when I wasn’t pitching. This hid my poor vision a bit since I didn’t have to really see things far away too often. Had I been in the field, I would’ve probably been killed by a line-drive. My vision dropped significantly over a short period of time, but still gradual enough for me to not notice it happening. When spring physicals rolled around, I failed the shit out of my eye exam and I remember being very embarrassed by it. I knew the young lady who was administering the test, she was my neighbor when I was little. When she pointed to the letters and I kept shrugging, she was laughing and thought I was goofing. I guess I had a reputation for being a goofer but I really couldn’t see shit! She finally realized my frustration and marked me failed. I had to get setup with an optometrist. Near sighted as a goddamned rat. After that, baseball got a little easier again.

The Triumph

That summer was brutal. I was going to be entering my freshman year of high school that August which meant all June and July I attended varsity football camp and weekly workouts for the first time. It was hot as hell, the workouts were excrutiating, and the upper classmen were huge and intimidating, especially compared to me. And they were all massive jerks. I prepared for camp by doing a bunch of exercises in our living room while watching MTV but nothing could prepare me for the rude awakening I was walking into. I remember being the most sore I’ve ever been in my life after the first week of workouts and because baseball season and football camp overlapped, I still had to play baseball games.

I had a baseball game at the end of the first week of football camp and it was a game we were expected to win but we found ourselves down 6-1 at the end of the first inning. During warmups, my arm was sore as hell and I was limp heaving throws to my partner and letting out a tennis player moan after each hurl. Today wasn’t going to be a good day. I had no control or power, it seemed. Early in the second inning, our pitcher finds himself in a bind once again and I get called in from centerfield to pitch. Thankfully, I could see by this point. Bases were loaded, no outs. I remember thinking “Oh no, this is not good…” But I loved pitching, a lot. I knew that telling my coach that my arm was sore was a sure way to not get to pitch, which is obviously the right decision for a coach to make. But being selfish and stupid, I kept my mouth shut, took the ball, and stepped on the mound.

As is conventional, they give the new pitcher a few warmup throws and I hit the dirt with all of them. I kept looking at my coach who just looked back at me like, “Dude, lets get it together. The fuck is wrong with you?” Not wanting to show weakness, I told the ump I was ready anyway. I’m sure onlookers were as puzzled about my confidence as I was. “Didn’t he just skip 10 straight throws across the dirt?” But folks, wouldn’t ya know, for the remaining innings of that 7-inning game, I threw a no-hitter! We went on to win 7-6 and I still have the ball all my teammates signed somewhere at my parents’ old place. I hope. Those dumb-dumbs were swinging at all my junk! I distinctly remember the opposing team’s dugout making fun of me for moaning in pain after every pitch. “He sounds old!” But that subsided after they couldn’t get on base against ol’ Mountain Moaner, the greatest pitcher they’d ever seen.

Music

I was never really one to search out new music, I just existed alongside whatever was playing. 1999 is a perfect example of that. MTV hit me over the head with Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and LFO, none of which I particularly enjoyed but can’t say I outright hated. I just avoided it when I got sick of it. In the locker room, I was introduced to Rob Zombie’s Hellbilly Deluxe that actually released in 1998 but I distinctly remember being blown away by and enamored with it during summer and fall of 1999 because it was one of the two CDs that never left the 5-cd changer boombox stereo in our field house locker room. That and Coal Chamber’s “Chamber Music” album that had the weird cover of “Shock the Monkey” on it.

Then, of course, there was Limp Bizkit, who I hate to admit holds a soft spot in my heart due to the number of spins we would give 1999’s Significant Other while shooting basketball on my best friend’s hardtop driveway. Nothing beats chasing a rogue basketball down a steep ass driveway while “Break Stuff” fades into the distance.  Being 14 was an experience.

My taste in music today is as far removed from 1999 as it can possibly be, but almost every single one of those shitty tunes is associated with a pleasant memory of a simpler time in life for me. Even that LFO song, “Summer Girls”, which I rewrote the lyrics of for my Earth Science class to great acclaim and still sorta remember, is considered a fond memory:

“Diorite Igneous rock is pretty thick
but Earth Science makes me sick
And it makes me cry when I get it caught in my fly
It’s a bummer, such a bummer.”