la casa en college avenue

I'm doing some writing on my own "history" of wrestling, while cooped up with all sorts of ailments, and remembered this, which I wrote in 2008 for some "project" Dre was working on. I never saw the finished project, but upon rereading my words I thought I'd give them some light of day (or light of computer monitor). When completed, I'll put the history piece here too. But for now...

My memories are blurry. They are not in chronological order. Sometimes there is no date attached. They are as jumbled as the collection of music posters, cardboard cutouts, tapestries, and the giant Uma likeness that filled the rooms of the house on college avenue. My memories are snippets of Christmas-eve Jerry Springer episodes, pumpkin carving, HHH weddings, and summer evenings in the back yard.

Though it’s not what immediately comes to mind when thinking about the house on college, my first memory of being there was the summer of 1999. I don’t know why or how the night ended up the way it did, but I will speculate that it began at Denny’s. At some point it was decided that a dance party should follow and off to the house on college we went. With some Save Ferris, and Ben Folds Five we danced the night away. Later that summer, we listened to Hide Your Love Away, always twice in a row, as Glen mourned an impending loss.

And while there are certain songs that I associate with the house on college, most of my memories are not so innocent. Years before a former roommate and I established Naked Drunken Thursdays, I remember the roommates talking about naked hour. I never knew whether it was a joke or not, but in retrospect, I wonder if it was the first seed in my head of what eventually became NDT.

Strangely, I don’t remember any underage drinking (though that’s probably merely the result of faulty recollection), but illicit substances of other kinds do speckle my memories of the house on college. I remember being home for spring break, and sitting on the floor of that living room. A small crowd had formed and we watched Glen’s new Yellow Submarine dvd. A certain close friend of mine sat on the floor in front of me, and like many others was doing whippits that night. For each person, the dvd would be set to a particularly “trippy” sequence, and after his experience, my friend had an uncontrollable fit of laughter. Still, when I hear him cackle that way, I’m reminded of that night.

I, perhaps despite appearances, was not quite an innocent bystander. I was no stranger to pot smoking, but it never really seemed to affect me. Maybe I didn’t smoke enough. Maybe I didn’t really know how to inhale. But one fall night I took my first hit of a bong in the house on college. I was instructed by a number of people on proper form, and after much choking cleared the chamber. I walked away feeling victorious. A short while later I was standing on the back steps of the house, leaning against the wobbly railing, and realized I had absolutely no balance. Once that awareness was reached, suddenly everything spun into a fog. But I was surrounded by comforting people in a familiar place and it felt as if nothing could go wrong.

And it was that sort of comforting feeling that always emanated from the house on college for me. Maybe the most important memories are the times that made me feel like I was a part of something. I remember the secret toilet paper stash when certain roommates wouldn’t chip in, and I remember a long conversation in the kitchen one afternoon, that put everything into perspective. I knew I didn’t ever want to be the best thing that happened to someone.

Something still feels wrong when I drive past the apartment complex that replaced the house. Maybe it’s just that its time was over. And maybe its better that I’m able to remember things the way I want to without the imposition of reality settling in. I wouldn’t want to see the next generation of early 20-somethings that took over the house. I wouldn’t want to know that some other group of people is having dance parties, playing video games, and having what turn out to be life-altering conversations in there.

A friend of mine wrote many years ago, “You always imagine that the significant moments in your life you can play back like a video…but instead we remember the significant the same way we recall the useless—through fragmented images, half-developed snapshots.” But I think this begs the question, what is significant? If I can recall so well how I felt about the world on a random winter night watching Noggin and eating a La Bamba burrito as well as those more “pivotal” moments in my life, who is to say its useless. We are merely accumulations of our experiences and memories. We are who we are because of what we’ve done and where we’ve been. And the house on college, decades after its demolition, will continue to be a part of who we are.