Remembering a friend
Beginnings
Alex met each other when I was in 4th grade and he was in 3rd. We both rode the bus together to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic school in Scottsdale, Arizona. He lived a few blocks away, so the bus picked him up first and then me. We almost always ended up sitting together.
I didn’t have many friends then. We had just moved from San Diego to Phoenix and I was just getting my bearings. My first memory of Alex was on the school bus. He had a casette walkman and was always listening to music, but come to think of it, I’m not really sure what he was listening to way back then. One of the first bands/musicians that he was into was Rush, and I think he actually had a Rush poster up in his bedroom. He carried a hand crank rewinder with him to save on batteries. Back then, batteries were expensive and rechargables were either not a thing or not that great. Rewinding took a lot of batteries, so he had this plastic rewinder that you mounted the cassette tape on and then hand crank rewound. I can still picture it in my mind.
I’m not sure how Alex and I initially bonded. We lived in the suburbs, and there wasn’t much to do close by. Plus, we were pretty young back then. We were both into D&D, and we both had Apple computers. I had an Apple IIe and he had an Apple IIc Plus, I think. There were a few video games we loved. I think early on, it was Bard’s Tale (1985) and then maybe Wasteland (1988). But by far our favorite game was Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. That game really captivated us and stoked our imagination. In the game, you are on a quest to become an “avatar” - a person who exhibits the 3 truths (Love, Truth, Courage) and the 8 virtues (honesty, compassion, valor, justice, sacrifice, honor, spirituality and humility). As you complete different quests and obtain enlightenment, different pieces of an Ankh (☥) get filled in on the game view. We played that game for many, many hours together, but were somehow defeated in the final dungeon when we could not answer the question “Then what is the one thing which encompasses and is the whole of all undeniable Truth, unending Love, and unyielding Courage?”. We tried 2-3 times, which took many hours of game play. At that time, there was no internet to search for the answer. Years later we uncovered the answer to be “Infinity” - doh! Well, we had those many long hours of game play together, even if we didn’t win in the end.
When we were kids, he gave me the nickname “brae”. I’m not exactly sure where it came from, but Ultima IV had a village named “Skara Brae”. I guess that “brae” means “hillside” in Scotland. I think it was just an affectionate name that sounded good. It stuck for our whole friendship into adulthood.
We spent so much time together as kids that we said that we were “brain brothers” - so often we finished each others sentences or had the exact same thought.
During those early years, we did a ton of sleep overs at each others’ houses. We would talk for hours about everything. I distinctly remember sleeping over in his bedroom next to the living room and hearing the low noise of the TV. We talked in whispers well past our “bed time”, and his parents would periodically come in and tell us to go to sleep. They were patient, and we were persistent.
Alex’s parents were always kind and generous with me. When I came over to spend the night, they almost always made hot dogs and hamburgers. I guess it was an “American” food thing, and as a pretty standard fare suburban white kid, they figured I would always enjoy guess. Guess they were pretty much right, but Alex told me that they never ate like that other than when I was over.
Alex went away to camp for 2-3 weeks in those early years. I remember him coming back from Friendly Pines Camp with tons of stories. It sounded awesome, and I ended up going to the same camp the next year. Because I was a grade ahead of him, we never actually had a chance to stay in the same cabin. Still, it was a ton of fun.
When we weren’t hanging out at his or my house, and when we were getting a bit older (maybe 6th grade or so), we convinced our parents to drop us off at Paradise Valley Mall for a few hours on the weekend. There were only a couple of places that were worth visiting at the mall, but just getting some freedom from our parents was good enough. Hobby Bench was one of our destinations. It had all sorts of RC cars and other hobby items, but the real good stuff was way in the back. They had D&D books and video games, as I recall, and we always hit up that back section and spent time there. I think Alex became friends with one of the guys that worked there since we came in so much. Other than that, we sometimes had burgers at McDonald’s and eventually they had an arcade. Not sure what year that was but I do remember playing a fair amount of Tetris.
In 6th grade I left Our Lady of Perpetual Help (OLPH). I just wasn’t getting along that great with the strictness of the school. Alex stayed and I started going to public school, first Desert Shadows and then Mojave Middle School. We moved to a new house a bit further away. No riding the bus together but still lots of time to hang out on the weekends.
When we stayed overnight at each others’ houses, our parents always made us go to church, being both raised Catholic. At some point we realized that our parents would allow us to go to the Saturday evening mass by ourselves - maybe it started with Alex’s Mom. We’d get dropped off, go into the church, then ditch the service. Don’t remember how often we did that but clearly remember hanging out in the construction area next door to the church at least a few times. I think that might have been where construction areas started to get their appeal. In our childhood, sneaking into constructions areas on the weekends became kind of a regular thing.
When Alex came to stay overnight at our new house across town, we were granted the freedom to go over to the Borgata, an up-scale outdoor mall type place that was mostly closed in the evening. We would walk from the house, cruise through the borgata area then go to the CVS or whatever drug store to get our favorite treats. That was usually Jolt cola and butterfinger bars. Jolt was a high caffeine cola and pretty much assured that we would be up late talking. I shared a bedroom with my brother, so Alex and I usually set up a spot in the living room - one of us on the couch, the other on the floor. We were starting to come of age, so I think that’s where we started talking about girls. Alex always seemed to have more experience than me, even though he was a year younger.
I think one of Alex’s first relationships was with somebody at camp. I’m pretty sure that she was not a camper but not a counselor either. I think she worked at the camp in some capacity and was a couple years older than Alex. Maybe he was 13 and she was 15 - can’t really remember. At any rate, he had a really strong connection with her. I think she was gone the following year, when I went to camp, or maybe we went to different sessions. At any rate, I remember him talking about her during 7th or 8th grade when we were hanging out at my new house.
Middle School
During middle school, I went to Mojave Middle School and Alex stayed at OLPH. Middle school was where we first started questioning a lot of things, like what our parents were telling us and the Catholic church. Being Catholic was something that we grew up with but we were so much at odds with what was preached. The Catholic church felt super-judgmental - all of the ideas of this or that being a sin and deferring to God and the church hierarchy at all times. To a couple of kids trying to figure out the world, it felt really confining and, well, built on a bunch of stuff that didn’t really make sense. We both grew up going to school, attending Catholic school, and in my case, even going to Sunday school and church retreats. By the end of our middle school days, we were both firmly in the atheist camp.
Middle school was kind fo a blur for me. 7th grade was just tough, with bullies and fights a regular occurrence. 8th grade was a little bit better. One good that came out of middle school was meeting David Cho, who would become one of our best friends. The 3 of us would go on to spend a ton of time together. In middle school, I only knew Cho a bit. He was an oddball kid and sat in front of me in science class. I liked him, though, probably because he seemed so oddball. It wasn’t until high school that we spent much time together.
Some where in late 7th grade, I found a few oddballs to hang out with at Mojave. One of them was a guy named Matt who was a skater. I was an aspiring skater - it was kind of a thing at the time - and so was Alex (kind of). Matt was building a half pipe at his house during the summer between 7th and 8th grade and lived in the school neighborhood, so we started hanging out some. Matt had a friend named Mark who was a few years older and had a driver’s license, so boom! we had a car to get around in. Then, Matt and Mark were forming a band. I played some mediocre guitar so I joined. Shortly afterwards, Alex joined.
Alex became the lead singer and guitarist in the band. Matt played drums, Mark played bass and I played rhythm/secondary guitar. We had practices in Mark’s garage. It was super fun and Alex brought a ton of creativity to the band. We were called “After Blenheim”, and we had a few really awesome songs. I hardly remember them and there aren’t any recordings that I’m aware of. One was called “I’m not” and talked about all of the things that society expected us to be but that were were not. The refrain was something like “Fascist bastards smear my butt and I’m not!”. It had some great lead guitar parts. Then there was something called “The Plant Song”. I think it was inspired by some of the gardening materials in Mark’s garage. Super catchy and hilarious.
The band went on for a couple of months, with skateboarding and driving around in Mark’s car sprinkled in. Matt and Mark drank a bit and smoked pot, but Alex was straight-edge and I don’t think I was too interested. We played one “gig” at my younger brother’s friend’s birthday party (yep, that was about all we could get). Things kind of went off the rails when we got access to a school practice room (think at Mark’s high school) during the summer. There was a bunch of drinking involved on Matt and Mark’s part, and I think they made off with a couple of school microphones. It was kind of a mess. Shortly after Alex got kicked out of the band for no reason other than Matt and Mark saying they didn’t like his sound. I think they wanted to do Joy Division songs and spin-offs - nothing else. The half pipe never got built even thought they were stealing plywood from construction sites to fund it. I stil have fond memories of Mark’s garage and the crazy songs that Alex was coming up with. I can still see him all animated and getting super into “I’m Not”.
7th and 8th grade kind of meld together for me. I think that’s when Alex started dating Kristy - his first real girlfriend. She was super-goth and definitely influenced Alex in that direction. Alex spent a bunch of time with her, but the 3 of us didn’t hang out much. I do remember going to a Cure concert with Kristy, but that was kind of it. Alex was into Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols) for a while, then he started getting into the Cure, Smiths and Morissey.
I wish I could remember more, but as Alex used to joke, I have a famously bad memory for details. He would always be delighted when I actually remembered some detail, where he seemed to be able to capture them all.
High School
After Mojave Middel school, I went to Brophy College Preparatory in downtown Phoenix. Alex was still in 8th grade at OLPH.
[work in progress - check back as I’ll be updating this with all of my memories of Alex over the years]