I have been thinking on this one since the big birthday break yesterday. I actually thought I might journal after all yesterday, but one look at this convinced me it wasn’t a good idea.

Today’s topic is:

Write about an enemy who eventually became your friend.

Seriously? I don’t even know where to begin on this one. I am actually going to take a few minutes and lay down my head and think about this. Belinda’s napping; Lenora’s on the computer upstairs; Bennett is hiding out so I don’t make him clean something. It’s an opportune time.

Okay. That worked. I actually thought of someone who would fit the bill. I’m astonished that I did – I wouldn’t have never thought I had anyone in my life that started out as an enemy and ended up as a friend.

Enemy is kind of a strong word. Nemesis is better.

The year was 1988, and I was a geeky kid with glasses and a perm that wouldn’t quit. It was the first day of high school, and bad news was afoot. Instead of going to the band room, we were told to go straight to the library. There, we would meet the new band director.

His name was John P., and he quickly became one of my least favorite people. I don’t remember all the details, but I do know that he was always joking with me…and I didn’t think it was very funny. He called me “Frizz” in reference to my hair. He singled me out and insisted that I play loud. He was loud and in-your-face and a real pain, if you asked me. I was always ready to talk about how much I couldn’t stand Mr. P., crack jokes about him, or whatever else derogatory thought came to mind.

But something happened. Again, I don’t remember the details, and that is a shame. But I started to not only like Mr. P., I started to adore him.

Probably a lot of it started when the two seniors graduated, and I was suddenly first chair. The music was fun, and there were solos sometimes. Mr. P. didn’t like the tone of my ligature, so he bought me a new one. I didn’t have to pay him back. I still have it. The jokes that used to annoy me so much started to get funnier and funnier. For him, I learned to play my clarinet loud, but still stay somewhat in tune, for marching band. For him, I lifted the bell of the clarinet up high, even though none of the others did. For him I practiced my solos at home. For him I remembered to wear black socks.

Liking Mr. P. was part of a metamorphasis I went through during my first years of high school. I went from a person who didn’t fit in anywhere to someone who had friends and enjoyed school and the social life it entailed. My best friends were my band crowd. We would ride together to ball games, sit together at lunch time, and complain together at early band practice. Somehow while I was rediscovering myself, I also knocked the chip off my shoulder that made me dislike John P.

In later years, some other kids in band got mad at Mr. P.; most of them quit band over it after I graduated. I was glad that I was gone for that, because I could not have quit band when I loved it, and my director, so much. It was a father-worship type relationship for me in a way, I guess.

He didn’t teach band many years at Tuttle; I think it was over whatever it was that got everyone mad at him. He taught vocal after that, and sometimes I would see him when I would go visit my sister Karlene at the school. He loved to tell people how I called him on his birthday one year when he wasn’t home. It was in the summertime – June, if memory serves. I left a message on his answering machine, telling him happy birthday and reminding him that it was also the birthday of my dog, Corky.

Then I got a good idea. I called all of my friends and asked them to wish him a happy birthday.

Mr. P. said that when he got home, the answering machine was full of kids calling to tell him happy birthday.

When he told me about it as an adult, I had sort of forgotten about the whole thing. But I love thinking about it now. I remember now that all of my friends didn’t want to do it. Why on earth did I want them to call the band director and leave a message on his answering machine? But I pleaded and they did it – probably to get me to leave them alone. I told them it would be funny. I also thought that it would mean a lot to him – that his students thought enough about him to think about him in the summertime and call him on his birthday.

It must have meant something to him, since he was talking about it a decade later.

When I think back on the whole thing, I can’t believe that there was ever a time I didn’t care about John P. I don’t feel like I am the same person who didn’t like him. It makes me wonder how different my life could have turned out if I hadn’t made the transformation I made in high school, or if some of my choices had been different. I’m glad I turned out the way I did. 🙂