I remember... by Adam Derry

Wanna know what made me cool? I was one of the first people in our class to get a letterman jacket. The funny part of it was that the only reason I got a Varsity letter was cuz I was the manger of the Varsity football team my freshman year. I didn’t officially earn one till my sophomore year. I still can’t quite figure out why I wanted to carry your guys nasty equipment and get up early on Saturdays. But I did get a letter jacket…way before most of you guys. Except for Trevor, who got his first varsity letter in third grade. Coincidentally, this was the same year he grew his first full beard. He was blessed with TESTOSTERONE.

I remember sitting in Grant Braasch’s car before basketball practice listening to music. He was the first one to get a CD player in his car. We bumped a lot of Vanilla Ice and Marky Mark and the funky bunch. Chicks dug us. Grant was also the first guy I knew who mastered the power of hair gel. It took me a long time to catch up to him in that department. I stuck to a firm regiment of waking up early and blow drying the back of my hair straight. I got the inspiration from a NKOTB video we watched at a Creighton basketball camp. The Donnie Wahlberg. Freakin’ Donnie Wahlberg. Looking back at pictures, I should’ve paid closer attention to The Grant Braasch.

I used to get home about an hour before my sister and parents did back in 8th and 9th grade. I’d run to my sister’s room and take her full length mirror down and put it in front of the TV set and watch Rap City on BET and practice my dance moves. I’m not talking basic dance movements. I’m talking full on dancing till my clothes were soaked with sweat and the carpet would get worn down. I’d even sneak in some dancing down in the locker room at school when no one was around. Sometimes, on very special occasions, I’d dance in the weight room. (Perfect mirrors.) One time, Sterling Gatewood invited me to go to a dance club with him. It was the first time I ever went to a club and the first time I took my skills public. Come to find out, clubs are just bigger and louder versions of my old living room. I needed about an 8 feet area to really get busy, but, let me tell you, I got busy. And, yes, those moves were hot.

There was something that happened the summer of 1988. I remember Joy Favara and Christina Ashford leaving school at the end of eighth grade looking kinda like versions of Adrian from Rocky. Quiet, studious. Then two months later they rolled into ninth grade like a couple of foxes. That was the OLD SCHOOL extreme makeover. It took awhile for all of us guys to realize what had happened. But it happened. Boy, did it happen.

David Klein and I used to dodge trains out behind his housing development. We’d wait on the tracks till it got too close and then we’d jump out of the way. We wouldn’t know each other’s outcome till all of the train cars passed. It was crazy. Oh, yeah. That was the night we bought a bunch of hairspray and sprayed our arms and stuff and lit them on fire. It’d burn really cool and then we’d roll around and put the fire out. That was kinda weird now that I think of it. Those tracks don’t even exist anymore. It’s a bunch of houses now. I think they call it Papillion.


I remember…



I remember being introduced to the politically charged rap group PUBLIC ENEMY through Andy Rinaldi. “It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back”. It was Andy who pointed out to me the beauty of the “here and now” of rap music. An element that didn’t really exist in any other style of music. Andy changed my life when it comes to music. Fast forward to our senior year and he and I used to rock matching flannel jackets and bump Ice Cube, 2Pac and Public Enemy till we felt the POWER. We were so gangsta. Well, kind of a Nordic / ski instructor kinda gangsta. But gangsta nonetheless.

My sister and I used to clean the BCH gym after home basketball games. It was pretty humbling going from starting guard to mop duty in a matter of an hour or so. But it was cool. I think we got like 10 bucks or so when we did it. Well, after my dad’s cut, I think we settled for feeling good about cleaning our own gym. It wasn’t about the money, right?

Bob Nylin and I used to really push the limits. Especially when we took photography. We took all sorts of pictures in graveyards until our film and prints got confiscated and Mr. Coen had them destroyed. Wanna know what’s cool? Mr. Haley snuck a bunch of that stuff out and gave it to me when I was a little older. It’s mostly Bob with his shirt off lying by tombstones or me doing some weird pose like I was dead or something. It was pretty avant-garde stuff. I don’t think BCH was really keen on avant-garde. Come to think of it, I don’t think Bob was either. But, dang, he was a good sport.

One time, Molly Hovanec sprayed me with mace. It’s not what you think. She did it by accident in the darkroom one day. I kind of did a Matrix style slow-mo move and avoided the main stream, but it got me. Oh, yeah. It got me. Amazingly, that was the only time I ever got sprayed with mace. I forgave her a week or two later.

One time before a basketball game I wrote AD Take None on my underwear with a magic marker and you could see it through our white home shorts. I thought it was funny. (And by “funny”, I mean, I thought I was so freakin’ cool.) Then Trevor’s mom took it to a whole new level and made me custom embroidery ones that were sewn in red so they showed through my shorts at all home games. Those got banned by Mr. Coen too. I thought I was so cool with my blue Nike shoes and custom see through shorts. Come to think of it, Trevor, how did your mom get a hold of my underwear? That might be the craziest part of the story.

And while I’m at it, I miss walkathons.

And pep rallies.

And bomb threats (It wasn’t me, I promise).