The Girl from Blairsville

It was Super Bowl weekend, 2001. I was in 11th grade at the time and was heading to my first District 9 Chorus extravanganza. For those of you that may not know, District Chorus was the best of the best singers from 30-40 high schools in the regions. Yep, before I was a great journalist, I was a great singer. The trip down was nothing to shout about and the early part of the night wasn't either. We arrived in Blairsville at the auditorium and it was kind of dark and all that crap. So it was time for my audition to go on to Regional Chorus. If you got in a certain percentage you got to move on to an even more select chorus "festival," which I later did a year afterwards. But there's one problem with this audition. See, I had a sore throat from practicing and wearing out my voice. Yep, not so hot. Plus, to make it even worse, the judges in the room decide to pick out the two songs I didn't really know so well. So let's just say I sucked it up like a vacuum cleaner sucks up fuzzballs. So I'm walking out of the room and I'm not feeling all that great about the "performance." And then there she is.

Her name was Heather Marsh and she went to Blairsville at the time. Heather had curly red hair which proves I don't exclusively have things for blondes. Her official reason for being there was that she was a "Bass I host runner" which basically meant she made sure people like me who are directionally-impaired didn't get lost in the school. Heather said I did a good job and we engaged in small talk and I really didn't think of it much at the time. From what I can remember, I think she really wanted to talk with me and offered to hang around me during the week.

The first morning comes around and we practice, quite a lot actually. Not so much fun. After the practice, there's Heather waiting for me and I think she went and gave me the tour of the school. (This was one of my favorite parts of going to other schools and somehow I got a tour of EVERY school I was at including Apollo-Ridge, Clarion-Limestone, Union City and of course Blairsville.)

One of the most memorable moments came whenever she started doing a cheer in the hall for me and anyone else that would listen. During breaks, usually we would end up finding each other along with her friend Jessica and hang out or just sit around and be bums (something I enjoy quite a bit).

Friday night was our first concert and afterwards there was a dance. No, we didn't dance together and the most memorable thing I remember about this dance was it was the first time I heard "We Like to Party." This dance had huge video screens too. Imagine if they had this at the prom.

Saturday morning came along and I remember our little group having a conversation and Heather begging us not to leave before our afternoon concert. That point will come up again. A lot of other stuff happened before the concert too. I remember talking with a group of guys about how low-scoring Super Bowl 35 would be between the Giants and the Ravens. We were all wrong, the Giants lost 34-7.

The concert comes along and is over with and thankfully in a short amount of time. It was the first time I remember sweat dripping down my back. It was also the first (but not the last) robe zipper I broke. The concert ends and I'm looking for Heather because I know she'll be so disappointed if I don't see here. It takes a little while and then I see her. And then she starts to cry. A lot. We embrace for probably a minute or two as she eventually settles down. She tells me to promise I will e-mail her back when I get home. (This was before I had facebook, AIM or even a cell phone.) So I'm walking out the door of the school with my folks and she comes whizzing by and hands me a note then screams, "E-mail me when you get home!" Of course, the first thing I'm thinking is "Why did you have to do that in front of my parents!" Questions followed and I think my grandmother thought I had a girlfriend which sadly was not true. This may have got around briefly in school too.

That's not the end of the story, though. Heather and I usually would e-mail each other once a week and update our lives. I would tell about my distain for physics (and the handy-dandy formula card) while Heather would tell how she gained confidence in singing from watching me perform. As a month or two went on, she started saying "I miss you" a lot more. I saved every e-mail. We got to talk a couple times online on MSN Messenger (HAHA! How dated is that!) and while talking she told me I have a beautiful heart and to never change for anyone.

Sadly, though, Heather's e-mail address became inactive and I haven't tracked her down since. I'm not too optimistic that I will any time soon either. But the reason I wrote this is because A) I was waiting on results at work and B) It just kind of popped into my head like a lot of the blog entries tend to do.

I think I want to end it like this. Almost every time, Heather e-mailed me she would sign off, "Love your friend always." Now normally, I wouldn't really believe that or take much stock in it. But with her, I do. Well, that's about it. Sorry if I made you all emotional. I promise the next one will be a lot funnier. People need to start giving kids normal names.