Ashiki Option Again

In 1993, Ashiki Preston, the starting quarterback for the Kansas Jayhawks, ran the option offense. Great, your saying. What does this mean?
Well, first it means that this is an Anders-lite post, but I hope someday he will read this piece knowingly as he looks back on his verbose father and his own wonderful friends.
This morning I'm waking up in Chicago after my friend Lucas's wedding to his wonderful new wife, Sarah. This happy occasion made me think about friendship. One of the best things about weddings of my friends is that they give me a chance to see other friends of mine, so in this case Brad and Styvos (STE-voze), Jason Styve, or as my mom would say Justin Styve. Styvos called my house almost every day from 1991-1997, but it was only a 50/50 bet that my mom would tell me Jason was calling, all the other times it was "Justin." My mom called him Justin because he reminded her of my even earlier friend Justin Myers in Marquette. Anyway, Styvos would almost always be the first person to call the night that I returned from long trips to Kansas in the summer or Christmas.
Styvos, Lucas, Brad, and myself were a package deal, especially in Junior High. If Styvos would invite me over to his house, I would assume rightly that Lucas was already there and there would be a 75% chance that Brad was coming over or was already there as well. We didn't really do that much. I think we used to watch Cubs games and of course hone our offense, the Ashiki Option, which we also worked on at school. I was QB, Voze was fullback, Brad was left halfback, and Lucas was right halfback, and we would just run imaginary plays against an imaginary defense. Yes Anders, your father was a really cool dude in junior high.
I am learning the value of brevity. I gave a speech as I usually do at the weddings of good friends. No, I've never been the best man in a wedding, but I always seem to find my way to the microphone. I was sitting between Styvos and Brad, and we were at Table 2, right next to Lucas and Sarah. We were actually closer to Lucas than his family's table.
I had a ball. I had not seen Styvos since my own wedding over nine years ago. After some initial awkwardness and trips to the bar, we fell in line like old times. I forgot how much Styvos could make me laugh. He still says the most randomly inappropriate things, which get me every time. The great thing about hanging out over 9 years later is that he didn't have to search for the laughter, he knew right where to go. He had me going to the point that Lucas's parents, Stan and Deb, looked over at me and started laughing themselves.
If you've never heard me laugh, my laugh is a hybrid of the laughs of Eddie Murphy and Chewbacca, and I've been told it's infectious. Of course Styvos should be good at this since every day at lunch during 8th and 9th grade, he tried to get me to spit out my banana during lunch, an event that became known as The Banana Laugh.
One of the hardest things about moving to a new place after eight years in another place is trying to make connections with new people who might become friends at some later date. Spending a night like last night with some of my oldest friends was priceless. One of the most refreshing things Styvos did was not ask me a thing about myself or my life. This stilted, awkward conversation is part of what weddings are all about and I did my fair share of that yesterday, but not while next to Styvos. He just started talking in his usual stream of consciousness manner and it was, in the words of Anders, "mazing."
I also want to pay Brad a compliment. Brad is a medical fellow who will be a full fledged pediatric anasteseologist next year. I respect what he has accomplished so much more after teaching for a while at St. John's where they have organic chemistry and other advanced science classes in high school taught by world class faculty, some of whom hold terminal degrees in their fields and are associated with NASA. Brad had to compete with these people to get into medical school and beyond by "relying" on his high school science background. Our high school science department consisted of a diffident hippie, a bio teacher who only talked about nuclear annihilation, and a chemistry teacher so overwhelmed by her subject that Brad essentially taught the class. Don't get me wrong, on the whole Decorah High School was fine, but when your goal is to compete with the best, then it seems insufficient. Brad succeeded anyway, even if he has some crazy ideas about orange juice.
Styvos is self-employed and running two or three businesses. Lucas works for a burgeoning Internet start-up company, and I work at one of the best schools in the country. I'm really proud of my friends. We've come along way since the Ashiki Option.
I guess that since I gave a short speech I had to ramble on the Internet...
Teaching in high school for the first time makes me miss my friends on a daily basis. It's only human nature to compare and contrast my high school experience with that of my students. They have me beat in almost every way, but I doubt they have me beat in the quality of friends I made. I hope Anders can have as good friends as I did growing up. I remember at the end of high school my mom marveling at all my good friends. I didn't really appreciate it then, but she said I would in the future and she is correct.
A night like last evening can tide me over for a good long time.
I go to Decorah a couple of times per year, but Decorah's not home anymore. Home is where your friends are. Home is where your memories reside. Home is with Mama and you, Mr. Bear, in Sugar Land, but home is also at a restaurant in Chicago or a canyon in Colorado or a ridge in Massachusetts or whenever your friends still gather years later to share the best moments of their lives.