When I was a lot younger, I was quite impressionable. I think most kids go through this stage as they sort out just who they are and what they want to be. In early teenaged years, you don't know what you want, so you're willing to try anything just to be noticed.
I know I was easily influenced, not by my traditional long-standing friends but rather by a cadre of newcomers to our school, bearing different demeanors that I would find fascinating for awhile.
For instance, there was Dwight. He came equipped with a different haircut, a bad-boy pout and a cool Chevy. He even carried his school binder with a certain aplomb.
I watched from afar as Dwight attracted the girls with his pouty approach to life and supposed disdain for authority figures. Hell, he knew how to dangle a cigarette from the bottom lip, even in winter! I wanted to be like Dwight, except for the cigarette thing. If I needed to be a sullen Johnny Rebel in order to get the girls, then I'd be Johnny Rebel. As it turned out, Dwight wasn't a rebel or a pouty brat or even a misunderstood James Dean understudy. He was just a regular guy with a bit of swagger and a nice car. And he didn't end up with all the girls. Just some.
Then along came Laurie from Moose Jaw. He was a very good football player, and he was big and calm. Just like I wasn't. I got to know Laurie even better than Dwight. He was modest and had no pretension, so maybe I could become modest and not too full of the B.S. Didn't work.
Then Mike arrived from Winnipeg. He was a grade lower, but he had a bon vivant spirit, a cute sister and an uncanny skill on the basketball court. That was a wonderful realization for us because it was our first year in the new school. We never had a gymnasium in the previous school. In fact, we were just getting used to our first ever physical education teacher. None of us had ever played basketball, so Mike was a godsend for our rotten team, whose only other positive element was the fact we had a 6' 11" guy to play centre.
Mike whipped around us in practice, flung behind-the-back passes, which we would always fumble, or dribble between his legs or skid behind coverage to post-up without us even knowing we were posting up or screening. We were his pylons and he was our sports car running through the obstacle course. Beans was full throttle crazy and a functioning comedian. I wanted to be like Beans. Couldn't pull it off and wasn't even close in hoops. I generally fouled out early.
Then there was Robert, a First Nations addition to our academic circle. Bob could draw.
When it came to artistic adventures, he knew everything. Or, at least, I figured he did. I recall a sketching class we had and when we finished our 40 minute stick-man ordeal, we all gasped in wonderment when we saw his finished product.
"Aw, for crumb's sake, you can even draw hands. Nobody can draw hands," said George. But there they were, two perfectly pencil-sculpted hands and other body parts, of course, crafted by the first real artist to ever grace our classroom. Bob was only with us for a year, but for that year, I yearned to be like him, but I never got beyond reading some books on art and deciding that being a tortured Saskatchewan Van Gogh wasn't an option. I also liked having two ears.
Ultimately, I managed to gain a little maturity and decided to follow my own script, craft my own destiny and just be what I figured I should be, a ne'r-do-well reporter who is no longer easily influenced, unless, of course, you have some get rich quick scheme in Nigeria. I'm all over that!
