I was a Sidekick

You read that right. I hate to admit it but when I was a kid I was a sidekick to my best friend. I was also the comic relief, and the class clown. For some reason I always seemed to be the one who was tossed up onto the roof to get the ball, Frisbee or what ever ended up in the wrong yard. I was the one who almost always got hurt when a good idea went wrong. I spent so much time in the Principal's office trying to get out of detention because I interrupted the class that I became great friends with both him and his staff. I loved the attention. I thrived on it. It became an escape for me.

My best friend then was named Kevin. He was the brawn I was the brain. He wasn't exactly stupid, he just spent more time practicing his guitar then I did reading books. Believe me all the practice was worth it. He ended up being one of the greatest guitar players I had ever heard, locally at least.

Even though I was the clown Kevin had more than his fair share of moments. He always used the word 'good' when someone asked him how he was doing. We had this one teacher who would always correct him and say "don't you mean well?". His reply was always "No, that's a hole in the ground. I'm not doing that."

In the seventh grade we were given instructions to do a project on a Greek myth of our choosing. The due date was here and every one of our class mates presented there reports, each with a visual prepared. There were diorama's, plaster of paris statues, mobiles and all sorts of fantastic posters showing charts, time lines etc. Kevin did his report on the Helen of Troy. He went to the front of the room with a stack of papers which his report was written on. He taped an 8x10 sheet of paper to the black board and drawn on it, in pen, was an illustration of the Trojan horse. In front of and beneath that was a stick figure with an expression of surprise on his face. A question mark drawn above his head to enforce the surprise. That was it. Nothing to explain it, just the horse and a man "for scale" as it were. I laughed so hard I had to be sent to out into the hall. From that day on all any one ever had to do was make the "Oh No!" face and it was enough to make me laugh.

We both got into trouble for that episode and I had nothing to do with it. My report actually had much more effort put into it. I got a passing grade. Barley. But I always seemed to get into trouble when he did. We were together all the time so it just stood to reason I had something to do with what ever he did. Damn we had a lot of fun. Our summers were one great adventure after another.

When we got into High school I was no longer the side kick. We went to a separate schools and Kevin fell in with a different group of kids. Me? I just blended in with all the other nobodies. I was no longer the class clown. I went to school, did my thing and stayed out of trouble. And I was okay with that too.