This friend, TJ, and I have a very strange history. You see, I met TJ in West Virginia when I was 14 and he was 16. Summer of, um, 1992, I guess. Or maybe '93. I don't know. Both of us were taking part in a Mission Trip, based on the campus of Concord College in a town up there called Athens. His group was from Hilton Head in South Carolina, and my friend Courtney Blackburn and I thought that he and his friend Chris were the cutest boys we had ever laid eyes on. A friendship was born. We all exchange addresses and phone numbers and we leave expecting never again to see each other. Boy, were we wrong.
A correspondence between the four of us lasted a year or so following the trip. TJ and Chris were very creative; they'd occasionally send us videos or recorded cassette tapes instead of letters, some of which I still have today, I think. Over a year later, they met up with us when my high school played in Jesup for a football playoff game. My boyfriend at the time was not pleased, I don't think. Realizing that on hindsight. Sorry, J.
The summer before my senior year in high school, almost two years later in 1995, I went up to Charleston to attend a "band camp" of sorts. Shut up with the band nerd comments. It was just me and a couple of other folks from my school; it was really a leadership camp and, since I was going to be the drum major that year, I had to go. We had fallen out of touch, but somehow I discovered that TJ was not only a student at Charleston Southern University (the school where the camp took place), but that he was the roommate of one of the college students in charge of the camp. After I got permission from my band director, TJ picked me up in his little beat up car to show me around his Charleston one morning. We split an egg mcmuffin for breakfast (funny the things you remember), then walked around the historic district. He gave me the history behind the colors on the houses (so that, in the past, slaves could tell the difference between houses when making deliveries) and the significance of the palmetto tree on the SC flag. I leave South Carolina and we, again, say our permanent goodbyes.
Eight years pass. Eight years of college and graduate school and a time of a lot of change for me. I'm on the Internet one day in the summer of 2003, and I come across a website for a church in Hilton Head where a guy named TJ Edmond is the youth pastor. Surely not, I think. Surely this isn't my old friend TJ. I send an email to the address listed on the website. He writes back. It's him. We meet up one evening when I'm visiting Beth in Savannah, and we have some good conversation, catching up on each others' lives, etc. He moves to Buffalo, NY, I move to Macon.
A couple of months ago, I get an email from him out of the blue inviting me to join this networking site called MySpace. Just one of those form letter types of emails, you know, that sites like that send out? I join because, well, why not, I'm blogging, aren't I? and, through this site and an occasional short email, I discover that he's now living in Atlanta and in the early stages of starting a band. Last night was his first concert in over a year, apparently, so Elizabeth so kindly agreed to go with me to support my most random friend. Music was great, and he and I got to catch up very briefly for a few minutes after the show. We joke about how, maybe, we'll see each other again in 10 years, we say another probably permanent goodbye, and Elizabeth and I are on our way to dinner at Cafe Intermezzo.
What's the point in this entirely too long and rambling blog? There's not really one, I guess. But, if nothing else, I'll reward your patience with a picture of a 14-year-old me and a 16-year-old TJ, both sunburnt from building houses all day in West Virginia. Oh, and if you have a moment, stop by his site and take a listen to his stuff... I think you'll like it!
4 comments:
Love the bangs, Miriam!
Just watched Bridget Jones 2 with Jensen and got to share the whole stuck-at-the-US-Embassy-in-England story again... Ah, memories.
I told the stuck-at-the-US-Embassy-in-England story today, too!! And the Muslim flight! And Gina crying and throwing her money at us!
Stink, I always forget to tell about the Muslim flight! But Gina crying and emptying her wallet at you is -always- part of the story. Even though I wasn't there for that part. (I was over at the phone booth crying at the American Embassy Emergency Hotline Person. To no sympathetic avail.) Sigh. John H-double-O-D. The Maharajah. The Canadian airport. What a GREAT story.
Ha! I just found this! I have that same picture, still. It was great to see you that summer. You should come back to Atlanta for the 28th. We're playing a halloween show at a very cool new loft venue downtown. It's going to be fun!
I'm in the studio this month with the band recording a new CD. I'll send you one when it's done!
-T.J.
Post a Comment