(no subject)
More than any award or event, my life has been shaped by something that will never know how important it was to me, a concrete bench. It was upon this stone altar that my elementary school desires and personality was sacrificed to the gods of high school. My encounter with what would become know as “the bench” to many and “that place where those random guys never leave” to many more shaped what I desired in my personal and professional life. During the five years I spend at this mortar Mecca, I found friends whom I consider brothers, events I can never forget, and the seed of the person I want to be.
The time that I spent there with my friends changed my entire world view. At first I didn’t know anyone there since I was the only person from my elementary school who attended this school. I soon came upon others who shared some of my interests, primarily humor. Never before had I met people who enjoyed challenging each other with their wit and silliness. They allowed me to open up my own abilities in these fields more than I could have imagined. It was in these moments of supreme comedic enlightenment that we created some of our longest lasting traditions at the bench. One such tradition was the Charleston-chew off, in which competitors would try to consume a Charleston Chew candy bar in the fastest time. As I sat timing the competition, I reminded myself that without these guys the humor that I’ve come to depend on would never have been born.
Yet beneath our humor, there was a base of kindness and intellect that has saved my grade and person. Beginning in then eight grade, some days at the bench would be filled with the sounds of quietly flipping paper as we attempted to become one with our Louisiana History notes. In later years, I had more than one person desperately rush up to me asking for help with science, and I rushed up to more that one person desperately asking for help in that forbidden art I called English. By these experiences, I learned what true devotion and friendship entailed. Additionally, there would be times at which a bench companion and I would work at some lab after school together. The time spent with him made us closer friends and helped to inspire me to pursue a career in science.
As the years have changed, so have those at the bench. There have been years it was impossible to even get near it, or years, like this one, where only four students remain to guard the memories at it. Maybe this change in the bench is meant to be another lesson for me. I must assume the bench is trying to teach me that soon my life will experience radical changes, but that my memories, just like that bench, will always be there for me to rest upon.