Happy birthday, old friend

Today is Kerrie Gannon's birthday. Now, unless you went to Warwick Vets, and graduated in '93, you probably don't know Kerrie Gannon. But you probably know someone just like her.

Kerrie is someone I only used to know, back when I was 16 and drinking Purple Passion from a two-liter bottle at the Sea Wall on a Friday night. She wasn't my best friend, but, for a time, she was someone who was very much a part of my high school years. There's not too much I could tell you about her, except that she had a hot, older brother named Scott, and that if you pinched her, she thought she would get cancer.

When I was in high school, I straddled several cliques, my foot just far enough inside the circle of each one to be called one of them, but not so deep that I could be pigeon-holed. They may not have been as well-defined as in other schools, sometimes the lines were blurred, a sign of unity, I suppose. And they weren't really named. But the cliques were there, and you knew who belonged where, for the most part. There were the kids in honors classes, a group of which I was a proud, card-carrying member, and from whom I drew my best friends. There were the the sort-of alternative kids, many of whom were also in honors classes, but hung in different circles after the bell. (Incidentally, this is the only group of people with whom I remain friends.) Then there were the "cool" kids, the kids who got wasted before the Hendricken Carnival and always seemed to be able to get beer, girls who, as upperclassmen, egged the houses of ambitious freshmen who stole the hearts (or pants) of the senior heartthrobs.

Kerrie was part of this last group, but not really. In part, so was I - but not really at all.

Anyway, for some reason, I guess because of my propensity to recall number sequences linked with my past (I still remember the telephone number of my second-grade best friend Dawn Steiner, whom I've not seen since I was 7) I remember Kerrie's birthday, even though I have not spoken with her since graduation.

Sometimes, I wonder about the people who seemed, back then, like they would always be there, like they'd never just disappear and morph into strangers whom I'd hardly recognize on the street. I wonder if they're married. If they have kids. If they work, or stay home. If they turned out to be gay. If they live in mansions on the ocean or have fallen on hard times. I wonder about them, and wonder, sometimes, if they ever wonder about me.

Today, I am wondering about Kerrie Gannon and wishing her a Happy Birthday, wherever she may be.