The Younger Years (Whats with the buck teeth?)

I don't have a lot of vivid memories from my childhood.  Perhaps because it wasn't the greatest at times, I might be blocking a lot of it out.  One vague picture in my mind is my bus stopping at the gas station on Roselle Road just south of Schaumburg where Darren would hop on, the bus blocking traffic on the single lane road.  You know, right across from the Ace Hardware on the SW corner.  Doesn't sound familiar?  Yeah... lots of changes in ol' Schaumburg since the 1970s.  Anyway, we spent six years at Schaumburg grade school which is now the district 54 building across from the swan pond.  

Things don't start coalescing in my mind until 6th grade, Mr. Blanks' room.  D and I spent a lot of time together that year.  Before that memories are still hazy.  I know that Darren came to my 2nd birthday party (the infamous cake incident where I cried after my parents put the relighting candles on it and everyone laughed at me... probably explains a lot), and we were in YMCA Indian Guides together.  We both admit that the one thing we remember most is the camping trips where the kids would watch the dads pound beers around the picnic table at our camp site.  THAT I can picture clearly.  I'm sure these events were more for the fathers than for us.  The trip to Blackhawk State Park was also the time Tony Adkins and I got separated from the group on a hike and merrily decided to walk back to the campsite, picking up a couple of pieces of firewood on the way.  It wasn't only the marshmallows that got roasted that night.  

The earliest picture of Darren and I is of the two of us sitting on a camp bench, arms around each other, goofy smiles ear-to-ear.  Problem is, I can't find it.  EXTENSIVE searching of my hard drives, but no luck.  I made a blow up of it to roast Darren during his wedding toast 18 years ago (Best... Best Man Speech... ever...  you'll see...), but Laura was unable to find that poster.  So maybe if he can locate it we can put up the pic later; we were cute little buggers...

Unfortunately not a lot to add for 7th and 8th grade at Frost Jr. High.  I have exactly two memories of us, one each year, exactly the same (Apparently Darren has others and my memory may be faulty... we'll see what he has to say).  After not seeing each other all year, we bump into one another in the hall on like the last day of the year, both years.  We exclaim each other's names and quickly swap yearbooks to sign and then run off to class.  "Darren!"  "Rob!"  "Sign my yearbook!!"  "Nice to see you!"  "Bye!"  Gone. 

June of '78, 7th grade. Awww... so cute...

 

And just to be fair... 

 

Why did I sign my own name?  What a dork.

One year, I don't know which one, we met in the hallway directly in front of the cafeteria.  I can picture it absolutely clearly.  THAT is the absolute first vivid memory I have of us. 

After that... hoo boy... do I have images in my brain... hee hee...