It's May: Highlights of Springtimes past

Spring at Milton Academy!

This time of year, it's really hard not to have a positive attitude.  After months of leafless trees, grey skies, and cold air, it is so refreshing to see (and feel) the changes that come with springtime.  The warmth in the air, the sound of the birds, the fresh spring smells (flowers and fresh cut grass), the sun, and the general positivity of people around me highlight my good feelings.  Although summer (being at camp) and early Fall (remind me of soccer seasons of old) are great times, I think that it is really hard to beat May and early June.  I have so many memories stemming from this time period that I might as well share some of them!


Pre-high school:
My memories of spring time before high school involve soccer, friends, and my little brother. 

1. Soccer:  After a winters of playing little to no soccer, it was always a treat when I could finally get back out on the field.  Springtime meant that it was time to prepare for the Coastal Challenge (hosted by Bowdoin College).  I don't remember many of these tournaments not involving at least one game being played in the pouring rain, but I do remember our Maine Novas team having a lot of success playing in this tournament (usually ending up first or second).  For most of my years playing in this tournament, a couple of my aunts and uncles lived nearby, so I can remember going to their house to rest (and usually dry off) before the next game.  Eventually, the weekend also corresponded with the birthday of one of my youngest cousins, so we were conveniently in the area to celebrate! (Nothing like mixing loads of cake and soccer)
2. Friends:  Starting in middle school my parents began allowed me to have more freedom to venture away from the house unsupervised, which meant that my spring afternoons could be filled spending time with friends.  Beginning in seventh grade, I decided to change where I waited for the bus and instead of waiting on First Rangeway, I cut through a couple of lawns and a couple of streets over to wait on Forest Park (a walk that I have made many times since).  I played soccer with a bunch of kids from that street (Shawn, Zack, and John) and my other bus stop was usually just me (so lonely).  Little did I know then, but Forest Park would soon become a second home.  I can remember getting off the bus on nice days and walking over to Zack's house, where we could play pool and Halo: Combat Evolved while we had afternoon snacks.  When I wasn't with my friends on that street or home, chances were pretty good that I was hanging out with Dennis.  Dennis also played soccer with me, and by virtue of carpooling to most games together, we became fast friends.  His Mom's house sat back in the woods at the bottom of a hill, and one day I can clearly recall spending about an hour ghost riding our bikes down the hill into a jump, where they would launch into nearby trees.  (Such a junior high boy thing to do.)
3. Little Brother: Although I did spend a lot of times with my friends, Isaiah still won the award for most time spent hanging out with me.  Middle school springtime was devoted to baseball, wiffleball, backyard soccer, and driveway basketball.  I never really played organized baseball (save one season of coach pitch ball), but Isaiah was in it for a few years.  When he first started, he wasn't very good (I'm sure he will admit this).  However, I started dragging him down the street to do batting practice in the cage, and slowly but surely, he started to find a groove.  By the end of his little league stint, he was actually a pretty passable player.  He was a gracious batter, as my pitches often lacked control and occasionally hit him.  Rather than moving out of the way, he would stick his hand out to stop it.  (Then would whine when it hurt.)  When he refused to be dragged to the baseball field, I would then run down a variety of different options (all of which were some sort of sport).  Some days it was easy and he'd come right out, others he put up a bit of a fight before agreeing to come outside with me.  We played any and every sport we could.  Games would usually end with a faux wrestling match to determine the "real winner" of the game.  During middle school, I often had to go a little easier on Isaiah because I was physically more dominant than he was, but pretty soon he would catch and surpass me in that department!

High School: High school springs had a number of common themes, but also some variations.  I think that breaking it down by grade year is the best strategy here. 

Freshman year.  Spring, freshman year was the only year that I did a spring sport.  I chose Track and Field.  I surely wasn't the fastest runner on the team, but I also wasn't the slowest.  I really enjoyed doing it, and got better as the season progressed.  But there is one memory of that season that stands out for better or for worse.  It was an overcast, dreary day and the team was using a piece of training equipment called an over-speed trainer.  It was essentially a bungee cord with a person running in front and a person trailing them (each runner connected).  It was designed to provide drag for the person in the front, while the person in back was forced to reach speeds that they wouldn't be able to unless otherwise pulled.  Well, I was paired up with Zach, and we strapped in and got ready to run.  He was in front and I was in back.  He started running and I waited for the coach to tell me to go.  She said "go," so I went.  As I ran, I could feel myself moving faster and faster, finally reaching a point where I didn't think my legs could increase their speed any more.  Suddenly, my body lurched forward and I began to fall.  I tumbled forward and hit the ground hard.  Zach continued to run, as he was instructed to run a certain distance.  As he ran, my body skipped along the track for another ten feet or so like a rock skipping across the water.  Finally, he stopped.  The rest of the team looked on in horror, not knowing if I was okay or if they could laugh.  I was so embarrassed.  I could feel scrapes and track burns all over.  I stood up slowly and asked if I could go down to the school to clean myself up a bit.  Fortunately, it was a cool, rainy day, so I was wearing long-sleeves and a hat.  If I hadn't I fear that my outcome would have been much worse!  From that point on, everyone on the team definitely knew who I was... and I didn't use the over-speed trainer again.  In addition to track, I decided that it was time for me to bulk up.  I convinced my parents to let me get a gym membership with my friends and started hitting the gym!  We started going after track practice to get big and strong.  My friends seemed to make bigger gains then I did (I blame it on a head start).  Then, I decided I was going to take it really seriously and began to take Creatine to bulk up.  The creatine called to be consumed a few times a day with copious amounts of water in between.  Before I knew it, I swelled right up (scarily gaining 10 pounds in two weeks).  In this process, I decided it may not have been the safest method to get bigger, and stopped.  I soon shrunk back down...

Sophomore Year. In the Spring of my sophomore year, I started my first official job!  I worked as a Blizzard technician (I just made that up) at Dairy Queen.  At this time, I didn't have my license, so I had to walk to work (luckily, it wasn't too far away).  I can remember the nice spring days walking over to work thinking "mannnn, there are so many things I'd rather be doing right now!"  But when it was all said and done, it was a good starting job.  I ate a ton of free ice cream, they treated me well (I was once employee of the month), and I can still make a soft serve cone beautifully!  When I wasn't making blizzards and twisty cones, I could often be found at the Massey home, playing Halo, Ping-Pong, or man hunt, drinking Arizona Green Teas.  For as many hours as I spent playing Halo, one would have guessed that I would be better at it... I wasn't.  Definitely in the lower tier of my friends.  Since my curfew at home was 10:30, I often spent the night at friends' houses instead, because they all lived close together and thus stayed up later!  Like any sophomore male, we bonded over sports, video games, and girls (most of my friends were more gifted in that last department).  Quick aside: my shy nature often got the best of me when I ran into a girl that I was interested in (I was a great talker on AIM).

Junior Year. By this time, most of my friends (I didn't until senior year :-X) had gotten their driver's licenses, so our things-to-do options opened up significantly.  By this time, most of the guys had girlfriends, so unfortunately, their bro time was now compromised.  Mine was not...  However, when we were hanging out, it was likely that we were hanging out on John's roof, drinking green teas, blasting some Jimmy Buffett.  We were so cool.  Junior year also marked the foundation of "It's May," an all-encompassing excuse to procrastinate work.

A common high school sight.

Senior Year. My spring of senior year was literally life-changing.  I will admit, that I was a bad friend to a lot of my best friends, because I was not around a lot.  I was not around a lot, because for the first time, I was finally hanging out with a girl.  After a winter of swimming with her and being told by her friends that she would never go for a guy like me (I had an unfair rap sheet), I finally convinced Amy to hang out with me.  At first she was hesitant, always bringing her sister and some friends to make sure I didn't try any funny business.  After a while though, I convinced her that I wasn't so bad.  When she finally agreed to hang out with just me, I pulled out my best arsenal of potential moves.  On one of our first dates, we walked the Colby Arboretum (which I should have warned her about, because she wore white sandals...oops), went to Gifford's to Mini Golf (and ice cream which was probably the real deal sealer), and then capped the night off by going to see a movie (on that particular date, I think we saw What Happens in Vegas).  I will admit that I was so nervous that we would run out of things to talk about or I would fumble my opportunity, but everything came so easily and naturally.  Amazingly, eight years later, she still hasn't gotten rid of me!Shortly after that date, I had the privilege of taking her to prom and had a lovely evening.  That spring, I convinced my parents to let me work at Camp Bishopswood for the summer, where I learned that I loved to work with kids and led me to my current profession in schools.  It is funny how the dominos fall sometimes.  Aside from hanging out with Amy and trying to convince her that I was boyfriend material, I smoked my first (and likely last) real cigar.  As John's uncle put it: "you are the only person I've ever met that needed to DD after a cigar."  I definitely smoked it too fast. Life has a funny way of presenting lasting lessons!

What a nice couple.

College: So that gets us through the highlights of high school springs!  Now on to college springs.  I am going to skip the part of spring where I was physically at college, because that was a different beast altogether.  College is so unique in so many ways, and one of those was how early we got out of school.  At St. Joe's we were often packing up and heading home before May 10, which is crazy!  Since my summer camp job didn't start until the middle of June, I always had some well-deserved free time.  I used this month to get caught up on lost time with my friends who were away at different colleges.  Just like old times, Forest Park was the central gathering area, and we would venture out again.  Usually, most of my friends had at least a couple of weeks before their jobs started as well, so we often had fires in the back yard or played Super Smash Bros. on Nintendo 64 (as far as I'm concerned, that and FIFA are the best video games ever).  Unlike Halo, I was actually good at Smash.  When I wasn't hanging out with the boys, there were two common activities that I could be found doing: 1) Hanging out with Isaiah and 2) Hanging out with Amy.  I will start with the second, because I would often get out of school nearly a month before Amy finished.  At Bates, they had to do May term at least three of the four years they were in school, so Amy typically didn't finish up until the end of May.  When I had access to a car, I would often visit her at school on weekends, or drive down and bring her back to Waterville.  When I visited her at Bates, we filled our time going to see movies, going on walks around campus, going out to dinner, and hanging out with her friends.  The great part about Bates on weekends was that there was almost always some sort of school sanctioned event (i.e, dances, concerts, etc...).  Luckily, I got to spend my summers with Amy at camp, so the hanging out with friends balancing act was a little bit easier. 




Isaiah was still in high school, so during the day, I would usually find other things to do to kill time (mow the lawn, shoot hoops, watch tv, etc...).  When he would get home, tired from track practice, I always made sure to drag him outside to play basketball or wiffleball (I know he loved it).   One spring, I substitute taught at my old high school, which was definitely an interesting experience (especially since I was a senior when the current senior class was freshman, many of them were also Isaiah's friends).  Springtime also meant that Isaiah was right in the think of outdoor track season.  I would be remiss to leave this part of my springs out.  Isaiah was really fast and I really loved making the trips to watch him run at states.  The crazy thing about states weekend, is that I reflecting back, I don't remember a single one of those weekends being bad weather.  It was always hot and sunny (I always got sunburned).  There was no doubt that I was his biggest fan.  Prior to race day, Isaiah and I would talk about what the team had to do in order to have a chance, how much time he would have to drop to have a chance to win, and how other team's performances would effect their standings.  During his high school career, his team won two state championships, he was a major contributor in one of them and got some points in the other.  He always came into States ranked below some of the southern Maine runners, but in true Spofford fashion, never failed to rise to the occasion.  It was so fun to watch him blaze across the track!  When the day was done, I would go home sunburned and tired, looking forward to breaking down the events! 

Speedy

Post-College (Washington Academy): This provides a perfect segue to my initial post-college life, because my most vivid recollections of springs at W.A. involved coaching track and playing tennis. I didn't have much success, but being around Isaiah and track for so long helped me learn the mechanics and intricacies of running.  This served me very well as I was able to land a position as a volunteer (and eventually assistant coach) with the outdoor track team at WA.  Unlike Waterville, this was a relatively new team with a relaxed atmosphere.  It was perfect for a new coach.  I worked mostly with the hurdlers and jumpers and it was such a rewarding experience.  During the course of the seasons it was always amazing to watch the athletes grow and reach personal bests that they didn't realize they were capable of achieving.  My first year, we only had a few state qualifiers, but as the program grew, so did the number of athletes at states!  Coaching track is definitely in the top 3 list of things that I miss most about WA.  I still make sure to check the results after their meets to make sure that they are continuing to have success (of course, they are!).

WA Track team at States!

  When I wasn't coaching, I loved playing tennis at the new courts with the dorm students.  I worked with students who spoke all different languages, and as their dorm parent, I quickly learned that sports is a universal language.  They were often better than me at tennis, but I loved the competition and being able to improve over the course of the spring.  I would often go out after dinner, intending to only play for an hour or so, and find myself out there until it was finally too dark to play anymore.
Then of course, there was graduation season, where I got to swell with pride as my dorm kids and day students went to prom and then reaped the rewards of four years of hard work as they walked across the stage to accept their diplomas.  There is just a certain feeling during that time (maybe it's knowing that there is a summer of rest fast-approaching), that is always refreshing.



Post-College (Boston/Waterville):


He did it! (Last year)



Speaking of graduations, another Isaiah highlight happened last Spring, as we made the trip up to Farmington to watch him march!  Last year, I had the privilege of making several trips up to Farmington to visit Isaiah and his roommates, who are amazing people by the way.  This made watching the graduation that much sweeter, because rather than just being proud of Isaiah, there was also my cousin Sebastien, his girlfriend Kelsey, and their other roommate Ken (the last true residents of the famed "Ski House"). 

Living in Boston, I have had several highlights too.  One of which is a spring time that is just a little bit longer than that of Maine's spring.  A few weeks ago, I had an awesome day with Amy, where we went hiking around a pond, then went into the city (which is at beauty prime-time in the spring) and walked around Newbury Street and had a nice dinner date.  It's so nice living in a place where I can do such diverse things in the same day! 

I also recently made my annual spring trip up to Maine, and it was filled with Forest Park, old friends and golf.  The weather was about as good as Maine could have offered in mid-May.  There is just something about being around Maine in May that makes me really happy (especially when the weather was as good as it was).  I got to sit by the fire, with friends, playing guitar.  That's a pretty prime scenario for great memory making if you ask me!  It was also likely the last time that I will have gone to the Mathews Ave house as well, which was really bittersweet!  Mom and Dad made sure to make it a delightful last dinner, as I came home to a crabmeat and clam supper (SO GOOD!).  As I prepared to head back to Boston, they made sure to load the car up with anything that they could possibly unload on me (food, soda, clothes, fancy hats).  To top off the weekend, we booked three consecutive tee times, and played golf on a virtually empty Waterville Country Club course.  Now that the weather has improved and I have my own clubs, I have had a serious itch to play golf whenever I can!  It is a great sport, but can be very frustrating!

At the Range

There you have it, my chronicle of springs past!  Until next time :-)!!