Where are They Now?

I was straightening out my record collection just now. I have about 50 of my old vinyl albums left, and I came upon one by a 60's British pop singer named Sandie Shaw. I'd forgotten all about the album. The Sandie songs I remember were "There Is Always Something There to Remind Me" and the rather dubiously titled "Girl, Don't Come." I remember loving those songs, but there's nothing about the album "To Remind Me" why I would have spent $2.99 and about 4 or 5% tax on it, when in high school, that was a lot of money. It must have been because of her picture on the album cover. She was really cute. We didn't say "hot" back then. We said "cut,e" or if a girl was really, really cute, we said she was "tough." Sandie was "tough," and seeing the old album, made me wonder where she is now. On the back of the album it said, that in 1964, she was an "18-year-old phenomenon." Where do you suppose, "tough" "18-year-old phenomenons" from England end up.

This started me thinking about other "where are they nows" in my life. For example what happened to the kid named Doug who lived at the end of my street when I was 6. He was 8 and carried a little razorblade knife around with him so he could make anyone he met his "blood brother." And I wonder what happened to the ponderous 9 year old twins named Marshall and Maurice who used to knock us down all the time. And how about Toto and Gigi, the weird little boys who lived at the other end of the street.

I wonder what happened to the cute blonde I sat next to in study hall in high school, who was an amazing artist. Is she a painter now? A teacher? Did she get married and give up her art for a husband, kids, and suburbia? Or how about the the older kid who used to check our report cards on the school bus and whack anyone around who didn't get satisfactory grades? I wonder where he went after the took him away for trying to burn down his house?

I wonder what happened to the kid I knew in college who decided to drive his VW bus around the inside of the academic podium in the middle of the night? I know he got tossed out of school, and I heard he went to Vietnam. I don't know if that's true, though.

I have one really memorable "where is he now" from when I was first teaching. There was an English teacher who did drop dead hilarious impersonations of both the principal and the vice-principal. He wasn't much at teaching, though, and one afternoon, he climbed out of his classroom window and never came back. I heard the Vietnam rumor about him, too. Back in those days, I guess anyone who disappeared had gone to Vietnam.

I really wonder what happened to all of those people. I ought to make a whole list of "where are they nows," search them out, and write a book about them. Then I'd not only know where they are, but maybe why I have bothered to remember them.