By the time 2007 arrived, I had begun hanging out with a crowd of friends who did not go to Aycock. (In my earlier post this group is blanketed as the "Shadoe Group") I became friends with this group because of our shared musical interests. Nearly a year had passed since I met Shadoe and hung out with him at a show (Sunset Greets the Moon at the Herman Park Center, March 18th, 2006) and, shortly thereafter, joined him, Stoan, and Cara for a game of Scattergories at the Stewart residence, officially starting the friendship. I had been riding along with Shadoe and the rest of the crowd to shows all over the state nearly every weekend, but we had to stop going to so many once Shadoe's senior basketball season rolled around. Because we could no longer go off to every show every weekend, we began to hang out in Goldsboro on the weekends. Goldsboro, being the booming metropolis that it is, didn't offer us any better place to hang out than the fourth floor of Shadoe and Stoan's house. This floor of the house contains not much more than a pool table, amplifier stack, a chronically out of order arcade machine, and plenty of seating. On any given Friday or Saturday night you could expect to find anywhere from 7 to 20 people in the upstairs room. Typically the group was composed of a cross-section of Wayne County's public education system: from Rosewood - Cara, Leo - from Spring Creek - Paul, Roland - from Aycock - Carl - from Eastern Wayne - Daniel, Samantha we never really brought any Southern Wayne kids up there..I have no idea why that was. In addition to these public school kids, the most thoroughly represented school was, of course, Wayne Country Day. Shadoe, Stoan, Dia, Ryan, Dave, Corey, and Luxman were there most often, but there was a good chance that any number of additional WCDS kids, who I did not know as well, could be there. Typically, the fourth floor could play host to any group of people, at any time of day, on any Friday or Saturday and that's what made it such a excellent place to meet up, its reliability. As we spent the winter up there and watched the holidays arrive, we all began our holiday breaks. On one aftternoon during this break Shadoe, Luxman, and I were playing pool upstairs and Shadoe mentioned that he knew of a show we could go to in Greensboro during the coming weekend. It was a show in a basement of a kid we did not know, but it was a band who we had seen the summer prior who, at the time , were called Too Late The Hero. We got lost on the way to that show, but Lux got us there somehow and we got there in time to receive a free sampler disk from the band now calling themselves Love & Reverie. The disk was given to me by a boy who looked to be roughly 19 years old with long blonde hair and a friendly demeanor. (As luck would have it, I had passed gas approximately 3 seconds before he walked over and he joined in with Lux and Shadoe to make fun of it/me/the smell) The show that concluded with Love & Reverie's set, which was completely ballin. The lead singer was wearing a Rocket Summer t-shirt...so I would have probably loved them even if they were horrible. However, I was genuinely impressed, especially by the song they closed with, a happy and bouncy song about killing a girl that they had titled "Sunny Bell." We all loved the set and found out that they were playing the next night at the Luna Bean in Wilson. We went home and rounded up several more friends and headed off to Wilson the next night. This was the first of what I'm estimating to be about 15 shows I would see over the coming 6 months where Love & Reverie were playing. The Goldsboro kids quickly developed a relationship with the band and just as quickly fell madly for their music. (Here I will mention that the only reason we, as a city, fell so hard and fast for Love's music was because our previous obsession Sunset Greets the Moon, had taken a break from constant show playing to record their album.) After basketball season ended, almost every weekend consisted of one night of show-going (and most probably Love & Reverie show-going) and one night of straight chillin upstairs. This is how I spent the rest of my junior year, and it was incredible. Aside from the music part of my life, this period of time also saw my development socially. Because the group of friends was so diverse, I was constantly presented with situations that one could never experience in a closed-environment group of friends (such as any group of friends made solely of students from one school) An example of this forced social development is a conversation that I was a part of in the early spring of 2007. The conversation took place in front of the Stewart house....around parked cars. As the location may indicate, it was a completely spontaneous conversation and, looking back, I have no idea how it started. The group of young men involved that night was, in my opinion, the most diverse and intelligent group of close friends I have ever been around. Paul Richter, Roland Rengifo, Daniel Montilla, Ryan Ford, Stoan Stewart, Shadoe Stewart, and myself all participated in a dialogue that night that revolved loosely around our various views on religion and morality. I don't remember many details about the talk, but I do know that it was without a doubt the best group conversation I've ever had. During the conversation I learned two big things - 1. I absolutely thrive on logical thought. More than anything in this world, I love logically picking apart why we feel the way we do, our flaws and biases, and our reasoning behind living as we do. 2. Ryan Ford is a great guy. Prior to this conversation, I had not talked to Ryan much and I credit that night with bringing us way closer together. Eventually the night had to end, and I have yet to duplicate the experience, and honestly, I doubt I ever will. In that conversation and others I had my belief system attacked, my status as a theist was attacked, my prejudices questioned, and my eyes opened. The social and intellectual growth I experienced during this period of my life shaped who I am today.
That's the way things went. We went to shows, hung out at Shadoe & Stoan's place, we ate a lot of Bonfire's, we talked about everything under the sun, and we grew. Junior year ended and the older kids all graduated. We packed as much life into that summer as was humanly possible, but despite my best efforts, we were still held to compliance by Father Time. Shadoe moved off to Chapel Hill in August and I knew things would never be the same. In looking back, I was exactly right. Things didn't get bad and my life wasn't worse or anything, but there was an undeniable loss of a huge part of my world. I harbor only good memories from this period of my life and in all honesty I doubt that I have done it justice in this brief explanation. I'll end this story with a video of the song that sends all the memories flooding into my mind. The song is "Sunny Bell". This particular clip was shot at the Luna Bean, at a show that I attended, along with many of those friends who I grew to love so much during that time.
In a small bit of other news, I found a song lyric that I feel displays perfectly how I feel about this blog and its importance to me as a means of catharsis.
So that is how I learned the lesson that everyone is alone.
And your eyes must do some raining if you are ever going to grow.
But when crying don't help and you can't compose yourself.
It is best to compose a poem, an honest verse of longing or simple song of hope.
That is why I'm singing...
- Bright Eyes - "Bowl of Oranges"
I guess I'll have to do an obligatory holiday blog next.
Happy Kwanza,
Carl Teachey
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