ROB WILL, PROFESSIONAL NEW KID

That's how I used to introduce myself. In the fall of 1987, when I started my sophomore year of high school, that is. North Central Wisconsin. Mmm. This was the last stop in the grandiose tour I mentioned in an earlier blog about the Replacements, so I won't pontificate on the specifics of said stroll through the heart of the U.S.

I wasn't an army brat, but there was enough "starting over" to make that above statement in bright green true. Professional indicates a mastery, or at least, "goodishness" at something, to the point that you can be titled. I was an established new kid. I had that shit down.

Make no mistake, I wasn't disappointed in the lack of "female" reaction I was getting. I'd learned long ago that just cause you're new, it does not cause a scent of mystery and allure. The new guy, drawing whispers and glances from the established female student body as he strolls down the hall. That shit only happens in the fuckin' movies. Or if you look like Johnny Depp.

Well, chances are, you look like Depp, it has happened somewhere. And often. But I'm gettin' off track.

So yeah, I played the role a bit. I grew out the hair, wore dark clothing. If it was cold I wore a hooded sweatshirt under the dark clothing......pretty much dressed the same way I do now. I threw dirty looks about the place, outside of the classroom, I kept to myself.

It definitely wasn't the movies. But that works in two ways. See, I didn't have the looks or that Hollywood air of mystery that drew in the ladies, but I didn't get my ass beat down every day by the big and the stupid either. So I can't really complain if I didn't see one side for neither of the double-edge sword.

The problem was where to fit in. As you know, fearless readers, 'tis my problem to this day.

The jocks wouldn't have me. I didn't have the height, size, or self-absorbed nature for all of that football nonsense. (The lack of a Friday jersey didn't help with the ladies either....who says girls aren't obsessed with status) The "nerds" saw me as an outsider. I wasn't smart enough, or at least didn't "apply myself" enough to ring in with that crowd.

Have B-, will travel.

The "skate crowd" only liked me because I had an Husker Du sticker on a textbook. For all their clamor about isolationism, and bitching about the "popular" people and their obsession with status, my induction into their ranks, simply because I listened to punk, would have been just as superficial as all that.

So in a way, it was like the movies, I guess. Only I didn't have a beleaguered and hilarious best friend that kept me up straight when the world was falling down around me. I didn't end up bumping into this mousy, yet gorgeous underneath the glasses and the brains, chick who saw me "for who I was" and a whirlwind romance ensued. I didn't kick the shit out of the school bully, or free the put-upon of the high school from the chains of bureaucratic horseshit in some phenomenal display of speechitude that had everybody starting a "slow clap" as they came to their senses.

No I was just a kid.

Or the movie wasn't about me.