Nerds

It has been 35 years since I graduated from high school, which means I am an official old coot. Thank you. Now get off my lawn.

It seems like yesterday I was tooling around Marietta listening to “Sweet Home Alabama” on the radio. In fact, it was yesterday and 1977. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that song and “Hotel California”, I could retire the national debt.

There was this girl in my class. She was the fairest of them all. She was pretty and sweet and kind and had a sense of humor. She was way out of my league. However, she treated me well. She dated one of the handsome boys in the class and they made the cutest couple: Mr. and Mrs. Steve and Suzy Suave.

Graduation Day came and went. Suzy went one way. I went the other. I saw her at our 10 year reunion, but I don’t remember talking to her that much. I was too busy trying to convince people that my new wife (Lori) was not blind.

At the 20 year reunion, I was at the buffet line when Suzy Suave came up to me. She was still as pretty and lovely as ever. We had, as we say in the South, “the nicest little chat”. I saw my wife out of the corner of my eye. It is not what you think-it was not the stink eye. It was the "I'm going to make fun of you for the rest of your life". When I sat down Lori said, “I. Didn’t. Know. You. Knew. Suzy. Suave.” and laughed at me. I told her, “I didn’t either”, but my ego was going “Yay! Yay! Attention from Suzy Suave. Yay! That’s great”.

Ten more years pass and we’re at my 30 year reunion. I saw all of my old gang, including one guy who had become a country music song writer. It was funny to notice how old everybody looked while I kept my boyish charm.

I ran into Suzy. We exchanged hugs. I think that is the first time I had ever touched her in my life. Then she said these words.

“Oh, Alan, it is so great to see you. You know, you and Moody [see Humor Me 6/8/11] were my favorite NERDS.”

As the late, great Harry Chapin once said [By the way, he was one depressed human being. All of his songs were these eight minute combination dirge/sermons about feeling really bad], “One man might have been angry and another man might have been hurt”. But I was neither, I was just happy to be a favorite something of this person who was kind of a big deal at my high school.

I would admit that I did have an image of being a nerd back then. Thick glasses (check). Pimples that industrial strength Clearsil couldn’t help (check). Short (check). Goofy Looking (check). Odd body odor/bad breath (check and check). Hair that was oily and had a mind of its own (check).

However, I didn’t make nerd-like grades. I wasn’t good in math. Science was just science. Don’t hate, but Star Trek was just okay to me and it took me a while to warm up to Monty Python.

But there are worse things in the world than being a nerd. Nobody likes a jerk. Nobody likes a creep. Nerds are nice in their own weird way. Suzy Suave paid me a compliment.