High school years started off very awkward for me. I had bad hair, bad glasses, terrible style, and I was overweight and depressed.
I didn’t have a lot of friends. And for some reason, in 9th grade, I went from being in Honors English classes to a remedial English class. I didn’t complain, because one of my friends (Chris) and a couple of cute girls were in the class. I would often let them copy from me if it meant I got a little of their attention.
I met a new friend in 9th grade World History, Mark, and he introduced me to the concept of a “modem” for a computer. Soon, I was getting online with a 1200 baud modem installed in my Apple IIe. Back then, there was no internet, but there were lots of bulletin board systems (BBS’es) for me to frequent. (Some were still running at 300 baud, which was like watching each individual character appear separately. 1200 was more like words would appear together.)
Most bulletin boards were standard message boards, but there were a few that had file downloads, games, or even chatting. I actually ran my own BBS for a while, and got some early programming experience modifying and writing games for the system. My online handle for a while was “Avatar”, which I’m sure you can catch the reference for if you read my last post.
Later, there were some multi-line systems that even allowed you to chat in real time. This got me in some trouble. I eventually started an online romance with a woman 25 years my senior (I was 15, she was 40). Her online name was… “cougar”. Unfortunately, I didn’t know the lingo and couldn’t see the red flags. We eventually met in real life during what the BBS community called “Get Togethers”, and we did have a sexual relationship for a while. My mom suspected something was going on, but didn’t stop me from going out. Fortunately, it didn’t last long; it was not healthy.
As I got older, I started to come into myself a little more. I found a group of friends in real life, largely around people in the German class I was taking. We were all sort of misfits, but we misfit the same way, like a jagged-edge jigsaw puzzle. My senior year, I signed up for the Yearbook staff, and we quickly became a very tight-knit group (due largely to long hours together after school).
One day, the editor-in-chief of the team asked me who my favorite cartoon character was, and I answered “Milo Bloom“, from “Bloom County“. He was a snarky, blonde young journalist from the Bloom Beacon (later Picayune) who was mostly interested in politics and being a smart ass. From that point on, everyone in the yearbook staff called me Milo, and that’s been my nickname ever since.
The summer after my junior year, I worked at a movie theatre part time. That job only lasted me the summer, but the next year I started working at a different theatre during the school year. After the school year, I worked full time before I went off to college. I remember the big Batman release (with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson) and other summer hits like Terminator 2 and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I think I was well-liked among the staff and that really helped my self-confidence considerably. (There was even one girl who pursued me romantically — a first for me — and while it ended up a bit of a tragedy, it was a great experience for a while.)
I finished high school with great test scores and terrible grades. I enjoyed learning things and discussing them, but homework was my bane. Math homework in particular would put me to sleep, which resulted in me failing Algebra one year and having to take it as a summer course. I didn’t apply to many universities. I was honestly pretty aimless at that point, with no real aspirations. I decided to attend college mainly because my parents expected it of me, not because I had any particular interest in it. Because I had only applied a few places, the University of Alaska Fairbanks was about the only one that accepted me.
I graduated that summer of ’91, at the ripe old age of 17 and 2 months. That August, I would travel 365 miles further north to Fairbanks, Alaska, to pursue higher education.
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