Being as its still easier to examine my past than necessarily try to understand my present in order to see what possible shape the future holds, I have decided to hold forth another snippet from my high school years. It will serve this Great Work of mine well in the long run even though I may not necessarily see its direct benefits right now, but there are several threads that will be touched upon or approached closely that I would like to eventually expand upon (I highly doubt there is anyone who can say that their high school years did not add or strengthen any issues in their life *wry grin*)

Okay lets spin some of the necessary background for this story to be in proper context.

I believe I've mentioned before that I was one of the founding members of the anti-clique (and if I haven't someone remind me, there are so many topics and threads that are gonna be spun from that alone), we were weird and proud of it (little did I realize at the time about wyrd *wry grin*).

Our science fiction television show obsession of choice was Doctor Who, partially due to one of our founding members being the son of a British physicist working in the states and also due to one of my paternal uncles turning me onto the show when I was younger. We were enamored with the idea of traveling through time and space and having an excellent time while doing so. We were partly convinced that the people who came up with Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure had been psychically raiding our collective imaginations (though we used a coke machine instead of a telephone booth and also retained the whole bigger on the inside than on the outside aspect of the Whovian time machine).

We all agreed with the wise words of Tom Baker, "The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but it is by no means the most interesting."

Thus was created the Meanderers... or in full geek mode, the Time Meanderers.

Our imaginations developed a combination of Doctor Who time travel combined with a darker, grittier, and more pragmatic approach to problem solving (we all felt there were a number of times that the situations that the Doctor faced could have been assisted by the application of suitable high explosives *grin*). Another one of the influences at least on the very initial incarnation of the collaborative reality was a Saturday Night Live skit making fun of Rambo, if I remember it correctly the tag line we stole was "When guns were cheap and bullets were cheaper". We pretty quickly got tired of just violence in our role playing (or should I say we finally took steps away from roll playing *grin*) and most of our characters gained depth and definition or were completely remade as different and more interesting personalities to play with.

And I realize that I'm trying to follow threads that will lead me away from my original posting intent *grin* however could that happen?

Back to homecoming week, everyone remembers what that was. Each day of the week had a different theme and the students are allowed to ignore the dress code as long as they match the theme of the day in order to show their support for the school's athletic program.

Remember when I mentioned about us being the anti-clique? Us support the school's athletic program? Yeah right... (Even though a couple of us were on the track team, but you know that's a whole different environment than the basketball team, especially when the track coach is also the schools head of the English department, Mr. Palmer)

So we had decide on how we were gonna show our disapproval we agreed that we would all dress up as characters from Doctor Who instead of participating in Beach Bum Day.

So picture this, the beginning of one of the break periods here we are getting ready to round the corner from one of the almost nonexistent traffic areas of the school into one of the primary hallways. Five guys with extra long scarves and trench coats (hey it was an easy costume!) and one person with a cricket bat. (I can't remember if we had K9 with us yet for that expedition or not) I had a "boom box" in hand with a looping tape of the Doctor Who theme song ready to play.

I pushed play. {and a quick search of the web finds that all mp3s of the classic theme song have been asked to be removed by the BBC... sigh... I may find some way to get a link later for ya}

We stepped around the corner, proud in our diversity *wry grin*.

A little bit down the way one of my favorite teachers step out of his room (by the way that was an extreme amount of sarcasm, he needs to have his own posting... once again, someone remind me to talk about my honors Western Civilization and honors American history teacher). A hint of amusement crossed his face and he looked at us and then focused his gaze on me and asked, "What kind of beach would you go to dressed like that?"

Without any pause I smiled and looked him in the eyes and replied, "Why a Siberian beach of course!"

And I continued on down the hallway with my cohorts gathered around me.

p.s. I did find the video to a great Doctor Who tribute, the music video for "Doctorin' the Tardis" featuring Ford Timelord and some high budget Daleks *evilgrin*