Fast Times At Giles County High

     She only spoke one word, "Brandon", but it was enough for me to know that something was wrong. Although she was 500 miles away, I could instantly hear the sadness in her voice through the phone. Her next sentence confirmed what I feared. My mother had called to give me the bad news, my cousin, Greg Hood, had died a few hours earlier. The first thought that raced through my mind was how long it had been since I last saw Greg. To the best of my recollection, I last saw him outside of Home Depot. I was walking out and he was walking in and we stopped for a few minutes to catch up. That was it. Just a moment. My next thought was how sad it was that this was our last moment, and it had been so brief, and a few years ago.
     Our first moment (that I have evidence of) was around October of 1976. Greg was born in October 1975 and I was born two months later. It was around our 1st birthday and we sat in Big Mama's (our grandmother) floor in diapers and shared a cake. Over the next decade and a half we had few moments, mostly playing, along with a dozen or more other cousins and kids at Big Mama's during summer break. Truth is, we weren't all that close when we were little because we didn't get to see each other much. But man did we ever get excited when we knew Greg and Johnny (his little brother) were coming to Big Mama's. All of that would change when we got to high school.
     My greatest memory of Greg begins the summer before my senior year. We worked together at the Highway Department on a 12 hour shift so we spent a lot of time together. The funny thing is, after work we hung out too. It was on one of those nights at the end of summer that he, along with about a dozen other friends, went to watch a meteor shower. That night was the first date I went on with the girl would become my wife. A few nights later he would again join us, and a group of friends, to tell ghost stories in an old Civil War era cemetery in the woods behind my grandmother's house. That was the night I first held Her hand. A few nights later this group gathered again at Greg's grandmother's house. This would be the night She and I would have our first kiss. Then there was the time, up on the hill of Dr. Fitts farm, behind my grandmother's house, when Greg caught himself on fire and burned off his eyebrows (my grandmother probably just read that and learned that I was there that night). Then there was the time at his grandmother's on Anthony Hill when, well, never mind (what you put on the internet stays there forever). As far as I can remember, he never called me by my actual name, but "Goaty", which was a nickname I got working at the highway department.
     It is strange, I had forgotten almost all of those memories until a few days ago when I was walking into Winn Dixie and saw a guy walking in who looked just like Greg. I literally stopped in my tracks as the floodgate of memories burst, filling my mind with funny, crazy stories. When Greg's funeral was conducted I was 500 miles away. It made me sad that I couldn't be there to say goodbye to my cousin and friend, with whom I shared some of my best memories in life. So, I decided to write this tribute to him as my own personal memorial service.
     I always felt like Greg was born in the wrong generation and I wonder if he felt that way too. Greg didn't exactly identify himself with the jocks (although he did play football) or the preps as much as he did with Elvis, James Dean and Jim Morrison. I can still remember, and have the yearbook pictures to prove it, that he practically channeled those icons of the fifties and sixties. I don't know if there was a social circle that identified Greg in high school, yet he seemed to move among all of them, having friends of all kinds. Greg embodied the personality of the Sean Penn character "Jeff Spicoli" from Fast Times At Ridgemont High. He always had a big smile on his face, was always looking to have a good time, never wanted to hurt anyone and never took like or himself too seriously.