Before leaving for the next part of our journey, John and I revisited our old stomping grounds: the high-school where we grew to be friends. We didn’t get to know each other until we had to share storage lockers in computer class, even though we had already met four years before that another elementary school. Everyone else paired up for the lockers, but being the loners that we were at the time, we had no one else with whom to share, so we resigned ourselves to being alone together.

Turns out things worked out for the best.

While we were there, we found a photo montage of a trip the band took to Hungary back when I was around 15 or 16, probably in ‘95–’96, and not ‘98 as I say in the video. They needed more flutes to fill out the wind ensemble, and there so I was invited to come along for the three week trip. The framed montage still hangs in the music room, next to the double basses.

We also visited his mother’s grave. It was fresh with flowers, laid there for the anniversary that week. We stood in the mild rain, and John told me the story of her death for the first time: how he cried, how it affected his father, and how long it took them to get over it. I had never brought it up until then; it took nearly ten years until I was comfortable enough to say anything.