October 1994
What had formerly been our Super Mario challenge nights in Laura’s basement had morphed into Street Fighter challenges instead since that game was all the rage—and for good reason. It rocked!
Mike always played the military guy, unsurprisingly. Laura preferred the girl, Chun-Li, and I liked to mix it up so that we didn’t always end up having the same boring matchups over and over.
We were fairly evenly matched at first since the game was new to us. I beat Laura more often than not, getting some amount of revenge over all the drubbings I’d suffered during our numerous Super Mario World bouts. Mike quickly became the master of Street Fighter II, though, able to execute the most complex special moves with little difficulty. At first, I wondered if he secretly had his own game system at home and practiced like crazy, but he didn’t. He was just a natural.
Molly enjoyed hanging out with us too, for where there were teenagers with potato chips and other snacks, there were bound to be a number of tasty treats thrown her way and crumbs left behind. She seemed just as happy as the rest of us during those get-togethers.
Laura’s sister, Jennifer, had gone away to Mesa State College in Grand Junction to study psychology. Her boyfriend, Brad, had gone there too.
School was going pretty well. Biology and political science were pretty easy. Algebra, on the other hand, was a royal pain in the ass, but Laura was there to help me out, as usual. Mike, too, was struggling, so we met regularly after school a couple times a week to study together.
I was disappointed to find out the music class being offered was only for students who played band instruments, like clarinets, horns, and the like. But I was still studying with my tutor, Mr. Lewis, as long as Mom’s tips were good enough. He seemed puzzled but delighted that my skill had increased so much over the past year, even mentioning on one occasion that I seemed to have taken an extra couple years of classes. I could only smile and tell him I’d simply been practicing hard. I’m not sure if he bought it, but he just went with the flow, which was cool with me.