Remember my concept for Waybackpages? Those pages are still rattling around inside my head. It seems like it happens more often in the last few weeks than it has in a while. Mr. Peabody sets the right dials and switches and I'm whisked off to my distant past. For instance, this weekend, I was driving home from a hike and I felt compelled to drive out of my way past an old friend's house, a friend from the sixth and seventh grades, Mike. The house seemed almost unchanged, only missing the trampoline on the deck that we used to sleep out on to watch meteor showers. The illusion of time travel was made complete when I saw Mike's parents walking away from their car. They were old. Not old in the sense that they were old when I was twelve and they were grown-ups. They were old like they had movie make-up on to make them look like someone's grandparents. Mr. Peabody's machine produces some strange effects.

Today, Peabody took me back to almost the same time, the seventh and eighth grade. I found a picture of my friend Marc. I didn't think there were any pictures of him to be found. He moved when we were fifteen and I haven't seen him since. I didn't take many pictures of my friends then. I'm glad to have found one picture of Marc, but I wish I were in the picture too. He meant a lot to me.

I was twelve when I first noticed him. It was during my first week of Jr. High, in the Band Room. I played the trumpet. Trumpet was the electric guitar of school concert bands, it was the instrument that all the cool band geeks played and most often carried the melody. It was a macho instrument, definitely for guys only. I was an appalling trumpet player, in the 3rd section, near the back of the band, nearly on the opposite corner of the room from the percussion section. That's where I noticed Marc, playing drums, the only instrument more macho (although not more glamorous) than the trumpet.

How could I not notice Marc? He had a wry, knowing grin, a nice solid build, and his thighs filled out his pants in just the right way. (The pants of choice were cords, and they fit a bit tighter back in the day.) He had that friendly, open sort of face. Above his bright blue eyes was a head of gorgeous silky golden blonde hair parted down the middle. He had a unique and appealing way of moving. I especially loved the way he slightly rocked up and back on his heels in time with the rhythm when playing the bass drum, and watched him every time I had the chance.

It took me the better part of a month to figure out his name. Well, I couldn't just go up and ask him! It was our first year at Walter Colton Junior High School, he had come from a different elementary school. I didn't know which one. Other than Band, we had no classes in common and there just wasn't any reason for me to talk to him other than I liked him. That was not a good reason. When you are turning thirteen, it's the worst reason possible.

One lucky day during Band practice, he was goofing around behind the base drum a bit too much for Mr. M's liking. Mr. M yelled out at him "Marc, cut it out!" Then it was a simple task of looking down the challenge lists to find out which of the drummers was named Marc and I had his full name. Marc Pearson.

I'd occasionally pass Marc in the halls and feel something I couldn't describe, but I knew it was a good feeling. Most of the time, we'd ignore each other in the crowd, since we didn't know each other. Every once in a while, when we passed there'd be no one else around which meant we had to at least nod at each other. When that happened, my heart rate would leap up, I would sometimes get a little dizzy, and I would walk away beaming a huge inward smile that the cutest boy at school had noticed me.

Cutest boy??!! Well, I couldn't help it if there were a lot of cute boys in my school and Marc outshone them all. I knew I was soon supposed to start thinking that there were some cute girls there as well. I wondered when that would kick in. I also knew the way I was feeling about boys was getting stronger and that it was very, very bad. But what could I do about it? I had a huge crush on Marc. It was my first big crush, it was on another boy, and I knew it. He seemed like such a nice guy, and he was so darn cute, if only there was a way I could get to know him without it seeming queer. I wished and hoped for two years, which at the time was something like 15% of my entire life.

My parents were (and still are) heavily involved with their church. I got dragged along for three hours every Saturday evening for mass. I still believed in Christianity then, but I was already fed up with the endless ceremonial rhetoric. It became popular in our church for married couples to go off to a monastery for a religious retreat weekend to reinvigorate their marriages. When my parents went, they dumped my little brother and I off to live for the weekend on the campus of the school I now work for. By tradition, we stayed in the home of a couple that had already done the retreat, but they had no kids of their own for us to play with. The experience was not unhappy, but unmemorable.

The greatest moment of the stay came when Mom and Dad returned to pick us up. Mom told us that in two weeks their friends, the Pearson's, would be going on the marriage retreat and their two kids would be staying with us for the weekend. I did not know all my parents' church friends, but my ears pricked at the family name. I'd never seen Marc in our church before, but his family might be Sunday churchgoers rather than from the Saturday set as my family were. Still, there had to be lots of Pearsons around, no way could this turn out to be Marc's family that my Mom was talking about. As if I could be so lucky! I don't think my brain allowed myself to hope for a half a second that it could be true. Those kinds of thoughts were dangerous. They lead directly to despair.

Then, time slowed down and nearly stopped.

Heartbeat. Mom casually said one of the two kids was named Marc and was in my grade at Colton School and did I know him? Heartbeat. Oh my god. It's real! I'm finally going to meet Marc Pearson - and he's going to spend the night! The cutest boy on Earth is going to stay at my house for an entire weekend! Heartbeat. Gotta be cool, even though this is the most amazing good luck I have ever experienced. Heartbeat. "Yeah, Mom. I've seen him around. He's in the band." Heartbeat. This is incredible! Thanks Mom! I can't believe what a wonderful thing you've done for me.

My inward smile was with me for the rest of that day and the next two weeks. Of course, I had to play it cool at school. No jumping the gun. No going up to Marc and saying hi just yet. I had to act like I didn't know, or even better, like I knew and didn't care.

The Friday afternoon that the Pearson's car arrived and dropped off Marc began a weekend in which I was besotted with joy. It took less than a minute to break the ice and begin having fun. We played music, messed around with my voice tape recorder (I still have the tape!), went for hikes, ate pizza, and watched the stars from the backyard together. We took our sleeping bags out into the living room so we could stay up way too late and watch late nite reruns of the Avengers. The second night Marc drifted off to sleep during SCTV while I was still awake. When the show was over, I turned off the TV and crawled back into my sleeping bag right next to his. Making good and sure Marc was asleep, I ever-so-slowly slid my hand underneath his in such a way that he could perceive that he was responsible for unconsciously putting his hand in mine if he woke. Then, I fell into the most content sleep I'd ever had.

When Marc left on Sunday afternoon, I was, of course, let down. I began to wonder how he would treat me at school? Would it be like before, when we ignored each other? That would hurt terribly. It was likely though; we had different friends and classes. I was accustomed to getting a lot of anguish from other kids at school. I figured that since Marc had been stuck with me for the weekend, he had just made the best of it, and now it would be over. What would such a cute and wonderful guy like Marc want with a dweeb like me at school? Besides, I'd already used up a lifetime of good luck just getting to spend the weekend with him.

I didn't need to worry. On Monday he said 'hi' passing in the hall, and even talked with me a little before band practice. We weren't newly inseparable buddies, we still ate lunch with our respective separate crowds, but we were friends. When a phone call came after school on Wednesday and Mom said it was Marc calling for me, I was overjoyed. Marc wanted me to come over and help him work on a model airplane! It was then that I knew our friendship was real and would continue. It did, and we had a lot of fun hanging out together the rest of Jr. High.

I'm grateful to Marc for his friendship when I needed it most. Popular guys like Marc didn't have to give nerdy kids like me the time of day. I'm sure he never imagined that I had a crush on him. I never believed he returned my feelings either, although I would have welcomed it. Friendship was enough. It was the simple fact that he liked me which bailed out my sense of self worth and turned my life around. He probably never knew that either.