Everyone knows where they were when they got that call. If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself lucky, and glad you're not in the club. I can remember every call, exactly where I was. I was at a hockey game at UNH -- the Whit, sitting on the end behind the goalie, 3 up from the glass (still isn't as cool as hockey in the barn). I had just walked in the door from a student senate meeting. I had just gotten off-air from Wildchats. I was at work, I had just come back from lunch -- take out from the Blue Moon. Greasy nasty Chinese food in Rochester, NH. I never ate it. I was in bed recovering from a night of drinking with an old friend who had just broken her arm and busted herself up good snowboarding -- i could still taste the rum. I was practicing guitar -- and not doing a very good job at it. I was sitting in my recliner watching the Pats game with my cousin. I was standing in the dining room looking back at my fiance. I was sitting in the dining room having just finished dinner with the family. I was sitting at my desk getting urgent messages from friends. I know every detail. I know every feeling. Every breath. Every flush. The numbness, the "otherworldliness", the detachment, the lump, the punch, the blow, the ache, and the crash to reality. It's funny how it hits you. Sometimes, you don't realize it. Other times, you wish you couldn't realize it. And it's funny how something will make you think of that call, of what that call meant. It could be an email, a smell, a song, a movie, a noise, a memory, something out of the corner of your eye. It could be nothing at all....and boom, there it is. And every time, no matter how hard you try, that call will pop into your mind. You can't escape it, no matter how hard you try. And sometimes that call is like a domino...from one call to another they just fall, fall, fall. I hear the pop scratch of a needle on vinyl, and i hear the call. I hear a puck clang off the goal post, i hear the call. I see a yellow post it note, i hear the call. I always try to think beyond the call, but sometimes, I can't. It's those times I hate the most...that's not the memory I want standing out. I know it's there. It's always there. It's always gonna BE there. It's like this HUGE post in the center of a room, running floor to ceiling, and it's a small room and the walls are covered with pictures and movie screens and no matter where you stand, your back is always to the wall closest to you, and you always want to see what's on the other side of the room, but every time you step forward the post gets bigger and bigger till it starts to block out the images, and as soon as you turn you find yourself on the other side of the room looking back at where you just were, forced to see that stupid post again...you can never get close enough to touch, and you can never ever see past that post.....

By now, you know the club...and the calls....and you know the connection that only those that have had the call can share.

My Grandmother. Lorraine's Mom. Lou's Dad. My Grandfather. My Grandmother. Jac's Dad. My Dad. Papa Paoli. Nana. Dave.....

I hate those calls....