Besides the fact that I always told people that Boston was my favorite city (no real reason), I have no early memories of the band. I could only imagine my father, William E. Hersey, had their albums on vinyl, but I don’t recall ever hearing them in my early days. There is no doubt that he would have liked their sound and probably rocked out to their self-titled debut album, many, many times.
Photoshop and Tech Prep
Junior year of high school was damn near crucial for my career development. I have often told people that the skills I learned in my 3rd/4th period Tech Prep class is why I can do what I can do today. I finished with three associate degrees in computer related BS and still attribute all of my skills to Mr. Ellis and his Graphic and Web Design class.
After learning CorelDRAW, we moved on to my favorite – Adobe Photoshop. We had several assignments, but most of the time I just tinkered around. At the time, I was really into music and discovered Boston. I took the task of piecing together their second album Don’t Look Back and making the spaceship complete (the sides were missing based on the squareness of the album art). It wasn’t perfect, but it was nice to test out my early skills.
High School Lunch and Ketchup Tossing
During my senior year at Martins Ferry High School, I found myself being rather mischievous. This probably wasn’t much different than my early high school days, but now we had cars.
We had open lunches (we could leave the school) and I would team up with a good friend Chad Becca. He, like myself, liked classic rock and he had Boston’s Greatest Hits on CD. I distinctly remember that being one of our top choices. “Foreplay/Long Time” was the hit. That seven-plus minute song was just long enough for us to make it to the nearest Wendys.
Becca would drive, I would wing and we would have an assorted cast of characters joining us. I remember Nick Levi, Riley Wedge, and Jacob Ford all being part of our regular crew. 99.9% of all trips were to Wendys.
This sounds cruel – and it was – but we found a lot of enjoyment on our trip back to school. See, we would fill up a paper sauce cup up with ketchup every day. We would drive through town and right past my dearest friends house. Yes, my friend, Robert Brandon is in my top five and was then. As any of my top friends know, I am evil. Just because we are friends doesn’t mean I won’t get the most enjoyment of taunting and ‘ribbing‘ you. Just ask Justin Benline!
This cup of ketchup would be launched from the passenger seat all the way across the car onto Rob’s car – nearly every day. For the longest time, he had no clue who was doing this. Finally, he came to realize it was my group of idiots. More often than not, we were probably cranking Boston through the speakers – as the ketchup flew.
Now Rob did get his revenge. He filled a Large cup (for sodas) full of ketchup and launched it at my house. This ketchup smashed my front window and I refused to clean it for some time. He did get his revenge.
