rimouski photo

Just for the hell of it (and because I post photos here roughly once per sunspot cycle), here’s the 10th-grade version of me. (On the left, silly.)
Careful readers remember Renya, the old high school friend I lost touch with for 14 years before a brief reunion in NYC in July. Well, Renya and I met at this French-language film festival in Quebec in 1990. Today, she mailed me photographic proof.

That’s me on the left, looking stylish as ever. Not sure what’s up with the pants. Or the sour look. Or what appears to be my problem with normal human contact. I was a problematic child.
On the right is Guillaume, a Rimouski native. He was significantly cooler than I was. Good guy, if memory serves. I kept calling him Guillaume le Conquerant. I thought that was very funny at the time.
In the middle are two fellow Louisianans. One of them is named Tatman; one is named Paige. For the life of me, I can’t remember which is which. I have vague memories of one of them being fun and the other being a pain. Again, can’t remember which is which.
As it happens, when I was in Louisiana weekend before last, I pulled out a few of the post-festival letters we all exchanged before losing touch for a decade (or forever). I hope I’m not breaking any seal of confidentiality by posting brief excerpts here:
From Tatman: “Well, now I’ll tell you what I did over Thanksgiving…I went to the M.C. Hammer concert with all my friends, I shopped and shopped and shopped in Houston, and I relaxed. Fun, huh?”
From Guillaume: “Thank you for your lessons of pool and English!!!” (Guillaume’s English was much better than my French, which remains an embarrassment to my culture.)
From Tatman: “I would ask you how you were or what you did over Thanksgiving — but you would just criticize me in your next letter.” (Apparently, I was an asshole even then. That said, she did spell criticize “critize.”)
From Guillaume: “One of my great dreams would be to visit all U.S.A. by hitchhiking. And there’s many cities I would like to see: New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles (Hollywood), and also New Orleans. I like very much jazz, and New Orleans is the city of jazz.”
Finally, this one from a French girl I’ll call L. (in case she ever goes self-Googling):
“Hi, honey! I really miss you. Do you ever think about me? Do you love me? Kiss kiss kiss kiss love love love kiss. Can I have a photograph of you? Have you got a girlfriend?”
Along with lots of little hearts and stickers marked “Kiss!” And — to add a layer of strangeness — a Rimbaud poem and an Amnesty International postcard.
The thing is: I have no memory of this girl at all. And as love-starved as the 14-year-old version of me was — my first kiss was still some time away — I can’t imagine I’d have forgotten about a fling with L. I have very distinct memories of flirting (awkwardly, unproductively) with a girl from Manitoba, for instance. But not a single neuron dedicated to L.
Things cleared up, though, when I reread one of Guillaume’s letters. He writes about the possibility he may get to go to France soon, for another film festival. “I hope to see, if I have the chance to go, Sylvie and Linda, but not L.! (I think this girl is a bit crazy, she wants to go out with everyone she sees…)” I guess I wasn’t the only one receiving her letters.