August 27, 1979 (Monday)

From running log:
Cross country practice, ran 8.5 total miles, averaging about 7:00 per mile. Ben came to practice and ran decent. My legs are still sore. I've got a singing career.

30 years later:
With Ben now living at my house, getting him to show up for practice was at least bit easier. I remember on this day that he was at the front throughout the run, setting the pace much of the way. He impressed me, and I so desperately wanted and needed to be impressed by my teammates that year. We felt we'd been somewhat humiliated the year before in cross country, and we wanted to come back really strong in 1979 to prove that the previous year's failings were simply a one-time fluke, a stroke of bad luck.

"I've got a singing career" is my very low-key comment about some of us deciding to form a rock band (now is that classic high school or what?). We had Todd on lead guitar, Mark Kleefish on rhythm guitar and Nellie on bass. In addition, we had Gerry Brillowski on drums (he has since shortened his name and made a career with his band Od Tapo Imi), and either Bob Johnsen or Joe Canepa on keyboards. Me? I couldn't play any instruments, but I was a definitely willing to get up on stage, and I could belt out a song (as long as the range was fairly narrow). Plus, for whatever reason at that age my voice through a microphone sounded quite like that of Ric Ocasek of The Cars, so you'll have little trouble guessing which band we covered the most. But we didn't limit ourselves to The Cars, we took stabs at murdering songs by Ted Nugent, Rick Derringer, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Head East, and Blue Oyster Cult (more cowbell!). I probably shouldn't say "murdered", because both Todd and Gerry were quite accomplished, and the rest of us put our hearts into it, and (at least I was told) we didn't sound too bad. It was fun, it kept us out of trouble (in a way), and we managed to perform a few times at the high school later in the year. It was also just great fun hanging around and laughing together. Some of my most-memorable high school moments were times that we rehearsed or performed, just because it was so much damn fun!

We tried to be clever, and called ourselves "Burnt Toast", which was double-entendre (or maybe triple-entendre) involving - of course - pot, staying up all night, and actual burned toast that Joe made at his house, almost setting off the fire alarm.

You might have guessed that we "never made it big". Well, even that's a complete and total over-statement. We had some fun during the school year, but college came up fast for all of us in 1980 and we all went our separate directions. There was talk of doing a kind of "Burnt Toast Unplugged" at the 20 year high school reunion, but we never pulled it together (although some of us did get hauled up to the karaoke machine to sing along with some old Cars song that we actually never rehearsed or performed, appropriately making fools of ourselves). With the 30 year reunion less than a year away, maybe we can make another stab at it. Although Todd has said in the past that he only plays electric guitar, so I guess we'd have to stay plugged in. Fine by me, I'm sure I still need a microphone and some synthesized effects to make my voice sound anywhere near decent enough for public consumption, even by an inebriated bunch of old friends.

As a funny side note, if you google "Burnt Toast", you'll find it's the name of a band made up of a bunch of teenagers in Palo Alto, California. Rock on dudes!