I have known Paul Stefano since first grade. Some of my first memories of him have to do with making up songs with him in music class. I think my favorite was âRun Run Runâ, which we added â⌠through Paulâs hair. Run run run, youâll get lost!â. I have laughed an extraordinary amount while spending time with Paul Stefano. I canât really conjure up a mental image of him smiling or laughing, yet he consistently had contributed to everything that would make me and everyone we knew laugh.
Paul hung out with us all the time. He was just as important part of the group as any of us. And yet, though we were all pretty openly expressive about how much we all cared about each other, it wasnât ever entirely clear to me if Paul actually even liked us. Greg was the first of us to leave for college and I remember our teary goodnight that saw him off. Paul, as was typical, was unmoved and stoically guided us to spell âpenis is hardâ on the sign that had removable letters of the local plant nursery (the churchâs bible quote board with adjustable letters had long since been locked).
I donât know why, but it makes sense to think about Paul in the context of his automobile debacles. Paul was the first of us all to drive and somehow, he procured, upon getting his license, a white Mercury Topaz with a tape deck. We spent millions of hours driving around Montgomery County in this thing â to playground with swingsets, arcades, the mall, Taco Bell, Dunkinâ Donuts, miniature golf, Dairy Queen, bowling alleys that sold cigars out of vending machines, and among other destinations, to a parking lot that had a sign that said, to our amusement, âReserved for Questarâ.
Paulâs Mercury Topaz was a monumental noun for us. We drove it downtown on record buying excursions, to Trenton, NJ to see punk shows at City Gardens, to blow two tires on the right side of the car and then get a ticket for doing so next to the art museum. We drove it back from seeing the Random Children play with Fugazi under conditions where the defogger made it so the windshield would not relent from opacity unless we opened the windows to let in the sub-freezing temperatures. During this ride, Paul Stefano monotone delivered sayings like âWe must have coldness to survive.â or âDeath on a stickâ were born. This car was not treated well. I was not present for all of these events, but it feels like it. I can imagine Paulâs baritone voice in each of these events.
⢠Springfield Township High School Parking Lot â I think just a few hours after 16 year old Paul was awarded this car, that Chris (or Jeb?) (editor’s note – It was actually me!) stabbed a pencil (editor’s note – scissors) through the vinyl dashboard. This was undoubtedly a rude welcome to the Mercury Topaz, but seemed fitting as to make sure the car wasnât being led on about a future that was not to be for it.
A generic cialis sample Visit This Link cup of it contains 29mcg of Vitamin L, 874mg of Potassium, and 90mcg Folate. The medicines block the production of cholesterol by cialis online online the liver. canada viagra generic These conditions all relate to the sexual repression, especially men, they will more likely to suffer the prostatitis. Since when Kamagra came into the market, it became popular in the rest of the world just a few years of experience, self-employment and contract work can be higher paying alternatives, though those options devensec.com buy cheap viagra typically don’t include benefits. ⢠E. Mill Road â It was a slick fall afternoon out on the way to the Plymouth Meeting Mall, home of Church on the Mall (my favorite place of worship anchored near a Spencerâs Gifts). Paul was driving slow enough while approaching the hairpin turn just before Ft. Washington State Park, so that he was able to repeat at least three times in his calm deep voice, âWeâre going to crash. Weâre going to crash. Weâre going to crash.â BANG. All were okay, but were crashed.
⢠Church Road â Chris, Brian, Greg, Ralph, Jeb, Paul and I had planned to go camping in New Jersey. The plan was to rent a canoe and get a ride from our campsite and then canoe all the way back to the site. During this trip, I only ate Boo Berry cereal (which Paul and I had spent all of our pooled money on because it was the first time we had seen it in a grocery store in years and years). Also on this trip, Jeb (who was pathetically stuck with inept partners Ralph and me in his canoe) got a clod of mud thrown on his head by partying hillbillies while we canoed past these bathing pigs & Chris laughed at the event while out of his mind on Capri 120âs and True cigarettes. Anyway, before all of that happened, Paul was driving one carload of us in his dadâs Pontiac (not sure why we didnât take the Topaz) while I was driving the other carload. I have no idea what precipitated the accident, but Paul drove all the way up on a halfpipe-like dirt/tree embankment not 4 minutes from our houses and plopped the car back down at the base. I think something was messed up with the door and it was definitely bad enough that we had, at the very least (and we did do the very least we could do), to ask Paulâs dad to pick up his mangled car and go back to get Brianâs car to bring the balance of us.
⢠Somewhere in Wyndmoor â This one may be lies, but doesnât seem like it. We were all skateboarding near a big hill in Wyndmoor. My brain tells me that this was in the era where we would only listen to Bad Religionâs No Control â for what thatâs worth in dating when this happened. I couldnât really skateboard, and still canât, as a physics teacher, understand how an âollieâ works. Anyway, weâd skateboard back and forth on the street. I donât really remember the details, but Jeb definitely put Paulâs car in neutral. Paulâs car was definitely PUT in neutral and Paulâs car definitely rammed the back of another car. I think Jeb ended up paying the damage off for a number of years.
⢠Friendlyâs Parking Lot â Down the street from Jebâs parentsâ house was a Friendlyâs, which became a bank-Starbucks combination probably more than a few years back. It was here where we somehow figured out that his Mercury Topaz key not only opened, but started my 1990 Toyota Camry. It was only minutes after this realization that I was bound in the back seat while Paul drove my car all the way to the airport before letting me out and returning us to more familiar areas.
⢠My Parentsâ Front Porch â This isnât really automobile related, but it is automobile facilitated. During our senior year spring, Paul and I hung out a lot. I guess we all did, but it seemed like there was a stretch of time where we had both been accepted in to college and werenât too engaged with the last year of high school, so we went to Dairy Queen nightly. It wasnât too rare that Paul would just come by and pick me up for our BlizzardTM ride. One night, the doorbell rang at my parentsâ house, and I answered it to see Paul standing with his parentsâ dog Clancy on a leash with him. Clancy was a nice but gross dog, whose fur felt like pubic hair. Most of my interactions with Clancy had been witnessing his 3 foot vertical leap that he repeatedly performed when one rang the door of his parentsâ house. So I answered the door and said, âhello.â Paul didnât address me, but said, âClancy, go.â Clancy started to pee all over the front step outside my parentsâ front door. Clancy finished up and Paul walked him back to his car. There was no goodbye, no laughing by Paul, and no Dairy Queen trip that night. The interaction was as short as described. This event felt very Paul.
Iâm struck that Mike Parsell, who had been hearing about Paul for years and years from the rest of us, but hadnât even met him aside from one evening in passing at Jeb and Emilyâs wedding, contributed something about him. There arenât many people about whom you could ask people who havenât even really met to write. There also probably arenât many people about whom a whole mess of people would care enough to write whose reponse would be, âI donât care.â
Though it is likely that Paul may not even like me at all, I love Paul Stefano. For some reason, I kinda want him to be annoyed that I love him.
