I've always been puzzled by a book my friend Brad had to read
for school that was called 'The Hunting Of The Quark'. To
my limited understanding, Quarks are the building blocks
of matter but because of their miniscule size, they have never
been seen on their own - only in groups (hadrons). I remember
asking Brad 'What the heck is quark?'. He looked at me with
a deadpan blink, sighed in defeat, and retorted 'You don't want
to know' and shook his head, while burying it back into his
books. Brad was a good friend and he didn't do this to be a jerk -
but I think the explanation would have been lost on me and
even more of an intellectual chore for him to sound out.
I guess I always thought of that moment as being significant as
it's always easier to by-pass a thorough explanation because we
write off the listener.
Later that night, after a rousing game of football featuring Jon
Toelle, Dave Dixon, Steve and myself (I was pretty thin and
handsome then and could throw 45+ yards in the air), a group
of us staff were chatting and Steve was discussing how he had
lost certain feelings for the girl he was seeing since the
summer. A few of us coaxed him with stupid phrases like
'It will pass' and 'Just give it some time', but I think Steve
was telling us that he knew the relationship/fling was
already over. He walked away from us, mid-conversation
(as there was a phone outside of derby in those days) and
grabbed the phone. 'Steve - what are you doing?' I asked
as the lot of us sat under a tree that was in the middle of the
lodges. We tried not to eaves-drop but Steve kind of made
it a display and asked for it. Within 4 minutes of being
on the phone, Steve came back to the group. 'It's over',
he sighed. 'I feel a lot better, now'. We were in shock. 'You
mean...you JUST broke up with her? In that span of time?'
I jested. 'Yep. Anyone want some hot chocolate?' Steve stood
up and headed for the dining hall.
For Steve, he had found the quark.
The mystery was gone.
Later that weekend, the insanity of the meal had passed and
a few of us posed for a shot outside of Derby (the staff lounge
at that time) before we headed out for the weekend:
(L-R: Melinda R, Me, Jim Verburg, Steve Gray, Dave Dixon,
Sarah B, Justin Paisley)
Parts of the weekend and the wedding, I'll never remember but
parts of it will always oddly stay in my heart and my being.
