#JamesStrong. James Ranahan
life would be changed greatly, and I had no idea of what to expect.
Chapter 2
The Big Move
Third grade summer came along, and I didn’t quite understand what was going on. I had to pack up all my things, threw a good-bye party, and invited all of my friends and had the biggest sleep over where we had Papa Gino’s pizza; we all watched wrestling and stayed up way past all of our bedtimes to where most of us, barely got any sleep.
I was really close with most of my classmates, some more than others and some were strangers to me, even though we shared the same classroom. Saying goodbye to some of my childhood favorite places was difficult and sudden. I still miss all of those places and try to visit them as often as I can. I still was unsure of why my family decided to move halfway across the country. It was all sudden, and I still feel like I never got to say a final goodbye to where I still call home.
Moving into our house that still needed work was difficult at first. I had to sleep on the carpet floor upstairs with only a bedsheet to attempt at keeping me warm. Taking cold showers was annoying and tough for a nine-year old child who just wanted to go home and continue his life in New England where he had easily fit in and loved to call his home. I had moved while I was still on summer vacation, so at first, life wasn’t all that bad. My neighbors across the street and to the right of that house were my aunts and uncles. My uncles where also from New England, so I felt welcomed in right away and that I was able to relate to them a little bit more than my other relatives.
During my summer vacation, the house that was my aunt and uncle’s across the street had a pool that had a diving board, and the house to the right of them had a trampoline in their backyard, so I always kept busy with that. I, still in the back of my head, was trying to figure out why we had moved in the first place and why couldn’t we have just stayed in New Hampshire, and I could have fully grown up there. I missed all of my classmates from the third grade, so during the summer that I moved, I had called a couple of my friends from my house phone, and my parents helped me keep in touch with them.
I was talking about how I had already been to the capital three times and that we have only been here a couple months. School was about to start for me at Tenth Street Elementary, and all of my classmates had made me a card wishing me luck in the fourth grade and how they all miss me in the classroom already. I was so nervous and anxious for school to start for me because it just wasn’t another first day at school. It was a whole new beginning entirely and a fresh start that I didn’t understand or ask for.
Chapter 3
A New Beginning
First day of the fourth grade was pretty simple and easy. I had already made some new friends, but the one new friend that stuck out to me was James. His name was James too, and we instantly became best friends. A culture difference that I already noticed, and it really confused me, was that James was collecting soda tabs, and he had an empty container labeled “Pop Tabs.” I was trying to figure out what he was meaning by that. “Pop” is a sound to me, and I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. Eventually, I had just looked inside the container and was just puzzled at what I had saw in the jar. That is when I began to realize that people out in the Midwest had different names for common items. I would later pick up on what other names that people had for different things.
During the fourth grade, I was invited to a monster jam event through Boy Scouts. I could go for free, but I had to join the Scouts. I did that and had a great time with that, so I didn’t think twice about joining Boy Scouts. I never really cared for them, but it was a good way to make some new friends and learn new things that I may need later on in life. I would start going to youth group from my church to try and make new friends and have some fun doing church activities. I also did karate at Larry Davenport for a little over a year to make new friends and learn a little bit of self-defense if I ever needed to defend myself.
I played lots of sports back home, but I never played football, so I decided to play in the sixth grade. I started out as the right guard as an offensive lineman and started to enjoy it. One classmate and teammate, Nick, gave me the nickname “Lego man” because I had a duffel bag that was the shape of a Lego brick, because when I was a kid in Seabrook, I always played with Legos and loved anything to do with Legos, and from then on out, during middle school, my nickname for some people to me became Lego man.
I was usually a really quiet and to myself kid, so tacking other people and getting myself out there wasn’t the easiest thing for me to do. I continued to go to school and play football when it was in season. During the offseason for football, I was still doing karate and going to Boy Scouts once a week. I didn’t enjoy Boy Scouts, and I didn’t really like playing football. I was just kind of “going with the flow” to see if maybe I would find something that I would enjoy doing more.
I remember that one Friday night that my parents came out to watch me play and during this one particular play, the quarterback snapped the ball, and I don’t remember anything that happened after that. I was freaked out at first, and I didn’t want to say anything because I thought that it was just nothing and that I spaced out for a second. I had never spaced out when playing football, especially when it was during an actual game and not just practiced. My parents picked me up and said that as a family, we should stay and watch the high schoolers play football. I just kept telling them that I just wanted to go home, but my parents wanted me to stay and watch because they thought that I would have fun and enjoy myself. I ended up crying saying that I didn’t want to be there anymore because I was pretty sure that I blacked out on the field, and I didn’t enjoy playing anymore.
Chapter 4
High School
I wasn’t participating in any sports or activities whatsoever, so it was just go to school and relax. Freshman year of high school was pretty simple and easy for me. My first year of high school went by pretty fast, and summer vacation quickly came upon me. For summer vacation, my brother, mom, and I went to live with my grandparents in Framingham, Massachusetts. I was just relaxing and enjoying everyday life where I still call home.
During the middle of summer, I decided to work a couple of days to make a little spending money while we were visiting my grandparents. I worked at a market where primarily Russian people bought their groceries from. I found out quickly that they are very picky about everything that they decide to buy. I was also at a disadvantage because the primary language that people spoke at the market was Russian, and I could barely say hello to someone. I remember one of my coworkers at the time asked me something in Russian, and I just looked at them with a confused face hoping that they would get the hint that I don’t speak Russian. I’m pretty sure that they were saying hi and expected me to say hi back in Russian, but they were very surprised at me when I responded with “what’s up” and just kept working and kept to myself and just followed along with my grandfather who let me work where he had worked at for a couple of days. I got two hundred dollars for my work, and I decided to get some new shoes for school and a new sweatshirt. I was dead set on buying my first pair of Nike shoes from the champs store in Natick Mall in Framingham, so I did. They were high tops, black and white so I could have worn them with any colors that I wore to school that day. I went to the North Face store and bought a black and grey jacket to match my shoes. They were having a sale that day, so my mom wanted a bright yellow fleece jacket, and she told me how much it was, and I bought it for her.
The tenth grade started, and I couldn’t wait to show off my new shoes and jacket that I worked hard for and living in Massachusetts all summer long and talking about that to all of my friends. Football tryout signup sheets were posted during lunch, and one of my friends convinced me to join and try football out again. I started working out with the team after school a few days a week and then almost