7/7/77

As my work day ended (roughly 2200, Baghdad time) it suddenly hit me that today was 7 July and that I could remember most of what I did thirty-one years ago today on 7/7/77. About the only reason I remember was the unusual confluence of sevens in the date which, at the time, I marked as auspicious. I was in-between the fifth and sixth grade attending summer school at Suva Intermediate in Bell Gardens, California. Two months earlier on Memorial Day, Star Wars had premiered and I had already seen it in nearby Cerritos, California with my family and my school friend Mike T. I was fascinated with the movie and it was all I could talk about with my friends.

Attending summer school with me that year was my friend Eddie M. Among some of the elective classes we attended were Mr. Lightholder’s art class. I remember that Mr. Lightholder would make custom t-shirts for us using stencils and spray paint. All we needed to do was bring in a white t-shirt and he would spray paint it. Every time he made a new stencil I wanted one which perplexed my mother. That summer, he made a Star Wars themed stencil and we all were mad about getting our own. I don’t think I actually got it that day but it was pretty close.

I also remember going to “Nutrition” which was a sort of recess and combination light meal before lunch. I purchased a piece of cinnamon toast and a milk for twenty-five or thirty cents and remember talking with Eddie M about Star Wars (what else) as well as which teacher/homeroom we would have next year for the sixth grade. We loved our previous fifth grade homeroom teacher, Mr. Mike A. Brooks (I remember the middle initial because he always initialed our papers “MAB”). We were sure the sixth grade would be a disappointment after Mr. Brooks’ especially cool homeroom (it wasn’t; I had an equally impressive sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Dawn Favilla). As I perused Suva's website, I found a reference to last year's winter concert that was led by Mr. Tom Axworthy, the same band teacher that was there when I was a student!

I remember thinking, what a lucky day that was being so full of sevens. I don’t remember being especially lucky that day but I did ponder what life would be like eleven years later for 8/8/88 and twenty-two years later on 9/9/99. It seemed like an eternity away. One thing I could never had predicted: I would be in a far away country at war thirty-one years later.