Dragons and such.

I loved Dragons when I was a kid. Wait...I guess dragon shouldn't be capitalized. Ah well, too late to change it. I guess that shows you how much I loved dragons. 

I'm not sure why I started thinking about this the other day, probably an age thing, but started wondering where my fascination with dragons came from and it became pretty damn obvious after I gave it one minute of thought.

Sixth grade was probably my toughest school year. All of them were tough but K-5 were all in the same spot and I had my cousin there to back me up but, at the end of 5th, we moved and I changed schools. This is not good for a painfully shy, insecure kid. I have almost no memory of that last part of 5th grade but I do have one, the kid next to me gave me an eraser burn on the top of my hand so bad that it bled. No idea why I just sat there and took the pain. (fade out)

Cut to 6th grade, no friends, just me sitting there trying to blend into the corner of the room. I don't remember much from the start until February 14th but Valentines Day is one I will never forget. 

For some strange reason, since it was the holiday for lovers, our teacher allowed the kids a bunch of free time to play games. I don't know...it was the early 80's...things were odd. Maybe it was only an hour or something but it felt like the whole day and that was likely because I had no friends and, therefore, no game playing. Just sitting there all by my lonesome, until one kid approached me and asked if I wanted to play with him and his friends. I said sure and asked what they were playing. I'd never heard of it but, for obvious reasons, I wasn't going to turn it down.

The group was outside sitting on the ground so we headed out to a group of boys sitting in a circle with pretty much nothing but some yellow paper and crazy looking dice. The head kid handed me a yellow piece of paper and told me that I'm a Cleric. What the F? Uhhhh....ok. I'm a Cleric. Whatever that means.

We sat there the entire time rolling dice and living in our imaginations and I'll never forget it. We spent every recess and lunch, from that day on, sitting in the field and rolling those dice while a small crowd started gather. No kickball, no tetherball, no jumprope, I had become a Dungeons & Dragons nerd and I was happier than I'd ever been at school. 

Sixth grade ended, we moved about 40 miles away, and I never saw those boys again. This was the 80's, 40 miles to a 12 year old might as well be 400. I tried to keep the D&D passion going but there just wasn't anyone to roll those dice with. I forced my sister to play some but it wasn't the same and I never played again. I realized later in life that it was more about the friends and less to do with the game and that my desire to play the game was lost because I had lost those friends. Waaaaa (that's like a baby crying but not sure the correct spelling)

So...if any of you know a Greg Ostrander that grew up in So Cal in the 70s/80s...shoot him my info. Funny how this kid was only in my life for six months and I can't forget his name.