15 Years Later

My name is Mike Whildin, and I’m a storyteller.

For anyone that knows me, this isn’t exactly news.  Fine details and narrative are a big part of most conversations I have with people that last longer than a few seconds.  My friends know that it’s part of the deal.  Hell, I even describe myself as a “short-story-long” kind of guy on my occasional, short-lived dating profiles.  This is something I no longer apologize for.  I simply own it.  It’s me.

My love for telling stories likely has a few different origins, but I can trace part of it back to my youth.  I don’t remember a lot from my high school days. I remember competing in cross-country and track, being in the choir, my experience in theatre, some friends, a few girls… and math class with my favorite teacher, fellow storyteller Tim Larsen.  

Mr. Larsen made class fun for even the worst, least motivated students (which at that point in my life included me).  He was hilarious.  He was a sarcastic asshole.  He made fun of all of us.  He told stories that had nothing to do with class.  Through all of that – or if we’re being honest, because of it – he was also a great teacher.  And I wanted to be just like him.  

How much did I want to be like him?  I made sure that I got cast as a Larsen-like character in a student-written play during my senior year.  And frankly, I nailed the part.  I enjoyed making fun of him for a change.  And yes, I received plenty of return fire for it in class the next week.

Initially, I went to college to become a high school teacher and I had every intention of styling my teaching method after Larsen.  But as I got into adulthood and made decisions for my own direction, I ended up on a different path.  I worked various jobs, tried my hand at stand-up comedy, and traveled a little bit.  Then I ended up in healthcare as a cardiac sonographer, or echo tech for short. 

I’d still get my teaching fix in small ways.  The school I went back to for my new career needed a lab tutor after I graduated, and I jumped at the opportunity.  For a few years the best part of my week was when I could joke around with echo students while also guiding them towards improving their scanning technique.  I didn’t become just like Larsen as I had originally planned, but he still had a big impact on me. 

I never forgot what it was like to be in his classroom.  My sides would hurt from laughing so much.  I would actually pay attention and learn the material.  It was the only class I remember regularly looking forward to.  As a high school student, I was having the most fun I would ever have in a school setting.  As an 18-year-old kid with big dreams and very little confidence, I was inspired.

Fifteen years later, I met Larsen for wings, beer and a delightful exchange of storytelling.  

Larsen and I had kept in touch periodically over the years through the enigma that is social media.  Every once in a long while, one of us would bring up the idea of grabbing lunch and the other would agree.  It just never happened.  You know how those things go. 

But this time we made it a point to follow through.  I was excited.  This lunch was destined to be a blast. 

But it ended up being more than just a fun afternoon.  We began to realize our personalities were quite similar in several ways.  We’re both sarcastic assholes with big hearts.  We both have a passion for teaching – of course Larsen’s is more direct– and we both strive for fulfilment out of our respective professions.  

We both also have a need to perform.  Larsen plays in a band.  I’ve dabbled in stand-up comedy, as I alluded to before.  We both reflect that performative impulse through our jobs and through additional, more direct methods outside of the classroom or the hospital.  We both have a desire to create and we cherish our own creative expressions.  We’re both starving artists trapped inside the bodies of somewhat responsible adults.  And as it turns out… 

We’re both short-story-long guys.  

We shared stories about our careers, extracurricular artistic lives, families and appreciation of the Chicago Cubs.  The material seemed endless.  As we kept sharing stories, we began to notice that several of our experiences were eerily similar.  Even some of the smaller, seemingly more random ones.  There was a growing sense of familiarity.  There were several moments of, “Holy shit, same here!  This is weird.”  So we kept eating, drinking and telling more stories.

And you’re going to hear all of it.  You, reader, get to come along on this journey as well.

At one point, about two drinks and two hours in, Larsen returned from a trip to the bathroom and made a declaration.

“Alright Whildin, I have an idea. We’re gonna write a blog together.  It’s going to be about a student and his teacher meeting fifteen years later for wings and beer, telling stories, and realizing they have a lot in common.” 

I immediately agreed and shook his hand.  I was all in.

So that’s what this is.  It’s a story.  It’s a collection of stories from and about our lives, told as we told each other that day.  It’s an anthology of the experiences that make us who we are and brought us to this table.

It’s a guy in his thirties getting to hang out with his favorite teacher from high school.  A guy reconnecting with his role model from his teenage years and discovering they’re more alike than he realized.  A couple of creative, sarcastic dudes sharing stories about their respective journeys to this day, this lunch; how those journeys have been different, and how those journeys have been similar in ways that neither of them knew until that day.  

Two storytellers, fifteen years later, catching up over wings and beer and finding common ground.

Or at least that’s what I thought this would be when I shook his hand and we agreed to write this. I had no idea at the time that this meeting with this smartass high-school math teacher would eventually lead me to my voice again, as he had so many years ago.