Pastor Eric 3

I really do not remember too many details about my freshman year that really involved Eric. Nothing entirely specific enough for a chapter anyways. But there were a lot of little memories.

For the first semester my freshman year I was in Concert band. It was the lower band of Minerva’s two. Most of the time that semester we played marching band music. Eric was in there and he loved to play the marching band stuff on his tuba. He always gave it his all. You could clearly pick him out from all of the other tubas.

Eric had so much enthusiasm for cheering on the football team during games. He played the hardest, cheered the loudest, and marched the proudest. He exemplified what it meant to have pride in your school and yourself. I will never forget his eagerness to support the team. Even if the football team was horrible.

I also remember going to the semi-formal that year. Kathy was absolutely glowing that night. Everyone could see that she would like nothing more than to stand underneath his gentle gaze all night long. Eric could not believe his luck that he had ever found a girl like Kathy. It was a picture-perfect night for them.

If I remember correctly it was that year that Kathy got Eric to go to her church with her. It was a big step for him because he had grown up in a very atheistic household. Kathy had really wanted him to get to know God. She wanted him so badly to become a Christian. And Eric did start going to church with her. At first I think that it was just to please her, but then he started to go because he honestly wanted to. I can not speak for Eric and what his thoughts were exactly, but I think that he had a lot of questions about life that were answered for him in church and it drew him to God. I may very well end up asking Kathy sometime here about this part of Eric’s life and I will inform you all later on what details I may have learned.

With spring came track. Kathy and I had actually met in track our seventh grade year. It was a really big thing for us and we loved doing it together. We may have done completely different events we still often times ran our warm-up laps together. Once the meets had started I would often times look over to the high jump pit and there I would see Kathy jumping and Eric helping the coach to run the event. He loved to be at the track meets to support Kathy and all of his other friends.

In November and December of my freshman year I had had a boyfriend. Let us just say that he was a Senior and asked me out the month before the Semi-formal and broke up with me the month after. By the time spring had come around I was still single, which make hanging out before track practice with my best friend and her boyfriend a little awkward. It was during this time that Eric started telling me that I needed a boyfriend.

“What?”

“Ashley, you need a man.”

“What are you talking about? I don’t need a man.”

“Yes you do.”

“I have my dog and that’s all that I need!”

“Well your dog is doing a horrible job of controlling you.”

“Oh ha ha. You’re so funny.”

The ironic part about that conversation is that my dog died that March. And very soon after that a friend of mine asked me out.

I hope that this helps those of you who did not know Eric will get a better understand of who he was. And for those of you who did know him, I hope that this will help to spark more memories of him. God bless for now.