I was in 10th grade when this decade started. I learned something that year, that spring specifically, that I'm glad to say I've never forgotten.

It started, as so many things did this decade, with an IM. The IM was from my friend Bennie, a guy who lived in Milwaukee that I knew from nerd camp the summer prior. Bennie was home-schooled and wore a floppy red knit hat all the time. Bennie and I kept in touch after camp via AIM and had taken the Amtrak to visit each other a couple of times at our respective homes. He was in a band called Road Reviews, and they were [...]