Scott Christopher Damien Pircher, August 12, 1975--June 15, 2011

I've been flooded with memories, things I haven't thought about for years.
His kitten Trapper Keeper. He used to tease me with it because the kitten on it was so cute--we'd play a game where he'd hold it up and I'd pretend I'd lose all interest in everything else to coo over the cuteness of the kitten.
My sister had read me The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe while I was in kindergarten. I found out he knew the book then, too.
In first grade we sat next to each other--gosh, I think we sat next to each other in every grade, thinking back. We must have been organized in every room alphabetically, ensuring Pancella and Pircher would have a lot of interaction over the course of nine years. Other things we had in common--walking home for lunch, coming to school early to attend Mass before the start of the school day, even more than was required (the whole school was supposed to go on Mass on Wednesdays). I think he want because he was an altar boy. We were born in the same month. And we were both reading the same sort of books. I know because in second or third grade I wrote a story in which I mentioned the sea god Poseidon, having just read Robert Graves' Greek Gods and Heroes. When Scott read my story, he argued very insistently that I had the sea god's name wrong. He was called Neptune, he said.
The years we were in school together were the dawn of the computer age. In 4th grade or 5th, when we were 9, 10 years old--1984, 1985--we used to draw computer screens and "program" them. The computer screen would show a command prompt. We'd give it to a classmate and ask them to "type" in a command on the drawn keyboard. Depending on what command they'd type, we usually had to draw the next screen--we couldn't predict all possible results in advance--so we had a screen ready that said "PLEASE STAND BY" which we displayed while we got the next bit ready. A precursor of the hourglass cursor!
We also both wrote stories. I wrote a murder mystery once--there was a lot of Agatha Christie in the school library--in which Scott was the killer. For the next half of the school year, it seemed, he retaliated by writing a series of stories in which I was some terrible criminal or kept meeting untimely demises. It was my first hint that it was possible for me to hurt his feelings.
We were the two captains of opposing teams in Girls Chase Boys, which I've written about before. My chief memory of it now--besides how impossible it was to successfully caputre him; he could squirm out of any entrapment or turn double agent when appearing to ally with our side--is of the two of us meeting on the battlefield with the air of mutual respect one only has with a well-matched opponent. No firm boundary line between worst enemy and best friend.
In recent times--most of all this past year--we reconnected online, in touch through the magic of Gmail chat. Knwong someone else out there shared memories of being 5 to 13--not just that the memories were shared, but that we placed equal value on those memories--was a tremendous gift. He had to type but one line about Miss Rita, our first grade teacher, and I knew he remembered her how I did.
One day back in grade school, I was having a really rough time. We were all out in the park, and someone had done or said something that made me feel like dirt. I can't remember what it was now. But I remember that I was near tears when Scott came by, and I broke down crying and confided in him the sadness I felt. He listened and comforted, in an awkward pre-teen boy way. Later on--and I never found out why; maybe, probably, I again did something that hurt his feelings, because I was an awkward preteen girl, and I know now that I could be thoughtless--he mocked me by making fun of what I'd confided in him. Oh, how that hurt.
But, you know, there's grace enough. Recently I was in a spot where I really wanted a male perspective on matters, and I happened to be chatting with Scott. I plucked up the courage to confide in him about something I wasn't telling a lot of people. And he was great about it--asking good questions, giving me plenty of room to talk, ultimately offering wise advice. The risk was worth it. I can hear Scott now--"It's always worth it."