A fan of Frank’s reminded him of something last night. The year was 1990. George H.W. Bush was President. Gas was cheap and M.C. Hammer was beginning his reign on the pop charts. Frank was in 9th grade.
As part of an art project that encompassed all the 9th grade art classes, they were going to do a snow sculpture. To decide what they were going to do, each student in Studio Art would do a mini clay sculpture and all the classes would
vote on which one they’d immortalize in snow. Frank was on an Albert Einstein kick at that point (don’t ALL 9th grade boys go through that?) so he did a little Einstein head. Surprisingly (especially to Frank) the head won. So, for an entire day, each art class spent their class time piling snow, sculpting snow and packing snow. Frank had art as the first class of the day… so all he got to do was shovel snow into a pile… which he could have done at home.
By the end of the day, there was a giant Einstein head in the school’s courtyard. The teachers called the newspaper and snapped the picture you see above. Notice how Frank was striking a very New Kids on the Block pose?
Three weeks later, the snow had melted beyond recognition. Although, Frank says it was the spitting image of a pile of ice and snow.
This was WAY before me… way before Frank’s beard came in, way before a lot of things I know. I don’t know if this one moment made him want to head down the path he eventually did, but it sure was a fork. At the very least, it probably gave him a bit of a confidence boost.
There’s no real SQUIRRELOSOPHY to this one, I just thought it was a cool story. That, and…I wanted to embarrass Frank by showing him in Reeboks.
