Where Aren't They Now: 54

Farrah fell in love with her high school mascot.

It began when her friends dragged her to a basketball game: her school's Matadors versus the Summit High Eagle Eyes. Farrah had no interest in sports, but couldn't take her eyes off Toro as he clowned around the arena.

Later she began making excuses to attend the games. Her friends were often willing to go to basketball and football games with her, but showed much more resistance when Farrah began to travel with the team for a chance to rub elbows with Toro.

She felt a great kinship with the bull. He was strong and clever, like herself-- but outcast. A man apart. She understood how that felt.

Farrah never shared this secret with anyone, least of all the man in the bull costume.

Where Aren't They Now: 53

Jordan was the man behind his high school mascot, Toro.

He accepted the responsibility because he needed the hours-- any non-athlete at his high school had a certain amount of service hours to fulfill. Playing the bull racked up hours quickly, while giving Jordan the isolation he sought out.

The more he played Toro, the more he loved it. He felt as so many other have when putting on a mask: that he could be anyone, have another personality completely. Toro wasn't awkward and never stuttered. Toro was vivacious, flirtatious, outrageous. Jordan found he could be all these things while wearing the horns (and only while wearing the horns).

This escapism made the rest of Jordan's high school life difficult, of course. He was constantly moving toward the next game, the next school function. When Jordan began showing up at scrimmages and other minor events that weren't on Toro's official schedule, school administrators were forced to strip Jordan of his mascot privledges.

Where Aren't They Now: 52

Shannon was the first infant to take home an Oscar.

In a pivotal and suspenseful scene in the biopic Anne Frank, the title character must silence a small child while she and her family are hiding in their infamous attic. Critics touted the baby's breathtaking work in that crucial scene, and the rest is history.

Frankly, everyone that touched that movie took home an Oscar. Still, the superiority complex that Shannon grew up with is staggering.

Where Aren't They Now: 51

Davin has always wanted to be a Boy Scout.

He attended a full season of meetings when he was 12. However, during his first retreat with his troop he discovered a sexual proclivity that he has issues with to this day.

While there are support groups for those who can only become aroused while singing in a round, Davin has never had the courage to look them up.

Where Aren't They Now: 50

Skiff Smithison grew up in the hills of West Virginia, in a town called Switchcord Crossing, where his older brothers--he had four--passed down between them the art of the dirt bike. Skiff was on a bike by the time he was five, learning how to keep the bike under him, how not to fly over the handlebars by braking too hard.

And Skiff loved his dirt-bike.

By the time Skiff was in high school, his interest in dirt-biking had yet to wane, and he was gaining new interests. He loved to read, and could curl up with a good book on Dirt-Biking for hours. He began to sketch and paint, and soon learned the precise shade of brown that
most closely resembled the freshly churned dirt as it parabola'd through the air off the rear tire of his awesome electric blue 200cc Honda. He wrote bad high-school poetry for his bad high-school poetry
class:

O, how I love to study the species
With its lovely four strokes filling 200cc's
The future is now! It's the ADs, not BCs!
Alas, you may now, re: my nutz, suck on these, please.

Skiff wasn't much of a dirt-bike racer, nor were his older brothers. They preferred to roam the hills and hollers of Switchcord Crossing on trails they often cut themselves. One afternoon in the late summer haze, the brothers Smithison almost literally ran into a black bear, the encounter costing Skiff's older brother Reg his life--clogged square across the face by the angry ursus--and a panic-caused crash left Skiff without the use of his legs, paralyzed from the waist down.

Today Skiff works as a guidance counselor for Switchcord Crossing High School.

This entry is a GUEST POST! Ben Compton is taking the reins today. If you'd like to write a guest post let me know and I'll send a picture your way!

Where Aren't They Now: 49

Joan only like to meet new people. When she sleeps at the end of the day, she wipes the slate clean. She never calls or keeps in touch in any way with the people that she meets on a day-to-day basis.

She works from home, writing freelance and submitting the work with as little correspondence as possible. She rarely meets her employers, and if she absolutely must, she tries her best to keep it to one meeting.

She does have family, but they are few and far between. Her parents passed away a couple of years ago, within weeks of one another. She has no siblings and it is fairly easy to duck her extended family.

Clearly there is no room in Joan's life for a steady relationship-- it would be quite impossible. But Joan is not unhappy! She has met so many thousand more people than you or I will ever take true notice of. She does her best to make solid connections with these single-day people in her life, and many of them think of Joan long after they've separated.

Where Aren't They Now: 48

Becquie rings in the new year the same way, year after year: she pops open a cheap Riesling and looks at pictures of previous New Year's Eves.

This cheers her up every time, despite the fact that her scrapbook is stocked with pictures of Becquie looking at pictures. At least the photographs get a bit more complicated: a picture of 2008 Becquie looking at a picture of 2007 Becquie looking at a picture of 2006 Becquie, etc.

Only the Riesling remains unchanged.