Sister Christian

Has Left
the Building
Also by Charlie Trantanella:
Brown and Blue and Greek
Sister Christian
Has Left
the Building

stories of growing up

Charlie Trantanella

Progressive Empire Press

Westford, MA

2023
Copyright © 2023 by Charlie Trantanella

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced (except for re-
views), stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, elec-
tronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permis-
sion from the author.

Outside front cover: My high school prom portrait, spring 1985.

Outside back cover (L-R): Sitting in my race car circa 1977; Playing the Westhill
High School talent show, winter 1984; Finishing up my paper delivery, August 1980.

All photographs from the author’s personal collection.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Names: Trantanella, Charlie, author.

Title: Sister Christian has left the building : stories of growing up / Charlie Tran-
tanella.
Description: Westford, MA: Progressive Empire Press, 2023.
Identifiers: LCCN: 2023916376 | ISBN: 978-0-9986013-1-1
Subjects: LCSH: Trantanella, Charlie--Childhood and youth. | Nineteen eighties.
| Nineteen seventies. | Popular culture--United States--History--20th century. |
Coming of age--United States. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
/ Personal Memoirs
Classification: LCC PS3620 .R36 2023 | DDC 814/.6—dc23

Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America by Walch Printing, Port-
land, Maine 04103.

Published by Progressive Empire Press, 6 Daniel Drive, Westford, MA 01886 USA

All inquiries should be sent care of the author, tranti@comcast.net

 To my friends and family,
especially Valerie, the love of my life.

But not in any way to the unseen glob thrower,

my fake girlfriend, or the dirtbag that kneed
me in the nuts. Angry still? You bet.
 Acknowledgments

It’s a lonely thing, in a way, to spend years writing the stories of

your life knowing they will mean so much more to you than any-
one else. Therefore, I’m forever grateful to my two editors, my
lovely wife, Valerie Trantanella, and friend & fellow Dog, Tom
Angus, for reading through all these stories and providing me with
invaluable feedback. Also, a shout-out to a long defunct website
“Common Stories” for publishing some very early versions of a
few of these back in the mid-2000s. That experience gave me the
confidence to keep going.
 Contents

Preface xi
Feels Like the First Time 1
Crushed 17
Humiliated 33
Fragile 44
Cul-de-sac 60
Sister Christian Has Left the Building 87
I Am a Rock Star, Part 1 101
A Friendly Regret 141
Giving It Two Weeks 162
Oil Can Dogs 188
Running Wolf and Chewing Fish 197
Red Then Yellow 233
I Am a Rock Star, Part 2 250
Epilogue 288
 Preface

Probably not the best way to introduce my book of stories, but

here goes: I do not consider myself a good storyteller. At least not
when I tell stories out loud without the benefit of notes or a lot of
practice. I trip over my words, I get to the punchline too quickly,
and I often see looks of confusion on my listeners until I can ex-
plain further. Which, from my perspective, rarely seems to help.
Writing stories, on the other hand, seems to work much better
and I enjoy the process immensely. Which is strange, if you knew
how much I hated writing in high school and college. So, what
happened? Why does this book even exist? It all starts with what I
remember. I’ve been told I have a good memory, maybe better than
most, and I do recognize there are many instances in my life I can
recall with great clarity. I also know that my memory is far from
perfect, for there is plenty I’ve forgotten. As for why I remember
certain things over others, here’s my theory: if you think about
something specific every week, or every month, or even every year,
you will remember it. Because that is what I do. I think about the
past a lot.
However, it’s not as if I pick a set time each week for a trip
down memory lane. Rather, almost all my memories are triggered
unexpectedly by an event – hearing a snippet of song is probably
the most common way, followed next by smelling a familiar odor
xii Preface

such as pine needles baking in the hot summer sun. I have triggers
like this all the time, and they bring back memories whether I like
it or not. Sometimes these memories are of great comfort, other
times not so much. Either way they are all mine, so I can’t run
away from any of them.
For decades I dealt with each episode the same way. Once a
memory was triggered, I’d let it rattle around in my head for a
while until I could distract myself and move on to something else.
One day, though, I couldn’t let things just rattle around. For some
reason I had an overwhelming urge, the likes of which I never
felt before, to write down what I was remembering. Sure, I’d kept
diaries at times in my life and sometimes wrote about random
incidents on scraps of paper that were soon tucked away, but I
never tried to capture much beyond a small moment or two. In an
instant that all changed. I mention this epiphany briefly in the sto-
ry “Sister Christian Has Left the Building.” However, you haven’t
gotten there yet because I know you’re following this book in its
proper order, so here’s the full scoop.
The year was 2004. I was fast approaching ten years as a circuit
designer for Hittite Microwave, a milestone few employees at the
small company had reached, and one for which I should have been
proud. Instead, I couldn’t have cared less. I was stuck in my role,
stuck in my lousy half cubicle/half office, stuck doing a job that
hadn’t been fun or interesting for a while. One of the only bright
spots each day was my commute. For about thirty minutes every
morning, I enveloped my soul with music of my choosing as I
headed to the darkness that lay ahead. Sometimes my CD choice
leaned towards the mellower side with artists such as Death Cab
for Cutie or Gordon Lightfoot, other times it was all about the
raw power of Iron Maiden or RUSH. Comfort was the key, what-
ever I needed right then.
 Preface xiii

One day early that year, comfort led me to pick a mix CD of

’80s hair band anthems I’d ripped from Napster during the height
of that craze. As I popped the CD into the dashboard player, I
glanced briefly at the back cover. Staring at me as the last song was
“Sister Christian” by Night Ranger. I’d loved this tune since high
school and it made me smile every time I heard it. Seeing the title
at that moment, however, caused something inside me to snap. I
skipped the CD to that song and hit play as I started the drive. A
few minutes later the song ended, so I skipped back and played
it again. Then again and again and again. It was the only tune I
played for the entire thirty-minute drive. When I finally arrived
and parked in the employee lot, I sat there and listened to it one
last time from start to finish. Then, I turned off the car and knew
work would have to wait that morning. I now had a story to write.
I hurried into my half office, shut the flimsy door, and pulled
out a notepad. Over the next three hours, I wrote furiously about
the memory triggered by that awesome song. People, places, and
events rushed back faster than I could commit to paper. Being told
a sophomore girl liked me. Going on our first date. Holding hands
in the theater. The pool party. The kiss in the street. The letter on
purple stationary that told me it was all over. I’d thought about
many of these details at various times over the years, but never
with the intensity or completeness I felt that day. By lunchtime, I
had filled about six pages with my story, one that excited me to no
end when I read it over for the first time. I took the draft home
and later that night typed it into my computer. Weeks followed as
I revised and expanded the text. More details came back, some of
which brought contradictions, especially in the timeline. I there-
fore looked for clues in the long-lost diaries, notes, and letters I
had tucked away, clues that helped solidify the story. Eventually I
got to a point where I considered it finished and began showing it
xiv Preface

to a few select people. And what do you know, they all genuinely
liked it. Some even loved it.
So, I kept going. I wrote two other stories including “Crushed”
within the year, while also capturing snippets of other memories
on dozens of paper scraps. Eventually I organized those scraps
into a collage worthy of a 1st grader (think tape, lots of tape). Then,
I began writing more stories based on these small recollections.
Some took months or even years for me to get down into a work-
able draft. Others came pouring out fast, including “Fragile” which
kept me up past 3:00 a.m. the first time I sat down to write. It
just jumped out and I didn’t want to stop, despite knowing I’d be
exhausted if not useless at work the next day. I took a break from
story writing for a few years while working on Brown and Blue and
Greek, though once I neared the end of that project, the desire to
explore more of my memories returned in earnest. So, I opened
my scrap collage and kept going. Now, finally, almost twenty years
after I started writing, I have a collection ready to go. Topics range
from first jobs to first dates, second kisses to missed second chanc-
es, and life changing joys to life altering tragedies. Oh, and some
tasteful tales of nudity, too.
As pointed out by my editors, however, these stories collec-
tively are not happy ones. Sure, there are small victories in each,
yet these victories are generally surrounded by a failure of the mo-
ment. I think that’s the main reason I wrote many of these. I want-
ed both to remember and to reflect on what had happened, if not
also explore why. Lots of second guessing and certainly some re-
grets came about, as can be imagined. Now, though, I have a firmer
understanding of it all. Also, many of these stories take place over
years if not decades, with seemingly small, insignificant events
coming back to play a bigger role later in my life. I was especial-
ly interested in exploring these time-separated connections. One
 Preface xv

of the best parts of this whole experience was discovering a few

connections I hadn’t anticipated. The stories are organized roughly
by time, with my escapades as a youngster coming first. However,
there is considerable overlap as people and events intersected my
life in multiple ways, so time does not proceed linearly throughout.
A few stories ultimately didn’t make the cut. What remains
are twelve tales that I’m excited to tell. With that in mind, here’s a
brief introduction to each, including the year when I first finished
a complete draft.

Feels Like the First Time (2018) – A lot more innocent than
the title suggests (ha ha, sorry!). This song by Foreigner captures
all that I loved about growing up in the 1970s in a neighborhood
filled with kids. I’d go back to that place in a second if I could.

Crushed (2007) – Who didn’t have multiple crushes while grow-

ing up? They say, “Never meet your heroes.” Same could be said for
your crushes.

Humiliated (2009) – My guess is just about every kid is bullied

at some point in their life. For me, that nightmare came about in
7th grade.

Fragile (2015) – When I hear this word, I think music, with the
album Fragile by Yes and the song “Fragile Thing” by Big Country
coming quickly to mind. Both of those musical gems remind me
of the thin line between love and tragedy. I walked that line, but
luckily didn’t fall to the wrong side.

Cul-de-sac (2022) – It wasn’t until I started putting pen to paper

on this one that I realized I was writing my coming-of-age story.
xvi Preface

The cul-de-sac, in essence, is my metaphor for the place where I’d

been yet had to leave. Even though I didn’t want to.

Sister Christian Has Left the Building (2005) – When I was six-
teen years old, I thought I could date two women at once without
any consequences. Some life lessons you only learn the hard way.

I Am a Rock Star (2021) – Music is a central theme to many of

these stories because it has been an essential delight my entire life.
I wrote a much shorter version of this story in 2002 when I put to-
gether a small website for my band, A Vivid Sun. Years later I had
a lot of fun expanding the narrative into what is the longest of the
collection, now broken into two parts for easier reading. If I had to
pick, I’d say this is the one I enjoyed writing the most.

A Friendly Regret (2019) – The worst job I ever loved was work-
ing at Friendly’s Ice Cream as a seventeen-year-old kid. It was a
toil, and getting paid minimum wage seemed an insult at times.
Making up for these shortcomings was a pure joy of camaraderie, a
joy that remained unabated until I learned of an ugly truth I never
expected.

Giving It Two Weeks (2008) – Every year in August when the ka-
tydids start their nighttime concert, I’m transposed back to 1985
and the night before I headed off to Tufts University for the start
of my freshman year. Lying awake in bed that fateful night, I could
only feel fear. I had no confidence I’d succeed in college.

Oil Can Dogs (2010) – I’ll never forget the trigger for this story:
standing in a liquor store in Stamford, Connecticut, and seeing an
oil can of Foster’s Beer for the first time in a long time. Throw in
 Preface xvii

a little streaking around the quad while at college, and you’ve got
a tale for the ages.

Running Wolf and Chewing Fish (2020) – If there ever was a

moment I first wanted to be a runner, it was right after the talk in
elementary school by a Native American who told of his family’s
relationship with the Boston Marathon.

Red Then Yellow (2022) – I was fascinated with parachuting as a

young kid. However, later in life I learned there is a big difference
between skydiving, which I did, and parachuting, which I did not.

Finally, a note about those who made their way into these pages.
The names of nearly all the women have been changed to protect
them from embarrassment, and other personal details have also
been reset to help further obscure their identity. There are some ex-
ceptions—my wife, Valerie, and my immediate family members are
referenced by their real names, for example—but you can assume
the rest are pseudonyms. Many of the guy’s names have also been
changed, except for my closest friends whom I don’t embarrass too
much. However, in all cases, names are consistent throughout. For
example, the Brian Moore who was my middle school nemesis
in “Crushed” is the same Brian Moore who shows up as my lead
singer in “I Am a Rock Star.” Finally, every person mentioned in
these stories is a real, unique individual. A few, unfortunately, are
no longer with us.
OK, enough of my yapping, time to get this party started!
What follows is all true, at least as I experienced it.

Westford, MA
September 2023