MIKE VANEYCK

Scum.

Mike actually should have been a member of the class of 1988. But he must have flunked a lot of subjects. Because he actually ended up a member of the class of 1989. Lucky us.

Mike lived not too far from me. So I had the misfortune of running into this nimrod from time to time. He was kind of friends with Doug Wall. So sometimes we'd all be together. I would never hang out with this guy, just the two of us alone. Mike wasn't too bright.

I have a vague meory of Mike being in my garage smoking. There were several of us there. I too took a few puffs. In fact, my actual last inhale of a regular cigarette took place with Mike present. I had "smoked" a little bit with Doug Wall and Chris Storlie. But looking back, I know I never actually inahled it into my lungs - until that day with Mike. Finally, I decided to smoke for real. I took a huge inhale of that cigarette, and brought the smoke deep into my lungs. I immediately started coughing and hacking. It was just horrible. How smokers ever get used to that is beyond me. I made up my mind right then and there that I would never have another cigarette. And I never have.

In 6th grade, I recall hanging out on the Clarke playground on the weekend. I was with my friend Bobby Streu. We were on the dome swings. Mike came by and joined us. He was oh so proud of his new big boy bike. When Bobby and I decided to leave (about a minute after he'd arrived) Mike said, "Better not touch my bike." Now to me, that was pretty much an open invitation to do something. Had he said nothing, we would have rode away peacefully. But since he opened up his big mouth, as I started to peddle away, I kicked his bike over. Mike got mad and followed me back home. But he didn't do anything.

One time in 8th grade, I was with Bobby Streu again. We were wandering around one night, and found ourselves in Mike's backyard. His family had an above-ground swimming pool. I threw a few pebbles into it. Then I encouraged Bobby to throw a giant rock into it. Bobby obliged. It made a huge spalsh. And we took off running. Now get this. About a week later, Mike approaches me as I'm going into a friend's apartment. He asked if I had $2000.00. When I asked him why, he said that that was how much it was going to cost to fix their pool. Then he tells me that Bobby Streu had told him that I had done it. What the fuck? First off, Bobby was the one who threw the damn rock. Secondly, why the fuck would Bobby bring this event up to Mike in the first place? It's no wonder that Bobby has served a lot of jail time over the years. He's a horrible criminal. He doesn't know how to keep his fucking mouth shut! Anyway, I digress. Mike apparently said nothing to his family about it. Because I never heard anything more about it. He did however let the air out my bike's tires after I'd gone inside. Oh well.

As a sophomore and junior, I had a paper route. Mike lived out on Hwy VV, and was the furthest house out on my route. So I had to visit his home everyday. What a treat. Those people were trash. They were always yelling and screaming at one another. They were way too rough with their dog. God, I felt sorry for that dog. And their house stunk! I hated going there. When it came time to collect, it smelled so bad that my eyes would tear up. Nasty.

Either at the beginning of our senior year, or perhaps the summer leading up to it, Mike got into some serious trouble. I may not have all the facts right. But I believe he was accused of rape - or sexual assault. I could be wrong about the charge. But there was some sort of incident. I think it involved a younger girl - perhaps age 14. But again, I could be very wrong. Anyway, according to my friend Dave Svatek (who shared a homeroom with Mike during senior year) he claimed that he overheard Mike boasting about how his family had hired some big time attorney, who was going to "get him off." And if memory serves, the attorney did just that - or at the very least, got the charges heavily reduced. Again, I don't know what (if anything) occurred. But there was something going on that year. Maybe he was simply misunderstood and innocent. Who knows.

If all that's true... scum.

Mike did in fact graduate. Miracles never cease. According to Doug Wall, shortly after graduation, Mike got a high-paying job in Green Bay, removing asbestos. Lovely. Today it looks like he still lives in Two Rivers. To my knowledge, he has never married.

UPDATE - 2/1/08 - As you can see below, Mike stopped by to say hi. He's threatening to sue me. Although this was back in November. And I've yet to have any process server come knocking at my door. The day after he left that comment, Mike came back to MY BLOG, went into MY PROFILE, clicked on MY EMAIL ADDRESS, and sent ME the following message.

"this is mike vaneyck. I would like to know if you know who's Google blog site this is? and if you could tell me who put this crap on this site? about me and my family so that I may take legal action against them for SLANDER."

I didn't respond.