In 2018 I added Lyman Hardy to my Hotel of Life. This mainly contained his brief obituary. I felt his impact to my life deserved it’s own write up, and 17 years after his death I feel I can get some data down.
My freshman year (1995-1996) I attended Sweet Home High School. This year had many, many memories, including the O.J. Simpson Verdict (October 3, 1995), scoring a 10/10 on my Earth Science Final Project by actually communicating with scientists from the USGS via email (eadn001@prodigy.com), a Band Trip to Walt Disney World (March 1996), and a Field Trip to Old Fort Niagara, the latter being led by Mr. Hardy.
I remember being a horrible student in French, including openly reciting “I Shit”, “You Shit”, “We Shit” when conjugating the French word for “to buy”. I did, however, pay attention and passed the class with ease.
After high school I spent time tracking many old people I admired, including Mr. Hardy. With the power of the internet I found “Ulrichs” on Angelfire (archive.org, pdf) and learned that not only he retired but is enjoying his retirement. I also came across his simple website (archive.org, pdf), and planned to communicate with him.
When I finally got stability in my life I decided to, once again, track him down, but it was already too late and he had passed along. I felt a brief emptiness inside me, and planned next time I came through Buffalo to stop by his gravesite and spend some time.
Fast forward to a multi-decade project I undertook to locate old VHS videos of the Sweet Home High School Disney Band Trip, and my goal was to contact everyone that had attended that once-in-a-lifetime performance. One of the plans was to acquire an old yearbook, of which I was able to find one on Ebay for about $82.68.
Mar 29, 2021 rolled along and I had the yearbook in my possession. Upon opening it I was able to locate myself in the 9th grade menagerie along with the entire band personnel.
After feeling nice about my acquisition and knowing I’ll end up continuing on my “search” for a VHS tape (spoiler, the solution wasn’t in the yearbook), I decided to find out exactly “who’s” yearbook this was, and maybe read on for all the people who signed it and enjoy some memories. Lo and behold I had found out that the yearbook was, in fact, Mr. Hardy’s but I had also signed it.
I didn’t end up seeing him the following year. I didn’t see him at all, and instead followed him planning on seeing him and never really making that guarantee come true.
5 years later I still possess this yearbook, securely sealed and hidden from the harsh element, eventually planning on having it digitally scanned in and preserved for ages.