What follows is a list of former Brighton students who simply vanished, and whose whereabouts aren’t known by any mainstream Brighton resident. This is not meant to be a humorous article. While the stories featured in this compilation may be comical, they are all true and are simply my retelling of the things that I heard or remember about these students. Hopefully this will make you recall some of these students and their many exploits. “Ghetto” Bill O’ Dell The memories I have of Ghetto Bill are brief but fond. The only kid that could actually drive to middle school, Ghetto Bill and I shared a Home and Careers class. Being 16, he told me tales of his lifeguarding job, leaving me stricken with images of Bill with his shirt off and Bill giving mouth-to-mouth. These thoughts still haunt my dreams. To my knowledge, Bill never made it to the high school. Rumor has it, he stole a car and tried to drive to Mexico, but got caught in Henrietta. Mike Dipiazza Mike Dipiazza left us sometime between freshman and junior year. I can’t be more specific, but I do remember seeing “Bubblehead” in my homeroom freshman year, and then junior year, as I was fabricating an AP American outline, I looked around and said “Hey, where the hell did Mike Dipiazza go?” He was the writer and star of possibly the best Video Communications project of all time, which consisted of him singing “Baby, One More Time” in the showers, swimming in the creek with flippers on, and then getting out and asking middle school girls if they would go out with him. As of now, there is a chance that Mike is in Iraq, as I believe he joined the army. He will be missed. Soccer Coach Tom Obviously, I don’t have a picture of this guy and chances are nobody knows who he is, but he is certainly someone worth describing and writing about. Most of the time, he could be found at R’s Market, working alongside Mike Ram and Mike Bullick. He was Asian and covered in Wu-Tang Clan tattoos, standing at about 5’7”, 180 pounds. Despite his stocky build, he was a reasonable soccer player, and my House League coach three years ago. But then, in the middle of the season, Tom left to go to Woodstock, and simply didn’t come back. This left us coach-less for the second half of the season and I haven’t seen him since. Ben Szajewski/AJ Shear I put these guys together because I actually know where the both are, and don’t know much about either of them. Ben “Keanu Reeves” Szajewski was a gymnast until middle school, and in high school, successfully tore up a can into small enough pieces to fit into another can. He cut up his hands really badly, but obviously, it was worth the dollar I paid him to do it. As for AJ, he was in my 8th grade music class, alongside many other freaks who dropped out of band early. I don’t have anything to say about him except that he was a relative of Dan Schulman. Ben and AJ are both at an Ohio boarding school. Andrew Rendo Possibly the most destructive kid in the world, Andrew left around 8th grade. He was best known for setting fireworks off in mailboxes and stealing chemicals from the middle school labs to set them on fire. The best story of Rendo’s Brighotn life was when he ran away with Derek Culp to Jon Winkoski’s treehouse. Armed with BB guns and knives, their insurrection was thwarted by the Brighton Police, specifically Luke Schirmer’s dad. Culp was quoted saying “He kicked the shit out of us.” I can only wonder where Andrew is now. Ricardo Vazquez Sporting the nicest Afro I had ever seen, Ricardo took home the middle school yearbook’s “Best Hair” award. I didn’t know him very well, but I do recall him presenting a book report to our class concluding “Dis book suck. I recommend dis book to no one.” Ricardo’s most famous exploit was when he hit Matt Craig over the head with a football helmet and gave him a concussion. Kobi Libii “Who am I? I am Kobi Libii” was the phrase that made him famous, in possibly the greatest middle school campaign speech ever. Obviously, Kobi won the presidency only to leave us midway through the year. Though we shared some intimate moments, I was not invited to his going-away party, a memory that still enrages me. Damn you Kobi, damn you. |
| Whereabouts Unknown |
| A Profiling of Ex-Brightoners |
| By Sean Dobbin |
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