From My Desk · Personal Archive
Experiencing Life's Rollercoaster
Written at seventeen.
Nick Reynolds wrote this book as he approached the end of his high-school career, choosing to look back at his life and at how experiences shape a person. It survives as a bound manuscript in the family archive, dedicated to his mother and father, and it is published here as he wrote it — youthful voice, original wording, no quiet corrections.
Contents, as photographed
- Introduction
- Part One: Background
- Part Two: Let's Party
- Part Three: Bingy's Scent
- Part Four: Traveling
- Part Five: First Impressions
- Part Six: The Fight
- Part Seven: The Scholar Athlete
- Part Eight: Dad's Heart Attack
- Part Nine: Football
- Closing
The pages move through family and background, moving and travel, school and first impressions, adversity at home, faith, and football — a seventeen-year-old's account of growing up in Broomall and Marple Township, in his own words.
“Life is a rollercoaster, ride and enjoy.”
Closing line, exactly as written
The artifact
A photographic archive of 42 pages.
The PDF below is a faithful page-by-page photographic archive of the physical manuscript. It is not a modern typeset edition and not an OCR transcription — every page is a photograph of the original paper. The manuscript itself establishes the title, the byline, the chapter headings and the age-17 context; the personal memories inside it are Nick's own account and are filed on The Record as Personal Archive.
View the photographed manuscript (PDF)Author's firsthand account
Afterword: From Peer Mediation to the Classroom
Nick's present-day account of what happened after an episode he described more cautiously in the book he wrote at seventeen.
When I was a student at Marple Newtown, I served as head of peer mediation for the school administration. If another student was being intimidated or targeted, I was sometimes asked to speak with the student involved and make it clear that somebody was paying attention. I always saw that responsibility as standing up for the underdog.
One confrontation went further than I could explain honestly in the book I wrote at seventeen. One student spat on me. As I turned, another student struck me. I immediately took him to the ground and defended myself. I was angry, but I also knew I had to stop. The school suspended me even though I believed I had acted in self-defense.
What happened next
Shortly after the incident, I learned that an anonymous caller had contacted the other student's family. I was later called into a school administrator's office and questioned about who had made the call after the family contacted police. I did not identify anyone. The other student transferred schools soon afterward. I cannot independently establish why he transferred or identify the caller, so I record those events only as I remember them, without claiming that the call caused the transfer.
I had been working toward twelve straight years of perfect attendance. I met with Superintendent Bob Mesaros, a fellow Millersville Marauder, and explained my role as head of peer mediation, the confrontation and why I believed the suspension was unjust. After hearing my account, he allowed me to spend the suspension day working in his office. As I remember it, the suspension did not become part of my permanent record.
Senior Week in Sea Isle City
About two months later, during Senior Week in Sea Isle City, another confrontation began outside a party after the same student pushed one of my friends. Something in me switched on. I told him to run, chased him, caught him and drove him into the rear window of a van, shattering the glass. I got on top of him and continued punching him until sirens approached. I left with my friends and later watched as he was taken away by ambulance.
More than two decades later, I can describe directly what happened. I saw him push my friend, something switched on and I reacted. I am not embarrassed by the truth, and I am not presenting it as anything other than what happened. It is part of the real story.
On the drive home from the shore, my car's engine failed after the radiator hose had been cut. At the time, I believed someone associated with the other group had done it in retaliation. I never established who cut it, so I record that only as what I suspected then—not as a proven fact.
About four and a half years later, I returned to thank Bob. That meeting brought the story full circle. He hired me to return to the district as the Paxon Hollow woodshop and technology-education teacher and as a defensive-line coach under Coach Gionta. The student who had once been asked to protect underdogs came back to teach and coach them.
“I always saw that responsibility as standing up for the underdog.”
About this account
This section is Nick Reynolds's own recollection, told in his words. Where he describes something he suspected rather than knew — such as who cut the radiator hose — the text says so plainly and identifies no culprit. The names of the other students and of anyone else involved are withheld. Archive sources elsewhere on this site document his later role as a district educator and coach.