22.Graduation

Towards the end of my senior year I became very anxious to walk across the stage. During the second to last week of school it really started to kick in that we would not be returning to Thomas the following year. During the last week of school there is a common tradition at Thomas where the seniors do a senior prank. On the night before the last day of school my friends and i decided we had to pull a prank. We put all the soccer nets that were around the building on soccer fields in the Parking lot so put could not enter the school. Along with this our class was planning a beach day on the last day of school. We hooked up a bunch of hoses and gathered different things that we could use for beach day. In the morning a group of about one hundred kids showed up on the field where beach day was taking place. After already talking with our principle, beach day was a go. We cooked hot dogs and hamburgers on a grill and brought a bunch of drinks. It was the perfect way to end our senior year. As graduation came around people began to feel sad about leaving Thomas where they had so many great memories. At my graduation, I remember the different emotions in the air. Some people were crying while others were laughing and having a good time. As everyone crossed the stage it really hit me, i was done at Webster Thomas High School. At the end of our ceremony, close friend of the entire class and also the president of the class gave a speech. In this speech they gave us a challenge. They said we would have to hold our arms in the air next to us for 3 minutes. As everyone was wondering what they were doing this for a song came on. Lean on me, at this point i could hear people start to cry. For me a was a great was to end my graduation ceremony.

21.T-Birds

Over the summer of my junior year my friends and I decided we wanted to make our senior year the best we could. A few weeks before school started we started calling people and asked them if they were interested in joining a student cheer crowd for our football team. After rallying up about 40 to 50 kids we began to make our t-shirts. After our t-shirts were complete we went to the first football game. Knowing that everyone who was at that game who wasn’t a t-bird at the time now wanted to make a shirt and join. This cheer crowd connected many people in our school who would not have hung out with each other if it were for the t-birds. Before the games we would all meet at Boulters parking lot which is a huge warehouse across from our school. Here we would spend all morning grilling hot dogs and hamburgers and then walk over to the game as a group. This group ended up being a huge part of the school. Which teachers and our principle loving what we did, they decided to make it into a club at our school and had t-shirts made for us. When it came to our homecoming game it was very close. With plans of charging the field, we decided to do so. As Thomas stopped the opposing team on their last possession in overtime we lumped and ran over the fences and began to make a huge dog pile in the middle of the field with the players in it to. This is one of my greatest high school memories that I will never forget.

20.What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger

Playing a lot of baseball through my high school years I learned a lot and planned on playing my senior year and possibly in college. Throughout my lifetime I have had to persevere through many things. One of the hardest was getting through the end of my junior year. As a member of the varsity baseball team there is nothing to look forward to more than putting on that freshly cleaned uniform running out on the just groomed baseball diamond and getting yourself all dirtied up from sliding into second after a stolen base or diving after that ground ball hit hard up the middle and digging your cleats into the batter’s box as you step up to home plate. After being able to feel this for many years before, this year was different. Three days before our first game and just finding out that I was going to be the starting second baseman for our team, I had also found out that I had a genetic kidney disease. This changed the way the rest of the entire season had gone. I had found out from many doctors and professionals that my kidney had something going wrong with it. It was bleeding and what it was supposed to be doing just wasn’t happening. After sitting out the rest of the season and never being able to experience the feeling of stepping out onto that diamond and smelling the freshly cut grass I had never changed my mind about baseball. With my surgery a few days after our last game I never had been so disappointed in my life.
This did not only ruin the way my baseball season went but also my grades. I learned that going to class on pain killers was almost as affective as not going to class at all. For about 2 months of going to class with this pain I was so concentrated on my pain and what had been going on and not on my classes. After going through many MRI’s and CT scans the doctors began to wonder if I had kidney cancer. While they were testing this for about a week I had never seen my mom cry so much. I remember lying in my bed at night and hearing my mom crying herself to sleep and both of them talking about what they would do if I did have cancer. After having my surgery I learned that my disease did nothing but make me a stronger person. Even today I still must go through these tests every few months and for weeks after there is much stress in my mind and my families too.

19.Willink Middle School

Ever since I was a young kid I loved physical activity and playing sports. In middle school I learned what it was like to play on a modified and freshman sports team. With many of the kids playing their first year at these sports in middle school it was difficult to watch let alone play on the same team as some of these kids. Doing many activities including soccer, basketball, football, baseball and skateboarding, I kept myself very busy. I had some great coaches that knew how to have fun and some that made me want to quit. Skateboarding was something I did for fun with kids in my neighborhood. The summer going into seventh grade I remember building at 7 foot tall half-pipe in neighbor’s yard. After the half-pipe was complete was would spend days and nights skating on it. Even if kids did not skateboard they still enjoyed coming to the ramp and watching us skate. I remember how nervous my mom was when she saw me start skating thing I was going to crack my head open. As I got older and entered high school I stopped playing football and basketball and concentrated more on soccer and baseball. My freshman year I played soccer and baseball and enjoyed both. The next year I decided to stop playing soccer and spent a lot of time playing baseball. Through middle school I developed many close friendships that seemed to get closer as I got older and stuck with them until now.

18.Growing up in Webster

As a kid growing up in Webster I always enjoyed spending time with my friends in my neighborhood. I remember spending all of my childhood running around the neighborhood playing wiffleball in backyards hockey in the streets and football in open fields. Often times we would play with the same group of neighborhood kids. At night we would meet up with other neighborhoods around us and get big games of hide and go seek in the entire neighborhood. Going to Klem Road North Elementary school I was friends with a lot of kids from other neighborhoods too. Getting bus passes to other kid’s houses was always very fun to do. Often times I would go to friends houses on Fridays eat dinner there and then spend the night. Some of my greatest memories as a kid growing up consist of going to friends houses with a large group of my friends and we would spend all night watching television and talking about what went on throughout the year. In the winter I would gather a group of my friends to come to and go sledding at Webster Park which was a very popular sled hill in Webster. My friends and I would get together make jumps and see how high we could go off of these jumps. When it came to Middle School I was the first class to complete three year there seeing that the middle school was just built. Middle School was very different from elementary because the fact that we were given lockers to keep our stuff in. This also was a huge transition because you meet many new people and say goodbye to many others. Since Webster has two middle and high schools often times they choose a group of elementary schools to go to one and a group to go to the other but my school was split down the middle due to where they lived in my town.

17.Raising the Kids

“Life was pretty simple. Raising the kids as toddlers was fun; we would go to playground and on walks and bike rides. I did not make them join organized activities while they were young. I enjoyed spending time with them. We would set up play groups with other stay at home moms and their kids. I never regretted staying at home with our kids; they always had their mom at home to talk to. I was fortunate enough to be a stay at home mom ever since we decided we wanted another child.” My Dad told me stories of when he used to get called into work in the middle of the night and work his job and then when he got home he would have to take care of me or my sister when we were babies crying in our cribs. My mom would wonder why he was so tired the next day, not even knowing that he was called into work for a few hours he night before. Many years were like this for my dad’s first few years at Fairport Electric. In 1996, I found out I was pregnant again. I suffered a miscarriage with that baby and then another miscarriage in 1997. In august 1999 we finally had our third child named Mackenzie Rose Travis. She was such special blessing for our family. We had suffered such hard ache over the years and finally got her. Her older sister and brother loved her and finally had our complete family of 5.” Living in three bedroom house with five people was very tight. In 2003, after a few years of putting my little sister and big sister in the same room my parents decided to put a big addition on our house. We extended our kitchen and added a bedroom on top of that. This created a lot of room for us to live in.

16.Getting Married

In 1983 my mom and dad met at a local tavern called Flaherty’s that was a popular hangout for people in Webster. One year later my dad decided to propose to my mom while playing the song you really got me by Van Halen. During the year they were engaged they bought a house together but my mom was not allowed to move in until after their wedding. After their wedding they went to Disney World for their honey moon. After the honeymoon my mom was allowed to move into the house they purchased. In 1986, “we were blessed to find out we were expecting our first child. In 1987, we had a baby girl and named her Brianna Travis. Unfortunately 13 hours after her birth she passed away due to complications with her labor. She developed severe phenomena which was caused by me conium aspiration. She was born three weeks over due. She was then rushed to strong memorial hospital for the best possible care, but was too sick to survive. This changed the way that your dad and I lived the next few years. After planning our baby’s funeral we were forced to grow up very quickly.” During the time of mourning my mom and dad attended many of their friend’s weddings. They said for about 3 years they attended 10-12 weddings a year. My mom got a job at Voit for a few years where she met Patrick Ewing who was a player on the New York Knicks. In 1988, my mom quit her job and had another child. This was my older sister named Stephanie Lynn Travis. After two years off of work she realized she wanted to spend the rest of her life as a mom. She had another child named Daniel James Travis in 1990. Living on a tight budget with my dad only making 28,000 dollars a year my parents needed to do something to lower the cost of living. They refinanced their house and brought the payment of the house down from 735 dollars a month to 600 dollars a month. This helped with supporting the family but we were still forced to live on not much money.

15.Finding a Career

When my dad was in high school he could not wait for it to be over with. He had a lot of friends and liked some of the teachers but he was just “not cut out for the classroom and college.” This was why he decided not to go to college. Some of his friends went to college and enjoyed it while a few of his others friends went to college “had a little bit too much fun and had to drop out or failed out.” After High school he decided to start his first big job at Bausch and Lomb working in the stock room. When he got transferred to a different department building he was laid off. Since he was the last full-time person hired he was the first person to get laid off. His next job was for the Rochester Cable Vision. Here he learned how to climb telephone poles and hook up cable. His area was Webster/Penfield and he was able of mapping out his area without any maps. After a while the company wanted to switch some of the City installers with some suburban installers. Being one of these swaps, he tried working in the city for while but did not like it at all and decided to quit. His next job was for Fairport DPW doing body work and mechanical repairs. After a couple of years working this job a position opened up at Fairport Electric. Since he knew how to climb poles from his past job he decided to apply. 27 years later he is still working there and is now a crew chief.

14.Cars and Street Racing

(Direct Quote from my Dad) During High School I never really worried too much about my classes and homework, I just really like cars. When I went to Webster Schroder I attended the Forman center for auto body. During the time my aunt asked me to fix up her older beat up 68’ Camaro. The Camaro had some rust around the edges and an old beat up convertible top. Every day I would have to drive the car to the Forman Center and work on the rust and the faded paint, at the end of each day I would spray paint some primer on the spots that I just finished working on. After a couple of months, this car was so ugly that nobody wanted to be seen driving in it. Towards the end of the year the Camaro was ready for paint. I painted it Factory Chevy Blue, cleaned up the tires and had a new white top put on it. After the car was done I drove over to my friend’s house. From the day forward everybody wanted to be seen driving in this car. After giving it back to my aunts I decided that I wanted my own car looking like that. So after buying another 68’ Camaro I had a lot of work to do. I had to rebuild the engine, change the wheels and tires, and then needed to repaint it. (Before and After Pictures) A few years after the Camaro was done my friend called and said that there was a wrecked 80’ Corvette that he had scene. After buying that car I fixed that one all up too. After making these cars I always would want to test how fast they would go. So my friends and I would take our cars down to Lake Ave. in Charlotte where many people would go to show off their car and race them. After walking around Charlotte for a while, you would pick out a car that you wanted to race against. After you had the car you wanted to race against you would drive up to the parkway and race. At the time I was a really big fan of foreigner and since Lou Graham was from Rochester he would sing about racing in Charlotte and on Lake Avenue. In his song Rev on the Red Line, he sings about watching people race on Lake Avenue. (1 minute and 8 seconds into the song you hear him say Lake Avenue)