Alban with Crissy and Luke during one of their days out.
We owe this page to Crissy, Luke’s charming girlfriend, who was kind enough to give us copies of a bunch of digital photos from her camera of Alban out and about with his friends. Luke is a good friend of Alban who spent weeks (or was it months?!) sleeping on the sofa or floor of Alban’s room in our home.
I think that this one was taken in the condo that Luke shared for a while, where Alban slept on the couch for days at a time.
The only problem with her photos is that we have often no idea exactly what Alban and his friends were doing, no idea of the background and context of each photo.
But we like the way that collectively they say something about 19 year-olds at play, even if we don’t know the particular context. Her pictures showed us the boys at play.
Video games are a known hobby, and here on the right is the group of confirmed addicts hanging out around a screen. It looks as if pizza, the staple of the collective diet, is being consumed.
Alban’s year has been almost as difficult for us to follow as Tom’s, even though he lives right here! He did invited a few friends to the house on Alex’s birthday. Here he is with his buddy Snowman in the kitchen.
What we knew about Alban in 2008 is easily summarized. Not really knowing what he wanted to do with his life, he throttled down on college credits during the first half of the year and took a job working a lot of hours in the deli at a local supermarket.
Not a great job, and his relationship status didn’t improve it. Both he and his then girlfriend found jobs in the same Safeway, which worked out fine until they broke up a few months later. Oops! It was a bit more than “oops” actually. Alban was very,very fond of her.
One of other favorite car shots of the year is of Alban’s Volvo, which spends long periods sporting large quantities of dust and other things that accumulate over time. One of his friends was sufficiently impressed to write on the rear window: “I wish my girlfriend was this dirty!” It does not appear clearly in the photograph, but it is there.
So the job ended, and Alban consoled himself with a long summer trip to visit his dad in Thailand, which was clearly more fun than he wanted to talk about!
As the year drew to a close, he had not found himself another paying job: in fact, I had the feeling that he had barely looked for one!
So by the end of the year he was now doing very little of either college or a job, which provoked a certain concern from the parents! But they were on shaky ground, having both deferred their studies for extended periods during their own youth.
Scotts Valley skatepark, in Sky Park.
He lived a relatively content life in our in-law cottage through into 2009, only occasionally bothered by the parents and worldly matters! His hobbies and his friends were about it.
On the left is another hobby, skateboarding. This one was taken at Scotts Valley skate park, which we recognize. Why someone is playing the guitar on the ramp is not entirely clear.
Another of Crissy’s photos. We’re guessing that she is on someone’s lap (Luke, logically) in the front seat here.
Alban is poised for action with his board angled up. He must be waiting for the guitarist to return to the top of the bowl and clear his path.
Next is another banal photo. This one has Alban, Greg and friends in a car. Notable here are the number of people in the back seat of what is obviously a small car: four. Some things don’t change from generation to generation!
It is reassuring to note that Alban glares at his friends taking pictures some times as well as at us!
Alban and his buddies having fun together on a trip to Carmel.
We’re glad that he’s having fun. There’s no time to do so as good as when you’re young. But we’re rather worried that he’s doing so little. He’s not doing school of any kind, he’s not holding down a paying job, but more importantly, he’s not found anything that really holds his interest, nothing that grabs him enough for him to commit to it. Nick (coding), Daphné (skiing) and Tom (music) have each found a vocation: not yet Alban. None of his hobbies has yet proved important enough for him.
The man himself in Carmel. Thanks Crissy!
Here are the other 2008 pages:
Tom living in Paris, Ian on a short visit to family in England, Maman, Papa, Charlie and Alex taking a long weekend down the California coast, birthdays and other special days in 2008, soccer in 2008, portraits in 2008 and, last but not least, the main 2008 journal page.