Korman King was a natural born leader. I don’t think it is entirely necessary to be born into the role, but it does help. Learning leadership skills for someone who didn’t find it natural, as I did, was difficult. It was akin to learning how to play the guitar. Some people, like Eddie Van Halen, simply start playing by ear from childhood and sound angelic. Others, like me, take lessons and practice for more than eight years and still sound demonic.

I lost my circle of friends in elementary school due to a botched experiment my guidance counselor, Mr. Covington, attempted with me there. He did manage to elevate my social level, though, but not as high as he had expected to. I didn’t accept the individuals he proposed to be my friends, nor did they accept me. Instead, I was left to find new friends. I turned to those who were closest to me, some of the members of my Sunday school class. Korman King was chief among them.

The specifics of that time have left me over the years.  I do remember that Korman was the leader of my circle of friends, though.  Basically, he chose what we would do and when we would do it. This didn’t always work out to be such a smart thing, dictatorship rarely is.  However, I cannot remember a time when Korman ever put us in serious jeopardy.  He was, after all, a natural born leader.

I feel that I was closer to Korman than the others in our group, if but for a brief time. You see, my parents adored him and often invited him along with us to social gatherings.  Korman went with us on a trip to Disneyland. I admit that I was jealous, seeing all the attention my parents were giving him at my expense. It was nauseating, the way they pointed out his many strengths and asked me why I couldn’t be more like him. I yelled at him a few times on that trip. Still, we managed to have a good time.

In particular, I remember that it was the first year of the Space Mountain ride and we had to wait in line for almost three hours. I thought that was bad, at the time, but years later I waited in a line for Universal Studios’ Jurassic Park ride for over five hours! (That was with my son, Cameron, during one of his rare visitations after his mother and I got a divorce.)  As we finally got into the ride, we were put in the front of car.  It resembled some sort of space ship, with a control panel mockup in front of us. Behind us sat several Japanese tourists.

During the ride, Korman instigated a little game of us pretending to be the ride operators. I went along with it, pretending to push buttons on the control panel decal at the helm. Korman barked out orders like a spaceship captain and I responded as his first mate. A few times, as the ride soared through the manufactured mountain, we would hit a sharp turn and the Japanese couple seated behind us grabbed our shoulders and shook their heads to the contrary. When the ride stopped, the tourists jumped out and clapped for us. They had fallen for our trickery. They even took pictures with us, as if we were some great celebrities they had met up with. It was a happy experience.

It was good to have someone around who was my own age (we’re a little more than a month apart in age) and going through the same things I was. In fact, it is always comforting to know that I am not the only one who thinks about things in a certain way.  I feel that if everyone were more open to their feelings, the world would be a much better place. Sadly, most people live behind a curtain of deceit and choose to portray themselves as someone they are not.