A Eulogy for Chris Underwood

My sixth-grade boyfriend died Tuesday. A slightly chubby redhead named Chris Underwood with a bowl cut and tinted glasses, who loved Huey Lewis and the News. In other words, a big dork. But so was (am) I, so it worked out great.

Chris Underwood, senior year of high school

The majority of our relationship consisted of talking on the phone, winking at each other across the classroom, and holding hands at lunchtime. We went on two dates - one to go see the “The Land Before Time” (the original) with his mother and little sister, and one to go bowling. Chris was funny and smart. He was one of the first friends I could really just be a nerd with. Together, we used to correct our sixth grade teacher during math class (she wasn’t all that confident with decimals and fractions) and see who could do a better job reading our Junior Great Books upside down.

We were also in an enrichment program called LIGHTS. LIGHTS stood for something, but I don’t remember what. A GT program led by dedicated educator Gail McGrail, each student was basically guided on an exploration of an area of their particular interest. Chris’s was music. He developed a DJ service, and DJ’ed our middle school and high school dances. He even DJ’ed the big 8th grade graduation semi-formal dance. He was that kind of a geek - he’d rather provide the music than be part of the crowd.

Middle school relationships don’t last, of course, but Chris became a family friend. Everyone in my family had paper routes, and we must have delivered papers to two-thirds of South Grafton. Chris had a paper route in North Grafton. So when our district manager wanted us to go “crewing,” which meant go door to door to sign up new customers, we’d all pile in the minivan, and Mom would drive across town and pick up Chris and we’d have a friendly competition to see who could get the most new subscriptions. Then we’d go to Friendly's and get sundaes.

Later, when we were old enough to get “real” jobs, Chris and I both ended up at the local Burger King. We had a blast whenever we were on shift together. Later, my younger brother Jay worked at Burger King. Chris was still there, working his way through college, and he and Jay would geek out about music and have competitions to see who could remember the most theme songs from 80’s sitcoms.

My favorite memory of Chris is a nerd joke we used to play on our co-workers. At that time, the chicken tenders came in a box, but the box was the same size no matter the number of tenders. So you were supposed to write the number on the outside. But when Chris was in the kitchen at the chicken-and-fish station, and I was bagging orders, he’d make up an algebra equation on the spot and write it on the box. Solve for x and it equaled the number of tenders. I’d giggle and solve his equation in my head, but everybody else would groan and sigh and open the box and count the nuggets. We loved it.

Yes, we were the two biggest math geeks in our grade, probably in the school. We adored math, and we also adored our math teacher, Mr. Tite.

Our hero, our idol, dorky math teacher supreme Mr. Tite. © dmwoodman 1995

Chris and I never ended up in the same math class, but we would study together, and make up practice problems for each other. Chris would emulate our math teacher’s style, and later developed a wicked impersonation of him. (For our senior year talent show, the cool kids put together a sketch where they impersonated the teachers. But they knew they needed Chris to be Mr. Tite. He slayed it!)

Chris was so good at explaining math concepts, and he started tutoring and leading Adult Ed classes in high school.  I told him he was going to be a math teacher, but he insisted he was going to be an accountant. Ha, I was right!

Chris was dorky and funny and smart and lovable. He was dedicated to math education. Grafton High, I am so sorry for your loss.