"Welcome To My Life."
Every year as the seasons come and go, I find myself reminiscing about my life and how I became the person that I am today.
As I sit here, watching the autumn leaves fall to the grass, a small smile makes its way across my face. I have seen the seasons
change many times, and every year, it is fall that I enjoy the most. I've lived my entire life in this little town called
Reefside. Over the years, many things have changed, I have seen a lot of those changes in my 65 years. Amidst all the changes,
I still see some things that I saw when I was seventeen. If you are reading these words, you must have either experienced
these events with me or you are a member of my family. To those of you who experienced these events with me, you know me.
To those of you who didn't, you know me as well. This is my story, this is my life and I promise to leave nothing out. I
suggest that you sit down and enjoy this ride that I am going to take you on. You think you know? You have no idea. My name
is Conner McKnight. Welcome to my life.
I could start at the beginning but all that would inform you is that I was an ugly baby. Thankfully, I grew out of that as
time went on. The first sixteen years of my life are not of importance. They mean nothing to this story. My story begins
when I was seventeen and a senior in high school. That was when I met the people that would change my life forever. When
my senior year started, I was the king of Reefside High. I was the star soccer player and I had girls all over me. I had
everything I ever wanted, I was on top of the world and I loved every minute of it. Until I realized that you are only on
top for as long as you are on top. Nobody stays on top forever, and eventually, everyone falls. When I fell, everything
fell with me. Sometimes when you fall, there is no cushion, no one to help you up and sometimes there is. I had someone,
actually I had two people: Ethan James and Kira Ford. The last two people that I ever thought I would see. The three of
us knew of each other all through high school but we were in different social crowds that we never talked to each other.
That would all change on the first day of senior year.
The three of us were given detention for seperate incidents throughout the day. It was in detention that we met the man that
would eventually bring us together in a way that time itself could not seperate us. Dr. Tommy Oliver had us go with him
to a dinosaur museum but when the doors to the museum were locked, he told us to look around and that if we found anything
prehistoric, he would cancel detention. As we walked through the woods, we fell through a sinkhole. After dusting ourselves
off, we started looking for a way out, we found a narrow pathway that we followed until we came to a skeleton of a dinosaur.
Kira made some comment about Jurrasic Park, I can't remember what exactly she said but at the time, it was meant to be funny.
I pulled on the jaw of the skeleton and a secret door opened that led us into a lab. Inside the lab, there were three colored
rocks, I didn't know why but at the time, I was drawn to the red rock and I picked it up. At the same time, Kira picked up
the yellow rock and Ethan picked up the blue one. Little did we know that they were the keys to us becoming power rangers.
We would later realize that the lab we were in belonged to our teacher Dr. Oliver. He would become our mentor and lead us
through our ranger days.
A few weeks later, I was approached by the Reefside Wave, a professional soccer team. They offered me a contract, all I had to do was sign on the dotted line, and I almost did. I had told Dr. Oliver and the others that I was going to leave and persue my dream. It took a little girl to help me realize that my dreams were not the only ones that mattered. She was being attacked by a monster and it was up to me to save her. Because I was able to get her to safety, that little girl was able to dream that night. It was then and there that I knew where I belonged. I told the Wave "No" and that was a very hard thing for me to do. I'm not saying that I didn't question my decision because I did for quite a while but I knew where I belonged. The biggest surprise to me during that time was how supportive Kira was of my decision to leave. Ethan was mad at me when it looked like I was leaving, Dr. O understood but I could tell he was upset too. Kira was nothing but supportive and one day, I asked her about it. She told me that she knew where I was coming from because had a record company asked her to sign, she would have, just like I was going to. It was about dreams and she knew how they worked.
When Trent Fernandez moved to town, he had a crush on Kira and the feelings were definately reciprocated. I don't know what it was about Trent but I didn't like him. He was an all around nice guy, nothing but nice to us, there was just something about him that I didn't like. I know that there are going to be people in your life that you just don't like and there is no justifiable reason as to why. That's how it was with us. A few months later, we encountered the evil white ranger and he kicked our butts every time we went against him. Even Dr. O, who had been a ranger in his teenage years and had once again donned the suit to help us out, got his butt kicked. We fought the white ranger for about a month before his identity was revealed. The white ranger was Trent. Now I had a justifiable reason to dislike the guy. The hurt in Kira's eyes was too much. I felt bad for her because she like him a lot. When we started as rangers, we really didn't get along because of the reasons I mentioned earlier, but as time went by, we started to get to know each other and actually like each other. We became best friends. You don't mess with my friends, and I wanted revenge on Trent for Kira, not me. I promised myself the night I found out the truth, that I would make him pay for hurting Kira. I also took a certain amount of protectiveness of Kira because I didn't want her to to fall into Trent's path. Somewhere during that protective streak, I started having feelings for here that went beyond friendship.
Trent would later turn to the side of good and fight the forces of Mesogog alongside us. The team welcomed him with open arms
and Kira had that old look in her eyes whenever Trent would walk into the room. I hated it. I was the only one that had
doubts about him fighting with us. If I was honest to myself, it was because of two reasons: I didn't want him there because
I didn't like him and because I was afraid that he would try to get back on Kira's good side. Whenever we went into battle
I was always cautious around him. He started acting weird around us, kind of like he had a secret that he wouldn't tell. Those
suspicions were confirmed when one of Mesogog's monsters had singled him out. He told Trent to tell us his secret or that he
would do it for him. Trent destroyed the monster before he could spill the secret and then Trent acted like he didn't have a secret.
We would find out that it was all a lie.
After school one day, Dr. O, myself, Kira and Ethan were met in the halls by Trent and his dad, Dr. Anton Mercer. Dr. Mercer was a scientist that Dr. Oliver worked with in his previous days. All of a sudden, Dr. Mercer got this really weird look in his eyes and he fell to one knee. When we tried to help him up, he ran away and we followed with Trent following us. We followed him into a science room and when we got there, he was in the middle of his transformation into Mesogog. Trent's secret was that his father was our villian. Now I had an even more justifiable reason to dislike the guy. He tried to prove that he was a team player and I'll admit he did save me but I still didn't trust the man. Dr. Mercer was able to free himself from Mesogog and we were able to defeat Mesogog and save Dr. Mercer.
At this point, my crush on Kira was in full swing but I knew that after Trent's secret was revealed, she could never trust him
completely. So I knew what I had to do. With Mesogog defeated, and our ranger lives behind us, I asked Kira to our senior prom.
She accepted and it was on that night that I told her everything. To my surprise, all the feelings that I had for her were returned.
In the weeks to come, we finished High School, I started a new relationship with a wonderful woman and said goodbye to the greatest
teacher I've ever had. I didn't want to leave. I was scared.
The night we graduated, Ethan found me at the cemetary. How he found me, I'll never know. I was visiting my dad. He was killed in a car accident the year before. I went there to basically say "Thank You" He was there for me my whole life, he saw a lot of milestones except the one that mattered the most. I told Ethan everything that night. In the months that followed graduation, my relationship with Kira had grown stronger, little did I know that it would last. Five years later, Kira and I were married. With Dr. Oliver and Ethan at my side, I looked to the back of the church and my eyes rested on the most beautiful woman my eyes had ever seen. I thought my life couldn't get any better, but I was wrong. Kira would inform me that I was going to be a father. I had just finished a road trip with the Reefside Wave, yes I achieved my dream. Sometimes you think a dream is just that, until you can actually achieve it. She had told me the news on our anniversary.
When Steven was born, my life took on a whole new meaning. I retired not too long after so I could spend time with my wife and son. The happiness we felt when Steven was born would be short lived. Dr. Tommy Oliver had passed away due to natural causes or so the autopsy says. I didn't beleive that and neither did Ethan and Kira. His funeral marked the first time in years I had seen Trent. We said hello to one another but that was about it. All these years later, I still remember him. Dr. Oliver was more than just a mentor and teacher, he was a father figure to us. To me especially. As the years passed, Steven grew into a fine young man, more like his mother than he'd ever admit. We had wanted to give him a baby brother or sister but there were complications that prevented Kira from having any more kids. Kira and I are still together and still in love. Our son has a family of his own and we are very proud of him.
Just recently, we lost Ethan. I'm trying to come to terms with that but it's a lot harder than I thought. I've lost my brother
in every way but blood. At his funeral, I saw Trent once again and I decided to bury the hatchet between us. We said hello just
like we did at Dr. Oliver's funeral but we actually talked to one another for the first time in over 40 years. I'm not going
to say that we are now best friends because we're not but Trent was one of us and as Dr. Oliver said once: "Once a ranger, always a ranger"
The three of us get together when we can but it's not the same without the whole team. If there is one thing that I have learned
in my life, it's this: Live life with no regrets, what you do makes you who you are. This is who I am. I'm Conner McKnight
and when I was seventeen, I was also the Red Ranger. Telling my story to whomever reads this has made me feel like a kid
again. I look in the mirror and I see my reflection and it's me at seventeen not sixty five. As I wrap up my story, I'd like
to leave you with the same words that spoke on a daily basis. I have not spoken these words in 48 years and when I first
said them, they were used to start my journey and today I will use them to end my journey.
"Dino Thunder Power Up!"
The End.