school daze
in a fit or originality (not) I thought I'd steal this meme from meno.
High School
(just as a preface, I went to 3 different high schools, but all of this is from the last where I was a jr. and sr.)
1. Who was my best friend? Van. He and I hung out and double-dated until we graduated. He and I went to different colleges. After our first quarter (I finished before he did) he invited me to spend the weekend with him on campus. It took him all weekend to work up the nerve to tell me he was gay. I didn't care. from then on, whenever he and I were back in our hometown at the same time, he would take me to the greatest (gay) bars I never knew existed and we would dance the night away. I learned a lot about how gay people are treated here in the south (and maybe everywhere) and it left me with the ability to accept people for who they are and not what they do. I also learned how to gracefully turn down offers for "dates".
2. What sports did you play. none. didn't have the jock mentality, and high school and college sports in the rural south are almost a religion and me an atheist.....
3. What kind of car did you drive? an early-seventies Mercury Comet for basic transportation. it had a 3-speed manual and was fun to drive. For dates I would drive a 1972 Pontiac Catalina ( a boat of a car with bench seats front and back. GREAT make-out car). for special occasions I begged to use our "good" car, a 1978 Buick LaSabre - turbocharged!.
4. It's Friday night, where were you? During football season I would hit the local pizza joint. off-season, I was at home. date night was usually Saturday night for me.
5. Were you a party animal? oh, hell no. I was reclusive, wasn't part of any "in" group.
6. Were you considered a flirt? oh, hell no. (see above). I was also painfully shy around girls.
7. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? I was in the marching band, orchestra, and jazz band. (marching band = football season after game pizza joint)
8. Were you a nerd? we were called squares back then.
9. Did you get suspended/expelled? oh, hell no. (see #5 & 6).
10. Can you sing the fight song? I remember we had one, I had to play it in band, but since I was always playing it I don't ever remember learning the words. In any case, I can't remember the tune nor the lyrics.
11. Who was your favorite teacher? I guess I would have to say our band director. He worked our asses off but we consistantly made 1's in our competitions.
12. School Mascot? raiders (pirate).
13. Did you go to prom? I went to my junior prom but not my senior. I had broken up with the girl I had invited to the junior prom a month or so before it occured but we went anyway. we wound up getting back together sometime during my senior year and we were still together when I left town to go to college. it didn't last my first quarter.
14. If you could go back and do it over, would you? oh hell, no. (I wrote about this briefly here.) The gist is that I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't been the person I was then. but that isn't to say I haven't thought about it!
15. What do you remember most about graduation? losing my tassel when tossing my cap at the end of the ceremony. I was an honor student and it was a special tassel and I was proud of that/it. I went to the school the next day and scrounged another one.
16. Where were you on senior skip day? we didn't have an official senior skip day, and I wasn't hip enough to know if an unofficial one was planned/taken.
17. Did you have a job your senior year? I worked weekends at the local library in the fine arts department - Van was working there and let me know of an opening. The director of the department was openly gay and he wound up hitting on me one night. I was "rescued" from him by the deputy director of the library that night and upon, in turn, I hit on. after I left the library (when I went to college) my former boss was brought up on charges for making anonymous threatening phone calls to another official at the library. I had a second job during the summer after I graduated high school cutting down trees.
18. Where did you go most often for lunch? I didn't each lunch, I went to the school library and worked.
19. Have you gained weight since then? oh, hell yes.
20. What did you do after graduation? During the summer worked for a one-man tree service. Usually I would drive his dump truck and load it with what he had cut down, but I did climb & cut for some time while he recovered from falling out of a tree and spiking himself. near the end of the summer he was driving me over to pick up the dump truck when someone ran out into the road in front of us and we hit him. As it turned out Gary (the one-man) had a suspended license from a DUI so he ran from the scene. After spending 20 minutes at his aunt & uncle's house trying to establish an alibi, Gary took me back to my car and I split. I called the cops and they asked me to help look for him, so I spent the next hour riding around town in a cop car scared shitless we would actually find him (he was made of muscles and had a hell of a temper) - but we didn't. (he turned himself in the next day). needless to say, that was the end of that job. I started college that fall.
21. When did you graduate? 1980.
22. Who was your prom date? I am ashamed to say I cannot remember her name right now. We didn't go to the same high school so I can't look at my annual to see. weird thing is, even though I can't remember her name, I can still see her face and I still know how to get to her house.
23. Are you going/did you go to your 10 year reunion? nope.
24. Who was your home room teacher? don't have a clue.
25. Who will repost this after you? don't have a clue. I'm not omnipotent either.
11 deeply creased, dogeared comment(s):
and first i thought you wrote "and I'm not impotent either" and i thought "good for you, bob! and for Laura too!" but then i re-read it and realized that i fall into that square category as well. or dork. or what have you.
and rather like it.
Fellow nerd! Hell, yes! :)
"Nerd" became popular when I was in high school (late 60s), it seems. Before that we were called squares.
I think it's "geeks" now.
Interesting about you being an honor student. If the social crap in high school hadn't so defeated me, I would have been, too. In college, it was the Dean's List every year!
(sigh)
:)
Thanks. This was interesting.. and gives me an increased understanding of you. I'm kind of stuck in that ASA image. :)
Peace,
~Chani
You've led a colorful life. I have yet to read one of these in which the author indicated a willingness to return to high school. Guess I'll fall out of my chair when I do.
BTW, very impressive bruise. The Missus's BIL fell from the second story of a job site once and had similar results. You should have seen the look on her face when her sister said, "Jay you really need to she her your ass."
Marching band, you ARE a geek. That proves it.
That tree service job story is unreal.
I realize after reading this that my hs mascot was a raider too, not a patriot as i had said. Shows you how plugged into the scene i was.
Nice job, love the stories.
jen - I guess I liked being a square/nerd too.
As I get older I find I'm always doing the same thing you did with the impotent/omnipotent confusion. it makes reading even more interesting than it already was.
lolita - thanks for reading!
chani - I guess you're probably right, nerds were in existance when I was in high school - maybe my memories are older than I am.
it was probably partly due to not being popular I was able to make the grades I did - no distracting social life.
I am glad to help disabuse you of the ?NSA? image I gave you.
patches - I have a few stories to tell, I guess.
high school is such a volatile time in our lives (being a teenager sucks for most people) it seems the experience is either the best of our lives or the worst - not much middle ground.
how many times do wives find themselves telling their husbands to show other people their ass?
meno - yep - I was in marching band from the 8th grade until I graduated - and probably would have in college if mine had had one. I had to settle for orchestra and brass ensemble instead.
thanks!
this must be the meme of the week! made the jump from amusing---great stuff, and we just might be deep south neighbors!
I can see your band leader being your favourite teacher, he was mine too, a real sweetheart.
I can't believe you can't remember who you went to prom with! Poor girl! If only she knew she left you with that mush of an impression.
I should talk! I didn't want to go with either guy who asked me...neither of whom I was the least bit interested in so I didn't think it was fair to them and one worked for an undertaker and was going to take me in the HEARSE!!
i had such a different high school experience than most, the more I read about other people's experiences the more grateful I am for mine.
liv - we southerners have to stick together!
MoI - my bandleader was a bear - almost literally. he was very hirsute. he could growl with the best of them. But he inspired loyalty and gave it too. We worked hard for him.
I acknowledge my terribleness at not remembering her name. I cannot believe you turned down a prom date that involved a hearse!
urban-urchin - I am happy for your high-school self! I don't mean to imply that my whole adolescence was bad, but I personally never felt I belonged - and high school is if nothing else about belonging. others seem to have had similar experiences.
why don't you take the meme, I'd love to hear about your high school years.
Hey, cheater. If you went to more than one high school.... I listed all of mine.
Ah, now I get the drag show reference. What fun!
And YOU have the mystery question #22, which vanished somewhere along the trail of where I picked up the meme. I'd imagined it would be something much more original that someone took exception to and deleted...oh well.
amusing - cheater, hah! I was a singularly boring person my first two years of high school, anyway. I was mostly a band geek.
I FOUND the mystery question through much research and chasing of links. I too thought that it would be something embarrassing or sensitive to certain peoples and found it was most probably just a careless copy error.
Van and I had a great time hitting the local gay scene. He had to constantly remind people I was straight, and I think most just thought I was in denial.
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