Mine’s tonight, and I can’t go, and I’ll be truly blue over this all day long.
List the five things you connect with your senior year!
5. self-esteem: I’d so love to go back in time and smack my 17-year-old self upside the head. You were ADORABLE, you moron! why’d you doubt that??
4. corduroy: The fabric d’choice…boys, girls, pants, skirts, suits…tuxes….
3. the 50s revival: Happy Days was on TV and Grease was the word in theaters. We had a couple of sockhops, even. I figured at the time that all the decades would enjoy a comeback…except, I said, the 70s: no one would ever think that look was fashion worth repeating. I was half-right.
2. disco: You people who are my age need to own the fact that disco was fun then, and it’s fun now. In fact, “Disco Inferno” and “Don’t Leave Me This Way” and “Last Dance” — three of the best songs of that era.
1. Earth,Wind, & Fire’s “September”: Further proof of #2. (“Do you remember/the 21st night of September/…Never was a cloudy day.”) Appropriately enough, this came out the Fall semester of my senior year. And it brings me back to seventeen, every time I hear it. And it brings me back with joy.
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-PSYCH: Heck of a fun show and still on. They had a good episode about high school reunion that, though it came out two months after graduation, was so good I connect it to my senior year.
-iPod: I was dragged kicking and screaming into this thing.
-Biblical Resources: I worked here for our interim week.
-High School Football: I was the Coach’s assistant (a.k.a. waterboy). I had fun and learned how to do it. It is harder than it looks.
-Indy IV: Saw this the day after graduation . . .
On my fifth one, were these supposed to be good memories, or just memories?
Because then if Great memories, then DARK KNIGHT takes the place of Indy IV.
Ugly Band Uniforms-our first uniforms were hideous. We had those big tall fuzzy hats, but in black, so we looked like dirty q-tips. We got new ones my junior year.
Crickets- We marched in UTA stadium and the place is over run with crickets every October. They would fly down my uniform while trying to march. Ewwww ick ick ick
Six Flags Over Texas- worked there my sophomore and junior years. Fabulous job, lots of boys, not horrible uniforms, and free SF anytime I wasn’t working.
Shoulder Pads and Black Rubber Bracelets- I thought if one was good, 250 were better, and that I needed to look like a line backer. Ugh.
Large Cement Parking Lots- As you can see, I was a band geek. We weren’t allowed to march on the practice field, we might mess it up for the football team(the big babies), we had to march on the back parking lot. It actually wasn’t bad, except in August. Texas August + a cement parking lot + band practice = lots of fainting students. If that were in today’s world, band director would be sued. Back then we just moved the body, gave them some water and you got to sit out until the next run through.
I chose not to go to my 20 year. I had a great time in high school, but I haven’t spoken to any of them in 20 years. I didn’t see the point in paying $200 to re-start friendships that were obviously ones I could live without. I don’t have enough time for the friendships I really want right now.
The Joshua Tree came out
Hanging out at my friend Heather’s house… her parents had a TV room in the back and the gang hung out there all the time it seems
My yellow ‘74 Nova
I’m not sentimental enough to remember much more than that. I have no bad memories only good so that will suffice I guess.
5: Go back in time and tell my 90 pound self its OK to eat that pizza and stop worrying about being so thin. Get yourself sick…which I did.
4: Big Hair and Aqua Net….and lots of spandex.
3: Glam metal and enjoying Rock n Roll.
2: Great TV shows like Magnum PI and the Equalizer and mini series like North and South.
1: Telling my crush I thought he was cute that last day in school. HE was always so nice to me and I made Molly Ringwald’s Samantha Baker look like Marlene Dietrich……timid, shy and gauche. What an idiot. Sighhhhhhhhhhh
I don’t normally comment in this thread but I gotta say, I’m loving reading these!
1. Swimming Pools: we had one in our backyard (it was California, everyone had one at their house) and I had some great pool parties with my buddies before I graduated and moved away. Plus, me and my high school girlfriend had a few awkward makeout sessions in there as well. After graduation I moved to cooler, wetter places where pools are almost impossible to find, so whenever I see one I am instantly transported back to age 18.
2. Mid-90s music: when I graduated, grunge was on its way out, and was slowly giving way to insipid boy bands. Lucky I got out of the music scene when I did. I could probably list a hundred great bands that we listened to in high school, but Third Eye Blind and Bush are the ones that really make me nostalgic for my senior year.
3. Burger King: there was a Burger King two blocks away from our school, and we loved the freedom of driving there during lunch break to hang out. The conversations we had over cigarettes and french fries were mostly mundane kid stuff, but they were usually the highlight of our day. It’s still my favorite fast food joint, but they’re harder to find here- I have to drive across two towns to get a Whopper these days.
4. Mr. Holland’s Opus: it was a really popular movie with band geeks like me. Our music teacher (who was everyone’s favorite) got fired the year I graduated. It was like watching the end of that movie play out in real life. And knowing that our performance at the graduation ceremony would not only be our swan song, but his as well…”bittersweet” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
5. The Ford Taurus: I got an old beat-up Taurus as my first car, a hand-me-down from my parents. It broke down all the time (which as especially inconvenient since I drove a carpool) and the tape player only worked about half the time. Later I managed to get my hands on a nice shiny SUV that runs great, but sometimes I see someone driving a beat-up old Taurus on the freeway and I secretly wish I could trade places with them for just a little while.
Why was your gym teacher fired?
I mean music teacher. Sorry.
School politics, Kit. He butted heads with the administration one too many times. He had actually been retired for years (and a legend in his field- one of his high school marching bands once performed at JFK’s inauguration), and just came out of retirement to go back to teaching because he loved it, so he was pretty much fearless when it came to saying what was on his mind. Got him in too much trouble, I guess.
He was an amazing guy, well into his 70s when I knew him but he had more energy and enthusiasm than most of the teenagers at the school. He also knew alot of people in showbiz. He actually got Gene Kelly to come down to our school once as a favor to help us choreograph some dances for a musical we were doing. I kid you not.
1976-77, Southeastern PA:
Running I was Zero-Mostel-quality fat fat fat until high school, when I finally began to grow into my weight. But I was still soft. Spring of my junior year, I started running as a way of working off my depression over not getting into my first-choice college. I kept on into my senior year and beyond. By the time of graduation, I was lean and stringy, running five miles a day, and had my heart rate down to about 4 beats per day.
Star Wars Mind-blowing, high quality, and totally fed my science fiction jones. Also, utterly refreshing for the way it unabashedly depicted good guys vs. bad guys. Also, the first movie I ever went to see in the theater multiple times.
Colby College Dad went to a major medical conference @ Colby in the summer after I graduated, and he took the whole family. I ran every morning, read every afternoon, and hung with the other teenaged children-of-doctors. One glorious night, we sat up on the hill behind the campus, and watched a meteor shower that seemed to last until dawn. I’ve never seen the Milky Way stand out so vividly in the sky as it did that evening. Another night, we all went into town and saw Star Wars (my fourth viewing by that time).
Marching Band White bucks and snow-white busby, baby! Summer before senior year, band camp in the hot August sun with the smells from the surrounding farm fields wafting over us; during lunch break we’d go to one of the kids’ nearby homes and jump in the pool, then go back still damp, and listen to Cheech & Chong 8-tracks in the parking lot until practice started up again. We were darn good that year, marched in tons of parades, and @ band competitions beat the pants off schools three times our size. Junior year, I played bass drum; senior year, I moved up to the timbales. My bloody knuckles were a badge of honor.
My Crew Tom and Beth, Walt and Wendy, me and Krissa. The six of us went everywhere together, triple dated constantly. The day after the senior prom (I took Krissa in my dad’s ‘73 Buick Electra 225 Ltd, by far the largest car I’ve ever been in in my life), we all went to Great Adventure (exit 7A of the New Jersey Turnpike). I miss those guys.
5. Pride — Coming off a junior year where too many people (doctors, occupational & physical therapists, teachers) counted post-coma me out so I gave ‘em all the finger, got a 4.25 GPA and earned college credit with my AP European & American History scores, leading to being accepted to Penn State main campus in October of senior year. Of course, early acceptance unfortunately led to…
4. Sloth — Coasted through the subsequent months, keeping an A-/B average, barely. Academic attitude sadly carried over to college.
3. Shenanigans — Skipped school for the first time(s), pissed around waaaaaaay too much, watched Spinal Tap at least 100 times, made a complete ass of myself giving an anti-speech speech at Senior Breakfast before graduation, disappointing my acting teacher immensely (still one of my few regrets in life).
2. Dirty Dancing — Swayze or no Swayze, I will always loathe this film for never going away my senior year, infecting every dance theme save Homecoming as it hadn’t quite caught on yet (I was Student Government — in the greatest turn of irony ever, Class Treasurer — so had to attend). Time of my life, my ass. Fortunately, dove in head-first with Pleased to Meet Me and the rest of the Replacements catalog.
1. Escape — Great place to grow up, the Buckeye State, but NW Ohio is not for lovers or anyone who wants to spread their wings artistically/creatively, at least not this guy.
P.S. Have much fonder memories of junior year. Wasn’t allowed to play sports due to aforementioned head injury, but, oh, the amount of concerts and honing of the writing and stage crafts.
EP brother! Good job on number one!
+JMJ+
5. Mga Ibong Mandaragit by Hernandez — the awful novel I had to read for Filipino class
4. The black dress I wore for the Graduation Ball
3. The Romance novel craze which swept the graduating class (It was an all girls’ school)
2. The Chocolate War by Cormier — which I read instead of a Romance novel during the last few days of the school year
1. One of the teachers throwing a hissy fit and alienating nearly everyone in the student body but myself . . . She would later be my partner when I came back to my alma mater to teach–and that was when she alienated me. =S
(Hmmmm. No music. I guess it wasn’t a good year?)
A graduate of the class of 1969, disco was a ways off. My friends were listening to the sounds of Hendrix, Zeppelin, et al, while I immersed myself in Brubeck, Rich, Basie, Ellington and the rest. Back then, Brubeck’s music was called “progressive jazz”. Now, I find my old favorites in the “history” section of our public library. Though I didn’t dance, disco was still good music. The problem was over-exposure. Folks couldn’t get away from it.
70s Movies: M. A. S. H.; French Connection, SUPERMAN, and, of course, Star Wars
Literature: Day of the Jackal, Slaughterhouse Five, The Gulag Archipelago, The Odessa Files, Serpico.
My class just celebrated it’s 40th year reunion. Months ago, one of my friends chided me for not having attended any of them, and encouraged me to attend the one just past. I didn’t go; but, found out that my friend had decided to go to an EPA Clean Water Seminar, instead. I guess age has finally caught up to us!
5. Driving my enemies before me.
4. Pillaging their houses.
3. Slaughtering their livestock.
2. Seeing the smoke of their burning villages.
1. Hearing the lamentations of their women.
Um, Lars?
I think you confused senior-year with junior-year foreign exchange.
HAHHAHAHAHA! Ok Conan…OK.
Rape, kill, pillage and burn … eat babies. Nicely done, Lars!
Lars,
Those were good times, goooood times. I got 5 DVDs, 4 new socks, 3 oven mittens, two great books, and a partridge in a pear tree.
By the way, Lars wins the Award for Best Response.
Lars,
If justjack is right, then you had one fun Junior-Year!
Reminds me of South Park and the Mongorians.
Kit, would that be like Maxwell Smart and the Craw?
In my best Sinatra voice … “It wasn’t a very good year.”
5. My grandfather died in my father’s arms which caused my father to have a heart attack (he lived through it though and is fine). Neither made it to my graduation.
4. Ronald Reagan was president (at least that was good).
3. Game six of the ‘86 world series (another low point).
2. Got my first car … a Subaru hatchback (I know, just one tragedy after another).
1. Went on a trip with friends to Acapulco after graduation, where we were of legal age to drink! (at least my senior year came to a good close)