I got some wonderful birthday wishes from my BFF from junior high yesterday, which prompted my doing this High School MEME (‘cuz you know it’s all about me, me)
Tragically, (and most everything is a tragedy when you’re 15) we moved to a new town after my sophomore year -I went to two different high schools. Moving is hard enough, but especially when you are only going to go to school with these people for two years. It’s hard to find a groove and stay with it. I had a lot of inconsistencies and never really “found myself” until I was about 25. No, I take that back. I’m still working on it.
1 Who was your best friend?
Freshman year: Lisa and Carrie and Kelly
Sophomore year: Kelly and Shannon
Junior year: Becky
Senior year: Heather and Sarah and Dawn (it depended on what I was doing)
2 What sports did you play?
Track and Cross-country
3 What kind of car did you drive?
1976 Dodge Colt
4 It’s Friday night, where were you?
Probably out, finding trouble. It was cool to “cruise the fours” (the one four lane street in town) and catch up with people in the old Hy-Vee parking lot. Then we’d usually find a party in a field somewhere
5 Were you a party animal?
Yes. I tried the straight and narrow for a while, several times, but always found myself back in the lap of Busch Light.
6 Were you considered a flirt?
Yes.
7 Were you in band, orchestra, or choir?
I was in choir and swing choir my fresh and soph years. When we moved, the choir director made me sing The Star Spangled Banner accapella, thereby relegating me to the sucky Chorus (instead of the talented Choir), and had me spend my lessons licking stamps for him instead of helping me improve. The jerk.
Oh no hard feelings.
8 Were you a nerd?
Well, I was smart and took “smart kid” classes and people always wanted to copy off of me. But I partied too much to really be a nerd. I always hated when we got our tests back and people would say “What’d you get?” I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t want to do better than they did, and I didn’t want to look dumb either. It only took a few seconds for the entire class to know that I scored really well, and for some reason I’d always be ashamed.
9 Did you get suspended/expelled?
Amazingly no.
10 Can you sing the fight song?
No. Did we have a fight song?
11 Who was your favorite teacher?
Probably my journalistic writing teacher. She was precise and exacting, demanding our best and yet interesting and fun. She was in charge of an award winning newspaper and yearbook (and I was one of the editors of the yearbook).
12 School mascot?
The Cardinal (red & white) (I was so mad we were moving I sold my letter jacket for a penance, a choice I still regret.)
The Demon (black & orange) (and even though I lettered right away, letter jackets weren’t cool at my new school, so I never got one)
13 Did you go to Prom?
Junior year I took a jerky Sophomore I was dating at the time; we were broken up by the time we had to our pictures retaken because the photog lost/ruined rolls of film
Senior year I went with the guy I had been dating since December, but we were already broken up, and so I was going to go with my girlfriends, but his mom called me and begged me to go with him so I did.
14 If you could go back and do it over, would you?
It doesn’t matter how confident or intelligent you are, how aware of the stupidity of high-school politics – the environment is stronger than the individual—there was so much approval we were trying to garner from each other that never came. So much insecurity. So much angst that pits everyone against each other. Kevin doesn’t remember high school like this, but I don’t think it’s as bad for guys.
15 What do you remember most about graduation?
All the presents. I am still amazed at the amount of money I got just for showing up at school. Graduating college, which actually took a bit of effort, seemed to not even be a blip on anyone’s radar.
Oh, and I was still a little peeved my essay didn’t get chosen to be read at graduation. It was really good, but I hadn’t had time to type it & the teacher messed up on reading it several times because of my handwriting.
16 Where were you on senior skip day?
We didn’t do that. Although I would get passes to go home during study hall, or go get donuts. The secretaries liked me.
17 Did you have a job your senior year?
I worked at an ice cream shop and at a daycare, running the after school program.
18 Where did you go most often for lunch?
We could only eat in the cafeteria
19 Have you gained weight since then?
Considering I’m no longer running for two hours every day, and I’ve had two babies, what do you think?
20 What did you do after graduation?
I partied more. I mean, I went to college.
And in light of reminicing: here is my junior high/early high school crush
I had a Corey Haim collage, Corey Haim pinups all the way around my room, literally, all.the.way. around. and a Corey Haim competition with one of my BFFs about who was crushing harder on Corey Haim. Good times.