Small town, long ago.
Teenagers boogied and swayed to the hits of the day. Bands played covers, DJs played what they had in their album collection. Inevitably the unmistakable opening bars of Stairway to Heaven would draw couples to the darkened dance floor to sway in pseudo box step until Jimmie Page cut lose midway through the song. Then we just tried to figure out how to dance to the rock and roll. Lacking any sense of rhythm at all, I usually gave up and headed for the wall to stand with my buddies or huddle in whispers with my girlfriend.
If it wasn’t Stairway, it was Freebird. Same problem, slow to fast mid tune.
The BeeGees would intermix with Kansas or Toto as the music pulsed and the bass pounded making us forget it was just hours earlier when we sat before compartmentalized melamine trays eating meat loaf or fish sticks in that very room.
In the parking lot muscle cars rumbled through glass packs in the mufflers as kids chugged Strohs or rolled weed for a quick high. Boston jammed and Styx and REO played rock in those pre-ballad days on loud car stereos. Boone’s Farm got many a date drunk.
Girls came to be seen. Boys came to look. We knew everyone. Six hundred students spread over four grades meant secrets were hard to keep. Teachers were old: probably thirty or so. Maybe younger. The really old ones wouldn’t chaperone on a dare.
Most of us had part time jobs: farm, retail, fast food, gas pump jockeys. Friday nights were the times to party, to celebrate life, and display a little school spirit. I had a good time.
I wouldn’t go back for any sum of money. I lived it and I have no doubt at all my memories are way better than what I actually experienced.
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| You can tell by the size of the gym the role of basketball |
5 comments:
excellent writing!
Thank you.
When I first put it down I found it clunky. I still do, even though I worked on this one way more than usual.
There are two lines I like, the rest, meh.
I appreciate your comment.
Oozing nostalgia, eh?
My school was small, too. 600 total, 140 in my class. It was (is) big time rural. I loved it at the time. I went to 3-4 reunions after graduation. Refuse to go to any more. The people changed...or I did.
Never went to a reunion. Have no interest in going to one.
The past is the past. I’m not one of those “High school was the best time in my life” types. It wasn’t. It also wasn’t bad. It just was.
I really just have nothing to say to those people. They are strangers I used to know.
There was a time I enjoyed reunions. My school was a small one until we Boomers exploded. Still, it was smaller than most schools today.
For a long time I assumed(!) my schoolmates shared my political beliefs.
I was wrong.
And I have NO interest in future reunions.
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