High School Memories…
When that dude wrote “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” I’m convinced he was talking about high school. High school seems like that unbearable time in your life where you’re trying to figure out everything. Life, boyfriends/girlfriends, colleges, the future. It’s like all of a sudden, we were in training to be adults when I wasn’t sure I was done being a teenager.
High school wasn’t all bad though. Matter of fact, if you did it right, high school could’ve been like that movie “13 Going on 30.” My high school memories passed by in a blur, but there’s a few that I remember best..
1. Band practice: Back before we knew what “Stomp the Yard” was, there was my band. Don’t get it mistaken, my band director picked the worst kind of music. There was NOTHING about our band that made you want to get out of the seats (except the drum cadences.. check that spelling please). However, I was a flaggette. We danced and twirled flags and we were the dopest things that band had. Except when it was windy. Few people knew how to control the flag when it was windy, you’d toss it in the air and that ish would slap you in the face. But there’s NO amount of dancing that could save the musical selection of “Toto” by Africa. I loved being a flaggette, and I still know how to work a pole.
2. Lunch: My school sat behind a mall. This mall was very popular back then. The fact that this mall had a video arcade meant that I spent lunch playing Mortal Kombat and then going home. Yeah, you read that right, I didn’t go back to classes after lunch.
3. Skipping: Once I figured out how close my house was to school (2 miles) I was hardly there. Of course, this was only done my senior year as I was still scared to do it in the 10th and 11th grade. I would go to lunch, then go home. Skipping and going to the beach was a classic move too. I skipped and went over my boyfriend’s house. I skipped and went to my friend’s pool. This caught up with me though and summer school soon became part of my repertoire.
4. Football Games: Being that I was in the band, then football games were what we LIVED for. The day of a game, we would all just hang around after school walking up and down the empty hallways. We would go get chinese food (from the mall) and then all the football players and band people would eat. Give it an hour and you cold walk the halls and just see everyone sleeping in different corners. I don’t know why this memory has stayed with me, but it had. Actually going to the games were great. Singing on the busses, trying to gauge the cuteness of the guys from the other school based on which team we were playing. Listening to booty shake music on the way back home (after stopping off at Checkers, of course). I dated (if that’s what you can call it) a couple of football players and that was fun too.
5. Choir: I don’t even think I can sing, but I was in the choir. The magic of it is, I don’t remember anything about what we sang. I DO remember talking wayy too much to Karolina (hello) and my music teacher slamming the piano and throwing his keys at people. He would get red in the face and spit would fly out of his mouth. The guy I wrote about in my First Love post was in the choir too. And yes LAWD, he could SANG! Years after we had broken up, I asked him if he could sing at my wedding. He said, “no.”
I could say that I went to dances and such, but I didn’t. I didn’t do much in high school in ways of activities. I was busy failing all my math classes (and re-taking them) and working. I have a special fondness for a certail stairwell too, but that’s my business. I remember my Dickies and the Jansport bookbag that I carried everywhere. The year that a football player moved into my building and we became friends, until he told me he liked me and I had to fall back. Getting grounded right before Homecoming because I stayed out past curfew listening to “That’s All I Ask of You” in my homeboy’s car. Listening to Tribe Called Quest as my friend drove me home. To this day, he and I can look at each other and say “Electric Relaxation” and we’ll both laugh.
I don’t miss high school, then again I do. Maybe I’m feeling a certain way because this will be the year of my 15th high school reunion. I’m not going. I went to the 10th year one and I realized, I can only look at so many pictures of babies.
What do you miss about high school? Do you even miss it at all? What’s your favorite memory?
Go have at it…
Peace and Love, Nick
Nick@Nite 
High school was a good time for me. Debate trips, football games, and general adolescent f***kery kept me busy. I don’t really miss it because my high school crew is still tight. Many of the friends that we made college are now also in the circle too. A-alikes connect I guess.
-I miss the jokes we cracked with each other in class and at lunch.
-I don’t miss eating the lunch.
-I don’t miss being at school as a whole. My. School sat in front of cattle ranch and a maximum security state prison. This made for some interesting smells in August and May.
-The two biggest memories come from my senior year. My first cousin Wanda was killed in a head on collision in October of ’96. I saw her in honors econ that morning and the next time I saw her she was in a coma that night. My next memory was the massive brawl at lunch the second semester of that year.
Interesting times indeed but I have no desire to go to any reunions for the Allendale-Fairfax class of ’97.
Eh, I don’t necessarily miss high school. I miss college if anything.
But high school at it’s great moments….
1. Sporting Events- My high school was pretty dope in the athletic department, winning all sorts of titles. Nothing like a sold out rival game…and we had the 2nd biggest gym in the county. Booing the refs…making signs. Walking home cold as hell after a football game. Good times.
2. Jock priveleges- I got away w/ murder simply b/c I balled and played volleyball. Once I realized this, I took advantage of it. Abusing all passes when it was convienient. Skipping school, but coming to a game or practice. Wearing athletic flip flops and break aways pants (flip flops were not allowed). I was like royalty.
3. The cafe- Moving to the suburbs from Newark did wonder for my school lunch life. We had Dominoe’s pizza. Deli sandwhiches. Curly fries. Standard sandwiches like PB&J, Egg Salad, Bolgona…that was served everyday. Then you had your hot lunch. And the pretzel stand. I was in heaven. There was the Black cafe and the White cafe too. The Kabalsi Posse (Polish dudes), The Asian Mafia, Hatian Sensations…they sat in the black cafe.
4.Delayed openings b/c of testing- Ah, this was awesome. There was a diner near the school, so we would leave out regular time for school and go eat. Then some white kid w/ a big house near the school, would have everybody over. People getting high like kite, music blaring, jokes being thrown. It was then that I realized white kids knew how to party, and learned early on. I also learned that as the token black girl, I didn’t have to pay for sh*t,lol
“and I still know how to work a pole.”
Pause.
i met up with a hs friend last weekend, and we both said there are def certain things we miss about hs
for the most part only worrying about grades was #1. being an adult with bills and stuff is for the damb birds.
and while relations between boys and girls haven’t changed much, writing a note and being juvenile was part of the experience. now..im expected to be grown (while some still haven’t gotten past the juvenile part).
fave memory: all the events i was a part of. it helped get over my shyness and inadvertently launched the career that i have today.
Soooooooooooo I may or may not have any recollection of our antics sitting in the back row in the alto section of Mr. Wells’ class. Nor am I confirming or denying any events that happened with his keys. I will however say that I swear I thought I was not going to graduate after slapping him that one day! I’m just thankful that he didn’t expel me.
1. Our Band kicked ARSE!!! It was the reason that I went to the football games… other than to ogle the football players from both sides 🙂
2. Lunch… was always an adventure. I remember sitting out front under the big oak tree right on the corner and swearing that we were all going to get hit by cars passing by… did it sstop me from doing it the very next day?? Nope. And I remember one day where i actually did not want to skip after lunch and was just going to get lunch and gas for the car and go back… and my car died at the gas station. Glad Mr. Wells and Mr Diskin took the receipt I got from the tow company as evidence of not skipping.
3. Loved the days where everything aligned and all was well with the world and you could skip.. and get away with it! Those were the days I went to the beach with friends. Or just drove down to South Beach just for fun and to say we did. Oooooooor ending up at a random friend’s house to hang out with guys who graduated a year before us just to sit, chill and watch a movie. AAAaaaahhh those were the days.
4. As stated previously…. I only went to the games to see our band and the football teams before and after. I just cheered when everyone else from our school did. My other friends and I never really went just so we could sit and watch the game…. there were always other motives.
5. Which brings me back to choir….. Far above our dreams and our wishes far beyond our hopes and our fears rise the challenges of tomorrow that we face throughout the coming years. we strive towards the light to fix our eyes on the stars of truth. this is our search our challenge light and truth in quest of tomorrow today. Think Mr Wells drilled that into my head enough? I still can’t happily listen to Walkin’ in a Winter Wonderland or Carol of the Bells without flinching about that whole key things. Oh I mean… yea I don’t have anything to cover that up with. We had fun in that class on a daily basis. I don’t recall any real tests we had in that class or any homework other than learn the song for the next concert.
Aaaaahhh the good old days of not having bills and not having to work… oh wait…. never mind i had both of those back then too. Not to mention a whole heap of other things that were going on then.
Surprisingly work became an extension of school because of all the kids that worked at my store…. since it was so close to school. Fun times and I got paid…. it couldn’t get better. oh wait.. yes it could. Hello hot Mario who got to train me on a register. And Jaime…. who I got to hang out with after the store closed and it was just us outside watching the Christmas trees and chatting… until Mario walked out and saw us talking and felt he should stay to make sure I was safe. Male chivalry at it’s finest.
As for favorite memory…. honenstly I’d have to say it was graduation day. Not only was it what we were all working towards for so long but it was the last day that we HAD to see each other. Any day after that it was because we wanted to see each other. Although I do have very close runners up to the favorite…. getting to school early every morning just to hang out in the student parking lot listening to music and hanging out with freinds before class. Spray painting my parking stump with beeper codes so that everyone knew it was MINE! And prom night…. after the dance going up to a friend’s room to keep the party going and finding out that one of our fellow students was having an alvcohol induced emotional breakdown… on the balcony ledge…in heels… fun times… we left real quick. I do have regrets about high school… that I will not mention here. And for the record I know why you have a certain fondness for a certain stairwell… you shared that story with me when we caught back up after how many years?
And yes I know my comment is a tad long. My apologies
Fast Times was filmed in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles (although it is never explicitly mentioned as such in the film), and many people identify the movie with that area and the teen culture that existed there, or was perceived to, in the early 1980s. “Ridgemont” is a fictional name. (There is a small suburban community named Ridgemont in California near Hollister .) Crowe applied it to Clairemont High School in San Diego where he attended the school undercover. (Spicoli mentions surfing at Sunset Cliffs, a genuine surf spot near San Diego.) Most of the exteriors of Ridgemont High School were shot at Van Nuys High School , and other scenes were shot at Canoga Park High School and Torrance High . The “Ridgemont Mall” shown in the film was actually the Sherman Oaks Galleria , with its exterior shot at Santa Monica Place . Both have since been converted to open-air malls. “The Point” was filmed at the Encino Little League Field in Encino .