High School Friends

DSP Blog Prompt:
Did you have a lot of friends in high school or just one or two very close friends? What did you and your friends do for fun? Are you still in contact with any of them?

I would think of myself as anti social on one hand, but, then again, I had a huge amount of friends. They just weren't your cookie cutter high school kids, and we didn't engage in cookie cutter high school activities. I would say that we played TOO hard. A lot of us never recovered from it.

We skipped school. Of course, we'd be hungry, so we'd crash our friend Shawn's house and guess who got to cook breakfast, cause they were the only one who could cook a from-scratch breakfast? Moi. So I taught the boys how to make bisciuts from scratch. We were pretending to be in Home Ec! We were learning.....just not where and what we were supposed to at 9 am. Who wants Algebra III at 9 am when you can have a biscuit and someone's mom's beer???? Or, how about...um...geography. We'd explore the terrain on three wheelers. Unfortunately we wrecked and I broke my nose. Then we wrecked again and run the thing off in the river. (Robin's dad was SO mad at us!!!)

We'd push the bar....... Jump railroad tracks, drag race, play 'chicken' with trains, explore haunted houses, drink too much, drive too fast. Fight too hard. Sleep too late. Jam too loud (all the boys played electric guitar or drums). Sneak out at night, hitch a ride into town, meet up with buds and be off on the next adventure. We played hide and seek in graveyards. Skinnydipping? Too lame!! (but we did it anyway) Midnight motorcycle rides, bonfires, rock concerts, keg parties, seances.....Life was an endless cup of this robust, effervescent, intoxicating brew, and we drank deeply of it.

We were 80's babies......it was sex, drugs and rock n roll all the way. Pink Floyd was old school, and to be revered, so it blared from the stereo systems of Camaros, Z-28's and Iroc Z's. We made every rock concert we could afford, even if we had to skip or miss school or face the wrath of a parent. Was two weeks of house arrest an endurable punishment for a trip to the big city, to get a front row seat at a Motley Crue concert...to have Vince Neil grab your hand and see Tommy Lee play his drums naked? You bet. (If you got desperate, just sneak out. ) Lita Ford was the new Stevie Nicks and all the girls had wild platinum blonde hair just like her. We sported black concert T-shirts, ripped jeans, and black bangles. Butterfly knives were nestled in our black leather boots decorated with chains, and we knew how to use them.

Live life in the fast lane, and you crash and burn. A few of us actually graduated, and went on to have a healthy, happy adult life. Quite a bit more than I would have expected, looking back now. Some of us were forced to straighten up (when babies were on the way). Some of us didn't make it to see 18, and even more didn't make it to see the first wrinkle line our faces before we were lain in the grave. Still more succumbed to the evils of addiction in one form or another, others landed in jail for a long, long time.

A lot of those friends are still very dear to me and we still get together from time to time, although the social gatherings have tamed down considerably. Some of them I have distanced myself from in the greater insterest of preserving what I have become. I can't believe we even made it through a month of that kind of lifestyle. I wouldn't trade my memories for anything but I wouldn't go back for a million dollars, either.

And I cry for the ones I have lost.