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Eat drink and be merry
by anna at 02:39 PM on March 13, 2005
As a kid one of my friends' and I's favorite passtimes was mudball fights. We'd make golf ball sized globs of mud and leave them out in the sun to dry. We'd stack them the way they used to stack cannonballs. On cue we'd start flinging them at one another at point blank range. With practice you'd develop deadly accuracy.
We'd ride our bikes far afield, miles away to other parts of the town. We'd also go down into the storm drain that snakes its way across town. We'd follow it for miles just to see where it ended. As it turned out it was in a bad section of town, but we didn't even know it. Nothing happened. We had the immunity youth brings.
Another big thing was minibikes. We'd tear around the neighborhood on them with impunity. As we got a little older (13 or so) we started eyeing out parents' cars. The best ones were fast sports cars dads had bought in the throes of midlife crises. Late at night we'd creep out, snag the keys and go for a joy ride. This was usually done during sleepovers. We'd time them to coincide with girls' sleepovers. We'd drive by their houses and pick them up. As our parents were rising, we were pulling into the garage with the sunrise behind us. Nobody was the wiser.
Along about the same time we started raiding our parents' well-stocked bars. We learned to dilute the bottles so the little bits we'd pilfer wouldn't be missed. But of course, they were in time. By that time though, we'd grown bored with that and moved on to other things.
We all carried switchblades and stilletos. We'd shoot each other with pellet gund. Fistfights were a daily occurence. So were swirlies. There's nothing quite like having your head dunked in a filthy school toilet and having it flushed over and over.
At age 16, everyone I knew was sexually active. It wasn't like we were sluts or anything. But relationships involved sex, plain and simple.
I mention all this because today's kids don't seem to enjoy that same kind of freedom. We've all grown way overprotective of our children, and I don't think that is a good thing. It's like that thing they say about more kids suffering from respiratory ailments than before. Many scientists believe it's because they live in such squeaky-clean conditions.
But that's not all. I think today's youth lack some boldness, some spirit and adventurousness. Somehow society has managed to suck all the verve out of them. All these dire warnings about STDS, global warming, terrorists and child molester at every turn have got them cowed. And again, it is not a good thing. Your youth is, above all, supposed to fun. You've got an entire boring lifetime to be responsible.
Speaking of which, might I add that I'd just as soon go the rest of mine without ever hearing a liquor pusher tell me to "drink responsibly." What the hell is that supposed to mean?
comments (11)
Ah hah, timing the sleepover, was that an art? I think so. You'd come together in school, males and females uniting, it was as secretive as the Nazi gathering to decide the Final Solution, uh, only the eventual result of the meeting wasn't so dire. It had to remain secret, even amongst trusted friends and allies because there was always the cockhead: “We’re the ‘ard ‘n’ ugly clan” gang, usually the hardest kid in school - with a collection of none-friends shivering beside him, standing ready to laugh should he say something that’s supposed to be funny - who'd manage to fuck things up by turning up and, I don't know, maybe starting a fight, all because they weren't getting any.
I remember a gal used to have sleepovers every weekend, and I often wondered, until I asked her about it, if her parents ever bothered to ask her why she and her friends preferred to pitch a tent in the huge back garden, than sleep indoors. She said her parents didn't care, they were probably enjoying the: "don't have to be quiet time" in the house. *Squeak squeak squeak* Two of my friends and I took a liking to sleeping in an eight-berth tent every Saturday night when we were teens... Gaaawd would I love to go back to that time! If I could pick a day in my life to be repeated again and again, for all eternity, it would be the second time I climbed into that tent!
by Ex Crimson Guard NCO at March 14, 2005 5:41 PM
We'd always pair off and smooch in the same car. That was awkward enough, but it got far worse when some of the guys took things a step further. That distinctive moaning in closed quarters. Talk about peer pressure!
by anna at March 14, 2005 6:05 PM
Wow. I wonder if this went on at my high school. If so, only the popular kids were doing it, and they weren't letting on. Hmmm...
by jean at March 15, 2005 2:47 AM
We weren't popular, we were what was known as "freaks." But oddly, in their senior year, a lot of the popular girls starting slumming with us. They'd gotten bored with the jocks, I guess. I remember one of their jocky brothers catching me with one of them. He was too shocked to kick my ass.
by anna at March 15, 2005 7:45 AM
Do you know the classrooms I see on TV, is that the generic layout for an American high school classroom? Those desks that seat one kid, sort of, half a desk, rows of them. You can sit next to a friend, but not 'right' next to a friend?
The desks of my school were like boardroom tables, two of us on each side, eight around one table in all, and about four of these per classroom. There was a kind of class system, you'd have the unpopular table, usually at least four pairs of spectacles, two over weights, a goth, and maybe one or two, "Yes, I'm wearing my older brother/sister’s old uniform, I am hand-me-down kid." Conversations on this table probably consisted of: "Most powerful card in the deck." Between the spectacles. "The boy/girl who has never acknowledged me, but I love him/her." Between the over weights. And perhaps, "The teacher thinks I have promise." Between the ones seriously thinking about their futures.
You'd get the middle kids, able to blend into and sometimes squeeze onto, either the unpopular or popular tables, depending on actions that year. These kids ranged from skaters, to what you'd call jocks. Each table was a blend of males and females, there was never an entirely 'one sex' desk. Conversation of middle kids, made up of two tables, could be anything from: “I had a fight with the cock of Anderby House, and kicked his arse.” To, “I had sex with Mr Morton, the sports teacher, and the whole school is talking about it.”
And then the popular table, the closest table to the teacher's desk. This table can talk for the whole class, without the rest of the class having to agree, making suggestions to the teacher for Tutorial days in which learning things is pushed aside for more important activities, like doing nothing but shoot shit for an hour straight, and for the most part taking the piss out the teacher without the teacher realising. Not being up to scratch on youth speak and all. This table is generally blessed by symmetry, good looks all round. Conversation here is usually, “Me, I, myself, mine.” Or, “My parents, my uncle, we own, we bought…”
Each class had a Form Tutor, and every morning, and afternoon, the tables would come together for register and all that malarkey. So the system was only like that for a couple of hours each day. When selected lessons began though, each table was split because we had all been given the choice of subjects, "You want French or Spanish, or German?" And you'd have to traipse to another end of the school grounds, to come together with kids from other House blocks, who'd selected the same subject as you. Here popular mixed with unpopular, because the teacher dictated where you'd sit. In the beginning, like moving from primary to High School, the time the kids blended, fights would break out, everyone trying to establish some kind of reputation that they would hold for the next five years. Hehe, I miss school. :(
If those classrooms I see on TV are the standard for the States, what the hell was the classroom layout for you guys? Jocks to the back, swots to the front, the rest in the middle? I’m curious… Just wondering. :)
by Ex Crimson Guard NCO at March 15, 2005 3:39 PM
It was pretty much the way you describe. The table format would be considered exclusionary or something. But I remember always being assigned to one of those half-desks and surrounded by nerds I'd never consider talking to. And their conversations were awfully Star Trekky.
by anna at March 15, 2005 6:42 PM
The clustered tables were in my school district only up until eighth grade. High school was like Anna said. The jocks were mostly in the back, and nerds were mostly in front, except my school district also had different levels of classes. You could take the same course in different levels, which was basically segregation. For example, we had Advanced Placement English, English A, English B, and English C. AP English was almost a college level course, A was college prep but if you took all A-level classes you probably wouldn't get into the most competitive colleges, B was vocational, and C was remedial. Actually, this system is not supposed to be legal, but it exists. I have to say that it was probably the best my district would do. We have residents of all socioeconomic kinds, both rich kids and poor kids that just got into the country that year, and both rich kids and poor kids that had lived in the U.S. all their lives; also, everyone was an immigrant.
Anyways, A and B level classes would end up being half jocks and no nerds, C level classes were all immigrants who were still learning to speak English, and AP classes were half nerds and half popular people who were also extremely driven.
by jean at March 17, 2005 2:14 AM
It still goes on but in subtle ways. We used to have this huge hassle with the school my son went to. When we raised some issues, they wanted to put him in a learning disabled class, but he was way too smart. All we wanted was some minor acomodations, but it is all or nothing. Anyway, he grew out of it. Now he is class rank #1!
by anna at March 17, 2005 7:50 AM
Awesome! Congratulations to him!
by jean at March 18, 2005 2:18 AM
Welll, him and 45 other kids with a 4.0 in IB program classes.
by anna at March 18, 2005 6:30 PM
Way to pee on the praises, dad. :)
by Ex Crimson Guard NCO at March 18, 2005 10:06 PM