Yesterday, my sister Heather and her husband had a garage sale. At the end of the garage sale, my brother-in-law Jim told me that if I wanted any of the CDs he'd been selling, they were up for grabs for free. After rifling through the bin, I grabbed a Toad the Wet Sprocket CD and a Counting Crows CD. Both of these bands were staples I lived on in my high school years (along with R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Gin Blossoms, Nine Inch Nails, and other old 90's bands).When I got in the car later, I pulled the Toad the Wet Sprocket CD out of my purse and put it in my CD player. And wow. Ok, I'm sure you guys have experienced this when listening to a band from the past - especially a band you loved in those crazy, formative years of high school -listening to TTWS immediately sent me back to those high school days. In a good way.
As I listened to the CD, a virtual montage of my life from that time period game to mind. Here are some things that I remember most from that time: grunge, So I Married an Axe Murder, TGIF shows, Wayne's World, marching band (yeah I know, geeky), Pete and Pete, flannel shirts, really good friends, bad hair coloring on my part, big hair, senior pictures, pranks, crushes, and a decent amount of teen angst, insecurity, and anxiety. Sigh. Memories. What do you remember about your high school years?
This post is dedicated to Sarah, Abi, Kelly, Sara, Kristin, Carey, Andrea, Sharri, and all my other high school bffs!
7 comments:
Hmm...I think of similar things (and Marching Band is NOT geeky!), including TMBG, Chucks (Converse All-Stars), Drama Club, Art Club, the Diag (with Reeses Pieces), The Verve Pipe at Top of the Park (back when it was actually at the top of the parking structure), Dunkin' Donuts (Mills worked there), the Drowsy Parrot, lunch boxes, The Pruney Song, "Community Dew" (I can't believe I don't have any diseases from that) (maybe I should say I haven't discovered any diseases yet), the Elmore Fan Club, being a Music Librarian, French, also bad hair coloring on my part, hanging perfume and cologne ads in my locker, getting kicked out of NHS (ok, maybe I quit, but it sounds cooler that way), the '82 brown Chevy Citation that only had AM radio, swing classes at Community High, "Salute Your Shorts," lots of Pearl Jam and MTV, etc. Man, those were some good, angstful times in the 90s!!
i think of the old blue beast truck that only squirted washer fluid straight out at passers by; spats(like for your shoes(GO TROMBONES!); never remembering my locker combination; Autumn B. and the way she ate her french fries at lunch; FHA (Future Homemakers of America); Eating fried wonton soup and chicken fried rice from Marco Polo's during breaks from rehersal of "Oklahoma"; The chevy citation that Katherine and I totaled while out shopping for a Prom dress; flying Josue out here to go to Prom with me
Aww, the video for "Something's Always Wrong" always used to make me cry in high school. (It was the old lady with the puppy that did it.) My wife and I just caught Toad doing a nostalgia show at The Ark last month. They seemed like nice guys.
As far as high school, the two albums that take me back there more than any others are Radiohead's OK Computer and Ween's The Mollusk. (They're both probably in my top ten albums of all time, but I don't listen to either of them terribly often because I'm not often in the mood to be transported back to high school... Ugh.)
If nothing else, this post has prompted me to listen to The Lemonheads' It's a Shame About Ray on Imeem. It's not as good as I'd remembered. Oh, the pitfalls of nostalgia...
Good and angsty times! Sarah Maclachlan usually transports me back to!
Piano Man is my Deperado. But pretty much any PP&M, Simon and Garfunkel, Beatles, or Jim Croce.
Oh man, most of my high school memories involve band (band geek for life!), the cafeteria (Kelly spilling milk on her Busch's papers!), gym class (our aerobics routine!!), and lots and lots of ridiculous crushes. :) Some things never change!
Bailing hay in the summer with my dad. Getting up at 4:30am to get the cows out of the fields while adjusting to the darkness in the winter. Milking lots and lots of cows... Driving the tractor up and down our roads on snow days to pull people out of the ditch. Playing with my niece and taking her to day care before school. Working at various jobs and wearing totally dorky uniforms. Trips to Ohio and car accidents. Mowing the lawn on a riding tractor for 4 hours every Thursday, seriously I pay a man to mow my little yard now - It's no fun with a push mower - you can't go "full rabbit"?! Having crazy dogs attack me while I was running or riding bikes and then going to school all jacked up. Walking to an old cemetery behind my house via crossing three fields. The movie Fire in the Sky making that walk a different experience at night by myself.
Music: Tori Amos, Depeche mode, R.E.M and Enya. I think of biking in to town and swearing that even once we got our drivers license we would still ride bikes every where. Going to the store to buy Clearly Canadians not Real Simple Magazine. I remember boys: ones I was friends with, ones I dated from our school, other schools and not in school (thanks goodness my parents never knew - I may tell them today just for kicks), and just talking about them in general. What ever happened to Chris Osinske (really don't know how to spell it but you all know who I am talking about)? Mr.Thiessen. Those wonderful MI fall nights walking through the burbs of Saline. Trick-er Treating when we were too old and laughing and running the entire night. Going to Home Coming with Elizabeth and Abi dressed up as boys! Football games that we would shout "Go Dundersfield!" he really was our schools best player. Buying each other joke presents for our birthdays to include coin condoms. Cross country summer camp, yeah I'm not a runner. Church camp and silly pranks. Marching band camp and that weird story time about "warm fuzzies" and Abi drinking a bunch of water for some strange reason. I mostly remember seeing all my girlfriends differently than they saw them selves.
Cheers to great friends and their families that helped get me through high school, it seriously would have sucked with out all of you!
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