What are your memories of high school (i.e. secret crush, embarrassing moment, funniest thing you did in high school, favorite high school hang out, favorite teachers)?
At New Trier West, I was a member of the Social Service "team" & loved visiting forgotten elders with Alzheimer's & dementia, in local nursing homes, with my friends. We hung out & chatted with them and it always felt sweet. I took some art classes, and loved them, yet was not as open to creating, as when I was younger or older. I journal-ed my observations on life & friends, yet recall no formal support or encouragement, from the school system. I had a crush on Chris Dunn, who seemed preppy, dreamy & driven. I appreciated his whole President of the class gig, yet never really knew him. More just gazed admiringly from a seat behind him in class.
I tried to fall for the athletes, and pretend I liked anything at all about Earth Sports. In truth I didn't. I wasn't sure if the football training dumb-ed the guys down, or the dumb-ed down attributes seemed more highlighted, in the framework of the organized war games. Either way I was not ever drawn to or naturally aligned with any kind of competitive sport at all! I fell for a football player in one of my classes. We went on a date, and I quickly learned he could not make basic conversation very easily. That was the end of that short lived crush!
David Helfand had a huge crush on me, yet I was more interested in the younger bad boys on bicycles, than a kind, secure, professional, golf playing, older kid with a car. I had to grow up many years, before really appreciating David & his stability & admiration. I loved music, photography, arts, reading, writing, people, parties, biking & swimming. I used to wear lots of make up to school, and we dressed to impress, yet mostly only the girls really noticed, or cared. I think it's still this way, we kind of dress up for the other women. I became a deadhead, dancing and enjoying the tail end of the hippie scene. A path beyond pinstripes! I used to doodle and paint and make art, more at home, for myself. Art as recreation.
I had a keen ability to make my friend Carrie Strom laugh with no end. She had an openness to what I would now call spirituality, Donovan, folk music and more. Carrie used to take us to the used record stores & thrift shops in Evanston. I found reggae music & an album by a South African band called Juluka, which made my heart sing!
I dated a very gifted and cute age peer at Harand Theater camp, in my 15th year or so. I remember being too caught up in the small box of our giant high school, to branch out and continue dating someone from outside of our closed system. I remember how much I liked Jonathan Rubenstein, yet to continue our summer attraction, felt as odd as trying to date the man on the moon!
I had many friends. Caroline Murphy was one of my closer friends, the kind who would go anywhere with me. We went over to each other's houses after school, sang aloud to Jackson Brown's "Running on Empty," ate toast & left over steak from the fridge, and saved our pennies for many rock & roll concerts together. I love that we all remember different details. We logged a lot of miles on bicycles, rode to the beach & many adventures.
Junior and senior year John Lane was my HS Sweetheart. We enjoyed 2 proms together, lots of parties, and could make out for endless hours, anywhere. We got to hold hands at school, sit on the grass & great stuff like that.
A bunch of us used to drive to Homer's and eat Oreo milkshakes and french fries for lunch! I palled around with my girlfriends, and sometimes enjoyed befriending my girlfriend's ex-boyfriends, like Jim Nold & Brian Creevy, cause they were really nice. I flirted with Ross Smith in badminton class. I dated Jeff Anderson for 3 months, then got dumped for a cute blonde. While still dating Jeff, I became dear friends with his first love Tami Seabury. Tami's friends, Marcy Brouttman, & Caroline Wallen often treated me as highly suspect, the evil enemy that took Tami's first love away. There was a car chase, and possibly some thrown raw eggs and TP, at the beginning. Tami I remained close friends, & moved out to California together, only I stayed out West & she returned. I was friends with many different types of people with varied personalities & interests. I appreciated many qualities in all! We loved the Who, Rush, Bruce Sringsteen, the Cars, and much of what was popular in our day!
I loved Mr. Currie's photography class & photographing the beauty I admired in my friends. I enjoyed Duno's art class, yet clammed up a bit, in a formal art class. Process oriented art making, on my own, still felt more comfortable. I wasn't totally ready to find my creative voice, in the rigid structures of conventional school.
We hopped a few pools in our day, as I'm scanning back. We enjoyed some wonderful adventures on bikes, quite unattended, at the beach and in the woods, day and night. We were wild rebels, then and now!
We threw and attended some of the wildest parties of my life in high school, when the parents were out of town, or just out of the house. It's quite miraculous, so many of us lived to tell the tale. Proof of angels, I am sure! One of the best parties, was one we never got to. We got all dressed & made up, and waited in my darkened living room, for Carrie's sister Jody to call & pick us up for a big Northwestern party. In the end, somehow, it never materialized. As I recall, there were as many parties we made it to, as parties we heard about, and dreamed about, yet never made it to at all. That night waiting for the party was so filled with promise, excitement and the glimmer of older life beyond the trap of high school. The memory of almost going beats any real party I've been to. On some level we were probably relieved to have the daydream, rather than the trouble a college party might have offered! Better overly sheltered that night! Some nights we just drove around, dreaming we could get our hands on a six pack of, yes Mickey's big mouth beers, yet we didn't find any at all.
And then there was that time we went to the liquor store in Wilmette and talked some poor looser into buying us a case of coors, or something worse, while the police were watching and busted us. Mister Miller had to come and pick us up from the Winnetka Police Station. No arrests were made, yet it sure screwed with illustrious young "freedoms," that summer. The best was the time we dolled one of our mature looking friends up with a fresh manicure and make up, and a handbag, and rode the tandem & more bikes to Dominicks, as we held our breath, our courageous friend went in and scored a six pack of beer, we rode home with in our bicycle baskets, and or back packs. We had so many kids awaiting the fresh cold beer, I'll bet no one got to drink a whole one. Still we played the WHO on the boombox, and ran off into the Crow Island woods wilderness, like a fresh pack of wildthings! Priceless!
Then there was the hallucinogenic mushroom tea breakfast I shared with another adventurer mentioned earlier, on our last day at New Trier. We went to Tower Road Beach and enjoyed a cool windy breeze in our bikinis, after tripping through advisory! Goddess bless high school!
