Those crazy eighties

[Mythsaje]

I started high school in 1982 as a Sophomore at Auburn High School in Auburn, WA. My best friend at the time, from my neighborhood, was a weight-lifting senior who just happened to be the guy who'd introduced me to D&D the year before. Let's just say I didn't have to worry about the kind of hazing a lot of sophomores have to put up with.

A friend and I from my second period graphics class would leave campus third period and go to the park across the street, climbing into the old train engine there and get stoned. He was one of the only kids in school with me who had longer hair than I did. My fifteenth birthday he was supposed to come out and party with me, but he disappeared. Rumor had it he got a hold of some pot laced with PCP and went gonzo.

Of course, this was only my FIRST high school. I went to seven in all. I went back to Oregon after this and attended school there for nearly a year, then had a few adventures and returned back to Washington. From there I went to a school on Kent's far East Hill called Kentwood. Kentwood had a smoking area in back of the school, where the smokers would go stand inside a large fenced square and smoke cigarettes and other things with no adult supervision.

I ended up in a big fight with one of my dad's girlfriend's sons and took off again, heading off to live in a cabin in the woods with a few other guys. Things got pretty hairy and I got out of there about a month later.

I ended up at an alternative high school after that. I did well, gaining a reputation as one of the "brains" though I still partied as much as I ever did. It was less regimented, which made it easier for me.

My dad up and moved to California on me and I ended up staying with a friend and his mom for a while, babysitting his baby sister as a live-in. He wouldn't do it, so someone had to. I'm still kinda surprised his mom didn't take the chance to seduce me, since I'm pretty sure she wanted to. Maybe she didn't want to give him some kind of weird complex about it all, had he found out about it. Not sure it would have, but who knows?

When she moved to Colorado, I went back to stay with another old girlfriend of my dad's and her daughters in Auburn, and attended school at the alternative high school there. That went well for a while, until I ended up in a big fight with the girls and took off again.

Somewhere before my eighteenth birthday I headed off to California again to find my old man. I never went back to high school.

When I was 23 I took the GED classes and aced the test, then went to community college for about a year and a half. I probably could have finished and got my AA in Business Management, but when it came down to it, I'm not really suited for that field. It was just the only AA I could find that didn't require me to pass algebra, which I couldn't figure out to save my life.

What a crazy time that was for me. I'm not sure whether a different upbringing would've made things easier in the end. I guess one of the things I learned from my old man was that when things got tough, he got going. It took me several years to learn to settle down and deal with things as they came.

Did I learn anything? Hell, yeah. I learned a lot of things. About myself, about other people, about the world in general.

Would I do some things differently? Hell, yeah. Do I regret all the things I did? Some. But what I did and the things that happened to me have made me what I am.

It's always interesting to look back. I was a crazy kid.

Guess that in some respects, the apple didn't fall very far from the tree at all.

[TomInTib]

1. Life is curious, ain't it?

I spent my youth on a ranch and was never able to go to any kind of school.

And then I drowned and took a few years to relearn to do everything.

And then I went wild.

Ended up in some crazy places.

And now we meet here.

[Mythsaje]

3. No one can predict how a life might go...

I've got a twelve year old and a nine year old, and it beggars my mind trying to think of how life will turn out for the two of them. Who knows how many of my old man's traits they're going to end up with. Or mine. Or their mom's. We're all wild children, in a way. She has custody, and I don't envy her the problems I see coming down the pike. Our oldest is WAY smart andd already trying to figure out how to wiggle out of her control.

The funny thing about DU is that I'm willing to bet that at least one or two people from my widely varied past are here somewhere. Either from my very early years as a hippie's kid in California, as a oddball bookworm kid on a small ranch in Oregon, a metalhead party animal here in Washington State, or as a footloose vagabond in California.

I don't even know why I have that feeling, but I do. And sometimes the feeling is so strong it freaks me out.

Strange, isn't it?

[TomInTib]

6. They say we come from the water

They say we come from the water
To run through the trees
They say that all men are Brothers
But we're as distant as the Seasons

You can pin wings to my shoulders
And pretend that I could fly
But if your legs are strong enough for two
I think I'll walk with you a while


We have bounced off of all the bumpers and landed on the same round Ball.
And so we
Strive
Hope
Wish
and
Pray
That this whole thing will balance - settle on its own gyroscopic axis
Start making sense
For ours and all who will follow.

[Mythsaje]

7. That's really cool...

I like it.

[jillan]

2. Lots of skeletons in the closet from the 80's

But the best thing about the 80's was the music.
The Cars, Devo, MTV was on all day long. Best decade for music imho.

[Mythsaje]

4. Oh, I don't know. I liked the late nineties

and the resurgence of the singer-songwriter too.

And I was a metalhead in the eighties, though I liked a lot of new wave bands too. Though I didn't really advertise that fact much.

I was probably one of the only straight guys I've ever known who really liked Duran Duran. LOL

[Vexatious Ape]

5. I saw the Police, The Clash, and U2 during their War tour.