Monday, April 4, 2011

Scenes from a Small Town that Starts with a Z - circa 1989*

The other night, I was rooting around in the ancient history of my high school journals. After catching up with an old friend recently and reminiscing about a deep conversation on the staircase at an alcohol-free cast party at my house, I wondered how much of that conversation I’d recorded 22 years ago. (Yes, I spent a lot of time on a dark staircase just talking at a party at my own house. My shoes have been neat to stare at for my entire life.) I didn’t remember all the details then. Nor do I remember all the details of the recent event, but both were they type of conversation I’ve apparently always loved, the sort that meander from one thing to the next that are an exchange of ideas instead of a competition.

Here’s an excerpt of my summary of that conversation in Nov. 1989:
 
We talked about what we think of dating (those of us who don't 
and why we don’t),about our morals...
I don’t remember what all but it was just good conversation. I
found it special. Some of us got to know each other quite a bit better.”

Deep stuff, this stuff of high school students! Ah, but lest you think I was only introspection and angst as a teenager, I offer you this from October 31, 1989:
 
“Happy Halloween! B. and I had a great time. We just went out ‘raging’ more or less.
Piled 5 people in M.’s jeep and 4 more in K’s car and egged D.V.B.’s house. 
Actually, we just drove by and threw the eggs, so I doubt
the house actually got hit.”
 
I apparently also smoked a lot that night, even going so far as to buy my own cigarettes for a change. I’m not sure what’s more hilarious – the fact that we egged someone’s house, but not exactly, or the fact that I had completely forgotten about that night.

 *Names have been abbreviated to protect the vaguely guilty.