Thursday Thirteen

My class reunion is this Saturday, and I am planning on going. I attended Lord Botetourt High School in Daleville, Virginia. I graduated in 1981.

So here are 13 things I remember from high school. Thirty years ago. Wow. I am old!

1. The food fight. The class of 1981 started a terrible food fight near the end of the school year. The principal, who was new that year, called in the police. The local paper wrote a story about it that ran all over the country, as my grandmother in California sent me a copy of the story from her paper. The fight was actually planned by the seniors. The new principal was very stern. It had been tradition for the senior class to pull a prank, and he was having none of it. He'd have been better off with the senior prank, which according to the yearbook was the theft of water cooler handles, though I don't recall that at all. In case you are wondering, I did not participate in the food fight. In fact, I was nowhere near the cafeteria when this happened. But I certainly saw the residue from it, and it wasn't pretty.

2. Band camp. I was in the high school band and we had summer camp at Ferrum College. I had trouble with my knee and it swelled up so that I couldn't walk on it. I eventually had to leave early, which I did not want to do. I played the flute, if you want to know.

3. Being in a Top 40/Rock Band. I played guitar in a band called Almost Famous. The band was comprised of me, Glynn Loope, Beth Arrington, Ann Jones, and Joel Woods. We started out with two others who did not stay with us long. The band stayed together for three years, and it gave us all spending money for those years. We even played a New Year's Eve gig at Hotel Roanoke (the swankiest place in town). Of the five of us, only Joel went on to do something with his music, though I lost track of Ann so she could have done something, too, I suppose.

4. Taking up for my brother. Trouble found me once because some boy was picking on my brother, who was a freshman the year I was a senior. I went after the boy in the hallway about the time a teacher turned a corner.

5. Detention. Even though I was a good student (I graduated 5th in the class), I tended to skip band class. Finally Mr. Lowe, the band director, told me if I skipped one more time I would be in trouble. I did, and I was. I remember most of my teachers were mortified. Straight A students just didn't get detention.

6. Telling off a boyfriend. We were standing in front of the library. I spat out a lot of big words. He finally told me he had no idea what I was saying. I stalked off, through the jeering crowd. How embarrassing.

7. First chair. In band, we competed for the glory of first chair. If you were the best, you were first chair. That meant you played the hard parts and you could play the piccolo. Angie Cundiff and I swapped the first chair seat back and forth for years.

8. High school football games. As a band member, I went to most of the games. I remember long bus rides back from some godforsaken place like Alleghany County after midnight, with stops at a Dairy Queen or something in Clifton Forge. But the high school game that counted the most was the game I attended the year after I graduated, for that was when I met my future husband.

9. My Datsun. This was  my first car. It was a horrid brown and it was a hatchback. I don't remember what year it was. My father gave it to me; I don't know where he got it. I drove the crap out of the thing. Backed it into a post. Took it around where the Pagan motorcycle group was camping one time, and a big knife that was in the road jumped up and poked a hole in the gas tank. I had to lie about that one as I wasn't supposed to be in that area of the county. Oops.

10. Alegebra. My favorite teacher was Tina Flippin. Many other students did not care for her. She was  a hard teacher and expected you to do your best. I loved her. I aced her classes and while I can't even figure percents today there was a time when I could do trigonometry and all of that stuff, and do it well.

11. English classes. Of course I loved my English classes. However, I remember being incredibly embarrassed once when I was reading aloud per the teacher's instructions. The sentence had the Leaning Tower of Pisa in it, which I mispronounced as pizza. The teacher laughed and asked me if I was hungry for lunch. I nodded and she pulled out a big bag of candy bars and passed them around. That was Ms. Dee Jones. What a great teacher.

12. The prom. I was a sophomore when I attended a prom at Hotel Roanoke. The thing I most remember about this was dressing up and then having my date drive me all the way to Salem so I could show my grandmother my dress. She cried.

13. Losing my retainer. I had braces and then a retainer. I threw that thing into the cafeteria trash twice, and both times I had to go outside and hunt through huge trash cans in search of it. I found it, but what a trial. It was always fine because I would wrap it up in a napkin, but the hunt sure was messy and stinky.



Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here. I've been playing for a while and this is my 204th time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday