High School Days — Mischief and Memories

A writing prompt to entice me into revealing the heretofore hidden secrets of my youth. It worked — here you go.

“What will retirement be like?” never crossed my mind when I was in high school. I was too obsessed with more important questions like girls, cars, college, and freedom.

So, here I am now, retired (I finally found the freedom), relaxed, and reading stories on Medium. Suddenly up pops a writing prompt about high school days and it brought back amazing memories.

I’m happy to share them with you. I hope you share yours with me.

1. What is the year you graduated?

1976, the bicentennial of our country. Microsoft and Apple incorporated that year too, but rather than buying their stock as I should have, I spent money on cars, girls, and beer (yes I was only 17 — don’t judge).

2. Did you carpool?

Yes, a car-obsessed girl named Francis lived up the street and picked me up every morning in her ’60s-era Mustang. It had ponies stitched on the seats — quite a valuable car if she still had it. But after high school, she sold it and got a jeep that she built into a push car for dragsters. We lost touch, sadly.

3. What kind of car did you drive?

I bought a crashed 1956 VW bug for $350 when I was fifteen and spent time with my dad and brother building it into a functioning Baja bug (the one with the cut fenders, exposed engine, and bug-eye headlights). A week before I turned 16 a friend borrowed it and crashed it and we had to rebuild it again. I was so poor I had to paint it with spray cans of Krylon flat black primer. God, it was ugly.

4. It’s Friday night football — were you there?

Sometimes. In my first year, my friend Steve and I were “managers” of the football team which meant we handed towels to naked boys after their showers and collected jock straps for the laundry. Not much managing, and certainly not my dream job. They picked on us because we were skinny sticks and they were buff, but it did result in some lasting friendships.

5. What kind of job did you have?

My first ‘real’ job was in my senior year working at the local Dairy Queen for $1.65 an hour. My high school valued a strong work ethic so believe it or not, they allowed me to leave school early to work and gave me scholastic credit for it. Idiots.

6. Were you a party animal?

I had three personas in high school — party animal, intellectual, and jock. Our school was in a small town surrounded by forest and on some weekends, the upperclassmen would hold keggers in the clearings out in the woods. They called them party holes. “Party Hole Four on Friday” was code to meet down a certain logging road off Tiger Mountain Way. There were half a dozen party holes — which kept us a few steps ahead of the authorities. They’d have music blasting, kegs in the backs of trucks, and gorgeous upper-class girls who were too good to talk to us.

7. Were you considered a jock?

I brag that “I competed in State Finals” and hope people don’t ask which sport. But I’ll tell you: It was bowling. Yep. 185 average. My team came in last, but we made it there, dammit. Nobody can ever take that away from me.

I was also a pretty good goalkeeper on the soccer team and quite the freestyle skier. Never went to state for those though.

8. Were you in a band?

Nope. The closest I came was French horn in Junior High.

9. Were you a nerd?

Yeah, that was one of my personas. I took a computer class in 1975 where we wrote code in Basic. Then we’d transfer the code to punched tape, call the University of Washington mainframe and send the code through the phone modem at 150 baud. Their computer techs would create punch cards and run our programs in batches. They’d mail back the results printed on that old tractor-fed green bar paper. It took days for the whole process but was mind-boggling magic for a 16-year-old and likely influenced my career path in technology.

10. Did you get suspended?

No, but I was mischievous and might have been suspended if I’d been caught. One habit a friend and I had was to steal locker combinations (we must have had 100 or more). We’d rearrange papers in their binders and place dead animals or rubber spiders on the shelves. We’d lean their books against the door so that when they opened them the books would come crashing down. A couple of times we hefted boulders onto a stack of their books (on the floor of the locker of course). We never stole anything — just mischief.

11. Can you sing the fight song?

No. Those brain cells are long dead.

12. What was your high school mascot?

We were the Issaquah Indians, but decades later that mascot became morally questionable so we’re now called the Eagles. That decision remains an ongoing political debate among my classmates. I’m fine with it.

13. If you could go back and do it all again, would you?

I enjoyed high school, but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to relive that mess of hormonal and social torture. Even worse, it was the era of Disco: Leisure suits, patterned polyester shirts, peace medallions, platform shoes, and bell bottoms. I was ‘Stayin’ Alive’ back then just like everyone else.

14. Are you still in contact with people from high school?

Yes, lots of them. I consider many of them to be among my best friends. I have friends that I see regularly that I met when I was four years old.

15. Do you know where your high school crush is?

I see her every ten years at our reunions. I taunt her about how much better her life would have been if she hadn’t rejected me. For some reason, she just laughs.

16. What was your favorite subject?

Math and pottery stand above the rest. A yin-yang thing I suppose — one logical and one artistic. I wrote an article about my love of pottery [here].

17. Do you still have your high school ring?

I never bought one. I still have all three of my high school annuals though.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks to Rodrigo S-C for the inspiration, and Lori Dooner for the questions. It was fun. I hope everyone reading this will be equally inspired. If so, tag me and I’ll be sure to read it. I always enjoy a glimpse into the lives of my new friends on Medium.

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Connect with me here on Medium and on my blog brianfeutz.com. You can reach me at [email protected].

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