Junior high consisted of grades seven, eight and nine and the school was separate and at its own location. Senior high consisted of grades ten, eleven and twelve. Now, remember, by the end of my ninth grade year, I had a forty-two inch waist, weighed 220 pounds and had long hair. The summer break before I went to high school, I put myself on a strict diet and exercise program. The hard work and discipline paid off and by the time I entered tenth grade, my sophomore year in the high school, I had lost fifty-five pounds and gone down to a thirty inch waist. Just before school started, I made a further change in my appearance by cutting my hair and changing it from the long and messy “hippie” style to “disco” which was short, parted in the middle and feathered back. My change was so great that few of my friends from junior high recognized me. The changes enabled me to get in with the “cool” crowd at school.
The summer before my senior year, I chose to move in with my father because it would be quieter and studying easier. That last year in high school, I was still lusting after the same English teacher I had had my junior year. He was everything I could have wanted, at that time—an athletic, handsome, hunky and of Italian descent man with a preppy attitude and dress. I can attribute my secret desire of him to my future penchant for more exotic, hunky and ethnic men when in New York City.
Although I lusted after that same teacher during my senior year, I also partied with a few football players and secretly desired some of them too, BUT never ever had the audacity to attempt seduction. I liked all kinds of strong men which were quickly noticed and usually made part of my imaginary life. My daydreams were imagining hunky men fighting to be with me every day or even every hour – a gay soap opera in my mind! Damned romance novels!
My close friends during that time were Vicky, a chunky, cherubic girl with a great smile; Dave, a very skinny, intelligent and hilarious guy; Sandra, a brassy and bubbly girl; Stefan, a somewhat chunky, but loud clown of a guy; Michele, a goofy, quiet sort of girl; Pamela, a very funny Zodiac comrade; and Lisa, Sandra’s ditzy and lovable partner in crime.
Dave, Sandra, Stefan and I even formed our own club between us – “The Three Chartreuse Buzzards” complete with a song, “Three chartreuse buzzards; three chartreuse buzzards sitting on a dead cow. Oh, look! One of them has flown A-way…” We had our own salute too – curving our arms and hands into a buzzard-like stance and shaking our hands back and forth to greet one another.
Vicky, Dave and I liked to go to drive-ins to party. We were always hoping to see a new movie and enjoy our beer. We talked and socialized more than watching a movie.
Once, Dave, Sandra, Lisa—Sandra’s best friend—and I got thrown out of a drive-in for being too loud because we were yelling insults at kids from a rival school.
It seemed we were always meeting Sandra and Lisa at Sandra’s parents’ house whenever serious fun or a party was involved. Dave was often our chosen driver, but he never had any luck with his never-ending automobile mechanical difficulties. We never cared; we laughed and barreled ahead.
Vicky and Sandra were always jealous of one another so Dave and I always did our best to keep them separated in alternating social events that we choreographed to the best of our abilities.
My father let me have parties at his place and it was there that many funny incidents occurred. One thing we always served was a “punch” that had grain alcohol as an ingredient and was very strong. Dave lit one of his glasses of the punch as a joke, then after drinking the “punch,” he walked into the Susquehanna River that was not far from my father’s house. Evidently Dave didn’t realize what he was doing until he began getting wet.
We listened to Bachman Turner Overdrive, Aerosmith, Elton John and the Doobie Brothers. Any song from Elton John’s, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album was a favorite of all of us. “S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y Night” by the Bay City Rollers was our anthem. I remember taking a bus to a concert in Philadelphia with Vicky and Dave to see Bachman Turner Overdrive and thinking we were just too cool – we loved BTO. And, didn’t we try marijuana that night for the first time?
I learned to dance at the local high school dances that were held every Saturday night at a rival school. Just that in itself was sort of cool. I learned to buy beer with an illegal ID! All of us would drink some beer before the dance; save a few for after and then cruise the town. On one of those Saturday nights, I sideswiped my father’s new car by cutting a corner too close and hitting a fire hydrant. (I lied for years; telling him it happened in the parking lot. Then, in a separate incident, three of my friends and I were going to the dance in my father’s old, beat-up car he used for work, and we had a case of beer in the trunk. When I drove into a nearby parking lot, I accidentally went over something and pulled the muffler from underneath the car. We almost shit our pants when a policeman came over and offered to help us tie up the muffler. All of us were in a panic he would find the beer. He never found it and we all were relieved.
A memorable school trip happened in my senior year. And, I think the school board prohibited overnight trips after that one!
I had a great time in Washington, DC that weekend with Sandra, Lisa, Dave, Pamela, Stefan, a few of my football player friends like Stewart and an assortment of newly-acquainted cronies for our harmless, but very funny escapades.
Pamela, Stefan and I took some new-found friends to a nightclub into which we could inveigle our entry. We loved Disco music so much and were sure such an adventure would further enhance our cool factor back at school. It was a humorous night as we drunkenly navigated highways and dark streets back to the hotel we were staying in. I still laugh when I think of one of our new friends, Diane, walking, or was it diving, into a decorative hedge on our way home.
We had sophomoric fun painting rear-ends gold and putting guys names on bare feet facing one another like they were having sex. Everyone thought the two guys were gay, so I joined in the joke for fear of retribution. I remember playing with a funky-looking bathing cap when inebriated a little bit and my friend, Dave wearing a turquoise-colored bikini over his clothes. But, I wasn’t gay, right?
Actually, we did get yelled at because on the third day, after two nights of rowdy pranks and drinking, we did not feel like getting off the bus to sightsee because all of us were too hung over.
It seemed that I was always having parties when my parents were away for the night. A very memorable party at my father’s also again was when Sandra brought her cousin one night. I had invited Dave and Stewart, one of the more friendly football players we had taken into our group. After Sandra’s cousin had drunk a lot of our “punch” along with eating a lot of peanuts, she told us how “cool” she was just before she threw up all over my father’s sofa. Quickly we tried cleaning the sofa cushions’ covers in the washing machine. It worked pretty well except when drying them, peanuts dropped out of the dryer. In our condition, we were surprised the peanuts hadn’t washed out of the drain of the washer. Dave was nominated to put the very sick-feeling cousin into the shower and turned on the cold water hoping to straighten her out before Sandra had to take her home. Dave came out yelling how she had the darkest pubic hair he had ever seen and that broke the tension of the night. All I kept saying over and over was, “Son of a bitch!” After we cleaned her up, we laid her down on my father’s bed hoping she would rest but she threw up again. What a mess! We all ended up cleaning the bed too until about three in the morning. During that time, Stewart tried asking Sandra to the Senior Prom and she yelled at him as she was helping to clean, “Not now!”
Actually, I even tried writing a romance novel during my senior year using myself as a model for the heroine and used numerous television stars and football players as my lovers vying for my attention!
