A friend of a friend of mine from my hometown in Virginia on Facebook said : I miss my high school friends and teachers and cheerleading. It is tough getting older."
Fuck yeah it is tough getting older. But this is part of my response to her - I wish I could go back to high school and done everything differently. The “good 'ole days”. Were they really? They were filled with doubt and anxiety. And even though my life did not follow the path that I thought it would in 1980, I have had a decent life…I am just now reading a novel, “Love in the Time of Cholera” and there is a line in it that hit me in the gut - “The one thing he and his wife agreed on was the fact that you never acquire wisdom until it is too late to do you any good.” I wish I had wisdom back in my high school days. Not saying I have wisdom now, but I have a closer approximation than I did then. And I think the best advice I can give you is, forget about the past. There is nothing you can to about it. It cannot be changed. You can only change the future."
But I wonder now, if I could go back to 1980 in the last half of my junior year, an A student who became a pothead and dropped out instead of getting into an Ivy league school, would my life have really been any different? Yes, I would have got a good job out of college, and made a lot more money than I am making now, and I would now have a nice big house and all the other things.
But I would still be me. I live in a studio apartment in Jersey, and it is fine for me. I think it is very well decorated, I tell others that I missed my calling , I shoud have been a decorater for people who don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on decorating.
I am content with my life. Am I happy? Yeah, well, when I am absorbded in a book or a movie, in these [Lack of] Love in the [Time of Covid], I am. I don’t think it gets any better than this, unless I find my one true love. But how often does that happen to a 58 year-old man?
High school was a blast. I’d go back in heartbeat. Not because my life isn’t awesome now and I’m really not sure I’d change a ton but it was certainly fun enough to do twice.
Of course, if I could go back to the start with my current mind I might screw it up but overall it would be worth trying. I’d be better at sports and probably try harder at academics but I was already an honors student and the second best athlete in the school. My main concern would be relating to my friends back then, I’m still friends with most of and cramming 20 years of history to the side would either make things easy or hard.
Not really. It wasn’t terrible, but it was more awkward and frustrating than fun for me. College was awesome, but high school wasn’t that great.
The best part is high school was being on the football team senior year. That was a lot of fun, at least when I got playing time (I was a much used backup lineman).
No, I don’t have that much nostalgia for high school. I was that fat, awkward, sarcastic kid who had neither friends nor much money. Things got better by senior year, but the scars were already there.
Funny thing, though, I didn’t really hate my classmates (mostly it was upperclassmen who made my life hell, which was a big part of why my senior year was much more tolerable.) I’ve been to all my ten-year reunions, and have actually enjoyed spending an evening reconnecting with my former classmates.
Besides, some of them are REALLY screwed up by now. In terms of what fate dealt out to all of us, I’m solidly in the middle.
I was on the football team, defensive end. I spent most of my time trying to avioid contact. But I made the tackle when I had to. A running back runniing straight towards me, he is 200 llbs and I am 150 llbs, I’ll take one for the team
What I member: the rednecks and the bullies were loud and agressive, the decent people were much more quiet and mostly minded their own business. So while the good people may have been the silent majority, the garbage had the biggest influence.
I went to a high school with lots of high achievers. The vast majority of the students went on to some form of college. Lots of kids went to Ivy League and Ivy League equivalent schools. The academic kids were the leaders of the school, and since it was the late 60s, politically active kids were the ones who had the most influence. There were cheerleaders and jocks, but they didn’t have the highest social cachet. But they were all nice kids. I really don’t remember any of the cliche “mean girls.” I had a good time. I had lots of friends and lots of social activities, in addition to lots of academic work, but, nah, I don’t really want to go back. It was mostly good, but I probably wouldn’t do anything differently.
I had a few good friends, but there’s no way I’d go back and do it again. I hated school, and was a big zero with the girls. I didn’t like college either. I didn’t enjoy grad school, but it got me the decent career I’ve had. Things didn’t really start to look up until I hit 30.
Hell no. I wasn’t miserable–I had plenty of friends (a few of which I still hang out with), and my parents were basically fine, but the school part was boring as shit and I had next to no autonomy. College was vastly better in both departments–it was finally challenging enough to be engaging, and I finally got out of my parent’s house. Work was even better; I could choose what I wanted to do and finally had enough money to do basically what I wanted.
The only thing worse than high school was grade school. Even more boring and even less autonomy.
I enjoyed high school. I loved learning and the culture was nothing like that is portrayed in the media. It was a small school and I had known many of my classmates since kindergarten.
Jocks were not a big thing and the cheerleaders my senior year included the valedictorians of the senior and junior class and the senior class salutatorian. The big sports star was in the National Honor Society. In other words, there was no difference between academic achievement and sports achievement.
Bullying wasn’t tolerated; the coaches would give you a dressing down if you said anything that attacked another student.
There was a mix between the honor students and those who barely got their diplomas. No doubt there were cliques, but they weren’t blatantly mean. I was not in any of the “in” groups, but there were groups of friends I hung out with.
We were going to have our 50th reunion this year (cancelled, of course) and they’ve always been fun.
Yes, I lived high school. I’m still friends with a ton of people I went to high school with. I wish I could see them every day. I liked classes and learning. I lived being in band. I worked on weekends. My parents were cool and let people come over all the time.
No. High school was hell on earth. A miserable school in a rotten West Texas town, full of redneck cretins and lowlife bullies. I dropped out the moment I turned 17 to get away from it. Did not need my parents’ permission at that age, not that they cared anyway. A horrible experience that was the reason I bummed around for several years before giving college a try. Getting my GED, I went on to get my bachelor’s and, eventually, master’s and learned I actually did like school. Just not high school.
My experience wasn’t as bad as Siam_Sam’s but it was fraught with mostly-dashed hopes and feelings of being on the outside of everything. The best I can say about it is that it beat holy hell out of junior high.
For me, each decade has been better than the one before it, with the somewhat-mixed exception of my 40s and my teens. I can’t complain about the being older part; so far, so good, looking forward to more.
I had a great time in high school. Total lack of mortgages, kids and careers. Perfect balance of friends, sports, complex pranks (customized to play on annoying teachers’ primal fears), and even a little learning…
Gotta say, high school during The Hippie Years was a blast. You could “stick it to the man” just by letting your hair grow long, playing Hendrix over the PA system, and sneaking a joint in the alley.
Not sure I’ll ever have friends as close as I did then (even if my best friend did propose to my girlfriend… but I still get along great with them. And their kids).
It was a mixed bag. Better than middle school, nowhere near as good as college. If I had to go back for some time traveling reason, I’d manage, have some fun, and perhaps shift some parts of my trajectory, but I’ve never missed it.
1964 to 68. First three years were a nightmare. Senior year, at a different school was great because of a very intense romantic/sexual relationship that lasted from October to July.