“Hold on to sixteen as long you can…” ~ Jack and Diane 1982
My middle school was literally in the same building as the high school. Eisenhower High and Ottawa Middle were separated by black metal security gates, padlocked every day by the janitors. If that sounds like a fire code violation, it probably is now, but in 1980 we weren’t big on worrying about hypothetical disasters.
Like inmates, we’d press our faces to the bars and watch the older kids doing older-kid things—eating cinnamon rolls, smoking cigarettes, making out. Making out. What kind of utopia was this? We couldn’t wait to cross to the other side.
Eventually, my freshman year arrived. The middle school shut down, the gates were removed, smoking was banned, and no girl wanted to make out with me. Also, the schoolwork was really hard. Turns out this wasn’t paradise after all. Still, the cinnamon rolls were heavenly.
Every student got a locker, but you could share with a friend. One locker became the coat-and-random-stuff locker, the other was strictly business: books. People showed up before school even started to completely pimp out their lockers—wallpaper, shelves, mirrors, photos of hot celebrities. Some people even installed carpet! It was especially funny when friends had a blowup (almost always over a boy) and one got kicked out of the locker. “Fine. But I’m taking my Duran Duran mini-poster.”
High school felt magical. I was there for relationships. Academics were a distant second. I did just enough work to pass. I was all about performing, flirting with cheerleaders, Friday night football games, and dances afterward where I occasionally worked up the courage to ask a girl to dance—only if she was standing alone and the REO Speedwagon song was already halfway over.
We had MTV, arcade games, Bubble Yum, boomboxes, and cassette tapes. We wore alligators on our sweaters and Calvin Klein jeans. We had Magic, MJ, Sixteen Candles, The Cosby Show, and Purple Rain. We asked, “Where’s the beef?” and “Who you gonna call?” We hung out at McDonald’s, the Quad Theater, and that little putt-putt golf place. We played basketball until the sun went down, then headed to 7-Eleven for a Big Gulp. We drove $900 cars and had fake blond hair thanks to aggressive Sun-In use. My friends then are my friends now. If they need me, I’m there.
House Parties
A few times a year there were secret house parties, usually when someone’s parents were out of town. Sometimes the parents even hosted. There was drinking, a little pot, and a lot of rumors about sex. Kids don’t party like that anymore. They’re social on social. Relationships happen on screens. House parties went extinct like dinosaurs. Today, a parent would face criminal charges for a keg in the basement. And secrets? Forget it. Everyone is one text away from getting busted.
Missing Magic
My daughters graduated in 2018. Their experience was completely different from mine—and it’s not their fault. They just don’t know. The world changed. They had fun, sure, but I’d bet my Flux Capacitor they’d never describe high school as “magic.” When I tell them stories about sneaking out at four in the morning just to break the rules, they stare at me and say, “Outside? Why? It’s cold out there!”
The classic high school experience is dead. No one’s throwing dirt on the coffin, and no one’s grieving—because to today’s kids, it doesn’t feel like a loss.
It does to me.
I’ll be over here with a cinnamon roll and my memories.
