reeling in the years

while getting the house puppy-proofed, moving things around and packing things that have been laying out, i came across my school ID from waay back in '86 - 20 long years ago.

what was different back then?

• i was skinny. no kidding. when you did all the things i did back in high school, there's no time to eat!
• i was in the jazz band (keys)
• i was in the choir (bass)
• the music i listened to included all the horrible stuff that the 80's produced (Chicago, Quarterflash, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Bruce Springsteen, Judas Priest, Elton John, etc.) - folks, it was a bad decade for music.
  
• i owned (and still have somewhere here in the house) those skinny little ties with the silly stuff all over them (my favorite was the white one with the keyboard going up the side).
• i didn't have a car.
• my best friends were the reason i made it through without killing myself
• my girlfriend at the time and i were involved in ALL the drama that so drives me crazy with high school students today (but she said that you said that omg i'm going to effing kill her and omg did you see what he is wearing and kiss me eww get away from me you stupid jerk i love you i hate you come closer get away).
• my best friend and i would spend our friday and saturday nights driving around the back roads of clermont county by the satanic church and chase kids, or maybe buy beer or wine coolers from those places we knew wouldn't ask me for ID and sit on the side of the road and watch the stars and drink.
• i wasn't a christian and thought all christians were buttheads. the strange thing is that now that i am a christian, i still think christians are buttheads. am i calling myself a butthead, too? but of course.
  
• i was afraid of nothing and did so many stupid and reckless things it's a wonder i made it through those years at all.
• i had no plan for life beyond right where i was at the time i was at. very very shortsighted and had no hope for the future at all.
• one of my friends and i tried out for a lip-synching contest/dance at school - we put on long beards, cowboy hats and had 2 tennis rackets and we lip synched to ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man - we were rejected.

here i am, 20 years later, 37 years old. it's a strange thing, getting old. whether it's good or bad, the jury is still out. i know for certain that i wouldn't go back to my high school years for anything. they weren't the "good old days" but i suppose they could have been a lot worse than they were.