Sunday, November 4, 2012

Friday Night Lights

Mom and I decided to slip away from "the guys" one Friday night (since Jim was down for the count with tooth surgery and Kenny was at work) and go to a bar.  Well, technically it was E.B. Smokey's, a restaurant/bar and we got to watch a BYU game while devouring pulled pork sandwiches and Cokes.  And then we went to the TUHS homecoming game!  It was so nostalgic to wander through the theater, looking at past years' play programs, peek into the band room filled with even more trophies and now instrument lockers, and trek out onto the field to admire the stadium under a beautiful sunset and a rising moon.  I felt like I was fifteen again, except that I discovered what my parents had been rolling their eyes about during those high school years: being over the age of 25 makes you completely invisible to high school students.  I was bumped into, trod upon, and nearly run over by herds of giggling, texting, and screaming kids.  After playing paparazzi to the different haunts I fondly remembered from ages 13 through 17, I escaped with barely-attached toes and bruised arms to the safety of the parents-and-other-spectators area of the grandstands to cheer on Tualatin with my mom as they nearly shut out Newberg.  It was so warm I didn't even need my letterman's jacket, which Jim had to climb on a ladder to retrieve from a big storage tub in the shop earlier in the evening, and then had the nerve to snarkily ask, "Will it even fit you now?"  (The answer to that question is "Why YES, and even better than it did in high school, thank-you-very-MUCH.")

Enjoy a stroll down Memory Lane!  I had my mom's friend from the bus take of picture of the two of us girls at the end, but it somehow got erased from my camera - dang it!!!





















5 comments:

Meredith said...

My Letterman's jacket is too big for me now! Take that, high school!

And every time I have been back to TuHS, I feel so awkward. Probably because I thought it was an amazing time, and when I look back now, I realize it was not. And being around a bunch of high schoolers seems wildly uninteresting to me. But our old high school fight song (goodness, I almost called it a theme song) did pop into my head yesterday. I am surprised that I remember it.

Katie (and Ken) Baldwin said...

Even in high school I tended to think middle school was a kinder time. That's kinda sad, but true. High school brought out the nastiness in so many people. I was going through my mammoth "memory box" that my mom had kept for me (and that Jim said had to live at my new house now, and not his) and I found a bunch of old TuHS newspapers. The opinion sections especially reminded me about how cruel kids can be to one another. I felt awkward at the homecoming game, too, and although I remembered some really good times and people, I didn't long to be back there again. (Just to have my high school body back!)

Katie (and Ken) Baldwin said...

One of the best parts of middle and high school was being your friend. I think that matters a lot and erases a lot of the junk.

Meredith said...

Obviously there is a reason that we (and Megan and I) stayed friends and I don't really talk to anyone else, except on Facebook!

Megan said...

I loved many things about high school, and hated many things, but I'm glad I was a nice person (to most people...just not guys that liked me), I'm glad I had good friends, and I'm glad I was never popular. Everyone always says, "Oh, I was NEVER popular!" Uh, then who was? My SIL says she wasn't but I've seen her pictures and met a few of her old HS friends and I totally know she was one of THEM. ;) I also have come to realize that a lot of the meanness from other people wasn't personal. They were jerks to everyone. I doubt they even remember being snots. And as for snottiness, I must go, as two little girls are now screaming at each other over who gets to sit on Camryn's bed and who doesn't. Good freaking grief. Oh...now they're laughing. Psychos.