Going to high school in a small town was interesting. And SO MUCH FUN! We had our own version of Blueberry Hill (for those of you old enough to remember Happy Days). The local gas station called The Towne Pump was THE place to go Friday and Saturday nights to see what other people were up to and if there was a party anywhere in town. The drive-in movie theater was often the place to hang out in the summer time (although we did more socializing than movie watching).
But my favorite hang-out memories are from a time before I knew any of that existed.
My freshman year of high school, my friends Nancy, Sally and I would walk up to the local pizza parlor called The Pizza King before the home football game on Friday nights. We would each order our own individual pizza (I alternated between pepperoni with olives and Canadian bacon with pineapple), and then, while we waited for our food, we picked songs on the juke box. And we got up and SANG ALONG.
This was like twenty years ago (cough, cough) so before any of us knew what karaoke was. We just knew we loved the music and felt the need to share that love with the world. Or, at least the rest of the customers in The Pizza King.
How did those customers react, while Sally played the air guitar, I played the air drums, and Nancy sang like the lead singer she was destined to be? They clapped. They bought us sodas. They came up and told us how fun we were to watch. Thinking about it now, I’m sure there were probably a few customers who didn’t appreciate our performance. But if the manager ever got any complaints, he never told us about them.
When our pockets were emptied of quarters and our bellies were full of delicious pizza, we’d walk to the high school to watch the game. I never knew football could be so much fun. I can’t even describe how I came to love those games, and all of the players that made up the team.
Just writing about it, I get this tingly feeling in my chest.
"Those were the days, my friends, I thought they’d never end…”
3 comments:
I used to love the football games, too. Our team was terrible because we had one of the smallest high schools on Long Island. I was on kickline. Does that even exist anymore?
I'm pretty sure if my friends and I sang in public, someone would've called the cops. You guys must've been good!
Singing would've gotten us banned from McDonald's I think! But maybe not the bowling alley.
I was in marching band for the football games, but it was always SO COLD out for them that I couldn't really "hang out" at them without freezing my butt off.
What a fab high school you had!
What a wash of memories that brought back! We had a pizza place, too, that closed later because of a cockroach problem.
There is a magic in high school football that cannot be rivaled by any other sport in any other time of life. I marched in the band, sat in the stands; cheered as the school mascot. The sound of the lights being switched on echoing across the parking lots and the drum cadence. I pity the kids now who have high school games on Saturday afternoon.
Some of the magic is in the Friday and the rest is in the lights.
Thanks for the memories!
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