Sophomore Dayz

Got out the yearbooks last night, let my fingers do the walking thru the snapshots of my years as a Grizzly. Tons of memories flooded back seeing the people and events captured in time as we were then…young…carefree…had the world by the ba….um, by the throat. Our biggest worry back then was passing our mid-terms and whose party we were going to Friday night. And we did party. A lot. The first high school party I ever went to was at Shawna and Chad Phillips’ house my sophomore year…two of the “popular” kids in school…that was a HUGE deal. Shawna was my age (as sweet as the day is long and 20 years later is still one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen), her brother Chad was 2 years older. A Senior. The Phillips’ lived out in the country so it just made sense that they had their party out in the barn and not in the actual house (damage control). Tons of people - wall to wall - music blasting, people dancing, a couple kegs on ice. Lots of Seniors. My sophomore mind boggled at the thought…me! at a party with Seniors! Well yee haw and pass me a beer! This was also where my first hangover came from. I remember crawling down the hall toward my room but suddenly needing to veer sharply to the right and into the bathroom where I worshipped the porcelain god for an hour or so. Ick :0( Overall I think my sophomore year was the best one; almost all the good memories I have from high school come from that particular year. Joined the spirit squad with some jr high friends the summer between freshman and sophomore year, the squad ended up cheering in the 4th of July parade…lost my voice from yelling cheers for 3 hours, hands were sore for days from all the clapping, and the whole lot of us were sooo sunburnt. When school actually started, it was pretty intimidating being the little fishes in a big pond. Ya’ll know what I’m talking about, you’ve been there. Things settled out soon enough into normalcy, letting life just move on in a blur of classes, homework, trips to the mall, dances and parties. My first HS year – skipping assembly to drive to the mall for a Mrs Powells cinnamon roll (those of you in Idaho Falls will understand); Mr Newton’s choir class and our trip to sing at Ricks College at the Messiah (the guys and Mr N all gave an impromptu rendition of “Duke of Earl” in the restaurant we ate at, drawing applause from surprised diners); basketball games; showing up for Mr Backstrom’s last period typing class soaking wet after Corey Peterson, JJ, and Ron Janeczko (seniors) caught me (I managed to fight loose twice before Ron cornered me in Mr Harris’ room) and threw me in the canal (when I asked Aundria to hold my camera I didn’t mean TAKE PICTURES!!) out back of the school, which was a “right of passage” for the sophomores in the last couple weeks of the school year…strangely enough it was mostly the girls that got the heave-ho; driving!; the bonfire before the Emotion Bowl, which I was the only one I remember we had…think we made too much racket (and I’m sure created a bit of havoc) doing the big human chain through the streets from the school to the vacant lot where the fire was; journalism class, where I was once told that I “looked like Delilah from One Life to Live”; tots with cheese and Ranch at Tam’s; going to the Dusk to Dawn movies at the drive in on the north end of town – man those just a big ol’ party!; football games; hanging out with the Z103 crew – Mike (and his girlfriend Gina), Randy and Eddie…was “guest voice” on the radio a few times, which was a ton of fun:0); “after game” dances in the commons; hanging on the cruise Friday and Saturday nights; Mike Smith being dogpiled by the senior jocks - I think they broke his arm but I know they did give him a huge concussion (some memory loss came with that little souvenier) and was hauled off in the ambulance (yeah, the guys got into bookoo trouble over that one, as well they should have); the Jensen “clan” riding around in Damage; Darla painting her room pink, and I mean it was pink; pizza at Sbarros; sucking helium out of the tank while the spirit squad was filling balloons, getting too much and passing out, taking the big tank down with…guess damn near the whole store heard it crash to the floor…whoops; lock-ins at Theresa’s church; Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers (“we thank you for your support”). I used to have oodles of pictures but they have been lost in the moves over the years. Sigh.

I asked my friend Aundria what her favorite high school memory was the other night….she relayed a story that I had completely forgotten about that is in my fav HS memories as well. We had choir together…don’t remember what period. One day there was something going on with Mr Newton – he had a conference with somebody’s parent or some such thing – that required him to leave class for a short period of time. Aun and I took this opportunity to go outside and have a smoke (yes, I was a bad girl). This was pretty easy since our class was a short stroll down the hall from one of the side entrances. So out the door we went to the sophomore and junior parking lot. Neither of us remember where we sat down but the end result was Aundria blowing the rear end out of her jeans – rrrriiiiiippp! She froze. I froze. Ho-ly sh**…that wasn’t what we thought it was, right? Oh no....it totally was. She stood up and turned around…biiig hole in the seat of her pants. I remember a few moments of panic while we tried to figure out what the heck to do – were there shorts in her PE locker that would get her by? Nope. Was there a sweatshirt she could tie around her until she could go home at lunch and change? Uh-uh. Should we just go right now so she could change? Yes! We would simply go back inside, explain the situation to Mr N (who was super cool to begin with) so he could excuse us from class to go to her house and change. Newt was awesome…surely he’d let us leave. WRONG. When we returned to class, he was back from wherever and in a foul mood, a rare thing for him. Great. Walking as carefully as she could, tugging her shirt down over her rear as much as she possibly could without tying a 20 pound dumbbell to it, Aun and I approached Mr N in his office, explained the predicament, requested a short “leave of absence” to change her clothes. He thought we were trying to pull a fast one! Didn’t believe either of us! We lobbied our case for several minutes, pleas falling on deaf ears…he wasn’t buying it. Finally, Aundria did the only thing she could do to make her point – yep, she turned around and bent over – ‘LOOK!!’. Yep, my best friend mooned our teacher. It was all over from there…I’m certain all the blood drained from my face at that point and I was figuring that spending some quality time in detention is in our very near future, but once his face returned to a normal color and he quit laughing enough to get some words out, he let us go. Now how in the world could I possibly have forgotten about that?! :0)