Back to school, 1980 style.

Exactly forty five years ago, September 1980, I began my freshman year  of high school. Ninth grade. I was fourteen years old and generally a sassy pain in the ass. At least I was to the extremely patient and generous adults in my life.  Thank God they were able to overlook my brattiness and love me anyway.  My shitty attitude was really just my immature way of dealing with insecurity. 

August days like today,  where the sky and clouds give an autumnal ambience, and the sun is not as bright or intense as it is in July, always makes me think about back-to-school shopping. Having spent most of my life in school in one capacity or another; as a student, as a teacher, as an adjunct professor, I always think of September 1st as the beginning of a new year rather than January 1st.  And to properly prepare for a new school year you need new things.  Shoes. Clothes, Accessories. And of course school supplies.  In the way-back we were able to manage with a few pens and pencils and some spiral notebooks.  We did not carry around water bottles or bags full of snacks like kids do today.  If we were thirsty, we drank from the water fountain that every other kid also drank from.  Germs? No one cared. If we were hungry we waited until lunch to eat and then we had after school snacks when we got home.  Our HS did have a bookstore from which I purchased many packages of Pop Tarts.  Brown sugar cinnamon was the best! But mostly, we only ate at designated times, not all day long like kids today.  And I can say that they do with certainty from thirty years of experience teaching middle school kiddos. They eat all freaking day long. 

Ninth grade started out with great disappointment. One item that I was desperately hoping to get for my entree’ into high school in the fall of 1980 was a pair of saddle shoes.  Cheerleaders at FHS wore black and white saddle shoes.  I looooooooved saddle shoes.  I did not get black and white saddle shoes because I did not make the cut after an intense week of tryouts. My thigh muscles ached so damn badly from all the jumping and herkey-ing, and whatever the hell else we had to do to show our physical worthiness. I could barely walk up and down our stairs at home because I was in such a state. I mean I was fairly coordinated;  I had taken dance lessons for years when I was younger.  But alas, I was not popular or pretty enough to make the squad I guess.  But I worked my ass off the rest of that year practicing cheers. I  tried out for the basketball cheerleading squad in November and still did not make it.  I was supremely pissed off because other girls who sucked, and I’m sorry, but they fucking sucked at their cheers, made it when I didn’t.  Because of all the practice I had done I had gotten really good. People even told me that I should have made it because I was that good. Oh, well.  I did make the JV football cheering squad the next year, got those shoes and wore that black and orange short pleated skirt with great pleasure.  I fucking loved wearing my cheerleading uniform. As I think about it, I’ve pretty much planned my entire existence around the outfits I might possibly wear.  I might have to get a cheerleading uniform and wear it just for fun.  

Here I am….the photographer took my picture when my eyes were closed, the jerk. 

Braces and brown hair…..

I also made the varsity squad the next year but quit because I wanted to be on the cross country team. Well, not actually “be” on the team, but hang with the team.  But to do that required at least some running.  That’s the team all the boys I crushed on were part of.  I broke my dad’s heart when I quit cheerleading. Wearing the saddle  shoes and the short skirt were not enough to overcome my crushes on the CC team.  

So, back to back-to-school shopping. We always went back to school shopping at the Millcreek Mall in Erie.  Maybe because there was no sales tax on clothes in Pennsylvania? Anyway, it was a nice mall, back when malls were nice.  Tons of stores, Hickory Farms for food samples, Baskin Robbins for ice cream, Thom McCann for shoes, Ormond’s, Foxmoor and Lerner’s and The Gap, The Limited and a whole bunch of others.  Going to the mall used to be such an experience.  The sunken pits for smoking and making phone calls on the pay phones.  The fountains.  Every mall had at least two or three located outside the larger department stores. Malls had a certain smell.  The co-mingling of the mist from the fountains,  Orange Julius, the merchandise, the smoke from the aforementioned pits.  To me the aroma was an elixir.  I loved going to the mall.  That year, the beginning of the 80s, fashions were not pretty.  But we did not know that at the time. Sebago brand deck shoes were in fashion.  I think I had JC Penney knockoffs. The Preppy Handbook was sort of a guide for how to dress at the time; button down shirts, crewneck sweaters, straight leg jeans. Everybody always equates the 80s with loud colors, shoulder pads, and big hair.  I think that might have been true later in the decade, but in 1980 girls still feathered their hair and fashion was not elaborate.

Back to school shopping excursions lasted alllllllll day.  We’d leave about nine in the morning, shop, stop for lunch, shop some more, stop for a snack, shop some more and then head home.  On the way home we’d always stop for ice cream.  Going anywhere with my mom was never a straight shot.  There were always fun and interesting detours for goodies and treats on any trip we ever took, no matter how short or long.   Finally, we’d roll into the driveway about ten o’clock, sometimes later.  I don’t know how the hell my mother did it.  Sometimes we’d take other girls from the neighborhood with us.  I think my mom might have even taken my brothers and me separately, so she had to back- to-school shop three times.  Yowza! 

As soon as I’d get home from the mall with my haul I’d have to have a fashion show and try everything on in my room and plan my outfits.  It was absolutely essential to wear a new outfit downtown to the end of summer Fredonia extravaganza, the ode to our rural roots, the Farm Festival. You wanted everyone to see you and your new clothes.  Even if it was 80 degrees outside, you were going to wear your new sweater, dammit, cuz it was so cute.  Appearing at the Farm Festival at the end of the summer was absolutely required.  Back in the olden times, you could go all summer and not see a lot of people from school other than your close friends.  The Farm Festival and the Chautauqua County Fair were the biggest social scenes of the summer.  You wanted to see and be seen. In the summer of 1980 I had purchased, on our family vacation to Cape Cod, a fabulous pair of roman style sandals with red laces that wrapped up my ankle and around the lower part of my calf.  Hot damn, I loved those sandals.  I paired them with a tight red t-shirt with little buttons on the chest.  I thought I was the absolute shit in that Farm Festival appearance outfit.  It must have made an impression on someone because I had a serious makeout session with a boy I had a massive crush on in the playground at the school at the top of West Main Hill!! Hahaha!!!  Maybe ninth grade didn’t start off so badly after all. 

Going from middle school to high school for me was terrifying.  Despite my delusions of grandeur at the Farm Festival, I had zero self-esteem.  And this was way before there were any back to school nights or orientations so you went in cold on the first day of school.  But we managed.  We found our lockers and our classes and made it work.  It’s just what we did.  Our middle school had three “houses” where you were with the same group of students from sixth to eighth grade, had the same teachers and basically were part of a family. When you got to high school you’d be thrown in with kids from other houses;  some you knew well, some a little, and some not at all.  And there were the kids who transferred from the Catholic school in the mix too.  

As a freshman, I found there to be three really stressful aspects to high school:

1. The cafeteria, which was loud and jam packed and often had no seats available because all the cliques were already seated together and if you weren’t part of one you weren’t welcomed. 

2. The hallway where all the upperclassmen sat on benches and basically teased you, judged you, or ignored you. Being ignored was the worst case scenario.  You had to pass by the senior benches at least a few times during the day and it was nerve wracking.  Unless you were pretty and popular, and as I already stated, and must re-iterate, I was neither.  Actually, I was probably OK looking, but didn’t feel like I was.  I wish I could go back and have that skin, those eyebrows, lol, and a hell of a lot more confidence.  

3. Gym class.  I fucking hated gym class.  Due to my schedule, I had gym class in the morning all four years of high school.  By the time I was a senior, I figured out a way to skip, but wasn’t that deceitful yet in ninth grade.  Gym class had students from all four grade levels, freshman to seniors.  And again, due to my incredible insecurity, I knew the senior didn’t like me.  I was ALWAYS picked last for teams.  Why the fuck did the gym teachers do that? Didn’t they know it was humiliating for those of us who were not athletically inclined.  Actually, I wasn’t really un-athletic, I just simply had zero interest in sports.  Plus, I was completely obsessed about my hair, and athletic competitions messed up your hair.  So yeah, no on the sports for me in ninth grade. 

And oh yeah, in 1980, it was called gym, NOT phys ed. 

Fall equaled football games and in anticipation of the last football game of the season,  the last week of October was spirit week.  We dressed up in togas, pretended we knew how to dress as punk rockers, had backwards day and twin day. The week always culminated with Hillbilly Day. Right? Our high school mascot was a skinny, shotgun toting, moonshine swilling Hillbilly.  What the fuck?  How was that OK? The mascot is still a Hillbilly but he as eschewed the hooch and the gun for steroid enhanced muscles.  Ridiculous.

 Old mascot

New mascot. How the hell is this one better? 

Everyone dressed in orange and black, or like a fucking hillbilly,  as we looked forward to the game with our arch-rivals the Dunkirk Marauders.  What a time to be alive- the Marauders versus the Hillbillies in the mud pit of a football field known as the Orange Bowl. 

Fredonia high was a big party school.  Drinking was what most kids primarily did on the weekends.  Before football games, during football games, after football games. It’s semi-rural, a college town, and the drinking age was eighteen in 1980.  And there were  lots of bars in town to cater to the college students, as well as the high school seniors who were of age or who had fake IDs.  It used to be so easy to make a fake ID.  If you took classes at Fredonia State, as many HS seniors did, you were issued a student ID card that was made out of cardstock paper with your information typed on it. As in typed with a typewriter.  Everyone simply erased their birth date and carefully re- typed in one that made you eighteen.  Easy peasy.  So, yeah, drinking was a cultural and social pillar.  There were so many places to buy beer in town and on campus.  Plus, if you or your friends had older brothers or sisters, they’d buy beer for you.  It wasn’t really that big a deal back then. It wasn’t so difficult to procure.  At least my friends and I never had a shortage of alcoholic beverages to consume on any given weekend. And so what began in eighth grade as a one or two time sneaky experiment, by ninth grade became an every weekend habit. I couldn’t drink prior to the games because I was in the band and the band played at the games.  But I could and did definitely partake afterwards.

LOL- in my band uniform before a football game.  This is actually me in 11th grade, not 9th grade. 

There were several infamous party spots around town and if you were, again, popular enough you were granted entrance. There was The Bus, an actual bus out in the woods on a huge farm up on Route 83.  There was the legendary B Brothers end of the year extravaganza at the Legion Grounds up in Arkwright.  There was The Barn- not sure I ever went there.  And of course there was always the good old out-of-doors.  The lake, the cemetery,  someone’s far backyard.  You could always hope that someone’s parents would go out of town so you could party in comfort and not have to pee in the woods. When we were fortunate enough to party in someone’s house, we were not grateful.  Yeah, some shit got damaged. Family pictures may or may not have gone down the laundry chute. Carpets may have been stained with red wine or vomit. Cigars and cigarettes were smoked.  Strip poker was played. Oh, my.  Gen Z and Gen Alpha have zero idea of the fun their parents had when they were their ages.

Can’t discuss 1980 without talking about what music we were listening to.  Radio reigned in 1980 and we’d listen in the mornings before school.  DJs were mythical, supreme beings who had us in thrall and did all kinds of obnoxious, juvenile activities on air that thrilled us.  Buffalo had good radio back in the day; WPhd, 97 Rock, Rock 102.  We did the primal scream and laughed at the antics of the FahKing. Listened to Block Party weekends and Six Packs. Called in requests and called in to try to win concert tickets.  In 1980, Bob Seger did a three night string of shows at the Aud, Springsteen did a few nights, AD/DC played, as did Black Sabbath, Frank Zappa, the Kinks, The Outlaws, Rush. Buffalo used to be a major concert town back in the 80s.  The fall of 1980 was all about listening to Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Queen and “Another one Bites the Dust”, which I believe was the theme of our freshman homecoming parade float that year.  Billy Joel, Bette Midler’s The Rose, which we sang in chorus that year, lol. Styx, Air Supply, Christopher Cross, the Police, Eddie Rabbit.  I was not a music connoisseur, I had no real sense of what else was out there yet so I listened solely to whatever was on the popular radio stations. 

The year went by like they all do, busy, seasons changing, chorus and band concerts, ski club, vacations, homework, crying over Earth Science and Algebra while studying for tests.  My class was famously obnoxious when our math teacher got married during the school year and we had a substitute teacher whom we terrorized.  I was not the instigator, nor the worst of the brats, but I certainly did not make matters better.  We had read Death Be Not Proud in English and if you know the story, the main character had a tumor.  It’s a really sad story -as an aside,  there was a running joke that our teachers were purposely trying to make us depressed by making us read so many disturbing stories like Ethan Fromme, Death Be Not Proud, The Bad Seed, The Scarlet Ibis, and a few other dark “classics”.  Our poor substitute teacher was pregnant at the time and some obnoxious students took to yelling out completely inappropriate things- one of which was the word “tumor” at random times throughout the period. 

To note- that poor lady was my math tutor later that year and helped me get through the Regents exam,  and I ended up having her kids in my class when I taught.  They were both much nicer kids than I was.  

High school is so different now.  In some ways better, in some ways not so much.  My generation was not particularly worldly, our lives were mostly local and family oriented. But kids back then had their own world, not necessarily dependent on adults the way kids’ lives are today. We mostly disdained all adults,  we pretty much wanted nothing to do with them.  We also had fewer outside distractions and way more fun.  I wouldn’t go back, but I can appreciate the good and the bad.  Some times were definitely had, and we figured shit out ourselves, and made our own way through the maze and chaos of being teenagers.  It’s hard to believe that my freshman year of high school was forty five years ago.  

And we never had to worry about being shot at school. 😦