Cooth Revisited: Part 1

In high school, I was known as "Cooth". I vaguely remember how I got the nickname, but that’s not the reason for this post. I liked high school. I had a good time. I was a fairly good student, had I applied myself, I could have done better. But best friends, boys, parties, band and all the other extra-curricular activities were much more fun.

Tug and I were best friends in high school. We found a lot of ways to get into trouble. I think the topper was the night we told my parents we were staying at her house and told her parents she was staying at my house and we left town. Seemed fool-proof at the time. But, yes, we did get caught. I think that was the reason my mother grounded me until I was 42. It was a fun night. Met a cute guy named Duh-wayne. He was tall. And really really wanted to take a shower with me. I was 17, it was the 70's and that seemed weird to me. Nowadays, not so weird. :o)

I drove a red 1965 Oldsmobile Station wagon. Kinda looked like this:

But minus the luggage rack, shiny paint and fancy wheels. But that didn’t matter. It ran good, you could get lots of people in there and the back seat folded down, if ya know what I mean. nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

We spent a lot of time in the car dragging main in our little town. Honking, waving, going "behind the bank" to chat. Ah, the days before e-mail and cell phones, when you still talked in person.

I was in band. Played the clarinet. When my brother started band he brought home a tenor sax, so I taught myself how to play that. Which led to me playing baritone sax in our stage band. Loved that. We had a really good band with a dictatorial band director. Our band took trips to the World’s Fair in Spokane, the Calgary Stampede, Washington DC. . . Lots of fun times.

Our school put on musicals every two years. Senior year, I played Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music. Yep, me, a nun. Talk about type-casting. The girl who played Maria, sang the national anthem at the Army/Navy football game sometime in the early 80's. I never did any singing after that. And the world is quite grateful.

We listened to our music on the am radio. Or the 8 track tape player, record player or cassette. Tug had an awesome portable 8 track player. If I remember correctly, the tracks had to be changed manually? Always fun when a song ended on one track and continued on the next. Some of the albums I remember fondly....Boston's debut aptly titled - Boston. This album was awesome. I still can sing every damn song on there. And every time I hear a song from it, I'm back dragging main. Bob Seger - Night Moves. Still one of my faves. Tommy James and the Shondell's greatest hits. Beach Boys - Endless Summer. And who can forget....all the great disco songs.

I could go on, but will do a part 2 another day.....