My 25-Damn-Year-Class-Reunion. Must Be Mistake - I'm Only 29

(Photo by Dan Drotleff, Post by Dawn Weber, copyright 2011)

Well, Google thinks I'm old. So it must be true.

Yes, it's a well-known fact that Google collects ages and other user demographics. And now every web page I visit with "Google Ads" has great news for me:

"How to Build Muscle When You're Older!"
"Lose Middle-Age Belly Fat the Easy Way!"
"In your 50s? Try this one weird trick to fall asleep at night!"

My 50s?! WTF?

Google is an asshole.

As if the all-knowing search engines weren't enough to make me feel ancient, I am helping to plan my 25-damn-year class reunion.

Wait, what?

You heard that right. Let me say it again so that maybe I'll start to believe it:

Twenty-Five-Damn-Year-Class-Reunion. Yes, that's its official name - according to me.

Time is also an asshole.

I am not sure where the years went. I am not sure how this happened, where I was, what I was doing.

Wait. I take that back. I know where I was - at work.

Yes, it's been a fast 25 years, a fulfilling life, full of riveting activities and achievements. Such as sitting in cubicles! Driving amongst dummies in traffic! Loading dishwashers and changing several hundred thousand diapers!

And soon enough, somebody will be changing my diapers.

Happy Thoughts: You're still at the wrong blog.

But this Twenty-Five-Damn-Year-Reunion got me thinking about things. Pondering Deep, Meaningful Bullshit about life, aging and the way things used to be, long time ago when we was fab.

My school, the old Springfield Local High School, was built in the 1920s. A crumbling building even when I was there in the 80s, full of dust and asbestos, it sits on State Route 170 near cornfields and the Petersburg, Ohio post office. We called it "The Shoe Factory." Because it looks like a shoe factory.

Here are my Top Ten Ways to Know You're From Old School Springfield Local, a.k.a. The Shoe Factory:

10. You knew that the first day of deer season? All boys (and several girls) would be absent.
9. The school parking lot contained four pickup trucks for every one car.
8. To this day, you know when corn in any given field is ready for the John Deere combine.
7. You can clearly remember the "Asbestos Removal" men in the building. Working in head-to-toe Haz-Mat suits. As you ambled past in jeans and a t-shirt.
6. You don't understand how any school year can start before the Canfield Fair ends. Obviously, 4-H is more important. Obviously.
5. You purchased your first piece-of-shit vehicle - at least in part - yourself. And again, odds are 4 to 1 it had a tailgate. (See number 9).
4. Proper locations for parties include fields, abandoned strip mines (!) and backyards of unsuspecting, vacationing parents.
3. You could tell that first lunch break had begun by the smell wafting up from the questionable, archaic maybe non-existent septic tank.
2. You know that spray paint is not for huffing. No. It's for painting your name on road signs and turnpike underpasses.

And the number one way to Know You're From Old School Springfield Local, a.k.a. The Shoe Factory?

1. A six-pack and a bonfire were - and still are - all you need for a good time.

Thank you Dawn David Letterman.

Blah. Enough reminiscing. I blinked, and it's 25 years later. Google says I'm old, I've got a 25-Damn-Year-Class-Reunion to help plan and a cubicle in which to sit.

The former Springfield Local High School - a.k.a. The Shoe Factory - still stands. Barely. Whoever owns it now, I hear, has filled it with vehicles and junk.

They built the "new," current Springfield Local High School (our old middle school) - I think - in the 70s. Fancy! I hear the kids who go to that carcinogen-free building now have air conditioning, a functioning septic system and safe drinking water.

Pansies.

Asbestos that doesn't kill you? Only makes you stronger.

Exactly When the Hell Does School Start?

(Post, copyright 2011, Dawn Weber)

Ah, summertime. When a kid can be a kid. And bathing?

Is just a concept.

Me: "Son. When was the last time you took a bath?"
Son: *Crickets*
Me: "SON! WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU BATHED?"
Son (lifting head from Nintendo DS): "Well, I went swimming Tuesday."
Me: "It's Friday. And I'm not asking about swimming. I'm talking SOAP. I'm talking SHAMPOO. I'm talking WASHCLOTH in your BUTT-CRACK."
Son: *Crickets*
Me: "GET IN THE TUB NOWWWW!!!!"
Son: *Stripping streak*

This is not totally his fault. He and his sister have been very busy, you see.

It begins each morning, after 11 hours of sleep. They log onto the computer for their daily dose of online shopping: Toys Backwards R Us, Amazon, Foot Locker online, Game Stop online... Decisions are made. Items are listed. Virtual shopping carts are filled.

And every evening, after my ten-hour workday and two-hour commute, the 19-page lists and shopping carts - printed with Epson ink costing $67 per milliliter - are shoved in my hand before I can put my purse away. Then I know what I can buy for them that particular day. Isn't that thoughtful? And all accomplished with such diligence, such attention to detail!

You know, I'm really glad they're taking the initiative here and working on solutions. Because they have a dreadful, serious problem.

They're bored.

The poor darlings! I feel awful for them. 159 video games on three different systems. A puppy. A trampoline. Two computers. A four-wheeler. Three mp3 players. 213 dvds. Five bikes.

An in-ground damn swimming pool.

Tragic, no? You can see here why the little lambs find their world so very dull.

Yes, it's truly a difficult life they lead. Every summer day is a struggle.

I can tell, because obviously some kind of terrible tussle takes place at our house before I get home at night. Popcorn bags scattered, candy wrappers dangling from the dog's mouth, cereal milk souring on the kitchen table, eleventy billion effin' drinking cups on every effin' surface...

My brave children. Must get so tired of fighting off the thirsty, popcorn-scarfing marauders invading our house that they can't clean up the resulting mess. So exhausted indeed that they cannot STAND to go outside.

No - the unbearable heat has turned out to be too much for my fragile flowers, who will surely wilt in the sun.

Teen Daughter: *Complain* *Grumble* *Whine*
Me: "Go outside and play!"
Teen Daughter: "But Mom - it's too haau-uutt outsiiiiddde-duh!"
Me: "Then go swimming!"
Teen Daughter: "But I just washed my hair-er!"
Me: "GO OUTSIDE! NOOOWWW!"
Teen Daughter: *Complains, *grumbles*, *whines* out door.

*Returns 9 minutes later.*

Teen Daughter: "But Mom - it's too hauu-utt out there-uh!"

Kill me now.

You know whose fault this is besides mine? Air Conditioning that bitch.

Believe it. Back in the Groovy Day? When I was a kid in the summer? You wouldn't find me in any stuffy, damn, 80-degree house. No sir. You could find my little ass one place only.

Out-damn-side.

I biked! I nerd alert roller discoed! I skateboarded! I played catch and weirdo alert Peoples with Marshall the Neighbor Boy!

I did not know this word you call 'Bored.' And I did not return to the house until the streetlights came on.

Because my mother locked me out all day. Then retired to the only air-conditioned room in the house: her bedroom. And that was that.

But that's O.K. It was the 70s, man.  Everybody locked out! Everybody weirdos roller discoed! Everybody dehydrated sweaty!

Air Conditioning? Nintendo DS? Water? Basic shelter? Ha ha-flippin'-HA!

You kids these days. I laugh at your cool air, your video games, your health and safety practices.

Bunch of amateurs.

Discount Stores...Because Poor Kids Need Pants Too.

(copyright 2011, Dawn Weber. Thanks to my old-school friends Mike McAndrew and Sarah Lowrey for giving me the idea to write about this oh-so-important topic!)


You may not know this from my current high-falutin', Applebee's eatin' lifestyle, but I was born a poor kid.

Yeah, I said it. I'm putting it out there in front of God, Google and everybody: We were broke.

And I'm talking poor, as in, during non-pay weeks? Boiled hot dogs for dinner. All week long.

I'm talking poor, as in, when the ONE black and white TV broke during the Blizzard of '78, well, we had no TV. During the Blizzard of '78.

I'm talking poor as in Hill's, Murphy's Mart, Bargain Port and Fisher's Big Wheel discount stores - for my school clothes.

Let me repeat that, so it sinks in: DISCOUNT STORES FOR MY SCHOOL CLOTHES.

The horror. My face turns red just thinking about it.

I know, I know. I was lucky to have clothes. Kids, probably without clothes, were starving in Africa.

But I wasn't worried about them. My great and urgent concern was that my little ass didn't sport a "Levi's" tag, like so many of my classmates.

You see, Hill's, Murphy's, KMart, Fisher's Big Wheel, etc.? They didn't carry Levi's, Gloria Vanderbilt, Sasson, Jordache, or any other horribly overpriced very essential brand. They were only available at the mall.

And my mother was emphatically NOT going to the mall.

"I'm NOT going to that MALL! Too damn expensive," she said.

Hell. I couldn't even score a pair of Sears Toughskins. Had to get those at the mall.

Obviously, pants were crucial.

So I walked around cracking jokes at school, hoping no one would notice my heinously economical "Togs" and "New Friends" jeans.

"New Friends"? WTF kind of jeans are those? More like "No Friends."

Although I hated the clothes they sold, I secretly loved the discount stores. Loved wandering up and down every aisle with my mother and grandmother, avid tight-fisted K-Mart shoppers, both.

And in northeast Ohio, during the 70s and 80s, a girl of reasonable age could shop by herself in such a store, without too much fear of abduction by a pervy stranger. I'd ask permission to go on my own, then prance over to the Record Department, drunk with the freedom of it all.

Oh yeah - there's the good stuff! Fleetwood Mac, Boston, the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack...had to make sure to peep at the ones with the racy covers before I got caught. I'd be in deep weeds if she saw me glancing at the R.E.O. Speedwagon "Hi Infidelity" or Loverboy "Get Lucky" cover.

After a thorough ogling of the smutty albums and new-release 45s, I'd wander alone into all the other vital departments. Toys, candy, plastic swimming pools - all the junkiest junk finest money could buy.

Most stores had their own best sections. Murphy's had the choicest toy department, Woolco sold the most excellent records. For passable "Togs," I could tolerate Fisher's Big Wheel.

Those stores are all gone now, leveled or replaced by today's two measly choices : Target or Walmart.

At least you can, occasionally, buy Levi's at either place. Not that my daughter likes them - she only wants Abercrombie, Aeropostale or American Eagle jeans.

She's dreaming.

Because I am NOT going to that MALL! Too damn expensive!