# Memories from your teen years



## Sassycakes (Aug 5, 2021)

* I **was** just listening to music and this song brought back memories of when I would go to dances Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. On Saturday night we would go to an all-boys Catholic high school. The Priests ran the dance. Everyone had to show the Priest the bottom of their shoes to make sure there wasn't any metal under their shoes that would not scratch the floor since it was held in the gym. When the song "The Twist" came out they would play it but you couldn't do the twist you just had to do a fast dance. So the guys would form a circle so the Priests couldn't see the ones doing the twist. Luckily I never got caught doing the dance or making out behind the Bleachers.*


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## Tish (Aug 5, 2021)

Haha, how delightful, willing t bet you lot had fun.


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## Sassycakes (Aug 5, 2021)

Tish said:


> Haha, how delightful, willing t bet you lot had fun.


I really had a great time and loads of friends that also went. They truly were the good old days.


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## Cameron (Aug 5, 2021)

I think first year of high school and Goodbye Yellow Brick Road came out and stuck in my mind since then.   Working up the courage to ask a girl to dance to bennie and the jets......


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## Buckeye (Aug 6, 2021)

As a healthy young male who graduated in '64, I only had 2 things on my mind.  (The other one is sports.)


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## feywon (Aug 6, 2021)

i graduated June of 1964, one of the happiest days of my life.  While i'd had a handful of friends, two of which i would know for decades after, it was not a good time for me, for many reasons.  i wrote a whole lot more but no, everyone has enough on their plates without me being a downer.
Let's just leave it at:
Have always identified with the Bob Dylan lyric: "...I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..." because i was way over-responsible from early childhood. 18 to 27 were much better tho turbulent.


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## Paco Dennis (Aug 6, 2021)

When I was 13 me and my friend when play phone jokes. We would pick a random number and say "Is your refrigerator running?"
They take the time to go check, and answer "yes"...we say "then you better go catch it before it runs out your door!" funny , I know :|
  One time I did it and a girl answers, and says she knew the joke but she wanted to know who I was. Long story short... I ended up buying a straightener for my hair because she was this dreamy senior coming to my street,in a sports car to meet me, a sophomore on my 10 speed bicyle, and she loved surfers with straight hair. We crossed paths one time, then she drove away...for good. Then I had to face all my friends and family looking like a nut!


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## HarryHawk (Aug 6, 2021)

I went to an all boys Catholic High School.  No shoes allowed to be worn on the gym floor, for that reason the events were called Sock Hops.  I did get to see John Lee Hooker perform at one of the Sock Hops.


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## fuzzybuddy (Aug 7, 2021)

Yup, I, too went to a coed Catholic school. It was some kind of religious thing about  wearing only sneakers on the gym floor. What always amazed me was that graduation ceremonies were held in the gym, with hundreds wearing shoes. I don't remember any problems with the "Twist" and  dancing, but we did have three or four nuns ready to pounce on  anyone bent on performing "immoral acts".


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## Pepper (Aug 7, 2021)

I was a serious truant.  I don't know why.  I almost didn't graduate, but my mother begged the principal, and they both agreed I was a nice Jewish girl, so I did.  I remember I didn't feel comfortable.  I don't know why.


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## Murrmurr (Aug 7, 2021)

Pepper said:


> I was a serious truant.  I don't know why.  I almost didn't graduate, but my mother begged the principal, and they both agreed I was a nice Jewish girl, so I did.  I remember I didn't feel comfortable.  I don't know why.


As an Irish Catholic and an Italian Jew-Boy, I _should_ have been uncomfortable at school dances, but being the basketball team's favorite point-guard and captain of the baseball team (plus this winning smile), I didn't even have to be nervous about asking girls to dance...except I was. The first  dance I went to, I asked my cousin to dance. Since she was 2 years younger than me, I told her I was doing _her_ a favor.


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## Irwin (Aug 7, 2021)

Pepper said:


> I was a serious truant.  I don't know why.  I almost didn't graduate, but my mother begged the principal, and they both agreed I was a nice Jewish girl, so I did.  I remember I didn't feel comfortable.  I don't know why.


I was a perpetually truant Jewish boy! I'd cut school for several days at a time and then get suspended as "punishment!"    

The reason I cut school wasn't so funny, though. Often it was when we had to get up in front of the class and give a book report. I was terrified of public speaking and had really poor reading comprehension, so there was no way I was going to humiliate myself. I'd cut school for three or four days and just take an 'F' or an incomplete for the assignment. I still managed to pass all my classes somehow and graduated when I was 17. I guess the rest of my work was good enough to make up for the incompletes.


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## Pepper (Aug 7, 2021)

Irwin said:


> I still managed to pass all my classes somehow and graduated when I was 17. I guess the rest of my work was good enough to make up for the incompletes.


Me, too.  I never failed one class; I graduated at just under 17.  However, I prepared for that by (as a sophomore) changing my program from college bound to getting a crappy office job bound.

My Grade Advisor, Mr. Rubin, said to me about my own demotion "I guess all these test scores from the past are wrong, and you're Really Stupid."  What a guy!

eta--I did keep Honors English though, which saved me academia-wise.


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## horseless carriage (Aug 7, 2021)

Growing up in the fifties, the one thing that struck me was how the girls would jive to the rock & roll records, revealing their underwear and stocking tops. Nobody ever mentioned such exposure because: "You shouldn't be looking, you pervert."

Something else that I noticed, many a girl danced with a girl. How did we go from 1940's with everyone on the dance floor, to the 1950's where men don't dance?

At school I was just an average kid, neither nerdy and bookish, nor the A-alpha male that the girls all swooned over. But, I had learned to dance, and I don't mean shuffling around on an improvised basis. I could jive your socks off and very often, did. It was wonderful that so many of the girls just loved to dance with me. And here I am, sixty years later, and always first up on the dance floor with my lady.


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## Gaer (Aug 7, 2021)

Best days of my life!
1959!  Best year of my life!
Every day, every night was MAGIC!
I had more fun than ANYONE, EVER!


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## Sassycakes (Aug 7, 2021)

Paco Dennis said:


> When I was 13 me and my friend when play phone jokes. We would pick a random number and say "Is your refrigerator running?"
> They take the time to go check, and answer "yes"...we say "then you better go catch it before it runs out your door!" funny , I know :|
> One time I did it and a girl answers, and says she knew the joke but she wanted to know who I was. Long story short... I ended up buying a straightener for my hair because she was this dreamy senior coming to my street,in a sports car to meet me, a sophomore on my 10 speed bicyle, and she loved surfers with straight hair. We crossed paths one time, then she drove away...for good. Then I had to face all my friends and family looking like a nut!


This reminded me of when we would go to the Army Base where my older brother was stationed during the Korean war. Me, my sister, and my cousin Jimmy would go to the payphone and Jimmy would say "Operator, give me 222 and another one.'' Then he would hang up and we would all run away from the phonebooth thinking we were going to get arrested.


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## Sassycakes (Aug 7, 2021)

horseless carriage said:


> Growing up in the fifties, the one thing that struck me was how the girls would jive to the rock & roll records, revealing their underwear and stocking tops. Nobody ever mentioned such exposure because: "You shouldn't be looking, you pervert."
> 
> Something else that I noticed, many a girl danced with a girl. How did we go from 1940's with everyone on the dance floor, to the 1950's where men don't dance?
> 
> At school I was just an average kid, neither nerdy and bookish, nor the A-alpha male that the girls all swooned over. But, I had learned to dance, and I don't mean shuffling around on an improvised basis. I could jive your socks off and very often, did. It was wonderful that so many of the girls just loved to dance with me. And here I am, sixty years later, and always first up on the dance floor with my lady.


You reminded me of when I was 15yrs old and I met my husband. Once we started dating he came to all the dances with me. Since he didn't like to fast dance he told his buddies that they could fast dance with me only not slow dances. One night his buddy asked me to do the "Pony" with him. My boyfriend thought his buddy got to close to me so that was the last time I danced with his buddy.


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## Irwin (Aug 7, 2021)

Pepper said:


> Me, too.  I never failed one class; I graduated at just under 17.  However, I prepared for that by (as a sophomore) changing my program from college bound to getting a crappy office job bound.
> 
> My Grade Advisor, Mr. Rubin, said to me about my own demotion "I guess all these test scores from the past are wrong, and you're Really Stupid."  What a guy!
> 
> eta--I did keep Honors English though, which saved me academia-wise.


I don't remember having a "grade advisor." Maybe that's a good thing, considering your experience!    

Nobody ever talked to me about college or my future or anything like that. I was from a small town and the nearest university was 25 miles away. I had some growing up to do before going to college, which I finally did when I was 33 years old. Actually, I went to community college when I was 28, but I was 33 when I started at Colorado University.


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