# Do You Remember Being Seventeen?



## pchrise (Mar 23, 2015)

I do because I had a ruptured appendix only weigh 97lbs at 5'9   Still Love this Song from ABBA  I did like being 17.  Your favorite age? besides now.  PS I'm now 5'10


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## AZ Jim (Mar 23, 2015)

*Here's one of my Abba Favorites.


*


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## Ameriscot (Mar 23, 2015)

17?!  I was rebellious and wanted to do anything my parents told me not to.


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## AZ Jim (Mar 23, 2015)

Did they tell you not to 'fool around'?


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## Ameriscot (Mar 23, 2015)

AZ Jim said:


> Did they tell you not to 'fool around'?



Yep.  Don't fool around, don't smoke, don't drink, don't swear, don't skip school.


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## pchrise (Mar 23, 2015)

AZ I love the winner takes it all also.   Ameriscot I was never allowed to be rebellious.


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## pchrise (Mar 23, 2015)

My song for my current age and condition is:


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## QuickSilver (Mar 23, 2015)

My favorite ABBA     Dancing Queen  and  Take a Chance on Me. 

Yes...  I remember being 17.   My parents were very strict... and I did everything I could without them finding out about it.


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## Mrs. Robinson (Mar 23, 2015)

I remember 17 very well. Got married, and a month later (maybe less) became pregnant. But prior to the day I got married,I still had a midnight curfew,still was only allowed to go out one night on the weekend (unless I was babysitting,which I pretty much always was) and got in trouble if my grades weren`t up to par. I worked a part time job,six hours a day,and then had a babysitting job at least 5 nights a week for four little girls. The babysitting job was across the street from us and the parents owned a dance place in San Francisco. I sat from 8 or 9 every night and they would get home plastered at 4 or 5 in the morning-sometimes so drunk that they would have to sit in the car for an hour to sober up enough to walk in. That used to bug me to death. I was so tired and just wanted to go home! I was allowed to sleep, but really only ever catnapped.Anyway,after I got married,they still wanted me to sit (and I did a few times) but since we lived across town I finally told them that it was just too risky for me to drive and walk alone to our apartment at that hour. And I certainly wasn`t going to let THEM drive me!


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## pchrise (Mar 23, 2015)

Mrs. Robinson said:


> I remember 17 very well. Got married, and a month later (maybe less) became pregnant. But prior to the day I got married,I still had a midnight curfew,still was only allowed to go out one night on the weekend (unless I was babysitting,which I pretty much always was) and got in trouble if my grades weren`t up to par. I worked a part time job,six hours a day,and then had a babysitting job at least 5 nights a week for four little girls. The babysitting job was across the street from us and the parents owned a dance place in San Francisco. I sat from 8 or 9 every night and they would get home plastered at 4 or 5 in the morning-sometimes so drunk that they would have to sit in the car for an hour to sober up enough to walk in. That used to bug me to death. I was so tired and just wanted to go home! I was allowed to sleep, but really only ever catnapped.Anyway,after I got married,they still wanted me to sit (and I did a few times) but since we lived across town I finally told them that it was just too risky for me to drive and walk alone to our apartment at that hour. And I certainly wasn`t going to let THEM drive me!



If parents could restrict breathing they would have,  I wonder how many of us had those type of parents.  I had enough at 19 and came to the US.


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## Ameriscot (Mar 23, 2015)

pchrise said:


> AZ I love the winner takes it all also.   Ameriscot I was never allowed to be rebellious.



I was the only rebellious one of the 4 kids.  I was second of 4 and my older sister was Miss goody two shoes.


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## AprilT (Mar 23, 2015)

I remember it well, it was partly one of the best years of my life, I remember some very happy times, I could walk to central park, I had the most wonderful happiest pregnancy it was a the first time, I had a fun 17th b-day, it had been a long while in which a group of people made me feel special for my birthday, I had one of the best summers, I've ever had in ages.  I was glowing and felt so alive for several months of that year.


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## SifuPhil (Mar 23, 2015)

I spent most of my seventeenth year looking forward to my eighteenth birthday party, a party that would go down in history as one of the most raucous ever. 

I was also looking forward to moving to NYC at that time, was teaching kids classes and was driving around in my Triumph TR-6, thinking I was warm defecation. Meanwhile I was still trying to put the moves on Donna Salerno, one of only six girls in our high school ...


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## Debby (Mar 23, 2015)

What a bunch of lovely and intriguing memories!  All I remember from that year is that I was desperately in love with someone who didn't love me at all and someone else was desperately in love with me and I wasn't interested in him......it was an awful painful muddle being 17.


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## NancyNGA (Mar 23, 2015)

Debby said:


> ....I was desperately in love with someone who didn't love me at all and someone else was desperately in love with me and I wasn't interested in him......



Yes, that, too.  It was my senior year in high school and I skipped the prom for that very reason.  

Kennedy was assassinated.  Got my first car as a graduation gift.   Hung out at a pool all summer, and just turned 18 a week before starting college.  Lots of excitement and anticipation about the future that year.


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## AZ Jim (Mar 23, 2015)

I don't think I was 17.

But this guy was......


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## Falcon (Mar 23, 2015)

17....The onset of horniness.  How well I do remember.


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## pchrise (Mar 23, 2015)

Falcon said:


> 17....The onset of horniness.  How well I do remember.


  Not me still a kid and no boys on my radar  , just sweet and free.


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## Shalimar (Mar 23, 2015)

Seventeen! That was the year I fell in love with the violet-eyed boy responsible for my first kiss under the float in the sea. Sigh. I remember baked clams and oysters in the embers of a beach bonfire. Slow, sweet kisses on the night sand, watching the phosphorous gleam in the water....Soft serenades accompanied by Spanish guitar. Giddy stuff. How did I manage it? Snuck out my window, of course! Lol.


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## pchrise (Mar 23, 2015)

AZ only if you were born  after 1915  he died in 1998 @82  
like this song


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## pchrise (Mar 23, 2015)

Shalimar said:


> Seventeen! That was the year I fell in love with the violet-eyed boy responsible for my first kiss under the float in the sea. Sigh. I remember baked clams and oysters in the embers of a beach bonfire. Slow, sweet kisses on the night sand, watching the phosphorous gleam in the water....Soft serenades accompanied by Spanish guitar. Giddy stuff. How did I manage it? Snuck out my window, of course! Lol.



Sorry no boys for me at that age father would of had a fit, and
my family all boys no girls except me


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## Cookie (Mar 23, 2015)

When I was seventeen I babysat for spending money and was enjoying a  carefree existence in high school with my first boyfriend. The Beatles  were at the top of the charts and summer was spent having picnics at the  beach. Happy days, which didn't last long.


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## AZ Jim (Mar 23, 2015)

Shalimar! STOP IT!!!  I'm getting....uh......I mean......Never mind!  Ever considered writing erotica?


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## Cookie (Mar 23, 2015)

deleted


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## oakapple (Mar 23, 2015)

I was working at age seventeen, and shortly after became engaged, marrying the following year.I felt grown up, responsible and quite adult, which is a shame really as there are so many other ages later on to be feeling all those things!


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## AZ Jim (Mar 23, 2015)

pchrise said:


> AZ only if you were born  after 1915  he died in 1998 @82
> like this song



I saw Sinatra at Mission Beach Ballroom.  I was a boy.  My Dad had the Master lease on Southern California's biggest Ballrooms.  As Jimmy Dorsey described the ballroom in Billboard Magazine "It is huge".


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## Kadee (Mar 23, 2015)

I was still under the control of my mother and step father, being used to baby sit 7 younger children no make that 6 my youngest brother was not born untill I was almost 18, I left home shortly after I turned 19 and most of the kids were put in foster homes as they didn't have a baby sitter any more ...


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## Warrigal (Mar 23, 2015)

At 17 I was in my first year of university. Life was good and I was happy.
It all turned to ashes the next year.


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## tnthomas (Mar 23, 2015)

Went into the U.S. Army at 17, in Oct '69, have bittersweet memories, but generally had a  "going somewhere-doing something" excitement.  A couple songs were playing on the radio when I was in Basic Training:


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## pchrise (Mar 23, 2015)

In 69 no longer a teen did like that Elvis song.  But did not understand , still had not discover boys.


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## Glinda (Mar 23, 2015)

Yes, I remember.  I was saving every penny I could get my hands on - baby-sitting, picking fruit, working as a dishwasher in a restaurant - so that I could make my escape to California immediately after graduation from high school.  I literally started counting the days when I was 16.


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## Mrs. Robinson (Mar 23, 2015)

Glinda said:


> Yes, I remember.  I was saving every penny I could get my hands on - baby-sitting, picking fruit, working as a dishwasher in a restaurant - so that I could make my escape to California immediately after graduation from high school.  I literally started counting the days when I was 16.



Was it the Summer of Love (1967) by any chance?


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## SifuPhil (Mar 23, 2015)

Janis Ian had a good take on seventeen ...


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## Glinda (Mar 23, 2015)

Mrs. Robinson said:


> Was it the Summer of Love (1967) by any chance?



I turned 17 in 1968.  My family put a capital D in Dysfunctional so I decided at an early age I would leave for San Diego, California immediately after graduation from high school.  I chose San Diego because my grandparents lived in a nearby town at that time and I hoped I could fall back on them if necessary.  As it turned out, I found a job within a week and, after a few months, moved from the YWCA to my first apartment.  I'd like to say, "Yeah, I went to California because I wanted to be a hippie and live for the moment, etc." but that wouldn't be true.


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## Mrs. Robinson (Mar 23, 2015)

Ah,OK. So many kids came out for that summer-and so many of my friends headed the 20 minutes north to spend the summer there. I just assumed you might have as well. That whole summer brings back memories.I am,at this moment emailing back and forth with my bff since age 14. She is coming from Oregon (that`s where all the hippies from San Francisco went after that summer) to visit the end of April and look for a retirement home. She`s a vet but had a stroke about 8 months ago so she`s ready to relax a little. And yes,at 65 she`s still a hippie lol! I am sooo looking forward to her visit-haven`t seen her since 1989! Have seen her daughter-our daughters are 2 weeks apart and are BFFs as well. I think it will be fun!


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## Glinda (Mar 23, 2015)

Mrs. Robinson said:


> Ah,OK. So many kids came out for that summer-and so many of my friends headed the 20 minutes north to spend the summer there. I just assumed you might have as well. That whole summer brings back memories.I am,at this moment emailing back and forth with my bff since age 14. She is coming from Oregon (that`s where all the hippies from San Francisco went after that summer) to visit the end of April and look for a retirement home. She`s a vet but had a stroke about 8 months ago so she`s ready to relax a little. And yes,at 65 she`s still a hippie lol! I am sooo looking forward to her visit-haven`t seen her since 1989! Have seen her daughter-our daughters are 2 weeks apart and are BFFs as well. I think it will be fun!



I've been trading email with a friend from high school who initially came to San Francisco, then settled in Sandy, Oregon.  I'd love to see her again but don't know if that will happen.  I hope you have a wonderful time with your friend!


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## Butterfly (Mar 23, 2015)

I DO remember being 17 -- lots of momentous stuff that year.  Graduated high school on crutches, first full time job (part time job became full time); really bad car wreck  (boyfriend and I were heading home from the local bowling alley and were hit head on by a speeding drunk without headlights -- hence the above-mentioned crutches); JFK was assassinated (one of those life moments where you remember exactly where you were, what you were doing and even what you were wearing); the love of my life was drafted and went off to war, never to return.  Not the best year, but certainly a memorable one.


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## chic (Mar 24, 2015)

I do remember being seventeen. I never had more fun in my life. It should've been illegal. Sometimes it was. I used to go to all night slumber parties at the last minute without giving my parents much notice because there were no cell phones in those days and parents couldn't keep close tabs on teenagers like than can now.

My girlfriends and I were hitchhiking and we got picked up by a guy who started making lewd suggestions and we became frightened and decided to bail out of his car at the next red light. It worked like clockwork and the guy was left behind very much bewildered as we took off running where he couldn't get us. We were lucky we lived to be 18.

I experiemented with halucinagens for the first time. But not the last. I could sit and watch a wall for hours. How interesting.

I was a junior in high school and caught mono. My throat swelled up so tight I couldn't even swallow my own saliva. I thought I'd never eat solid food again - ever.

I went on a ski trip though I don't ski. After supper was served and eaten, men at the bar bought me drinks so long as I didn't order the same drink twice. By the end of the evening I could barely walk. One of the cute guys who worked at the ski resort held me in his arms all night long by a roaring fire in a fireplace that extended half the length of the resort. I though it was all so romantic and that my life was going to be very exciting.


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## Ameriscot (Mar 24, 2015)

Glinda said:


> I turned 17 in 1968.  My family put a capital D in Dysfunctional so I decided at an early age I would leave for San Diego, California immediately after graduation from high school.  I chose San Diego because my grandparents lived in a nearby town at that time and I hoped I could fall back on them if necessary.  As it turned out, I found a job within a week and, after a few months, moved from the YWCA to my first apartment.  I'd like to say, "Yeah, I went to California because I wanted to be a hippie and live for the moment, etc." but that wouldn't be true.



In 1969 at the age of 17 I wanted to go to San Francisco, wear flowers in my hair, protest the war, party and get high. How this would be funded didn't figure in to this airheads plans.

On my first trip to San Francisco in 1994 the first place I wanted to see was Haight-Asbury.


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## merlin (Mar 24, 2015)

Ameriscot said:


> 17?!  I was rebellious and wanted to do anything my parents told me not to.



Yes same here, I also blamed my father for all the ills in the world, I was always slamming doors and being generally obnoxious! Looking back I don't think my teens were particularly happy, what with hormones and general contrariness.


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## Ameriscot (Mar 24, 2015)

merlin said:


> Yes same here, I also blamed my father for all the ills in the world, I was always slamming doors and being generally obnoxious! Looking back I don't think my teens were particularly happy, what with hormones and general contrariness.



I was not a happy teen either.  My dad and I just never got along. My parents seemed to me to be much stricter than other kids parents.


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## Ralphy1 (Mar 24, 2015)

I had to dump my girlfriend when she was no longer a sweet little sixteen...


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## Rob (Mar 24, 2015)

1966 and O-Level exams over and done with, starting on the first of two years in the 6th form leading to A-levels. Mods and Rockers were the youth culture at the time and I was of the latter persuasion in a school full of Mods ... a difficult time for me. Bought my first bike, a Triumph T200 Tiger Cub, as a box of bits and rebuilt it over the summer holidays. Went to the Earl's Court motorcycle show and ogled all the bikes and promised myself a BSA 650 Spitfire when I started earning (never got that one as by the time a year had passed, British bikes were in decline, due to complacency and the advent of Japanese machines).

Musically I was never into the Beatles, preferring The Stones, Yardbirds, Cream and The Who. The following year saw the first offerings from Pink Floyd, Hendrix and the US acid/psychedelic rock bands. Got drunk a lot, got stoned a bit, got over it and somehow got decent A-level results.


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## Mrs. Robinson (Mar 24, 2015)

Ameriscot said:


> In 1969 at the age of 17 I wanted to go to San Francisco, wear flowers in my hair, protest the war, party and get high. How this would be funded didn't figure in to this airheads plans.
> 
> On my first trip to San Francisco in 1994 the first place I wanted to see was Haight-Asbury.



It all sounded so romantic,didn`t it? In reality,the kids were hungry,sick,drugged out,sleeping on bare filthy mattresses on dirty floors. Girls were being raped and given diseases. There was an entire group of my friends at that time that all suffered from gonorrhea. Yuck,huh? They all spent the summer of `68,right after graduating,in the Haight trying to recapture what they had experienced in `67 but it was a whole different world by then. Then they all moved into a house on the coast together for about a year and it was not a good scene. Happily,today they are all happy,healthy,successful adults (old people now,LOL) and I am in touch with most of them. So don`t ever feel like you missed out on anything-it wasn`t all it was cracked up to be.


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## rickary (Mar 24, 2015)

This is a good thread like to keep it going.  I was a Junior in HS. in Muskogee Ok. drinking white lightning when it was available to me on the weekends playing snooker at pool halls and I was pretty good and won a lot of the money available on the game.  Going to fights that were announced with my HS buddies which there were plenty.  Going to Lake Tenkiller at the cliffs and jumping off 50 footers. Dragging Main Street.  Great times.


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## pchrise (Mar 24, 2015)

merlin said:


> Yes same here, I also blamed my father for all the ills in the world, I was always slamming doors and being generally obnoxious! Looking back I don't think my teens were particularly happy, what with hormones and general contrariness.





Rob said:


> 1966 and O-Level exams over and done with, starting on the first of two years in the 6th form leading to A-levels. Mods and Rockers were the youth culture at the time and I was of the latter persuasion in a school full of Mods ... a difficult time for me. Bought my first bike, a Triumph T200 Tiger Cub, as a box of bits and rebuilt it over the summer holidays. Went to the Earl's Court motorcycle show and ogled all the bikes and promised myself a BSA 650 Spitfire when I started earning (never got that one as by the time a year had passed, British bikes were in decline, due to complacency and the advent of Japanese machines).
> 
> Musically I was never into the Beatles, preferring The Stones, Yardbirds, Cream and The Who. The following year saw the first offerings from Pink Floyd, Hendrix and the US acid/psychedelic rock bands. Got drunk a lot, got stoned a bit, got over it and somehow got decent A-level results.





rickary said:


> This is a good thread like to keep it going.  I was a Junior in HS. in Muskogee Ok. drinking white lightning when it was available to me on the weekends playing snooker at pool halls and I was pretty good and won a lot of the money available on the game.  Going to fights that were announced with my HS buddies which there were plenty.  Going to Lake Tenkiller at the cliffs and jumping off 50 footers. Dragging Main Street.  Great times.



It is really good to see what others did at seventeen at the ages we are now it makes it easy to forget how young we were and the fun we had or not, after the  apendix thing I went back to Brasil south america and came back in 69 no longer a teen but still very young.   Went to Visalia and worked in a nursing home, my first exposure to seniors and decided would not be like that. That being wearing undwear on ones head.


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## Kathy G in MI (Mar 24, 2015)

Wasn't that just last year? I'd swear I'm only 18!


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## pchrise (Mar 24, 2015)

SifuPhil said:


> Janis Ian had a good take on seventeen ...





Kathy G in MI said:


> Wasn't that just last year? I'd swear I'm only 18!



Thats how I think, just not acting like any age , mind sharp any trying to feel fine. No one looks at me and says Oh look there goes a senior.


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## AZ Jim (Mar 24, 2015)

When I was 17 I was a virgin, still am.  Life sucks!!


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## Georgia Lady (Mar 24, 2015)

Of course I remember being 17. Graduated from high school in the hometownI hated.  I moved 2 hours away to Nursing School and I felt like I could finally breathe..  I loved my parents, but they were just too over protective.  When I turned 21, then I felt like I could carry on an adult conversation with my parents.


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## rickary (Mar 24, 2015)

AZ Jim said:


> When I was 17 I was a virgin, still am.  Life sucks!!




Jim for some reason I do not believe you are still a Virgin.


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## Butterfly (Mar 24, 2015)

rickary said:


> Jim for some reason I do not believe you are still a Virgin.



Me, neither, Jim.


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## AZ Jim (Mar 24, 2015)

What?  Not believe me?  I'm gonna tell my Grandchildren.


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## Glinda (Mar 24, 2015)

Jim, I suggest you go ask your wife what a virgin is.  Have fun!


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## Shalimar (Mar 24, 2015)

Jim, I don't believe you ever were a virgin!  Lol.nthego:


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## pchrise (Mar 25, 2015)

Butterfly said:


> Me, neither, Jim.


 Busted!


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## Rainee (Mar 25, 2015)

I remember 17 pretty well.. I was working in Sydney in the Taxation office and had joined a dancing group which was 
very hectic..it was a folk dancing group. run by the Serbians   as my stepfather was one.. so being the dutiful 
stepdaughter I joined as knew he`d like me to .. well for a long time I had really sore legs and muscles ached because 
I wasn`t used to such hectic dancing.. painwise I`ll never forget 17 lol after a while it got better and I loved it .. 
this youtube is similar to what we did .. ours was based in Sydney and we used to dance all over the place and mainly 
in Victoria ..lol was fun and I was the only Aussie in it .. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja8sarGSbYM


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## Warrigal (Mar 25, 2015)

Wow, that is hectic.
I love watching Ukrainian and Russian folk dancing too.


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## Pappy (Mar 25, 2015)

Let's see. It would have been 1954 for me. Loved the 50's. Rock and Roll was new and the hormones were going crazy. Had my own car and was working almost full time in our local grocery store. Starting with the cigarettes and getting served in many bars. Still living at home but things were always fairly smooth there. My step-dad would put his foot down, about the late nights I was keeping, but in the end, i did pretty much what I wanted to do.

Seventeen was a fun time for me. A couple speeding tickets and loud muffler warnings was about the most trouble I got in.


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## Ameriscot (Mar 25, 2015)

Kathy G in MI said:


> Wasn't that just last year? I'd swear I'm only 18!



It seems like yesterday, but also seems like a lifetime ago.


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## Ameriscot (Mar 25, 2015)

Mrs. Robinson said:


> It all sounded so romantic,didn`t it? In reality,the kids were hungry,sick,drugged out,sleeping on bare filthy mattresses on dirty floors. Girls were being raped and given diseases. There was an entire group of my friends at that time that all suffered from gonorrhea. Yuck,huh? They all spent the summer of `68,right after graduating,in the Haight trying to recapture what they had experienced in `67 but it was a whole different world by then. Then they all moved into a house on the coast together for about a year and it was not a good scene. Happily,today they are all happy,healthy,successful adults (old people now,LOL) and I am in touch with most of them. So don`t ever feel like you missed out on anything-it wasn`t all it was cracked up to be.



Yes, it wasn't the lovely picture painted in the songs or on tv.


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## Temperance (Mar 25, 2015)

Remember it well, it was a wonderful year.


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## Georgia Lady (Mar 25, 2015)

I will never forget it no matter how old I get.  Graduated from high school, gained my freedom and entered Nursing school.


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