Never forget

Did you ever watch the movie "The Girl Next Door"? The movie starts (and ends) with people filling out their senior yearbook captions. They all begin "I'll never forget..." And that movie is all I can think of as I try to write this post.

So, if I were rewriting my caption (which I seriously wish I could go back and do) here are a few of my high school "I'll never forget" moments...

"I'll never forget...the 4 musketeers." I spent a summer at Penn State taking classes and meeting the most incredible people. A group of 4 of us were inseparable. They dubbed us the 4 musketeers. I still talk to them. D'Artagnon is my son's unofficial aunt. :) We also rebelled against their July 4th color wars and defected from the red, white and blue teams to create our own. We went to a thrift store and bought the most hideous shirts, becoming the first ever team chartreuse.

"I'll never forget...practice makes perfect." Gardenia was a little loopy one day in biology. In the middle of a particularly fascinating lecture about dominant and recessive genes, she whips out a Cosmo and begins animatedly reading an article about how to give killer blow jobs. She ends her dramatic reading with "Remember ladies, practice makes perfect." I couldn't help it - I reached over and placed a straw on her desk. (One of the tips was to practice with your straw whenever drinking.) For years, we took turns presenting each other with straws in the most ridiculous ways possible. I think I won the fight though - she got the last straw presented to her inside her wedding card.

"I'll never forget...cheerleader appreciation day." No, I wasn't a cheerleader. I was the field hockey and softball type of girl. But for some reason, the school thought we needed to have the cheerleaders at our games when the football team wasn't playing. We hated it. They hated it. They certainly didn't understand the sport, so we had cheerleader "appreciation" day where we got to school them in field hockey. HA! It was hysterical watching those girls trying to run around the field wielding a stick. The only sweating they usually did was in the backseat of a car...

"I'll never forget...lookout point." My roommate and I skipped out of State College, pretending to be with her mom, to meet some guys in Harrisburg. We ended up at Lookout Point, which is exactly as it sounds and could more appropriately be dubbed "make out point." Without going into a whole lot of detail, my knees have never been the same. Oh, you want more detail? I bruised the hell out of one slamming it into the steering wheel. And the other...I think I still have some gravel permanently embedded in there. (Feel free to draw your own conclusions on this one.)

"I'll never forget...the face that launched a thousand ships." English class freshman year. My prof was obsessed with Helen of Troy (and Sophia Loren). We had to memorize part of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. I still remember the whole thing. "Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium. Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul. See where it flies?" (I'll spare you the rest. But I really do remember every word to that entire scene)

"I'll never forget...Paris." This was back when I was fluent in French. I went to Paris over spring break with the majority of my French class. It was an interesting trip. The highlights? The locals couldn't tell that I was an American because my French used to be that good...I got knocked to the ground by a priest at Notre Dame...Had a very emotional visit to the huge WWII cemetary in Normandy...Took an incredible boat ride down the Siene in the snow...And spent an incredibly awkward night in bed with this random guy and two other girls.

Oh the memories...

Check out this week's other Writers Workshop participants over at Mama Kat's.