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I remember being 17

#41
17 was 23 years ago....

Around here:
Drugs were still good..
Life hadn't left any stains on us yet....
Love was free...
I didn't sit on my nuts...
Live music was everywhere...
We were blissfully unaware...
Bud nips were the drink of choice...
Friends were like family....
 
#43
NWB said:
Because I'm not Frank the Tank!
Click to expand...

Okay here is something you could do. You could get a bunch of bottles of water and put labels on them that say "There is hope" go to the middle of town and watch people's reactions. Or, maybe not. :p
How about the suicide prevention hotline, that wouldn't be boring. Or just do something crazy and unexpected. I'm just saying. Of course you've got to do what you think best nevermind what I think.
I like pushing boundaries and doing things that can be awkward.
 
#45
24 years ago for me...
i miss those times and i don't. the drinking age went to 21 when i was 15, so i knew plenty of folks that were grandfathered in. never really did much, though. always been kinda "meh" with it. i had the van, so i was always driving. was a monster at the plate, batting over .400 that season, on base % over 50. got loads of trim, and still stayed out of trouble (only b/c i never got caught!)
i also woke up that year from adolescence. not a friend, but suicide made itself known in my school, and two od's that year too. a good friend went to prison for trafficing, another murdered during a robbery. life can really give you the best and worst at the same time. overall, i'd say 17 was when i realized how soon i'd need to grow up... the party's gonna be ending soon... all that stuff.
to take a bit of a tangent, you know, when we did the partying in younger times, it was just that-- partying. when did it become the status quo to be turd-brained-wasted 24/7? sure, a little wakey-bakey on the ride in to school; but at work? h.s. sports? christmas morning? before doing anything else? wow.
 
#47
17 was a pretty awesome time for me. Some random thoughts I have about that time are:

- I knew everything, and knew I knew it :p
- I was incredibly confident in myself (borderline cocky)
- Music was my life in many ways
- I was a true social butterfly
- ...but I loved my alone time
- I dated. A lot. Can't say that happens as much these days
- The world and its people were all beautiful in my eyes
- My emotions ran wild and weren't easily controllable for me
- Like another person said, friends were family
- People seemed much more accepting and positive back then
 
#48
slobake said:
Okay here is something you could do. You could get a bunch of bottles of water and put labels on them that say "There is hope" go to the middle of town and watch people's reactions. Or, maybe not. :p
How about the suicide prevention hotline, that wouldn't be boring. Or just do something crazy and unexpected. I'm just saying. Of course you've got to do what you think best nevermind what I think.
I like pushing boundaries and doing things that can be awkward.
Click to expand...

I like the tack of your jibe sir!

May be time to restart my vivid imagination and make something happen.
 
#49
17 was 43 years ago. Life was what it was, sometimes good and sometimes terrible. It all made it easier to write music or poetry. I still have a few friends from that time. Some are dead and some have just gone out of my life. Today life is what it is, sometimes good and sometimes not so good but better than it was at 17. Just different.
 
#50
Ahh 17...such as crazy time in my life. After playing fretless for a few years, I remember I got a hankering to go back to frets and bought a "galactic purple" Squier P-Bass Special. I played that in a pit orchestra for my HS's production of Grease. I finally got some recognition that way. I also got really good grades my senior year of high school. Next to our senior pictures in the year book, every one of us had a quote about what we were going to do after high school. Most people had some variation of "I'm going to go to University X and be successful," or "I'm going to go to military branch X and be successful." I wrote, "I have no secure plans for the future as the future is not guaranteed." Now here I am getting a Ph.D. Back then, I never thought I would go on to do something like that. I didn't even think I'd ever go to college. :eek:

I also remember that one of my best friends was in a very bad car accident one Sunday afternoon. The driver of the other vehicle died from a collapsed lung. Nobody ever really found out the details of that accident.

Now that I'm 30, what I always suspected is true: That your "glory day" years really aren't the best years of your life. With that said, it would be fun to do high school again for a month, but only under the condition that I do it as the person I am now - the way my personality is currently shaped, my current intellectual growth, and pretty much how I currently look. I wouldn't want to do HS over again as the person I was back then.
 
#51
LiquidMidnight said:
...it would be fun to do high school again for a month, but only under the condition that I do it as the person I am now - the way my personality is currently shaped, my current intellectual growth, and pretty much how I currently look. I wouldn't want to do HS over again as the person I was back then.
Click to expand...
"If I knew then what I know now..." - aye, there's the rub!
 
#52
17 was in 1967 for me, 46 years ago.

The music written and played then is still played today.
The Beatles owned the pop charts.
The culture in the country was changing - driven by the Vietnam war and youth.
Every kid had grown up hearing and learning about WWII, which pre-dated our births by only a few years.
Segregation was still debated in the south (and observed in other places which didn't admit it.)
Cars were cool. The muscle car was in its heyday.
Medicine was more primitive than it is today.
The cold war between the US and USSR was intense.

Some good, some bad. I think mostly good, as that was a period of change for the country and many good things came out of it.
 

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