My Old Room

This was my bedroom for a year when I lived with my grandparents in a small Virginia town. It was so small that I had to pull my legs onto the bed in order to open the dresser. I learned how to play guitar in this tiny cell. And it was a cell- that little town was a prison to me.

The big fun thing for the locals to do on weekend nights was to drive to the 7-11 store on one end of town, turn around in the parking lot and drive to the 7-11 on the other end of town, turn around...you get the idea. The girl who lived across the street used to burn two tanks of gas a night and never leave the town limits- pretty impressive considering the town is less than five miles across.
Even in 1984 this wasn't cheap to do.
They still do this, but now the rednecks listen to rap music instead of Southern rock and they wear FUBU gear and pants twenty sizes too large instead of Harley t-shirts and wallets with chains. It's really funny watching white hillbillies imitate the black people they see in music videos.

Another popular thing to do in 1984 was to get pregnant and drop out of High School. This happened to a lot of girls - 10% of the graduating class , I think.
Fifteen years later the town suffered an epidemic of vandalism- tires slashed, windows broken- schools and churches, mostly. The culprits were the adolescent children of my former drop-out classmates. No surprise there.
Most of them are now in prison, the military or a military prison- also predictible.

I had better things to do. I traded my Atari for an electric guitar and made friends with the freaks that no one else got along with. We formed a band. I also became an expert beer drinker.

I was usually drinking Black Label beer in my friend's basement- his mom let us get wasted , hell, she used to get drunk with us. Sometimes I drank Black Label with another friend in his backyard. His mom also let us drink. She let me smoke pot in the house, which was weird because her son didn't hardly touch it.

I had some good friends, but every once in a while I just couldn't stand it anymore and I'd hitchhike 100 miles north to the Baltimore area just so I could get laid and score drugs. I missed a lot of school days as a result but never really got in trouble. Tehnically, I was running away from home, but I was staying with a former 'foster' family during these excursions and called to let my grandfolks know I was OK and stuff.
I don't think you could do that these days.
If I was a parent I'd never put up with the shit I got away with as a teen. My kids would hate me.

Anyway, the room is empty now. It's hard to believe that I ever lived in it.