SueAnn Porter

At 7:45 am, I arrived at the school parking lot, and backed my ’69 Camaro into my spot. Darleen soon approached my car from the other side of the lot. She lived accross the street from the high school, and had easy access to the goings-on in the parking lot. It was also easy access to run home for a nap during the school day, if needed.

Darleen opened the passenger’s side door, flipped the front seat forward, and slid into the backseat. A milisecond later, she had a “cigarette” in her mouth, and was flicking the lighter at the other end. “Good morning, Poe!” she said as she inhaled and passed it up to me. “Morning” I grumbed as I took the sweet cigarette and sucked in the smoke. Oh numb my brain! Quick!

I pushed the Rush 2112 8-track tape into the player. I shoved a little book of matches underneath, to keep it playing.

Although most of the school population would answer “Led Zeppelin” if surveyed about who their favorite band was — and I did adore them — Rush spoke to me like no other band. My friends put up with it so they had a shelter to smoke in. It gets cold in NY in the winter. It wasn’t until years later that they came back and said, “Now I get it! I like Rush.”

Maddy walked over to the car and got in the passenger’s side. She was the third of our little trio. We also referred to ourselves as “The Crispy Crew” or just “the crew.”

Maddy lived down the highway and unfortunately had to take the bus to school. “Hey Poe, Hey Darla!”

Darleen hated being called “Darla”, the girl from the little rascals. Maddy did it on purpose to annoy her. Sometimes she even called her “Darlinggg” to really get her annoyed. They had basically known each other “since birth”, as their parents had been friends, and they had suffered through K – 8 of the Catholic school together.

I inhaled. “Here, Maddy,” I said, pushing the smoke over to her.

Crap! There’s the bell. We better get to homeroom.

And thus began just a normal day senior year.

Coming Soon: The Senior Trip