Best High School Memory Ever, Or Facebook And My Scanner Are The Devil

Recently, I was forced to join Facebook in order to view pictures from a recent bonfire. I say forced because up until earlier this week, I've successfully fended off the urge to join this sort of website. I realize this might be something akin to old-ladydom. All right, it probably is old ladydom. But here's why the resist: I have lurked in a sportbike forum based out of the Cities and it's filled to the brim with teenagers and twenty-somethings spouting acronyms and adding "z" to everything plural. Take, for example, this "blurb" I stumbled across.

hey guys n grls jst to let ya kno im **** ***** or "****" bt i was a cool down to earth racer on my 03 r6. i was so good lookin to i mean ya c me in my pic i put on my pro. bt i used to ride w the SA group it was a lot of fun i loved it, n i used to fly in airplanes to. n i rode boyd ********s bike w him on the back n he taught me a lot of stuff for riding to. n when i was racin mark crashed me in turn 2 at 165 mph. he didnt want a grl to beat him racing n i was the only grl racin in the race he crashed me in. bt the crash did a bunch of things to me as well lol. It ruined my weight, i was 126 lbs before i crashed n now im like 30 lbs more lol so my weight, my voice i do sound like im drunk bt i cnt drink n i sound like i have a southern accent to a very lil 1 tho lol. n my r arm dnt work rite now lol, well i cld lift it up to my mouth bt yeah guys/grls im a really fun/cool person to be with n hang around to so jst talk to me n get to kno me k? n GUYS N GRLS PLEASE FLIPPIN GO BWLING AT BLAINBROOK BWLIN ALLY ROUND 9PM IT IS A SHITLOAD OF FUN TO I PROMISE YA THAT N I GO BWLIN EVERY WED W FUN COOL FRIENDS OF MINE LOL SO JST GO N ENJOY IT PLEASE IT WLD BE FUN SEEIN YA N MEETIN YA TO K? LOL

Uh, yeah. Moving on.

I never found an interest in myspace. That website hurt my eyes. The layouts and images that pass for "home pages" are enough to make Jackson Pollock switch to an Etch-A-Sketch.

Facebook seems a little more mature. You can't go poking around in other people's profiles unless you register (for free). Once you're logged in, you can search a little more in depth for people, but once you find the intended target, you both have to mutually agree to be friends. This opens up your full profile to them and theirs to you. After Turd said he posted pictures from the bonfire on Facebook, my stupid curiosity got the best of me. Now, after three or four days, I've gone plum ape shit.

First, I add a couple of friends from CVSC (and berate Turd for making me sign up). Before I know it, friends I haven't seen or talked to since high school are showing up all over this here site. The guy who got me hooked on Yes. A woman with whom I was inseparable. Several older classmates I like to think of as my mentors and big brothers and sisters. A couple of guys I had terminal crush for. Trish, of course, and Cheryl, who, without Trish's blog and then my blog, I would've never had the pleasure of meeting (or getting internet cookies from another woman). Even our band director is now in Facebook.

This puts me right now at this computer after having spent, over the course of a few days, hours scanning in old high school photographs and posting them in Facebook. I even scanned some patches and artifacts from band. Where's the anti-drug? Facebookinol, anyone?

All this insanity has reminded me of what might be the oddest event in my Marching Band history. Let me tell you a story...

So there we were, a few days before our state contest. We, the marching band, are rehearsing after dark in the brightly lit parking lot of our West campus. Somewhere, up beyond the reach of the light, stands our band director, a couple of stories up on a scaffold, booming out instructions with a megaphone. It is also a few days before Halloween. As we are taking a quick break from practicing, but still standing in our positions on the striped "field," the giant boulder that sits on the corner of our campus goes up in flames behind us. The rumor was the rock started out as a small pebble and people just kept painting graffiti on it until it was the size as it appeared that day; comparable to a Toyota Yaris. Of course, all those layers of highly flammable paint made the ignition something like a small bomb going off behind us.

There was shocked silence from us, including the staff. As we're watching the rock engulfed in flames, a handful of people come running over the berm next to where we're practicing and run into our set. We, being the well-disciplined marching machine we've become, stand and watch...presumably open-mouthed, as the individuals dance around us, one of them yelling something that today I can't remember, and just as quickly realize we aren't probably reacting as they think we would. As they start to leave, I think I remember hearing our director's wife ask if someone should call the fire department. The director answers, "My dear, how long do you think a rock will burn?" Then more silence. Once again, from the scaffold we hear our stern leader speak, calmly and this time without the megaphone, "Well? What are you all standing there for? Gently put down your instruments...and go get them." To which, we all quietly, almost slowly, and gently, put our instruments down on the pavement, and I swear to you, I remember it like that scene from "Braveheart." One hundred and five high school students (and a few staff members) erupt into war cries, swarm back over the berm and are off and running for the costumed morons. I think we even caught a few of them.

HOW FLIPPIN' COOL IS THAT? I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I remembered it this evening.

PLEASE NOTE: Future marching bands, watch out for this guy, the ringleader. He probably looks older now.


Somebody back me up on this story. It's so surreal, I'm starting to think I dreamed it. That happens sometimes if I eat too much salt at dinner...