The 17 “High School Days” Challenge
A writing challenge looking back at my high school days at seventeen
I’d like to thank fellow Western New Yorker, Sreese, for tagging me in this challenge that was started by Lu Skerdoo. I also read Scot Butwell’s response and mistakenly thought he had started the challenge but I’ve edited the article (4/16/2023) to reflect the original challenge starter.
High school was definitely a mixed bag for me. I struggled to fit in early on. Then I found my crew halfway through. I was always a bit of a nerd but tried to play it off by being a smart ass as a class clown sometimes. Honestly, there were times that I wanted to be left alone and unnoticed though because I didn’t feel like I had much to offer outside of my brain.
I met my high school sweetheart at 16 and went to prom with her. I even got to star in a commercial that ran statewide in California with my house in the backdrop in my senior year. High school was definitely an eventful time. This prompt will definitely take me back between the hallways and the fences that surrounded Encina High School in Sacramento.
- What year did you graduate? I graduated in the year 2000. I was just short of 18, so technically 17 when I finished high school. In fact, when my graduation was scheduled a few days after my first day of summer school in community college. I wasn’t even an adult when I moved on from high school to college.
- Did you carpool? I’m going to rephrase this question to “How did you get to school every day?” to make it more open-ended. I didn’t have a car and I didn’t have enough friends with cars to be able to carpool with anyone anyways. I would either walk the 30 minutes from my house every day to the school or I would get a ride from my dad before work if I got up early enough. The walk back during the day could get pretty tedious especially in the summers since the weather in Sacramento routinely stayed over 100 or even 110 degrees. I think that the walks definitely kept me in relatively decent shape back then.
- What kind of car did you drive? At seventeen in high school, I didn’t even have my driver’s license. I decided against getting my license right after 16 despite taking Driver’s Education, acing the written test that they give in that class, and feeling confident in my ability to drive at that time. I had read somewhere that kids 16–18 were statistically more likely to get into deadly accidents and that they were relatively unsafe drivers. I was a nerd so I totally waited until I was 19, almost 20, to start driving.
- It’s Friday night, were you there? Not usually, the football team at my school was mid to bad in most of my years there. I had no interest in trying out or watching the football program because of that. I was into sports throughout my life and went to a couple of the games, including some of the homecoming ones, but in general, I watched the NFL and college football during that time. You know, kids who actually had futures in football.
- What kind of job did you have? I already had a few jobs in high school leading up to 17 years old. I had already spent two full summers working full time for the County of Sacramento as a student assistant helping out social workers with office work. I also worked at a popular water park in the snack bar for one summer. During the school year, I was the fry cook for over two years in the cafeteria.
- Were you a party animal? Me, a party animal? No way. I was way too straight-laced at that point to even consider hanging out with the kids who snuck liquor and smoke cigarettes or weed. I lived a boring, clean life, and had to come home right after school almost every day if I wasn’t doing anything extracurricular. I didn’t even have the desire to party at that age.
- Were you considered a jock? The short answer is no. I knew a lot about sports and probably could’ve coached or assisted in coaching on one of our teams but I didn’t really get involved in the school sports. I did try out for the boy’s varsity basketball team in my sophomore year. Of course, I didn’t make it but I didn’t really let it faze me. I wasn’t meant to be in that life. I did play plenty of sports outside of school and was definitely athletic. I just didn’t have “high school-level athleticism and competitiveness”. I would’ve been considered jock-adjacent for part of that time.
- Were you in the band? Technically, I was. I played the trombone decently, I suppose. My heart wasn’t really into playing that instrument but I had decent lungs and was still young so the trombone was fine. I really enjoyed singing more as I had done that outside of school in church for many years leading up to high school. I was musically inclined, just in the wrong section at school.
- Were you a nerd? Yes, and mostly proud to be so. I’m still a nerd today. I knew a little about a lot and always sought out to expand and improve my knowledge base. I would spend a lot of my free time either studying or engaging in nerdy hobbies. I played a lot of Sim City, did a lot of map drawing, watched a decent amount of educational programming, and liked to play board games, and card games, and develop my own dice games.
- Did you ever get suspended? Yes, surprisingly, I did a few times, especially in my senior year. I was just ready to get out of that school and had a carefree attitude toward it near the end. I egged on one of our linemen on the football team during class to the point that he knocked me out. I got suspended for that interaction. And I think that there was at least one attendance-related suspension in there along with one for the interaction in which I threw a violent and loud fit in the middle of piano class at a racist piano teacher.
- Can you sing the fight song? We had so many rallies that we sang that song so many times. I knew it long after high school but I honestly don’t remember it now. I suppose if I thought about it long and hard, I could remember some of it, but high school was over 20 years ago now.
- What was your high school mascot? We were the Bulldogs. I thought that it was a pretty cool mascot. We had the same mascot as Georgia and Fresno State, among a few other notable schools.
- If you could go back and do it again, would you? I’d initially say no. High school was definitely not my finest time but if I think about it further, I think that I’d go back with the knowledge and wisdom that I have now and I’d definitely enjoy it a lot more with that. But if it was just me going back as I was, then no.
- Are you still in contact with people from high school? Yeah, I have a handful of people that I went to high school with. Many of them I also went to elementary and junior high with as well. They all have their own things going on and I try to catch up with them on social media when I can. Most of them are too far away to see in person anymore.
- Do you know where your high school crush is? I had a few crushes and one long-term relationship from high school. I don’t know where all of my crushes are but I do know where my ex-girlfriend/fiancée is. I was friends with her up until about 2019 or so, maybe 2020 at the latest. I blocked her though after we had a huge falling out in an inevitable final standoff that should’ve happened years prior.
- What was your favorite subject? I had many different interests in high school. I loved music, art, math, English, history, and science. I really enjoyed geography and maps throughout school and that’s really where my heart was the whole time. I could’ve chosen a number of majors in college because of this.
- Do you have a high school ring? I never got one. I wasn’t on a sports team. I didn’t peak in high school. I wasn’t particularly one of the most popular kids in high school. I just didn’t see the point of getting that ring. Plus, they were kind of overpriced and I didn’t want one anyway. My parents probably wouldn’t have helped me financially to get one either.
The song I remember thinking back to my high school days is the song that played at my graduation. The song by Vitamin C “Graduation” came out on March 7, 2000. We were the first graduating class to graduate in the 2K era and we made it known to the rest of the school. The Class of 2001, though, was so annoying reminding us constantly that they would technically be the first one of the new millennium though. They were technically correct but we were the first ones that had the 2 in front of our class out of anyone in history with four digits in the year. Suck on that, 2001. This was such a fun ride down memory lane. If you want to read the other responses to this challenge. Scot’s and Sreese’s stories are linked below.
I’m going to tag a handful of fellow writers in this challenge that I’d love to read the responses to.
Darren Weir, Debra Groves Harman, MEd, Mary Louisa Cappelli, MFA, JD, PhD, Linda Ng. I would’ve included more writers but I know a lot of us are currently caught up in the daily writing challenges with Keeley Schroder so I left off any of my fellow challenge writers from there. If you do want to respond to this from there, though, feel free to.
