| OAKLAND MILLS HIGH SCHOOL Class of 1991 BRIEF BACKGROUND: I don't remember much from high school. I remember getting drunk a lot and hanging out with my homies, David Maciorowski ("Ski Dog") and Jesse Scharff ("Scraps"). We had fun in those days. We cut school, would get drunk and then go to school and dabble in a few hustles here and there. It's really quite a pathetic statement to make really, but I mention it so as to provide you with an insight into my attitude and behavior at that time. I suppose I'm so hard headed that I didn't want to learn what they were teaching. I've always loved to learn, but I like to pick the topics myself. From this standpoint, I think I've had an excellent non-traditional education blending classical themes with a cultural interest. So what comes to mind when I think of high school? Drinking fool! I vividly remember us all getting together on weekend evenings. Around 5pm I would pick up Ski (who always had his $5) and Scraps (who always had about $3.00 in change). We would roll up to Timbuktu. Timbuktu was about the only place in Mryland we could get served underage. We were still teenagers so a fake ID wasn't going to fool anyone. I was usually the one who had to go in a try to buy the case of Milwaukee's Best. Ski and Scraps told me I looked the oldest. That was a pretty cool thing to hear as a teenager. Nowawadays they still look young and I look like I'm in my mid 60's (great). I had a pretty good success rate. I would stroll confidently into the store, pick up a case and hand the cashier the money. Usually the old Arabic fella would stare at me for a second...then take my money. Success! It was almost like he wanted to 'do the right thing' but in reality he knew he needed my crisp $10 bill. This worked on and off for a few years. Eventually the authorities heard about this place and staked out the parking lot. Timbuktu got busted serving alcohol to minors and had to start carding the customers. We didn't always drive 20 minutes to 'Timbuk' sometimes we'd try that beer store off of 108. It would rarely work out for us, so we had to resort to "Hey Mister". You know the game 'Hey Mister' right? It's that epic game you play trying to get an adult to go in and get you a case and a half of Milwaukee's Best ("Beast"). Invariably, some drunk stranger would go in and buy us a case of National Bohemian and pocket the rest of the cash. Still, most of the time we got a 12 pack of Beast each, then we'd have to find a place to drink it. ODE TO MILWAUKEE'S BEST WHERE TO DRINK IT? Where can you drink if you're underage? We used to go to one of our houses, either Ski's or mine. My house was always pretty cool 'cause my parents were pretty liberal...sorta turned a blind eye to it all. I'm quite grateful to them b/c they let us grow up and make our own mistakes and learn from them. If we weren't causing a disturbance they kinda left us to own devices (beer bongs, shotguns etc.) Ski's house was pretty good too, especially if his dad was away. His house was very fun. Forget Jesse's house. Mr. Scharff interrogated POW's in 'Nam so there was no way we wanted to go there. He used to look at us and call us "The Lineup". Then there were times someone was having a party or get together and we'd crash it. If all else failed, the three of us would drink outside. Usually at 'the bridge'. It was our drunken lair. We used to give Ski a hard time and say that when he threw his "empty" cans into the water below they'd always sink. They didn't really but it was fun getting a reaction out of him (he's pretty level-headed). What fun we had. We used to drink in Ski's basement but we had to be on point. You never knew when Dave's dad was gonna come down for a surprise visit. Dave was good at protecting us from getting busted. As soon as the basement door opened Dave would stash the beer and tell his dad to leave us alone. Dave's a good guy...he looks out for his buddies. Scraps used to call Skis basement the Energy Drain and now he blames that on me. How would he remember anyway...he was always drunk when we were there. I hope Frank (Dave's dad) never reads this because for the first time I'm abou to reveal some secrets about Ski's basement. We used to piss in the sink. Crude, but now is the time for the truth. Ski didn't mind as long as we turned on the water. What a good friend. This way we didn't have to leave the basement and risk the chance of compromising our beer supply. My house was another favorite spot to drink. In later years my brother took it to another level...he was an idiot. I'd have to monitor his parties to make sure people didn't leave with my parent's CD's or turntables. Anyway, back to my friends. We would each get a 12 pack and start drinking in my finished basement. It was very cool because there was lots of space to stretch out. There were two beds (they were removed by a HAZMAT team), couches (puked on by Keith), a phat pool table (puked on by Keith...what a wanker!) and a stereo (Keith missed throwing up on this). Apparently one night, and I was pretty drunk myself, Keith (my brother) who's several years younger than us had started drinking liquor on top of the beer he'd been drinking (silly boy). As he got off the couch with Anne-Marie Turpin (busted) he swayed from side to side as he lined up a shot and puked all over the fucking pool table. The green felt was never quite the same. I remember bringing chicks back to my house and they'd always say "why's there a big stain on your pool table?". It's funny now but we gave him a hard time about it. TOTEMISM I used to keep all my beer tabs and made a necklace out of them, I didn't wear it much but it was cool. We used to wear a lot of totemistic clothes and jewelry in those days. Beer wrappers, beer cans, beer tabs, malt liquor storage jars became clothes and jewelry. I used to cut the tops off of Milwaukee's best cans and keep my change in them, later we moved onto Dundee's Honey Brown and Bacardi bottles. People thought we were mad. In retrospect I guess we were silly, but that's what being a teenager is all about. My brother and his friends took it a bit further. We were loyal Beast drinkers but they were Stroh's drinkers. They had Stroh's tee shirts they'd made and blue and red Stroh's necklaces they made out of beads and whatnot. DRUNKENESS We were funny drunks. We were sixteen year old alcoholic hoodlums. To our credit, we never really hurt other people...we were too busy in drinking and trying to pickup girls. We would go to the Mall drunk. After ten minutes we were asking each other 'why did we come here?'. One time me and Scraps (if you want better grammar this page isn't for you 'cause I have a beer in my hand right now) each donated a pint of blood at our school. For some reason Ski dog didn't? He never explained why. Anyway, after the cookies and juice...we ditched school and heaed to Centennial Park to drink, shoot hoops and get a tan. I was a hot and humid Maryland summer day so we thought we should celebrate by each drinking a 12 pack of Beast. We were skinny kids so for each of us to lose a pint of blood then drink a twelve pack in the 90 degree heat then play basketball wasn't the best idea.....but it didn't even phase us. We weren't playing very well, but then what do you expect? Ski Dog always had game so he probably lit up our opponents but me and Jess were stumbling around the court. After the blood loss, sun and alcohol we each went our separate ways and slept for 12 hours. JUNIOR YEAR Junior year was a lot of fun. That's when we started cutting school on a regular basis. I didn't really see the point in going, I wasn't learning anything. Some of the teachers were okay, but some of them would bust my stones. I became disillusioned with the whole environment. The only reason I toughed it out was because it was a place to meet up with my homies and a good place to scheme. I used to drive my brother and Jason to school in the morning in my Superfly 1988 Ford Escort GT then wait in my car while they went to school and take off, go home and sleep and meet up with Dave. Ditching school was fun. It always feels good to rebel. Remember needing 'Hall Passes' and the like? It was like being inside of Stalag 13 except that instead of Sgt. Schultz looking the other way, we had teachers who'd make a point of trying to bust you for something or rather. It really was like a German prison camp. Although you could wear what you wanted. By 11th grade I was rapidly losing interest in school. I was taking Honors classes but never going to class. I remember there were kids who could barely read and write taking U.S. History (Skills) and getting straight A's. Meanwhile, I'm taking high level courses and failing them. My GPA suffered but by then I didn't give a fuck. High school was so silly in lots of ways. Your grades weren't weighted so if you took U.S. Studies (Honors) and got a hard-earned "A" you were no better off than the kids who rode the short bus who took U.S. Studies (Regular) or worse....U.S. Studies (Skills). So many of the kids were taking Skills level courses in my high school. I'd like to think that they were usuing the system against itself but they weren't. Most of the kids taking these classes were borderline illiterate. I remember the teacher asking kids to read aloud from their textbooks and the kids couldn't pronounce half the words. It was shocking. Things really were bad. Even worse, these remedial kids were graduating with 3.5 GPA's. Then they got into colleges! So now society has a too many people with college degrees who can't fucking read. I blame the high schools and colleges. High school teachers, in my limited experience, could really care less. They want the kids to pass the classes...it's good for the State's statistics. Colleges are even worse. They really could give a fuck about teaching. They just want the money for tuition and room & board. What a fucking mess. And now I'm writing a webpage about it? Back to the fun. Junior year was really a turning point for all of us. Girls were finally giving us the time of day. I think we developed what I shall call a "collective confidence". My friends wanted to pick up girls but didn't want to look pathetic doing it. Ski Dog and I honed our skills at Ocean City, Md. It took us a while to develop 'game' but soon we were off to the races. Scraps spent his time with Huber doing the same. As a collective, we were unstoppable. Like the old adage goes "there is strength in numbers". GIRLS The girls at OM were pretty good looking. Me and the boys used to enjoy how they looked. It wasn't 'til I got to Towson State that I realized just how lucky we were back then. Girls in college always tended to gain the 'freshman fifty'. The girl-to-guy ratio at Towson was 8-1 so I shouldn't really complain. SATURDAY SCHOOL Saturday school was pretty annoying. Senior year was the first time I started getting busted for drinking, smoking and cutting. I lost my car for a semester and then started having to go to Saturday school. That sucked. You couldn't do fuck all. No talking, no reading and eventually no breathing. It reminded one of the camps me and Ski saw in Poland (1999). You weren't allowed to read the Baltimore Sun or any magazines. The teachers (sadists) would patrol around the desks watching over the students. We were supposed to be 'studying' and reading our textbooks like good boys and girls. How ironic. We were in Saturday school because the last thing we were doing was reading the textbooks. Of course, most of us didn't read the textbooks. If a teacher asked you just said you were working on a project, or you put a copy of Easy Rider magazine inside your chemistry book. It wasn't to hard to outwit these imbeciles. As the afternoon wore on some kids would lose it. There was a strict 'no talking' policy and if they caught you talking to another detainee you had to come back the next week. Some kids, probably cokeheads or ADHD sufferers, just couldn't keep quiet. There'd be an hour to go and they'd stand up and shout things like "I can't do this shit anymore"! Instantly they were busted and in some cases they had to return for multiple weeks. Me, I just kept my mouth shut and kept my head down. There were some cute girls in Saturday school but it wasn't worth passing a note to them and getting busted. Saturday school was a horrible experience and did very little to disclipine you. It was a minor inconvenience and only strengthened my resolve to be a naughty boy. GAMBLING Throughout middle school many kids laid bets on major sporting events. In 7th Grade the bets were small...$10 on the World Series. By high school the increments were more sizable. In Accounting, someone (Chad Ritchey perhaps) invented a gambling game that never had a name. Some called it 'flipping' but most just pulled out a quarter to signify the game was on. If Chad wanted some action he'd stare at you and say "Wasssssup!". It was pretty funny and pretty soon everyone was saying "wasssssup" when they want to flip for a while. Basically, the game involved playing for dollar bills. For example, I would flip a quarter and it would land heads up. You then flipped your quarter and if it landed heads up you won the dollar and flipped first in the next round...if your quarter landed tails up, I would win and I would flip first again. A very simple game, a game of chance, a game of luck. You would assume it would always end 50-50 and no one would win or lose but it never worked out like that...that was the fun of it. Some people like this kid Mike would always want to play and I'sd house him. By the end of the year he owed me over a $100. Of course, Mike was a bitch and he only paid me $20 before he transferred schools. I'd say that myself and Chad Ritchey were the best at it. After a while it would just be me and him playing. Mike Turner, Eric Miller, Theo Baxter, Jon, Troy, Mike were all sick of handing over dollars so the game eventually died but good times were had and money was made. Hustlers! Most of my friends and associates in high school considered themselves to be two things; hustlers and pimps. In the late 80's and very early 90's gangsta rap had a domineering effect on the white suburban teenagers. Our high school, Oakland Mills, was considered to be the most racially diversed in Columbia. As such we gained various reputations. Most rich white parents did not want their sons and daughters going to Oakland Mills. We were probably one of the first high schools in America that had embraced interracial dating. The kids in our school (and maybe I'm taking some liberties here) saw ourselves as all one color. Not black, not white...we were tan. You have to know a little about Columbia to understand this but it was a cool scene. The rich kids who went to Centennial used to call us "Yo kland Mills". As white suburban kids embracing gangsta rap and black culture...we took that as a compliment. My generation started what you see today. White kids listening to hip hop? We started that. White kids with braided hair and wearing baggy pants? We started that. White kids dating black girls? We started that. To this day my friends still embrace elements of urban culture...especially the music, clothes, slang and the attitude. I look back upon this with a sense of pride. My generation was the first to truly accept people for who they are. FRIENDS We did start hanging out with a few other people in high school. I'm still friends with Dan Roach ("Roach") and Eric Miller ("Mill"). Roach is still in survival mode. He's the consumate artist. I'll add his email here eventually. Mill is doing well in Colorado. He owns a few businesses and is a photographer for Hustler. We went backpacking across Europe in 1994. You can read our adventures here. And after high school, I went too... TOWSON UNIVERSITY "An Academic Powerhouse" My grades were so good (GPA 1.9474) that I was welcomed into the arms of a state school. How trendy it is. It's even dropped the 'State' portion of it's name. How cunning. That should keep all those kids from Long Island and Jersey thinking "It looks like a private school". I resent that place; they take tons of our cash and convert it into a papery degree with scribble on it. It's such a silly game one has to play to get a degree. I felt like a performing flea. My grades were excellent compared to my high school career, I guess I was a bit more mature. It was a liberal arts college so you kinda picked the classes you wanted. It actually was an alright school. I spent most of the time in the philosophy department although I was earning a degree in Applied Mathematics. I wanted to major in Quantum Mechanics but that wasn't offered. I was also lucky enough to study abroad...or two. I had a double major and thus received Bachelor degrees in Applied Mathematics and Philosophy. The drinking didn't stop in college, in fact it increased considerably. Gators Pub had 25c Natty's on Mondays and other bars offered similar deals every night of the week. I was so broke in college. I'd have to hang out with skirts I didn't really like to get extra food and beer money. Things got so bad that I started signing up for VISA and MasterCards just to get the free tee shirts and/or Kit Kats. I had two great friends in college, Brant and Jeff. They made my college years an era of forced debauchery. Brant is quite nuts but by far my best friend at school. |