photo by me

Who was in your group, clique, or posse when you were a teen?

Before we moved to Flagstaff in the middle of my senior year, I was in high school in Las Vegas, Nevada.

At Bonanza High School, I belonged to a lot of different clubs and hung out with different people.

I was in theater and speech & debate. I was in the honor society. I was in band, softball, volleyball, and basketball. I was in student government and SADD (students against drunk driving).

So, I hung out with whomever was around at the time…depending on what function or meeting I was attending.

When we moved to Flagstaff, I had a core set of friends. We were in a smaller town and the people in the same groups tended to be the same people.

I was still involved in a lot of groups but I had a core set of 5 other friends who got me through that last year of high school. We were the types that people liked to beat up on – sensitive, dramatic, and a bit on the outer boundaries of other kids. We dressed in different types of clothing than our peers. We acted differently. We thought of ourselves as the beatniks of our generation: dark sunglasses, long trenchcoats, writing poetry on napkins in the Denny’s while drinking coffee, smoking clove cigarettes (well, not me so much), and speaking of loftier things.

We were okay with being different. It suited us.