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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsWhat were you doing at age 18 ?
I was a very naive freshman at the University of Florida, enjoying the fruits of 1976 including weed I thought of this thread because of my son, who's doing well, thank god.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Can you imagine?
This wasn't even union, but work on a city park project at prevailing wage.
Now you meet folks working their asses off and raising families for $10/hour.
It's messed up.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)I hope you had a good foreman and good co-workers.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)A few more months helping train troops, then started Infantry Officer Candidate School. I turned 19 before I graduated, though. Then leading an Infantry rifle platoon in Vietnam at 20.
My generation went through some crazy, interesting times.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)You had to really grow up super fast.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)But reading all the replies here brings a tear to my eye. That's the way it should have been for so many...too, too many...
R.I.P.
rug
(82,333 posts)steve2470
(37,457 posts)If too nosey my bad.
rug
(82,333 posts)I had written to General Hershey a few months before asking why I should and got a letter back from a Major which was pretty respectful. But in the end it simply said because Congress said so.
So I went to the Quaker group, the American friends Service Committee on Rutherford Place, and got a lot of information, including conscientious objection.
So, when I registered I asked for a C.O. form but not the student deferment form even though I was in college.
The form then was about 36 questions long asking things like, "What have you done to demonstrate your beliefs?" I was 18. I didn't think stopping masturbating counted. I couldn't fill out the form.
At college, each semester I got a letter from the registrar asking why I didn't fill out the student deferment forms. I wrote back that I wasn't deferring, I was objecting.
Fortunately some group sued about the form and it was simplified to six questions.
By then there was the lottery and I got a high number. At that point I said fuck it and the great moral struggle of my life evaporated.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Skittles
(152,965 posts)defending Texas against Oklahoma
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Seriously, I hope you get to move out of Texas one day. You don't seem too fond of it.
Skittles
(152,965 posts)if I can find a place with no humidity that's where I will go
steve2470
(37,457 posts)closeupready
(29,503 posts)I'm not sure how I survived, but it made me stronger, and I look back at that year as a reference point, i.e., 'things could always be worse - remember your freshman year of college?'.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Glad we're both stronger
closeupready
(29,503 posts)CaliforniaPeggy
(149,308 posts)I was trying to decide on a major, and finally settled on foreign languages.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)CaliforniaPeggy
(149,308 posts)steve2470
(37,457 posts)Everything working as it should now ?
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,308 posts)It's definitely getting stronger and more flexible, but I'm not normal yet........and who knows about the future?
I am progressing, and thanks for asking!
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)I know that would be a huge worry for you.
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,308 posts)My doc and my PT guy both told me to back off on using it for now, or don't use it as much, so I am using it much less.
I have resigned myself to whatever happens. And I continue to work as hard as I can to make it stronger.
Thanks for your sweet comments, my dear pinboy.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)I've never dealt with that situation, so...
politicat
(9,808 posts)Early 90s. I was technically a junior that year (I skipped a grade and finished high school in 3 years, with 18 transferrable credits through AP or community college).
Workstudy was technical work in the theater. $6 an hour. I also had a full roster as a sitter.
I'd met my girlfriend, A, 9 months earlier. She was friends with my RA. I spent my summer semester on campus (shared between the maintenance crew and the technical theater department, either interior painting dorms or lighting replacement in the rigging). I never mentioned my age then because being a 17 year old junior was such a weird place to be. A was 24, working in comp Sci, figured I was 19 or 20, asked me out.
We were great together, and were definitely headed towards making it more official/permanent (though then, our only choice was Denmark, since no other country yet recognized any sort of same sex partnership). I'd met her father, liked him and he liked me. A had met my best high school friend, and they approved heartily of each other. We spent most weekends and all of my school holidays together.
She'd gone to visit her father and to a conference in the Bay Area; she drove. I was in Ventura. She called me that last time from Santa Barbara to ask if I wanted to spend the weekend at her place. I knew she'd been fighting traffic on the 5 for hours, and getting to me, then to her place would add a couple hours at least, and she sounded tired. I had keys to her place and a friend was headed down to San Diego in the morning, with whom I could catch a ride. I told her to go on home and I'd see her tomorrow.
Her dad called me a few hours later, about 4 am. She'd been in an car accident -- a drunk driver hit her at high speed. If she hadn't stopped to call me, or if I'd told her to come get me, she wouldn't have been on that specific part of the 10.
So I spent most of my 18th year grieving, blaming myself, burying myself in school and work so I wouldn't have to feel. I hadn't come out to my family, not that they would have been actually supportive or functional in that situation, and hadn't even entirely defined to myself what I'd call myself then.
I switched my major a couple weeks later (I had been majoring in technical theater, emphasis on the tech with minors in history and psych; I switched to history/psych major and dropped the tech theater entirely).
I don't remember much of the rest of that year, except being in the psych program probably saved my life.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)dr.strangelove
(4,851 posts)good luck
steve2470
(37,457 posts)pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)With about a year of college to go for a B.A., I had to drop out to go through more reconstructive surgery. I started working and never went back to college to finish a degree. But I've spoken to a lot of college classes and assemblies, so maybe I'll eventually get a posthumous honorary degree.
But to go back after so many years is a BFD. That's not easy to do, and I have a lot of respect for that.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)I actually earned that degree in 1980. I wasn't hampered by a war and other nuisances
Yes, I agree with you, completing a degree when you are over 30/married/have less energy/working full time/have kids/etc is a very big deal.
You get an honorary degree, from me, in Life and Veteran's Affairs
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)He's putting in more hours than there are in a day into work, marriage, college.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)hunter
(38,264 posts)There were only two women in my major and one of them dropped out, probably because the field was hostile to women. (It still is.)
In biology women were just beginning to outnumber men. I liked that.
My own kids are much more successful in college than I was. I was "asked" to leave college twice before I graduated, not because of illegal drugs, but because the prescription drugs I was taking had side effects that made me a little more, um, eccentric, than I usually am.
My current diagnosis is Aspergers (now "autistic spectrum" , Major Depression, and OCD. The meds I take now (and for other things too) are quite a bit more effective and have fewer side effects than the meds I was taking then.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)benld74
(9,889 posts)to do at the time. Dad was pissed since he had me lined up for work at the refinery he worked. I did work summers there making laborer wages 8-9 per hour at the time. Save enough each year to pay my rent during school, while working part time as bartender/bouncer at local nightclubs.
RebelOne
(30,947 posts)I eloped when I was 16 because I was a dumb teenager and thought getting married would be the end of all my problems. But that was just the beginning of my problems.
Arkansas Granny
(31,483 posts)I brought home $33.55 a week and gave half of that to my folks to help with bills. I got married the following year.
DFW
(54,055 posts)I was graduating from high school, registering for the draft, meeting my first serious girlfriend (who had the good graces to dump me 2 years later, so I could meet my wife with no distractions--dodged a major bullet there!! "I guess I owe it all to Pamela Brown (not her name)" , entered college and learned why W.C. Fields made all those nasty jokes about Philadelphia.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)DFW
(54,055 posts)37th and Spruce in West Philly, if that rings a bell
I would ask more about Philly, but I know we have Philly natives and residents here So I won't.
Hope your late summer and family are doing well !
DFW
(54,055 posts)Daughters working their asses off, one for a living wage (in Manhattan), and the other one on the fast track to stardom in Germany. She just took a new position offered by a headhunter, and her gross salary now is equal to mine (gulp!!). Either I'm in the wrong line of work, or she's REALLY in the right line of work. Nobody ever offered to double MY salary to go work for them (at least nobody I ever trusted to keep their word! LOL)
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Your well-compensated daughter must be very talented
DFW
(54,055 posts)We'll find our way through this somehow.
My daughter had "low" LSATs due to her English not being good enough to understand all the big words on them. She was only accepted by a "second tier (not Ivy league or Stanford, Emory, UC etc.)" law school, and graduated in 2010, at the height of "we're not hiring this year unless you were summa at Harvard Law."
Always one to take the initiative, she used up some of her savings and zipped over to a legal law job fair in Frankfurt between (!!!) her last two final exams for law school. The German arm of one of the "Magic Circle," the top five British international law firms, said they liked her, but London had to give the final word. She said, OK, I'll fly up there tonight if they'll interview me tomorrow."
They called London, who said OK. She flew up to London that night, had NINE interviews the next day. Two days after that, she took her final exam. Four weeks after that, she got an offer with a starting salary of 85,000 a year. She wanted to work in New York, Washington or Boston, but it was either waiting on tables in the States or starting out with a big bang in Germany. Good bye America. She did so well, the head hunters were chasing after her within a year of her starting. She finally got the proverbial offer she couldn't refuse. She'll be under big pressure to perform work that justifies what she'll now be making, but she's a big girl now, and doesn't need me to make those decisions for her. She can handle it.
MY wife need the good vibes, but she's a trooper, too. You'll see if you make it to our neck of the woods!
steve2470
(37,457 posts)sakabatou
(42,083 posts)LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)steve2470
(37,457 posts)aikoaiko
(34,127 posts)It was a high time for sure.
Racing up and down Route 17.
Hitting the tunnel to go to Greenwich Village.
Channeling Lou Reed by wearing aviators, leather vest, and jeans while hanging on Christopher Street.
Trying to master seduction and romance.
And then I went to college and had an even better time.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)So, in high school. Having fun, playing baseball, hanging with friends, going to sporting, events, going to parties, getting ready to go to prom, getting ready to graduate, getting ready to go to college.
kairos12
(12,817 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)learning the bass lines on my Rickenbacker 4001, smoking a lot of weed and still laughing about Nixon's resignation a couple of months previously.
OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)smoking weed and ...wait...wut? I had already been on my own for a year and had my own apartment (+roommates) because I left home at 17 to escape some nasty shit.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)My family was so poor, we could only afford to go to 5 Flags. (Sorry, couldn't resist a chance to make an old joke. )
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)you poke the lobsters and crabs at the supermarket.
A similar old joke.
pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)They were doing a back-and-forth one-upmanship game about how small their hometown was.
As the sparring went on, the other guy said, "My town was so small the only business we had was a Motel 6."
My buddy took a couple of beats and replied, "All we had was a Motel 5." Brought down the house!
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)God, I amuse myself constantly!
The DU comedians in the threadjack.
OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)is I will always feel honored when you chose to riff off anything I post.
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)One of my idols is Lewis Black. <--- I'm a woman. Some people would say "lady", but.......oh hell, I'm laughing again.
I met him after one of his shows, and I MADE HIM LAUGH. Yes, I can put that on my resume. I MADE LEWIS BLACK LAUGH!!!
OriginalGeek
(12,132 posts)The best I've been able to manage is that I once shook PeeWee Herman's hand at a restaurant where my wife and I were having a Valentine's day dinner. He was running around with a video camera giggling in his PeeWee giggle filming all the Valentine's day daters so I got up and said "PeeWee! You're my hero!...please shake my hand!" and he did. I think I might have scared him as I am about a foot taller than him (which is not all that much to anyone else as he's really short lol) but he shook my hand and went on giggling and filming.
it was a while later (months? years? don't remember) that he had a little trouble in a Tampa theater. The first thing I thought is "Ha! Jokes on him - he didn't know where MY hand had been either".
I'm still a huge PeeWee fan and a huge Lewis Black fan. I hope to see him live some day - he's been here a few times but events have conspired against me.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)we just stuck one American flag by the swing set and pretended we were at the real deal.
Auggie
(31,067 posts)humbled by how much smarter and more mature many of my fellow classmates were compared to moi.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)pinboy3niner
(53,339 posts)...spent his summer vacation working the fields with Cesar Chavez. How do you even come close to something like that?
femmocrat
(28,394 posts)and working part-time as a waitress. And hoping "my prince would come" to rescue me from my drudgery and toil.
Iggo
(47,489 posts)Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)I graduated from HS when I was 17 because I started school a year early. I started school a year early because I was reading books.
I earned 15 hours of college credit from advanced placement. They had just started AP tests a couple of years before that.
I don't remember not being able to read. Mom said she read to me and it was signs at three, and books at four.
Changed my major three times, went back to my original major, biology, which was a mistake. Not what I really wanted to do.
Parental pressure. They thought I wouldn't be able to get a job if I majored in anything other than a natural science, when I wanted to be a fine arts major. I didn't get a job with that BA. Didn't get a job with my law degree either. Overqualified and thrown away from this society.
It was the Seventies. Growing hair, sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll were all popular. I went to concerts where there were three strong acts--they don't do this anymore.
DrDan
(20,411 posts)trof
(54,255 posts)Not too long after the 'fightin' little judge' Gov. George Corley Wallace made good on his promise to 'stand in the schoolhouse door'.
"Segregation NOW! Segregation TOMORROW! Segregation FOREVER!"
I was a Deke pledge and far more interested in what was happening at the fraternity house (PAR-TAY!) than in classes.
As a result, I only flunked out of school twice.
But that's another story.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)surrealAmerican
(11,340 posts)... scared that I would never be able to repay my first loan, but otherwise loving it.
shenmue
(38,503 posts)NV Whino
(20,886 posts)rustydog
(9,186 posts)trying to forget I had a very low draft number in 1972.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)took me to a club in Stockton called "Lost Isle" about a month after I graduated high school. It was my first time going to any nightclub. I lied to the bouncer that I was 21 when he asked, and it didn't look like he believed me (he asked afterwards "are you sure?" , but he was nice enough to let me in anyway.
In addition to that, I also remember graduating high school and (unfortunately) not thinking about keeping in touch with my old friends. I was so happy to get away from Skyline High School that I didn't care about anything else at the time.
That August, I ended up going to Merritt community college for about 4 years before finally coming here to Humboldt.
fizzgig
(24,146 posts)living at home and dating a rather uptight guy, so no cigs, drugs or alcohol. lost in lecture halls with 200 other students. working part-time as an office assistant and making 9 bucks an hour (i make 11 now). i was also driving my most excellent volvo station wagon, which finally gave up the ghost the start of this year after 16 years together.
chknltl
(10,558 posts)Well after I got out of basic training at Ft. Lenard Wood Mo and tank turret repair school at Ft. Knox Ky.
jmowreader
(50,453 posts)And then I got sent to Fort Campbell to work for Cactus Jack McGuinness, the best colonel who ever lived.
Throd
(7,208 posts)I still can't figure out how I didn't die.
:headscratch:
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)repressing my sexuality.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)(well everything but the weed). It was right about that time I was diagnosed with depression. Thankfully a few years later I did make it to college.
Lil Missy
(17,865 posts)ballardgirl
(145 posts)freshly graduated from high school with no clear goals. If I could do it over.....
steve2470
(37,457 posts)which of course is impossible. I know what you mean, though.
mnhtnbb
(31,319 posts)at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla as a relief nursing unit clerk, going to college
at UCLA in the fall to be a pre-physical therapy major. Lived in Dykstra Dorm on the 10th floor with a view
of planes landing at LAX.
It was the era of John Wooden basketball, Vietnam War protests, and
Angela Davis' protege lived in the dorm room next door.
What a year!
Shrek
(3,970 posts)Fun times.