The secret life of an American teenager

 I think I was pretty much the stereotypical American teenager of the 1970s. I grew my hair long-ish, wore bell-bottom jeans, listened to pop AM radio, and drove a used VW bug with both an 8-track tape player and a CB radio. 10-4 Good buddy!

I hung out with my friends on the weekends, and cruised Fremont Street in Las Vegas on Friday nights to see if we could meet girls.

I played sports as much as possible, even if I wasn’t good. I loved being on the team and feeling part of something. Baseball, football, soccer, even track. I was in Boy Scouts, and loved it, until there were too many HS distractions to keep my interest. I went to a lot of school dances, at least at Rancho; was in the Ski Club; worked on the Sophomore Class float for the homecoming parade; was in both Junior National Honor Society and National Honor Society. I was the editor of the Rancho HS newspaper as a Junior, and then moved and worked heavily as an assistant editor on both the Agua Fria HS newspaper and yearbook.

As the oldest child, I had the very typical battles with my parents over curfews and grades, even though I was in the top 10% of my class.  There were just high expectations, at least I perceived it that way. As a parent looking back though, that was probably a good thing.

I had a few close friends at both schools;  typically a group of people who were in all the same advanced classes and clubs, or sports teams, who I was comfortable hanging out with.

At the time, just like every other guy, I wished I had a serious girlfriend. I dated occasionally, but I never had a steady girlfriend until the very end of my senior year. And then I left!

In retrospect that was probably just as well. I did date a couple girls (i.e. more than one date), but something usually came up: moving or graduating the main culprits.

All in all, growing up in 70’s on the outskirts of western cities like Las Vegas and Phoenix, life was pretty good.  There was lots to do, and I never felt like I was missing out on anything.

8th grade.

11th grade.