I was in a student theater production (the course was mandatory, you understand. I’m a shy guy.)
We had to present a revue on stage at the end of the semester, to parade what we’d learned. As I recall it, I devised the scenarios for the whole 30-minute show — four skits, depicting four years of high school — though others wrote lines. I was already a big Monty Python fan, so this seemed easy to me.
The last skit called for senior high school students to be smoking weed, which called for the prop folks to provide tobacco, to pretend it was weed. I substituted weed. My friends in the audience told me that it was obvious that I had done so.
I was a big hit with myself. Also, during the act, an actor threw a Frisbee from stage left to me, which I caught, behind my back, stage right, with the joint still in my mouth. To applause.
Haven’t done weed since freshman year in college, though. Dangerous stuff. Beer is more self-limiting.
You may have been the only person that wasn’t on acid and never knew it.
I was sound-system adjacent when our Key Club presented a multi-media (old-timey film projection, psychedelic lighting effects) program built around the Who’s Tommy. The administration made us turn the volume down during Wicked Uncle Ernie, but I turned it down a little later than they appreciated!
The only positive thing I could say about my high school years is that ironically enough it was the only time in my education years I was never bullied. I was far from any of the Cool Kids, but for the first time I was left alone; no one bothered me.
Our cross-town rival played a prank on us by spelling out their name on our grass quad using fertilizer. In response, some of our students went to their campus and stole a big metal “Pride” sign (Yeah, it didn’t mean that back then). They dragged it on stage during our rally assembly, and the football team dented it up with their helmets to roaring cheers. We went on to upset those dogs after losing to them for three straight years. That was cool…
I remember being sent home early and not returning for a couple of days due to race riots at the school. I, obviously, did not partake.
On the last day of my senior year, which was cool in its own right, we were playing Hearts in my College Prep English class when Ron Howard came in and joined the game…
the US history teacher had been there for many decades and was on full auto pilot. he had maps on an easel next to his desk. if someone asked him a question, he’d flip to the map in question without looking and point to the relevant spot on the map with a long wooden pointer.
i got a playboy centerfold taped to one of the maps and set up a stooge to ask a question about the Louisiana purchase. ole doc’s pointer landed on a particularly interesting portion of the centerfold and said “here’s what Thomas Jefferson bought from France!”
I was in no “crowd” but knew people in all of them. In junior year I was asked by a girl on the dance team to go to their year-end banquet because her boyfriend was out of town. The best part wasn’t the date or the banquet. It was when two of my oldest friends on the football team saw me in a tuxedo with her and the shock on their faces was worth the price of the tux rental.
In my senior year finals ended a week before school did. The school scheduled pool parties and movies for the seniors but I didn’t care about any of that.
I was hired to work at a summer camp that started setting up the week that the seniors were having their activities.
Me and another guy that was working at that camp asked the principal if we could go work at the camp instead of the senior stuff. He said if we could prove that was what we were doing then he’d allow it.
We showed him our contracts from the camp and he said “just be back in time for the graduation ceremony” and we got to go.