I Missed My High School Reunion

This past weekend was my 20-year high school reunion. Unfortunately I was unable to attend, but it did get me feeling super nostalgic and thinking a lot about my formative years at Seguin High School. At some point I said to myself, "Hey, do you think you still have any of your old high school ID cards?" And myself was all like, "Yeah, you know you do. They're on that bookshelf on top of all of your small-sized zines." And then I was like, "Oh, thanks." And then my wife was all like, "Who are you talking to in there?" And I was like, "The TV."

The only ID card I'm missing is the one from my freshman year. But this is my ID card from sophomore year where I look like I'm about ten years old. So just picture me looking 9 years old and wearing some sort of teal colored Powell Peralta shirt and you'll get the idea. If you look close enough at the t-shirt in this photo you can see the very tips of the wings and ears of the Batman logo. Every kid in the '80s had a favorite member of the Bones Brigade. I was a Caballero apostle.

This is the back of the ID. Card-carrying member of the hip-pack/beret society. I had 'em both.

Junior year ID card. I think I went through puberty over the summer before turning 16. Life's tough on the late bloomers. But it felt good coming back to school with fuzz on my junk. Pretty sure that's a Stüssy shirt and a clipper cut that my step-brother gave me. Good times.

Don't really remember why I put this on the back of my ID, but I'm stoked I did.

Junior year "student aide" ID card. Which meant during third period I would wander the halls of the school dropping off slips of paper at classrooms for kids who were requested at the principal's office. Bad kids. I probably looked sort of like a bad kid with my Ministry shirt and skate shoes, but I was in honors classes and making almost all As. Skaters can be nerds as well as burnouts. No rules.

Senior year. My stepbrother sat me down over the summer and broke it down for me. He told me that if I ever wanted to go on a date with a girl I was probably going to have to stop dressing like a skateboarder. I was 17 years old and the only thing I wanted to do was go on dates with girls, so I gave it a shot. I borrowed some of his clothes and I started senior year with a Tommy Hilfiger shirt, faded Levi's, and some work boots. I think I had a date by the end of the week. God Bless Texas.

Those weird X-Acto Knife cuts around my face are kind of a mystery to me. I vaguely remember something about trying to make a fake ID after I got out of high school, but I can't remember the specifics. Also, just to the right of my signature I drew a little weird smiley face. Roger logo precursor?

I had to include this just in case anybody I went to high school with reads this column. You guys remember Reflections dance club? I won a Halloween costume contest there in the late '80s by dressing up as Robert Smith. I tried to go to school the next week with the same getup and my dad said something along the lines of, "Go fix your hair, you're not going to school like that." At the time I was bummed, but now I appreciate him not letting me go to school looking like a total asshole. Thanks, Dad.

OK, one more. Freshman year of college. Wayyy deep in the 90210 years. No matter how hard I tried, my hair never looked exactly like Brandon's or Dylan's. I tried though. About six months after this photo was taken, my friend Lance moved to Seguin, Texas from Redlands, California and converted me back to strictly skate fashion. I think all it took was him clowning my boots and asking if I skated in them. In hindsight, 1992 couldn't have been a worse time to reestablish my adherence to the skateboard uniform. Blind jeans and XXXL collared shirts on kids who weighed 130 pounds was a bad combo. I'm glad I lived through it, though. No regrets.

I also found my Club Home Boy membership card in the stack.

It never expires so I'm totally intending to exercise my full benefits. As soon as I find somewhere to put this live ocean sponge (insert bad joke sound effect here).

And a Balki Bartokomous Perfect Strangers playing card? I might be a hoarder.

And this photo from '89, I'm guessing? Pretty sure that's a Vision Kelly Rosecrans model, some Adidas that I bought at Mervyn's, and a Jimmy'z t-shirt. And the summertime beanie? Yeah, I invented that look. It's weird that ollieing over sleeping bags never became an actual thing, isn't it? No?

I also found this business card. My wife gets understandably bummed when I use the F-word gratuitously when I'm writing. I don't blame her. I'm a grown-up dad man and there's no real reason to use that word except for shock value. But it's still kind of fun to throw it out there. Probably because I watched too much Eddie Murphy standup as a kid. Anyway, I thought this would be a sneaky way for me to put a naughty word in my column without actually typing it. Plus this thing is funny. Mother farting funny.

Movie Review: Dazed and Confused

Matthew McConaughey with a shirt on? It'd be a lot cooler if he didn't.

Previously - Simpler Times

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