When Did Memory Lane Turn Into A Freaking Interstate?!

Every once in a while working with high school students makes me feel incredibly OLD...but it also allows me to often take trips back to my youth.  Trips in which I remember both good and bad times and replay events that will forever haunt my mind (usually for very good reasons).  The past few weeks here at school have lent themselves to provide trip after trip.  It seems surreal that a mere ten years ago I walked out of SIU ready to conquer the world, or at least my own little corner of it and fourteen years ago I donned my Columbia blue graduation gown and cap and sauntered out of Thomas Gymnasium.  

Two weeks ago at the school that I teach at the annual extravaganza known as Prom was held...which started to allow memories to start a slow trot through my mind.  As girls giggled with each other between classes about their dress, plans, or date I started to think back to my own Prom experiences.  From getting stopped by a State Police safety stop for one Prom, to making my date wear an ill-fitting cowboy hat to another (by the way, if you are reading this, I'm sorry!), to the dress that I spent way too much money on, to the after-parties at "the cabin", to the Prom where I got caught in a nasty storm and the passenger window of my dad's Powerstroke was destroyed (which allowed my then knight-in-shining-armor to come to the rescue), I remembered small bits of my own high school shenanigans.  

This past week in one of my upper-level classes we were talking about post-high school plans and options.  Immediately my mind flew back to my time at both Rend Lake and Southern.  From riding in the jacked up golf cart or in the back of a Mustang convertible on a joy ride one night or spending too much time in the Ag mechanics shop (or with those who spent their time in that shop) my community college experience always brings a smile to my face.  Like all of the stories that the instructors would tell about you at the end of the year banquet that you truly hoped your parents or significant other didn't get...or being called out as the smart girl in class my freshman year...or watching the boys shred my Chemicals final-right in front of the instructor. Or those nights when I happened to get out of class early (it was that one three hour night class that only ever went to an hour and a half) and found myself on the back roads of my old stomping grounds in a dodge half ton blaring music, sharing stories, and trying to avoid the cops.  

But it is the memories of my time at SIU that usually are those that provide the best nostalgia and switch my memory from a back road drive in a Ford Ranger to a 500 mile-an-hour race on the autobahn...and back again. I always remember those nights where I would put on a little extra makeup (okay, maybe more than a little), shimmy into the most form fitting jeans I had, drive to the barn to do night check, and then race to Fred's, where I would spend the rest of the night dancing like no one was watching (or like someone was), flirting way too much (because I knew I could), riding the mechanical bull, and dragging friends out of harms way when fights broke out to thinking back to all of the experiences at 214 Warren Road which will always make those small little goosebumps stand up on my arms.  If those walls could talk, I would pay them good money to stay silent!  That place saw fights, friends, flirting, and too much fun for one trailer (yes, it was a trailer-at SIU everyone lived in a trailer)!  Those experiences and the people included with those memories will forever be imprinted in my memory.  There were mistakes made, chances taken, and lessons learned around every corner.  Many of you have found your way into my memories, whether it was because you flew down the stairs in a cooler, rode a scooter through a house, brought a "friend" home for the night, comforted me when I was at my lowest, showed me truly what it was like to let go and just let life happen, or showed me what I had been missing, you will always bring a smile to my face!  

So thank you for all being a part of my memory, some in more ways than others.  There are days when I chuckle to myself when my students don't think that I was ever in their shoes...because boy, if they only knew-I'm sure they wouldn't even believe it!  There are times when one of my students will mention that they are looking at SIU as a potential college and I can't help but sing "call 549-5326"... And when a student starts talking about that hot guy that they met somewhere I smile and remember...well, I smile and remember.  I guess that memory lane is there for a reason...now it's time to let my mind shift gears and hit the interstate because as I type the memories have flooded in...and you know that as you have read this your minds did as well...you're welcome!