 The first destination on my epic 2011 road trip was good ol' Centerville, Ohio, which I've got to tell you is as Warm and Cheerful as ever. My mother still lives in the same house across the street from the high school, where I spent so many lunch hours getting bent with my buddies or making out with my girlfriend.
I took a walk around Centerville High School to see what was going on. There is a large new addition in the front of the building, where the main entrance is. It has some classrooms, and continues through to the main office which doesn't seem to have changed since 1984, the last time I saw it. |  |
 | The west side of the building looked pretty much the same, although there was some kind of "Athletic Entrance" on the southwest side. Rounding the corner, I was surprised to see a large new Theater Building / Performing Arts Center at the back of the building, behind the practice gym. Pretty spiffy. |
| I walked back to the stadium, which looked as grand as ever. The mighty Elks football team was practicing hard, and there was plenty of derisive shouting by the coaches, but alas, there was no sign of Coach Gregg. I thought he would be there forever. I don't recall the team ever practicing on the game field, but apparently they do now. |  |
 | The Cute Girls Squad (are they still called CoEds?) was on the stadium field doing their thing. I was surprised to see one of them wearing a Grateful Dead t-shirt. I don't recall any Dead Heads at CHS circa 1984, when Jerry was still alive. I myself didn't get into the Grateful Dead until 1989, and I never became a full-on Dead Head. In fact, I couldn't stand that crap when I was at Antioch College, where that stuff would flow endlessly out of certain dorm rooms, like a dirty river ceaselessly meandering. I didn't become a fan of that group until a friend of mine dragged me, kicking and screaming, to a GD concert in California. A couple of doses of you-know-what warmed me up to them pretty good and I've been a fan ever since. |
| I climbed to the top of the stadium for a bird's eye view of the campus. The marching band was out as well. Their own practice area is surprisingly elaborate. They were banging out "Peaches En Regalia" by Frank Zappa. Or maybe it was something by ColdPlay. |  |
 | When I got back to the building, I was happy to find the doors open, so I walked right in and made myself at home. I saw a few familiar faces on the Athletic Wall of Fame in the main room at the center of the building, by the gym, where everybody would hang out for a bit after the school day ended, in 1984 anyway. It looked pretty much the same. The basketball gym had some fancy new artwork and such. Pretty slick. I felt my Elk Pride swelling by the minute. |
| I wandered on over to West Unit, where I excelled and broke all kinds of academic achievement records (not really). I think I mostly excelled at daydreaming and falling asleep in class and drooling on my desk. I remember being in English class in South Unit with Juan Parillo one day. He fell asleep, and when the class bell rang (the monotone "booooooop" sound, remember?), he slept right through it. We all crept out of the room, including the teacher, Mrs. Pvarnik(?), so as not to disturb him. He woke up in an empty dark room about 15 minutes later. Good times! |  |
 | I was very pleased to find that the lockers have not changed one bit from 1984. It's still the same old 4 color paint scheme. The carpet has been replaced somewhere along the line but it's still something appropriately institutional.
A couple of my crazier friends from those days used to tell me about tripping on that kooky stuff from Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and going to class, and having minds blown by those colorful lockers and the patterned carpet which used to be there. I've been on a trip or two, but doing it at school seemed like a little too much for me. |
| I roamed the empty halls like a ghost, half expecting to bump into Mr. Spicer or Mr. Schenk or maybe even Dan Snyder. But it was just me and the soft shuffling of my footsteps. So I wandered out of those two front doors at the front of West Unit, from which I used to use to escape from the building when I was skipping Chemistry Class. In retrospect, I wish I had paid more attention in Chemistry Class. Maybe now I could be building bombs for the government and billing it to the taxpayers. Then we could be bombing more countries into Freedom. Oh well. |  |
 | For quite a long time after graduation, I had a recurring dream where, for some reason, my diploma was not official and I had to go back to CHS to finish up again, even though I was into my 20s and 30s. That dream always annoyed me, and I would complain my way through the dream, asking over and over "why do I have to do this? This is stupid!" And then I would wake up with relief. At least I wasn't naked in the dream.
It's kind of odd because I enjoyed going to Centerville High School. It seemed like a big party and there was always something going on. I've heard several people from other schools say that they hated high school and slogged through it. Too bad for them because I thought CHS was good fun. |
 
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