Pottsie's 80s Weblog

French Kissing In The USA

High School...GULP! 9th grade was sort of terrifying...I was really awkward not having yet mastered walking in the huge feet I acquired over the summer, in fact, I distinctly recall falling FLAT on my face as I got off the bus at school the very first day...uggghhh.

Now I would describe myself as neutral, I wasn't a "Burnout" (the kids that smoked and dressed in ACDC and Led Zeppelin shirts with a flannel shirt over it) and I wasn't a "Preppy" (No Izod shirts for me). I was a blue jean wearing button down shirt kind of guy. I had friends on both sides of the fence. But I wasn't partaking in the burnout lifestyle, yet I seem to attract the Burnout girls. In particular Ann Marie..she was in one of my classes, I think it was Social Studies

You know how that whole thing works, "Hey man, Ann Marie thinks you're cute." "She does?" "Yeah, do you like her?" "Well, what did she say exactly?" "Dude, she said she likes you!" "Really? Well Yeah I guess I like her." I guess I like her?” What the hell kind of answer was that? Let me be honest here, I didn't really care that much for Ann Marie (Ann if you're reading this SORRY) but I'm 15 years old-HORMONES-they are screaming at me to get some female companionship YESTERDAY.

I had no clue what I was getting into and neither did poor old Ann Marie. Remember the extent of my experience in girls was kissing Penny at the playground, French Kissing hadn't yet entered my vocabulary, of if it had I had no clue how to or when to...Damn! There is way too much confusion in this growing up stuff.

So I asked Ann Marie "Out" no not on a date...when you asked someone out you are going "Steady" STEADY? Holy Crap, what have my hormones gotten me into now? I can't even remember where or how I asked her, I think there was the old standard exchange of notes in school (I don't have hers, but you guys are not gonna believe this I have MANY MANY notes that I exchanged in high school with various people, SICK I know and I'll share them here eventually, why I kept them I'll never know. I had them and I left for the Army only a couple of months after graduating High School so they got tucked away in the attic.)...any way I'm sure when I asked I was a blubbering idiot.

So our first date was at the Roller Skating Rink, where I was establishing myself as Pottsie's brother-allow me to elaborate-My Brother Jimmie was two years ahead of me and was Mr. Popular and had a lot of girls digging his scene if you know what I mean. So I had some residual success because of my brother, who happened to work at the skating rink as a floor guard. Thanks Jimmie! I remember showing up at the skating rink with Ann Marie (who I forgot to mention had failed the 9th grade the year before so she was older than me-that's right an older woman!) My brother questioned my choice of girls-now Ann Marie wasn't ugly she just wasn’t overly attractive, she was tall and razor thin, long brown hair, too much make-up, black ACDC T-shirt and a snaggle tooth-hey, I call 'em like I see 'em-Like a Jewel snaggle tooth, not a wicked witch of the West snaggle tooth.

So we skated, held hands, had a snack, drank some soda, skated some more blah blah blah...Suddenly I'm on the far side of the skating rink, Ann Marie is no where to be found and the lights dim, "Ladies Choice"-I think Gino Vanelli was playing (Holy Crap the memory I have). Suddenly from behind I'm pulled towards the benches in the darkest corner of the skating rink, amongst the discarded coats and jackets that were all over the place, I fall back on the bench, my back bangs hard against the wall. Holy Crap I’m getting mugged, I only have $5.00, please don't hit me in the face...MOMMY I'm too young to die...HELP HELP HELP!!!! OH-Ann Marie, hey what's up? I knew it was her the whole time! Suddenly Ann Marie is sitting on my lap...Damn It; there goes that pack of crackers I was saving for later. Now I'm looking into her eyes, briefly and I flash back to Penny on the Monkey Bars. Oh Hey, I'm supposed to kiss her here, my eyes close as I move in. Lips puckered for one of my famous lip lock kisses, what the..??? Is that her tongue? Is she pushing it against my lips? What the hell is she doing-Damn her tongue is strong, some how it is forcing my lips apart, the next thing I know tongues are darting all over the place. Suddenly my tongue had a mind of its own I explored that snaggle tooth, and I even think I cut my tongue on it. AHH HAAAA this is how people kiss for so long without having their minds wander all over the place-what the hell is the ? CIGARETTES? Ewwww Ann Marie had just smoked a cigarette, come on tongue lets go I don't like cigarette smokers...tongue? Tongue? TONGUE?!!!! Let's GO!!!!! Oh great, fine you keep going I'll just wait right here-huhhhhh!!! My tongue stayed there for the entire Ladies Choice, and kept going back for more. Every time the lights dimmed my tongue lead me back to the corner, our corner..Good Job tongue.

This lasted for about a month-noooo not the kiss Ann Marie and I, I think it was mutual, I wasn't experienced enough for her. Ann Marie liked fast cars and faster men (or something like that) and I wasn't into the whole cigarette smoking burnout lifestyle. My children weren't gonna have a burnout for a mom. So it ended awkwardly- we didn't talk, and Ann Marie slowly faded away-like Penny POOOF she was gone. In fact I don't remember seeing Ann Marie after the 9th grade, for all I know she failed again and is still in 9th grade.

So that's my experience on French Kissing-Everyone has their first and that was mine-is French Kissing over rated? My tongue doesn't think so.

Yes the picture above is a picture of my tongue today-they grow up so quickly-as you can see it still has a mindof its own!

More High School Memories Next time!
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Youth of The 80s Series

Well first let me apologize to everyone that will be effected by this series, believe it or not I've maintained some semblance of contact with a few people from my youth. In particular up to a couple of years ago my first love in High School, Terrie, who will play a prominent roll in this series, and I recently was lucky enough to establish contact with one of the GREATEST people I've ever known, someone who was truely a friend Colleen.

My main idea here is to hopefully get some of you to relate to some of those whacky feelings we had as teenagers, so I'm looking for you readers to contribute to this by posting your comments and your rememberences here in this blog.

Now please understand I might be a little different than any of you, ok, alot different. But I am certain there were kids that went through just what I went through, and there were kids much worse off, but my experiences were unique to me. I am not going to trash anyone in here, well, maybe me, but thats it. We'll leave it to say I had a unique set of parents who divorced when I was 12, but were in essence divorced LONG before that. I was witness to some violence and on the receiving end of some...we will leave it at that...God Bless them both for trying their hardest.

So a bit about me so understand my mind set as a teenager, at some point in my youth I got FAT, yeah parents going through divorce, I began to equate food with love or some whacky thing that I'm sure Dr. Phil would tell me today, whatever the reason I spent my pre-teen years fat. I was teased by my brother and sister and by alot of kids and developed a real bad complex. I was very self concious...Hey Don't worry I got over it trust me. I compensated by drawing attention to myself by being a class clown which did earn me some friends but got me in trouble in school early on. So somewhere around my 13th birthday my Mom couldn't handle my brother and I and I was shipped off to live with my Dad. A whole different world there, BUT, of course I hit puberty and started to get taller and grow into my fat. The summer between 8th grade and 9th grade was like I was hit with a transformer wand. I shot up in height, my body was finally in proportion with my weight, I got contact lenses, and psssttt I think girls were starting to check me out. WHOA!

Now I had a couple of "Girlfriends" before that, Penny V. comes to mind (no last names to protect the innocent, or those that wish in no way to be directly connected to me). The summer between 8th and 9th grade was the summer of Penny. I use to ride my bike to her house, we'd have a glass of something, soda, iced tea, or lemonaid, and then ride our bikes to the playground at the elementary school by her house. There we explored Kissing (ok giggles are allowed). When I tell you I had NO CLUE I mean I had NO CLUE. I didn't know the first thing about French Kissing, but I know it felt kind of awkward just pressing lips together for along time, but she didn't know much either because thats all we did...DAMN IT I was Naive! I know what you're thinking...and the answer is hell no, if I didn't know the first thing about french kissing what makes you think I'd even know how to cop-a-feel..whoa is me!!!!

So I spent the better part of the month of July kissing Penny and then I was sent to Texas-forgot to mention that didn't I. My Mom decided I should go visit my sister who had got married the summer before and was currently stationed in Texas with her husband who was in the Army. Talking about slamming the brakes!!! Any chance I had to finally figure out french kissing or even French Canadian Kissing (whatever that is) came to a screeching halt! While Texas was nice it was FREAKING HOT in August MOM! Thanks alot! So this is where apparently I grew, something in the water in Texas because I got tall and walked into 9th grade taller but Penniless. Yeah I don't know what happened between Penny and I, I got a few letters from her when I was in Texas, but she must have found some guy that knew had to French kiss and off she went.

So, 9th grade arrives, my first year in High School, the great exploration YEs Ladies and Gentlemen I learned how to French Kiss in 9th grade...that my friends is in our next installment.

Shock Treatment

Ok so everyone wanted me to finish the Army story-I've made you wait long enough-and now the rest of the story.

SO if you remember back in June (WOW it was that long ago) I was telling you about leaving the reception station (the picture you see here was actually taken at the reception Station, look how happy we were-all that was about to change I'm the one in the middle with the big Buggles Glasses)...so we run off the bus with our dufflebags strapped to the front of us. Sgt. Bell told us to get off the bus but he never told us where to go. Dude, that just ain't right, we had NO CLUE-sooo we just ran, in all directions. It looked like a cockroach party when someone flips on the light. Some got it right and ran in the right direction, unfortunately I wasn't one of them, which means I just had to run further to where I was going. We eventually wound up in front of our barracks in a crude formation.

Sgt. Bell met us there, only this time he wasn't smiling. After telling us that we made him ill and want to vomit, not his exact words I'm keeping this clean, he told us to get out of his face and fall in on Sgt. Mims. Who??? Where?? Exactly! Sgt. Mims was waiting for us about 300 yards away. So Off we trotted to meet the wonderful Sgt. Mims. Funny thing is Sgt. Mims didn't much care for us, nope not one bit because he too got ill from being around us and so he sent us back to Sgt. Bell. Now we all know Sgt. Bell has already told us we made him ill, whatever are we going to do. So another trot to Sgt. Bell, who said we were Sgt. Mims problem and sent us back. Can't anyone make up their mind in the Army? After a good hour of the run around, and yes I mean that literally, Sgt. Bell was no longer ill being around us, and we got to stay and visit with him for awhile.

Ahh good old Sgt. Bell, here was a man that was so eager to please us that he was going to introduce us to all his Drill Sargeant buddies-what a NICE GUY. As we stood at attention on that VERY HOT Alabama Day I heard something that sounded like a car crash. A door burst open and I swear I was looking at a Circus Clown car where all the clowns keep coming out of a car-only these weren't clowns, they weren't coming out of a car and I wasn't eating Cotton Candy. How did that many people fit in one room it was a Drill Sgt. Frenzy! They looked like Great Whites going after baby seals (or whatever it is Great Whites eat). Yelling and screaming, asking us to please don't look at them ( Stop Eye F***ING Me is what I believe they said) Gosh such language! This is when we were advised of our favorite poem to recite whenever we were required to exercise at the Drill Sgts request, in other words whenever we were dropped for push-ups by the Drill Sgt., which was ummm lets see ALWAYS) "Drill Sgt. Thank You For This Opportunity To Condition My Mind And My Body-Drill Sgt. Please Feel Free To Do So At Anytime-Drill Sgt. Private (state your name) Requests Permission To Recover!" Wasn't that nice of them to teach us a beautiful poetic verse such as that. It moved me so much that I can still recall it to this day.

So we spent the better part of the next 4 hours running, doing puch-ups, getting yelled at, doing more push-ups, some more running, peeing in our pants, getting yelled at, running, push-ups and oh before I forget MORE RUNNING!

23 people did not make it out of that first day, they just flat out quit, they took them away and we never saw them again (kinda scary) and by the end of the first week we had lost 45 people-through injuries, begging to get out, and at some point in Basic we had a few go AWOL.

Now as I post future things here you'll hear all about my Army life and the fun I had.

Starting with my next post we we delve into my recently found journals..ohhhhhhh

I Am Back...I Think

You know sometimes life can just sneak up on you from behind, quickly put it's hand over your mouth and pull you into a dark van and hold you for ransom. It seems that way to me, no matter what I tried to do I just couldn't find the time or motivation to continue posting in here. Things were happening, times were changing, I was wrapped up in everything else that was taking place that this Blog was taking a back seat-hell I don't even think many people even read this thing, but in reality I don't even care. This was/is a place for me to put my memories and observations down in black and white. For anyone who happens to stumble across it to see, but more importantly for me to see. Consistency was never a strong point of mine, but I think I need to be determined to make this blog what I originally intended it to be. A nostalgic look back at what I still believe is the best decade ever, and certainly the best decade of my life (I'm talking Decade not events, certainly the birth of my children are the greatest things to ever happen to me)

I will eventually get back to and finish the Army story because it needs to be finished, but I recently came across some old journals of mine, ok diaries, that I kept while in High School up until I left for the Army (MY God I was such a sad sack) and several attempts at keeping journal's while I was in the Army, these are very sporadic at best, however, it really gave me a glimpse at what I was feeling back then. I was able to take a real hard look into the mind of a teenager who was trying to figure life out and trying to figure girls out (I haven't figured either out yet) and I actually want to share some of that stuff here. I was a poem writing fool back then too...so I'll share those here.

I'm sure I'm setting myself up for embarrassment, but anyone who knows me should also know I don't care. I'm fairly well known enough, my show through syndication is heard by well over a million listeners and if I can spark some conversation up with the listeners of my show or people who just stumble in I think that would be great. So over the next several weeks, after I finish my Army story, we're going to go back in time, back on and Incredible Journey into the mind of a very whacky teenager of the early 80s...stick around and be sure to add you comments to these stories.