Lean on Me
When I hear the 1980′s version of the song Lean on Me by Club Nouveau, I am automatically seventeen, with big hair, big earrings and a big ole attitude. But, the tune stuck with me because I couldn’t lean on anyone at a crucial moment in my life.
February 1987. Senior Trip. My teensy Christian high school senior class of 40 was on its way to the Poconos in a sprawling NOT party bus. Even though a number of people were suspended upon our return for partying on the trip, we were NOT partying. NOT. PARTYING. In fact, the hormonally charged girls and boys weren’t supposed to sit together on the bus, lest we act, um, horny.
So.
Our not partying, segregated-by-sex bullet full of repressed horniness was on its way to the Poconos for two days, with a longer, educational visit to Washington DC on the back end of the trip. I’d never been anywhere, and I was aroused in a non-horny kind of way.
On the outskirts of DC, it started snowing. Thick, fluffy flakes. An oddity for us Deep South folk. We plastered our noses to the windows and ooh’ed and aah’ed at the wonder of raining white, slapping our hands in high fives at our luck for skiing weather in the Poconos.
Until the bus died. DIED. It crawled, coughing and wheezing, up a ramp to an interstate overpass and expired. Forty horny teenagers and three horrified adults, stranded in a sketchy DC suburb at midnight. In the era before cell phones or the internet, we sat there for over an hour, hoping someone not scary would stop. When that didn’t happen, the boys loaded off the bus, thinking if they pushed the bus up the hill to the intersection, we might have more luck flagging someone.
Only, the bus FULL OF GIRLS started sliding backward down the hill, our pathetic faces glued to the cold glass while our erstwhile male saviors did everything but push us. They passed footballs and hurled snowballs and watched us poor ladies skid to the edge of a ravine, teetering on the slick precipice like a scene from Loony Tunes.
Well.
I knew who I couldn’t lean on after all that drama.
Is there a song that makes you feel like you’re back in high school?
This post is part of the series The Soundtrack of Life. If this is your first visit to the series, please click here for the first installment and click here for the second installment. Thanks for your contributions and insights in the comments. They always enrich this blog, especially in a series like this one.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks
- I Was a Young American « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Smile Though Your Heart Is Aching « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Worthless « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Hooked on Classics « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- The Very Thought of You « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Christmas in…..August « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- The Day the Music Died « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- A Kind of Magic « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- We Are Young « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Take Me Out « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
- Let There Be Peace on Earth « The Accidental Cootchie Mama
There were so many that it is hard to choose one, but, this one is special, We used to have sock hops weekly at Noon in the small gym and we would dance like crazy. This is a great cha cha song or you could slow it down for a little close up dancing.
And we have The Drifters, two days in a row! Thanks to you and Penny for snazzing up this walk down memory lane.
This one.
Do NOT ask me why.
I am going to go in a completely different direction, since you WILL NOT let me ask you why.
I think it would’ve been a BLAST to be part of the backup dance team in that movie, one of those casting moments that an actor lives for, because it is so so so silly that it can’t be anything but fun.
Wow Andra, you really know how to capture a moment in time, and tell it in such a way that the reader is captivated and is able to relive the event with you. Speaking of horny teenagers….. It is sad that the school leaders made such a big deal about teenagers and their sexuality. Why is it so necessary to be so draconian about such things? Do they not realize that by forbidding things that it is only going to drive teenagers to want to experiment and explore even more? It is like trying to stop water from running down hill. LOL…. Oh, sorry, I am digressing off the musical trail here. Love the song Andra, love the song. More good memories…… well, in my case, not so good, but no need to relive them I guess.
James, this is the way some people handle the sex issue. In the end, I wasn’t particularly warped by it. I grew up and decided how I felt about it, and I moved on.
I’ve always had a soft spot for DC (the place, not the institutions there) because of that trip.
Are you having fun with these impossible questions?
The song when the two best friends lay with their heads between the speakers and cranked it.
For my first heartbreak…
It’s party time
Or
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
Sent from my iPhone
Well, Robert. You got MTM this morning with 21st Century Schizoid Man. He was rocking out across the desk from me and exclaimed, “I haven’t heard THIS since high school!!”
I had a bus trip in high school that ended with a dead bus in the snow too. It was a church trip. After sleeping the the girls restroom, hanging out in the lodge bar, sliding down a mountain on my butt, and other adventures that shall remain unspoken, we returned home. I never did find out why I came back with my thermal underwear missing.
Come to think of it, I think that is about the time the Baptists handed me over to the Unitarians.
There are always things that happen on those trips that must remain unspoken. I don’t even want to imagine why you were missing your thermal underdrawers.
That must have been utterly terrifying. As an eleven year old, on our way back from a school trip to a theme park, we had a head on crash with a lorry. I thought that was bad enough (thankfully, no-one was hurt, though). But I think your experience sounds a lot worse. I’m glad you got out of it all OK.
Nobody was hurt in the end, Heather. It was just harrowing for a few minutes and very inconvenient for a few hours. A head-on crash with a lorry had to be scary. I’m glad no one was hurt.
It must have seemed like a lot longer at the time.
Thanks!
Ah, glad you made it out alive Andra. My church group went to Expo 76 (I think it was in Seattle?) to the World’s Fair….we stayed at the convent – girls in one wing, boys in the other…we snuck into the boys wing only to be shocked and appalled when we ran into Father Halpen who had a glass of wine (gasp) and a cigar (double gasp)!!!! I’m not sure I’ve ever recovered from that shock.
No music though…and right now my brain is muddled in a migraine so it’s not thinking of a good song to go with that lovely shocking experience.
Oh, Lori, your descriptions are priceless. Gasp! Double Gasp! I would’ve had the same reaction if we’d come upon our principal with wine and a burning cigar.
I hope your head feels better immediately. This is the second one of those things you’ve had in the past week, isn’t it? Or, did the other one never really leave?
An all girls high school for me so “boys” were even more of a mystery than ever at that age ;D High school comes flooding back with a rambunctious sing-a-long of “Its raining men” on a hockey tour (destination and year to remain un-named to protect the innocent !)
It’s Raining Men conjures a very particular memory for me, too, Linda. But yours sounds so much more interesting than mine.
That’s hilarious. I’m pretty sure none of the guys I went to high school with could be relied upon for anything useful either.
Strangely, I know songs that came out when I was in HS but I don’t particularly associate any of them with that time period. I don’t think i started really listening to my own music much until college when I had my own space.
Did you not like the music that wasn’t “your own”, or did you not feel like you could really develop your own tastes until then? Might be too prying a question, but how people develop is interesting.
I think I was just really strongly influenced by my parents at that time. I think I discovered the Beatles in high school? (Watched “A Hard Day’s Night” several times too many, still think it very funny.) And I knew a lot of classical music but I didn’t figure out until some years later that I much prefer Bach to my father’s Mozart but do in fact share my mom’s affection for Gilbert and Sullivan.
I was also fairly shy, so I didn’t have as much contact with the music that was “cool” at the time as the average teenager.
My high school graduating class went to Disney World in 1976, when DW had only been open for two years. We rode buses all the way to Kissmee FL from Gaffney SC. While at DW, we rode all the rides, including Space Mountain. The night we returned home, one of the girls with whom I shared a room gave birth to a full-term baby boy. We didn’t even know she was pregnant! I still haven’t figured out how I missed that.
Church buses have many happy memories for me, as they seem to for lots of your fans. I particularly remember a trip to Six Flags over Georgia where I fell violently in LUV with a boy 2 years older than me. He never gave me the time of day. These two songs represent those trips for me. It won’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which one goes with which trip.
Jill, I was having coffee when I read this comment, and I almost spit it across the room. I’ve heard stories about girls having babies and nobody knowing they were pregnant, and I’ve never comprehended how that happens. Did she LOOK pregnant?
I’d download som ABBA if MTM wouldn’t kill me. But, I know he would. Thanks for putting some on the blog.
Just play ABBA on your computer. Would love to see his expression.
And this may just be a “male” thing, but how does someone not know they are pregnant? Blows me away….
I’ve already almost caused him to hurl writing this series once………(see today’s song selection).
Lean on Me reminds me of a good friend and 8th grade. High school? Anything by Bel Biv Devoe.
Here’s your poison.
I needed a pick me up before my Saturday trip to the grocery store. You know, because I’m dangerous.
Erm, it may have been a little early for high school, but Mull of Kintyre always takes me back to one winter’s day in the school hall. Why, I have absolutely no idea, but I remember it being played for some reason… and me dancing to it… really! Andra, I think I need to try and investigate this memory a little closer…
Tom, this one is FANTASTIC!! I can’t wait to read what your investigations of your dancing shoes will bring to your writing.
You must look more closely.
Blimey. Just got misty-eyed listening to that. I’ve not heard it for so long… and I’ve just posted about signs as well…
High school. Cranked up in the car so loud it hurt. The Animals. We Gotta Get Out of This Place (if its the last thing we ever do).
Under the Boardwalk – yep. Learned to cha cha to it. Lou picked a good one.
There are some interesting “church people” (ex-church people??) commenting on this post, my friend. hehe
I *might* remember Hotel California playing a time or two. Possibly, when I *might* have skipped school once or ….
Philadelphia Freedom always takes me back to cutting school on warm spring days.
That’s a great one. I love that song, Nancy.
What an experience! I can imagine how hysterical everyone would be at breaking down. Washington, D.C. “after hours” would be a challenge to all, when young an unaccustomed to urban environments! I love this music thread, Andra. Love it! My “song” would be “Crystal Ship” by the Doors…but I think I will absolutely need to post my own story about why! I had forgotten something until recently that is pretty funny! And I love the Doors to this day…given that I posted about Hemp Seed this morning and was in high school in the 60′s, well, it all fits, doesn’t it? LOL! Debra
I’m really looking forward to reading your Crystal Ship story, Debra. I love it when reading inspires creativity in others. I hope nothing’s shaking out there.
Music was everywhere in my high school career: my first real boyfriend introduced me to old Springsteen, Indigo Girls, Zeppelin, and the Beatles. My best friend was into prog rock and the dissonant tones of Pärt and Schoenberg.
I discovered Beethoven.
I was obsessed with REM.
Theatre parties weren’t complete without Love Shack, Groove is in the Heart, and Son of A Preacher Man.
But one song? Lordy… Can’t do it.
I remember lots of songs, some of the same artists above. I was into them, too. But this one always, always makes me feel seventeen. I don’t know why.
I do love that song. I associate it with being with my grandparents out west and meeting my step-cousin who was much younger, but much cooler, and who ran with me like I was a boy or he was a girl that summer.
Isn’t it awesome when people just get along, when they click?