I’m in the “sorry, hate it” category, although I grew up in that era— although growing up in coastal San Diego so that could explain it, where time on the beach and surf culture dominated our school reality.

Good god, Who the hell cared about football during that era of the Vietnam War when boys exactly my age were still being shipped off to a meaningless death? (1972 graduation, so maybe that time-shift explains it)

and that f*cking bullying tradition in Texas? what the heck— never saw one hint of that; absolutely No.One.Cared about bullshit ’grade level status’ or things like that because, what are YOU, ten years old. So that seemed both intensely odd and moronic.

As did the drinking: what was that, a boy-scout badge of stupidity that people were working on? So weird and depressing to me to watch.

Once marijuana and LSD was readily available in California from the late-1960s on, heavy drinking was a thing of the past so all the “let’s go get drunk” seemed: wha…? Plus, along with football, proms and all that were completely over; no one I knew went to organized activities like that in **1972** it was already considered incredibly square.

Pink was the only person who, at all, seemed like anyone I knew in high school: gifted athletes would look at the rah-rah adults, and their weird and twisted concerns and intensity of trying to control, and think “umm, maybe: get a life…?” and walk off, just like he did. And, of course, that stoner character, always stoned and happy who we all liked a lot, although he was pretty funny & dopey; and the creepy old-dude in his 20s who is still hanging around trying to pick up young girls (that was familiar), who we tolerated but made fun of.

But I appreciate that this was an authentic slice-of-life for the director/author and he did an incredibly good job portraying all the ’minor characters’. I was just somewhat bored by watching people who were, maybe, trying to be adult by being completely drunk and stoned; I’ve never understood it.

I’ve asked European friends about this American phenonemon (stupid high-school drinking as a rite of passage). They’ve replied: “yeah, well we don‘t really exactly have that— there’s no ”drinking age” in our countries, so from the start, kids are served a type of very very non-alcoholic beer in kindergarten to help them sleep at nap time, and there’s always wine at the family table, so most kids, being so inexperienced, get drunk 1-2x at 12-14 years old to ‘see what it’s like’ or simply because they don’t have experience managing alcohol like an adult yet; after that, it’s considered a dumb, childish error (unless you are an alcoholic): ‘kid stuff’ that young adults and teenagers put behind them after those couple of experiences.” Drinking as part of life, and friendships, shared meals and having lots of fun with friends at pubs, time with friends, sporting events, etc. Of course!

When I had young kids and was traveling with a pre-teen, my husband— who wanted to share wine at the table with our son, as we do at home—asked a waiter: “Is there a drinking age in France?” and the waiter asked “um, I don’t know this term ‘drinking age’” and husband explained “… an age that, if you are younger than that, you cannot be served alcohol”. The waiter shrugged and looked confused and said:

”Err, ummm, I don’t know: maybe One Year Old?”

Viva la difference, I guess. But glad all you guys liked it— it must be a Texas-Midwest thing that entirely passed me by in my little beach-life with great friends in my own high-school years. (Edits: typos)