Ghost of 4th of July's Past: 2001

2001:  The summer of awesome.  The main thing you have to keep in mind is that my best friend, Katie, and I were good kids in high school.  And not just the "aw, they mean well" kind of good kids, but the ACTUAL good kids who never did anything that had the chance of disappointing our parents.  We saved that stuff for college.  So we didn't party, we didn't drink, we basically were the ideal children for the dad off of Footloose.  Except for the dancing thing.  And we were totally okay with that, because in our minds, we had too much to lose by drinking and partying. 

So, when Katie and I had a super wild night when we were both 16, it did NOT entail drinking, partying, and driving drunk.  That's what her dad thought it entailed, and you'll be hard pressed to convince him otherwise even to this day.  It's still really fun to bring it up over dinner conversation and watch his face turn red.  Katie lived in Little Shasta, out by the cemetery, and I spent most of my summers and spare time over at her house.  There was much more to do, and much less supervision by her parents.  Again, not that we did anything wrong, but we just felt like we had more freedom.  We spent most of our summer weekends staying up all night and sleeping all day by the pool, and her parents knew our routine pretty well.

And this one night in particular, we walked the 10 miles to Montague.  We had no bad intentions of any kind, no malicious forethought of terrifying her parents...we just wanted to see how long it would take to walk to Montague.  In our pajamas.  With her dog.  And if you're wondering, it takes about 3 hours walking at a leisurely pace.

Needless to say, we were caught by her dad who got up at 2 AM to go to work out in the woods and realized we weren't home (or in any of our usual spots around the house, including the cemetery).  He freaked out, sent her mom out looking for us, and we were caught about a 1/4 mile from her house on the way back from town.  They ruined our big moment!   And worse than that, they called MY parents.  Ugh.  That cured me on trouble-seeking and rule-breaking for awhile.  Surprisingly, Katie was grounded for a month and I was only grounded for a week...not sure how that one worked out, but I took the punishment gladly.

When I look back on that day, there's another memory that strikes me as important, and one that I will treasure forever, especially now.  Earlier on that 4th of July day, my Aunt Polly, Uncle Philip, Mom, Dad, and I hiked Goosenest. We have one picture to commemorate the occasion, with us all gathered at the summit.  I think my dad was wearing his signature flip-up sunglasses and a Henryetta's Pig Out Palace t-shirt, and I just remember that day as happy.  Everyone was happy.

Until about 3 AM when Katie and I were caught.  At least we knew how to keep things interesting.