I don’t remember if I was a freshman or sophomore when I heard it, but to this day I remember the prophecy, the words, and even where I sat on the long bench made of laminated wood. 

I was sitting in “Health Issues”, and the high school class was fairly engaging for a young teenager. The teacher, Mr. Mogardo, opened the year with a homework assignment for us all: bring in a magazine advertisement for either cigarettes or alcohol. I’m pretty sure I tore a Bacardi ad from my Rolling Stone magazine—and I brought it in with little thought as to why I was doing it.

The next time the class convened, we students taped the ads up around the white-painted cinder block walls. Once assembled, Mr. Mogardo approached each glossy image and instantly rattled off how sex was being used to sell the product: a woman in a yellow bikini laying on a beach chair with an open bottle of long-necked Corona Beer splashing towards her, etc. etc. Now, as a 43-year-old, you don’t need to tell me what these thinly-veiled ads were doing.  My body and brain have experienced plenty enough of this crap to understand what is going on.

But in Health Issues, there was something else more consequential that has endured through the subsequent years. It was an off-the-cuff remark made by a teacher’s aide after we managed to lead him astray on a conversational tangent. One of the kids was chirping to him about how he couldn’t wait to get out of high school—how great the freedom was going to be. Without blinking, the aide looked at him, raised his left hand and made a bold prediction:

“When you’re my age, you’ll give your left pinky to be back here.”

I registered that comment with astonishment. Here? Like, Falmouth High School here? With this partially-developed brain and body? I could not believe that such a metamorphosis in thinking would ever be possible. For sure, the liquor ads promising Cancun dreams in a bottle from Kappy’s Liquors seemed more likely than what he was promising. 

I recall my internal response to the aide’s proclamation: And this guy misses high school so much that he’s back here teaching us about STDs.

To be sure, high school was not notably terrible for me. I was one of the minnows quite happy to occupy space in the middle of the school. I moved through each period as best as I could and counted my biggest stresses as remembering what letter was hanging on the entrance to the school (on “C” Day, for example, I had physical education so I needed to have my sports kit). But even though I bumped through those years unremarkably, there was absolutely nothing suggesting that one day I’d be itching to go back. Never mind lopping off a body part to be readmitted.

That was thirty years ago. Since that time, I have competed in many categories of the Adulting Olympics and have the scars to prove it. The only time I have returned to FHS, it has been to visit the field house in order to collect a Road Race packet—or perhaps on a weekend at home I’ll loop around the school while on a run. 

Sure the ensuing years of live haven’t always been easy—but I’ve always kept that guy’s comment in the back of my mind. It’s because I want to compare and contrast how I am aging to see if my perspective ever perceptibly shifts.  And while I still have a few more miles in my body’s warranty, I am fairly confident that I am now older than that guy when he spoke. And I can now say that even on the hardest days, there’s never been a moment where I’ve thought to myself, “God, I wish I was back in high school”.  

I can’t say for sure what he meant when he showed us his pinky finger. Maybe we’d be pining for the freedom that came with using our parent’s Pontiac Grand Am gratis. Maybe it’s the gift of youth that means you’re not waking up each day and wondering why a certain body part is suddenly on the blink. There are indeed a few things that I can count as positive in occupying a high schooler’s life. But on the whole—my God you can keep the hormones, the bad hair and the awkwardness of that constrictive fish tank. 

The only time I find myself literally wandering back to high school is on an occasional morning run. The school’s facilities are now improved, and I am happy for the winter track students who can now run their relays around a track that isn’t squished into the shape of a square. I pass by the large outdoor climbing edifice and smile to know that a class called Project Adventure is still being offered.  

I also have to laugh when I pass our class’s gift—what serves as the grand entrance sign to the high school. I remember our class officers working valiantly to arrange some kind of gift to the school at the end of our senior year—but when you look at what our pennies ultimately contributed….the sign is ridiculously small. If you have ever seen the Stonehenge concert scene of This is Spinal Tap, then you get the idea.

To this day I choose to believe that most of my classmates would agree with me. In high school, we were nothing more than kids looking to break free and figure out on our own how life worked on the outside. Perhaps some people really did reach their prime in high school…but I honestly do find that hard to believe. There is simply too much out there for the taking once you finish with Health Issues.

The track that I spent so much time running around as a teenager did actually provide one final opportunity for catapulting my life beyond the school grounds. Four years after I graduated, A Navy recruiter came down from Boston and met me at the outdoor track to gauge if I was qualified for Officer Candidate School. I remember performing 12 of the worst pushups of my life, and then running six laps to show that I had a bit of run in me. Now that so much time has passed, the high school today is just another building that I temporarily occupied. And I suppose appreciate in hindsight.

I’m a bit curious to know where there indeed are some kids from my health class who might agree with how I feel today. Maybe some are now teaching themselves; perhaps like those sexualized magazine ads they were able to instantly see something that I didn’t and still don’t. Who knows. It’s not a question of perceived superiority for one perspective or another—but if anything at all, I will stay that high school was effective. The curriculum provided me with some food for thought that I still enjoying teasing out.