Neshaminy High 1987- or "How I was Almost Metal"

This past weekend, I was looking over my yearbook with my husband, trying to identify for him who was "metal" in my school. To the left is my yearbook photo from my first year at Neshaminy, 1986-1987. Coming from four, very long years at Neshaminy Jr. High with no social connections whatsoever, I was open to hang out with any crowd. Not desperate, but curious. I believed I had had serious social problems in Jr. High and I was looking to move past them once and for all.

For the first 3 or 4 months I hung out with a pseudo-metal girl named Vicky Ziering. Vicky was nice but loud and had HUGE hair. Very serious metal hair that required almost an entire can of Aqua Net. She was in love with a Chinese metal guy named Tommy Yu. We were all in the same remedial science class.

Vicky liked metal bands with cute lead singers like Bon Jovi or Sebastian Bach from Skid Row. I went with her the metal club on Roosevelt Blvd. a couple of times and hung out in the parking lot because we were underage.

Kids into metal were considered trash in my High School and my area was pretty trashy to begin with. Unlike a John Hughes film, no one from that crowd, in my school, ever moved beyond the trade school existence that was laid out for them. Seriously- does anyone really believe that Molly Ringwald's character Claire would have been seen in the light of day with Judd Nelson's John Bender?

I honestly didn't have anything in common with most of those kids. I really didn't like the music and I just didn't have the desire to be typecasted.

Ultimately, I never did fall into any group while at Neshaminy. I had a small group of friends that I stayed with up until my senior year. It was only then that I started hanging with people where we all listened to the same music and dressed the same. I'm not sure why at that point I needed that kind of social allegiance when I had been fine with just drifting.