Crazy Days and Crazy Nights (Christy and Johanna, pt.1)

About a month ago, I mentioned that my best friend found me on Facebook. Since I got on Facebook a few years ago, I have been looking for her. And even before that-online. She shares one with her boyfriend (that I didn't know), so when I got the request in his name and checked it out, I was surprised to see her picture..and thrilled! I have been praying for a long time for this.

So let's go back in time...

I was nine years old and she was about six months older. My dad lived in the same apartments where she and her mom and brother lived. My mom ended up moving there, too, for awhile, with us. Not sure of all the timing of these things. We became fast friends. I remember her dancing to Mr. Roboto out in the parking lot. Doing some weird dance that I thought was kinda strange. We also danced to Thriller from Michael Jackson..oh boy! them 80's! We played 4 and 5 hour games of Monopoly, sitting out on the sidewalk in front of the apartments, in which my older brother would cheat and somehow it seemed cool to me so I must have somehow benefited from it. 

Eventually, we all moved. Well, she didn't for awhile. I lived in another town, but visited my dad in Oroville every other weekend. So I would usually see her when I was there. There were a couple times she and I camped out in the grassy field/yard next to the apartments. We had tons of junk to eat, a radio and no tent. Oh we should've been afraid. That was not the best neighborhood or town really, but we were fearless and our parents were...well not like I am. Then there was summertime and we spent so many days swimming at what is called the Forebay. It was a great place to hang out and swim. My dad would usually drop a bunch of us off there. We would swim to the buoys and in the middle get the giggles so bad, we'd almost drown every time. I don't know how we made it! Another fun memory was when we'd head out shopping. There was Sprouse Rietz, K Mart, and our super-favorite store, Woolworth's! My dad would always give me money and so that was one of our favorite weekend past times. Girls, you know. We also went through a cool phase of playing miniature golf..yes back when they had all the cool stuff like the pyramids and windmills :) Of course, we watched all kinds of movies. Our favorite one as we were pre-teens was a movie called "Little Darlings" Looking back--no wonder we had the attitude about sex that we did. It was all about losing one's virginity.. Our other favorite was "The Outsiders" I love it to this day.. And it's no wonder that my best friend and I ended up rebels...

Christy's mom had had her in a Christian Elementary school. I began really having trouble in my school when I was about twelve. I didn't fit in. I was rebellious and fought with my teachers. We listened to Madonna and all the music of the day. Prince, Cyndi Lauper. And whatever else. Then I fell in with the wrong crowd when I was thirteen. And the music changed as I discovered heavy-metal. I started smoking and cussing, drinking sometimes and smoked pot for the first time. When I went to see my friend, Christy, I taught her all the stuff I was getting into and it spread from me to her like wildfire. We had two pictures from subsequent school years of Christy. In the first one she was wearing an aqua sweater, pink lipstick and white beads. In the second picture taken the next year, she was wearing a black rock shirt, teazed-up hair and lots of black eyeliner and a folded up bandanna as a headband--we wrote on them "before" and "after."

Soon you'd see us sitting down on this log in her yard, listening to Ratt and Metallica, Dio, Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, smoking cigarettes (her mom wasn't home). We dressed in Levi's and rock shirts, only, for the next I don't know how many years. We began partying and had boys chasing us. And with that comes pressure. Her mom had some choice words about me to her daughter. I smoked her first joint with her and then soon after, quit. She didn't and drugs, for her, became a lifelong addiction--pot being the gateway drug. I drank sometimes, but she guzzled the hard stuff and collected the bottles as trophies in her room--that was now covered from floor to ceiling with posters of heavy-metal bands. I think she must have told her mom the bottles weren't hers. Meanwhile, at my house, we were having big parties for all kinds of kids. My mother had a drinking problem and apparently saw nothing wrong with supplying the alcohol and neither did the other adults that were there. I was fourteen. I liked drinking wine-coolers and Strawberry Hill, but often had to force myself to drink beer..ick. The music that I remember from these parties was stuff like Hotel California and other Eagles music, Aerosmith-Dream On and of course Guns and Roses. Welcome to the Jungle, Baby!

And a jungle it was. Wild! We ran the streets, dodging cop's headlights, getting drunk, stoned and into all kinds of trouble...

Will share more soon...