Ah, Grade 12 on the Eastern Shore. Between school, sports, applying to universities, working demeaning jobs, and driving into Dartmouth to do city things like paying to watch crappy movies, bowling and eating at MacDonalds - it's a wonder we ever found time to partake in all of that underage binge drinking. In hazy, rose-coloured retrospect, my late high school/early university years play like Dazed & Confused and/or an episode of That 70s Show. How you view this - fun, accurate, sad, depressing, embarrassing, all of the above - likely depends on (i) whether you were there, (ii) how you feel about an army of skinny and obnoxious 16 years olds stumbling around the woods loaded drunk, and (iii) how you feel about the above programs. Regardless...
Looking back, most of these weekends kind of blend together into an indistinguishable blur, but a few stand out - either for their sheer ridiculousness, bad memories, noteworthy stupidity, whathaveyou. On one such standout weekend, a team of us were all prepped to go camping on an island in the lake behind my home, as we had done a number of times previously - miraculously without incident I should add, despite the volume of liquor we not-so-subtly smuggled on the journey. However, on this night in particular we spent far too long waiting for the volunteered older sibling to deliver our LC order (they never actually showed), and thus we were left in the dark, on my front lawn, dry, with tents in hand and my not-so-oblivious parents looking on. I can't remember what our story was re: what we were waiting for, but I'm sure it was hilariously transparent. To save face, we decided to go camping up the road, at the local beach, which in reality is just a small strip of sandy lakefront nestled between two populated lake lots. We actually would have had more privacy in my parents' backyard. Regardless: sober camping - what a concept.
Present on this particular weekend was the friend of a friend (who, according to Facebook, is now a not-so-big-time, virtually eyebrow-less, scary looking, scantily-clad R&B recording artist in Toronto... I think they had a song on the radio a few years ago). We all knew her from school. It wasn't awkward, but she wasn't among the regular circle of friends usually present for these events. She was also wearing the titular 3/4-length purple roots jacket.
A few hours later, and all of us are packed into two tents, nestled snug between the two Gaetz Brook lakefront properties. We are noisy, crass, obnoxious and stupid giddy. All are having fun, save for the aforementioned R&B singer, who was growing tired of our stupidity and was actually trying to sleep. She was literally begging us to shut up. Pfft. Of course we were completely unrelenting, leaving her no choice but to pack up and leave, but not without her 3/4-length purple roots jacket, which had apparently gone missing...
"Has anyone seen my 3/4-length purple roots jacket? It's a 3/4-length purple roots jacket, with a plaid lining? Guys, have you seen my 3/4-length purple roots jacket?"
This seemed to go on forever, and she finally gave up and left in a huff without it. Where she went, I have no idea - this being long before the age of cellphones and she lived probably 15 km away. Regardless, our night continued undeterred, until a few hours later when one of the campers complained of a lumpy pillow, which ended up being...
a 3/4-length purple roots jacket.
Of course we all had a good laugh over that one. Recalling it now, I'm sure we sound like a cliquey group of asshats, but... eh.
Good times. I think.
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