NOPHO

As if my pending 20 year high school reunion was not enough action to stir up the awkward memories of my teenage years apparently all the rage on Facebook right now is these groups titled You know your from ________ when" or "Growing up in ____"  I was so lucky to get added to the North Phoenix Group..or as they call it nowadays NOPHO. A forum where thousands of random people are posting their memories of growing up in da hood, most of which circulate around teachers we hated, where we went to party, the local bars, and who got in a fight with who. While mildly entertaining this is a period in my life I'd much rather forget, in fact I have pretty much closed the book on it. I hated High School. My parents at the time were total dicks I think I was grounded for pretty much 80 % of it because my grades weren't up to par. I left home and high school at the ripe old age of 16 to go it alone and have never looked back. This trip down memory lane has me thinking of when North Phoenix was the edge of town and how the "desert parties" were only a ten minute drive away. It reminds me of all the reasons also of why I left that neighborhood when my oldest son was 2 yrs old and we were awakened on a regular basis by gunshots. North Phoenix, the area I grew up in is now termed "The Square" which refers to an area riddled with drugs, crime, and illegals. My parents live a hop skip and a jump from it still, as do apparently quite a few people I went to school with. You can keep North Phoenix, I'll take my small town any day over 24 hour grocery stores full of tweekers where English is a second language and  where its a pain to drive anywhere because of the traffic. Somehow I still find myself down there on occasion however and for nostalgia sake it still oddly feels a bit like home to me.