My dad was a non-dub, like email's. The thing I missed the most was sports - but that was at least as much due to the fact that my father's total focus was on academics. I was to be the first in my line, both sides, to go to college (first to graduate high school for that matter).
I would have gotten a lot out of association with my peers in high school. There were some pretty impressive people in my classes.
But I gotta say this: I had one excellent group of friends while growing up in the Franklin MA congregation. Depending on when and how you counted, there were anywhere from ten to twenty of us at any one time. We had some very good athletes and we could assemble a basketball team that we could take to the playgrounds and take on the other neighborhood kids. Sometimes we even went to the city and got our buts kicked on the court.
We had motorcycle phases, dirt and road. We did our first surreptitious drinking when we were 15 on overnight trail rides. I'll never forget the time Vinnie came down from a jump and his left foot pedal gave way. We rolled for what seemed like hours - us laughing, he, in pain.
Some of those guys were the funniest people I ever met - even to this day, 25 years later. They could make you wiz your drawers.
And what description of adolescence would be complete without mentioning the opposite gender. Our congregation had some of the best looking girls you ever met - a couple were the prettiest girls in their high schools. I was sure I was going to end up with Dana, until another girl's older brother married her, the bastard. By now she agrees, but its a wee bit too late for that, now isn't it?
Yeah, we had the run-ins with the JCs. I fought the mind control to the point where the only solution was to stop going - a process that started as I went to college. And speaking of college, I got a letter of recommendation to the Admissions Committee from our congregation's PO.
Believe it or not, most of my memories are fond ones. How does that compare?