Maddog Tales

Nola grabbed me as the DJ started playing Take a Long Line by The Angels, ‘Let’s slow dance to this one, it will freak out the teachers.

We swayed slowly to our own beat as the Aussie Rock Anthem blared across the hall, and everyone else jumped and gyrated to the rhythm. I looked into Nola’s eyes, and got lost in the moment.

Nola lived a teenager’s dream, her parents lived out Bush and she shared a house with her two sisters. Just around the corner from Nashville State High, it became a lunch time refuge in our Senior year. A place to chill, forget about classes, teachers and exams while we planned the weekend’s entertainment or discussed the world that so obviously revolved around us now.

Parties tended to happen more regularly at Nola’s house, without parental supervision we could indulge in the teenage vices; loud music, alcohol and cigarettes. I became partial to Blackberry Nip, a sweet liqueur that fulfilled my need for sugar and warmed me from within. Loud music became a constant companion; Led Zeppelin, Skyhooks, Alice Cooper and The Angels peppered my record collection helping to shut out Abba and the 70′s disco mania. Smoking never made sense to me so I avoided that particular vice. A relief for my lungs and wallet.

During our dance, I could see the mischievousness in Nola’s eyes, a free spirit thumbing her nose at convention. She warmed a small place in my heart but it never grew into a passionate flame before I left her behind rushing into adult life. Thirty years later only the dance is left.

Tags: Friends, Memoir, memories, school