My Best Years at Buffalo Grove High School

What’s the purpose of telling high school kids that they are living the good life? Make them more appreciative of their surroundings? I would question the veracity of such a claim. Back in my BG days this cliché would depress the shit out of me. And if those 4 yrs are really the best of your life what about the other 60+ yrs? You know, adulthood? Is that just supposed to be a downward spiral of shame and disappointment culminating in your eventual demise? In my time at BG I can remember thinking, “This is as good as it’s going to get? I have no money, no car, no sex, little direction in life… heck I don’t even know myself!” Yes, I really did think that last part.

I spent a lot of my time and energy trying to get the fuck out of high school and I had it better than most kids. I had a group of interesting, intelligent friends that genuinely looked out for me. Sure there were good times, and I have plenty of funny stories and embarrassing pictures (before they were all digital) to prove it. But it wasn’t all Friday Night Lights and 90210. Still I gave it my best.

“Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”
-Crazy ass Sean Connery character from The Rock


A lot of my high school was spent desperately trying to fit in and being sure not to get my ass kicked in gym class or have text books knocked out of my hands by some anonymous asshole (or not so anonymous, Yonatan Zamir). I remember being extremely self-conscious and dreadfully aware of my shortcomings, physical and mental. I had my heart broken at least 3 times at BG, and that was really tough for an overly sensitive 16 year-old raised on 80’s romantic comedies. At some point I really thought I was Lloyd Dobler, or at least his less attractive 2nd cousin. It was in high school that I realized for the first time that my parents were, in fact, real adult humans who can be hurt, who can openly weep and much worse.

And for some people life did get much worse. Jordan Fenchel died from an opiate overdose after graduation. Mike Flores burned to death in a car accident in 1998. Bet you don’t remember him, but I was in Saul’s AP Physics class w/ him.


I only wished good endings for these guys, but it doesn’t appear to have finished up that way. If high school was the highlight of your life, I really do feel badly for you. Talk about peaking too soon, that’s like being born with an 18 inch cock only to have it shrink one inch per year until your 18th birthday, when you’re finally prepared to use it, and all you’re left with is a one inch stub of flesh barely representative of anything masculine.

For a good transition of things less than masculine:I’d like to say to you that my life right now, as I sit here and eat nachos w/ Diet Dr. Pepper, is the best I’ve ever known it. Of course that would be a lie. In the past I’ve eaten Chicago pizza, Eli’s Cheesecake, a steak at Smith and Wollensky… I’ve had it good before. It’s not so much that life is incredible for me right now, Diet Dr. Pepper aside, but the hope and potential promise that I will have it greater some time soon. Sure the chocolate chip cookies at the BG cafeteria were soft and delicious… but I’m holding out for the bigger things; right or wrong, true or false, I’m sticking around for it.