The summer before I entered my sophomore year of high school my parents dropped a bomb on us. They were going to sell the house, pack up and move to Washington State and buy a small town grocery store. Me and my sisters were floored. I liked my school friends after school activities etc. I didn’t want any of it to change. I had a close knit group of friends and the half dozen or so of us were extremely close. I didn’t want to make new friends and I didn’t want to start a new school and I certainly didn’t want it to be in a small little hick town called Oroville.
Being as I had no job or income I reluctantly packed up all my flannels and made sure I had the addresses of everyone I ever knew.
Now, me and my two sisters are very close in age and very good friends. So, this could have been a lot worse. I had two good friends right off the bat.
My mother, wise as she is, decided to send away for the town’s newspaper. After it came we realized just how small a place we were going to. The paper’s circulation, for the whole county, was 3500. The police blogger was in it and we could find out exactly who had arrest warrants and who was stopped for DUIs. Then there was the honor roll. JACKPOT! There were names of many of our future classmates. Certainly we could get a hold of them and chat on the phone before we moved there. This was a few years before the internet and at the time when long distance phone calls ran upwards of 25 cents a minute. So, endless calls to 411 and we had some contacts. Two in particular that we ended up speaking to a few times over the summer. Our phone calls would go something like this,
Us: Hello is _______ there?
Them: Yeah, I’m him/her
Us: Hi, we are moving there from Minnesota in a couple months and we don’t know anybody, so we decided to call ahead and meet some people before we got there.
Them: ….uh how’d you get my number?
Us: Well we have your newspaper and it has your name in it.
them: Did it have my phone number?
Us: No, we just called information to get that.
Them: Mmm, ok.
And then a question and answer section about the technicalities of their quaint town would follow. We moved there a few months later and school started shortly after that. The first day of school I was in my biology class and my teacher was calling roll. He got to my name and paused, “Your that girl who’s been calling my son all summer aren’t you?”
Die I wanted to.
Attention was not something I longed for in front of a group and certainly not this kind. Turns out we called the principle’s kid as well.
I’m over it now. I suppose when I think about it according to today’s standards, with myspace, we would have done the same exact thing today and it would have been less freakish.
The Pilver 
The fact that 3 sisters from the outside world showed up in this tiny town didn’t go entirely unnoticed by the locals. I got a 0 out of 10 for the “class participation score” in that biology class, and I think it was because I spent most of the time during lecture twisting around in my chair so I could talk to the new girl. I never really thought about it from her perspective — we must have all come across as such wierdo hicks. That’s why it’s so funny to come across this blog entry 10 years later… so what are the other 250 things you did to stay amused?
DAVEN!!!!! how dare you comment and not leave a link or email. How and where and what are you?
Oh, and I think you got a 0 out of 10 cause Mr White didn’t approve of kids with longish hair. Thing #147 was getting kicked outta Johnson’s class and sitting in the hall with you and Zane and your “briefcase”
Ah, yes. I remember calling Todd Jorgensen. He was very unamused. We were so used to not running into people, that we didn’t expect to actually see the people we were calling. Today I am so happy that we moved to the little town of Tonasket. I remember sitting in the old high school when we first moved there, and feeling like we travelled back in time… looking out the window at mountains. I was so excited to live in mountains. Let’s not forget the Junction.
Oh man, I had forgotten about Dr. J and the “briefcase.” See, this is why I’m sad to be missing our 10 year HS reunion. I’ll be out of the country — maybe see you at the 20th? I was telling somebody here, oh look, HS reunion, no big deal, playing it off as if I am in touch with the people I’d ever want to know anyways… but then I started thinking, is that really true? Of course not. So I skimmed over the list of emails and realized there are quite a number of folks who it be fun to catch up with. Which is when I googled you (stalker alert!) and found ThePilver. So, apologies for appearing here so randomly, but that’s how it happened.
Oh the Junction. The mountains. The football games and the knowledge bowl trips. This is probably only a small sample of the nostalgia-fest that will be the reunion, but I’ll take what I can get.
Ha! What a great Blog! I had no idea you’d called people in advance! What a riot, you guys!
You all were such an amazing breath of fresh air! I mean, didn’t we elect Sarah our Sophomore class princess all of, like, 3 weeks after school started? I mean, I feel like there were some pretty miffed girls out there over that, but to me it was just so perfect; i loved it.
My favorites were Sarah in Mrs. Lind’s Art class asking me for advice on boys (well, maybe just about Joel), and then explaining things to me about life in the big city, like: “driving on the freeway is so much fun, it’s like a big race!” or “we always go out to the airport to hang out with international people just for fun.”
I also remember her counting down the days until she could go back that first Christmas, writing numbers on her hand every morning in big black ink. When I tried to do a similar count-down for going on vacation to France a few months later, let’s just say it didn’t look as cute as when Sarah did it.
And I did end up at the reunion last year, and it was great. Sounds like you’re planning on going, eh Kristiane? I hope you have a great time. Tonasket hasn’t changed a whole lot, but I bet your classmates have.
Hope to catch up with either of you soon. Give me a shout-out if you’re anywhere near Seattle!