The coffee shop was busy Friday afternoon.  There were quite a few teenagers milling about laughing, talking, iPoding, iPhoning, iTexting.  (If they’re all there together, who are they calling and texting?) 

It’s always interesting to see how they interact after all these years of not being one or having them closely around.  These particular kids go to a local private school up the road. Their uniforms are simple; probably meant to be neat and well-kept but they each manage to put their individual stamp of ‘teenness’ on how they dress – the boys have their shirts half tucked and their pants oversized but still belted on their waist, the girls have their cute little skirts with socks pushed down into Converses decorated with hand drawn flowers or peace signs.  I don’t think they necessarily start out this way in the morning, I wonder how long it takes for this transformation during the day?  Or is this the only day of the week they are allowed this license? 

Fridays seem to be their favored day for gathering here; perhaps it’s a stepping off point for the evening activities. 

When I was their age my friends and I busted out of school on Friday afternoons, piled into whomever’s car was handy and headed straight for the burger joint on St. Lamont Street.  The shakes there were the best in town – just thick enough but not so thick you had to cross your eyes to get the yumminess up through the straw.  My favorite was banana; I always asked for an extra cherry on top.  (You never know who you might want to give that cherry to.)   

My girlfriends and I would sit for what seemed like hours gossiping and giggling over burgers and fries.  We actually had to – gasp! – talk to one another.  There wasn’t any  texting of messages and the closest we could get to an instant message was a hand scrawled note passed from one friend to another, then handed off to the intended guy, and you crossed your fingers and hoped it got there without someone else reading it and blabbing what it said to everyone you knew.  And if we liked a guy we didn’t send him half-naked pictures of ourselves as I hear the girls these days seem to be doing a lot of.  (Whoever told them that was a good idea should be horsewhipped.) We waited for him to ask us out, and even though we were dying to say, “yes, yes, yes!” we made him wait, discussed it with all our girlfriends, gave great thought to what we might wear on this date, finally agreed to go out with him, and made him pick us up at home for a real date.  You know, some place public where everyone could see we were together, like a football game or the burger joint on St. Lamont Street. 

Of course, if you happened to become half naked later on in that date that was an entirely different story…