International Dateline (ID): Where did you grow up?
Karin KT (KT): I was in a really, really large public school in Minnesota and then moved and went to a small independent school in the Chicago area.
Cathy Noon (CN): In Leeds, in the UK.
Guy Neal (GN): When I was in high school, I was given the option of either staying at boarding school in New England or coming [back] home to a new home in Boca Raton, Florida, where I would get a car and live three miles from the beach. So you can guess what my 14-year-old self picked.
ID: How would you describe yourself as a teenager?
KT: Super creative and imaginative.
CN: In my early teens, I was a little bit awkward. I became much more confident [when] I found my people in high school.
GN: I was more reserved in high school and I became more open and extroverted as I advanced through high school.
ID: What is an archetype that comes to mind when you think of your teenage self?
KT: I was a pretty straight-laced, nerdy kind of teenager.
CN: I was a bit of a science nerd, but I liked music and I was very social in the grade.
GN: I’ve never ever thought of this question before. I’m not sure I can answer it in one word.
ID: What type of people did you spend time with in high school?
KT: I was involved in student council, in plays, in sports. I actually moved in the middle of high school, and that was a tough move to have, so I felt like it was hard to make that adjustment. But I was the type of person that was friends with everybody, and I would see people in all different settings.
CN: It was an all-girls school, so we didn’t really have a lot of friends who were boys apart from brothers of people that we knew. When we started going to see bands, we would meet people, and that’s when the boys got involved.
GN: I got along with everyone. I went to a school that was probably about 20% bigger than WIS, so there was a little more freedom of movement among different groups. It wasn’t like the Breakfast Club, and it certainly wasn’t divided into those archetypes. But in terms of cliques, or groups, I had the ‘tennis friends’ and the ‘school friends.’
ID: Where and how did you spend time with your friends?
KT: Our high school was right next to a drive-in movie theater, which sounds really funny, but it was so fun to go to things. We would go there sometimes, just to hang out with friends. On the weekends, I played sports, I would run, do athletic things, and we had a club at school that was like a drama and theater club, but we went to drama in the city.
CN: We used to go see bands together. On Saturdays, we all had jobs and we’d go out in the evenings. But when I was a teenager, there was a big serial killer, [the Yorkshire Ripper], on the loose, and my parents were quite strict, so we would always say we were going somewhere, but we weren’t really going there.
GN: It would be the beach. We were an hour’s drive from Miami, Florida, and it was very touristy at the time. So in the winter, you’d get a ton of tourists.
ID: What was your favorite subject in school?
KT: Art, humanities, I loved all of that. That was my jam. I loved literature. I had some really fabulous English teachers in high school. Plus, I was not great in math, and I knew there was no hope in that field.
CN: It was always math and science. And I liked geography a lot.
GN: History was by far my favorite subject.
ID: What were your hobbies?
KT: I played tennis with my family, on our team. All through childhood, I played piano, flute, but I never loved it. All throughout elementary school, I really wanted to play the alto sax, and they were like ‘your hands are half the size they need to be’.
CN: I used to buy a lot of records, and going to concerts was a big thing. I used to read ferociously.
GN: All I cared about was academics, tennis, and water skiing.
ID: On a scale of 1-10, how much did you enjoy going to school?
KT: Nine. I loved school. I loved it then and I love it now.
CN: In middle school, not so much. Like a four. I did well in my classes and everything, but girls at that age are just horrible. And I wasn’t part of the clique. Later, I really enjoyed it, because I found my people that I could be myself with. So in high school, more like a nine.
GN: I think I really liked high school. I was very happy in high school. So I would say nine.
ID: What were your relationships like?
KT: When I moved, I met my now-husband through student council. I was 16, and he was 17, and we’ve known each other ever since. We fell in love, and we dated all of high school and college, which I don’t recommend to everybody, because a lot of high school relationships don’t work out. We essentially grew up together.
CN: We were pretty innocent compared to teenagers these times, right? Quite modest and demure, you know? But I didn’t really date until probably tenth or 11th grade, because I was at an all girls school. In tenth grade, it was just people I met while playing records at the youth club. And they’d have a dance once a month, so you might meet somebody there. I had a serious boyfriend in eleventh and twelfth grade who I met at a concert, and he was really into music and everything. He would make me mixtapes.
GN: I was dating a girl for three years in a row, tenth, 11th and 12th grade, and we spent a lot of time together for those three years.
ID: Did you get in trouble often?
KT: No, I was mortified of getting in trouble in school, and if I did it was for talking to friends and not shutting up. I was a pretty straight-laced student.
CN: Not really. We were very quietly just pushing the edges. Once, I did get into trouble for wearing a blue shirt, and I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. It sounds pretty silly nowadays, but in those days it was very different.
GN: No, I was a good student, because the girl I dated was an excellent student, and there was just sheer competition and pride.
ID: What music did you listen to?
KT: I’m a 90s teenager, so some good Radiohead, Fiona Apple, Cranberries.
CN: All this sort of alternative, post-punk stuff. I liked Echo and the Bunnymen, and The Cure, all those ‘ska bands’.
GN: Everything you can associate with 80s alternative music. Anything that wasn’t Michael Jackson, Prince, or Madonna, but geared more towards the alternative [genre]. The only thing that would come to mind is REM.
ID: What profession did you want to go into growing up?
KT: Even as I was a teenager, I knew I wanted to be a teacher.
CN: Originally, I wanted to be a doctor, but then I thought ‘wow [medical school] really takes a long time’.
GN: My father wanted me to go to the Air Force Academy, because he was a Vietnam [veteran]. I wanted nothing to do with that. So I didn’t really find my path until junior year of college.
ID: What did you wear most days to school?
KT: Everything I wore in high school I could probably fit two of myself in now, because everything was grunge and baggy and oversized. I think I probably wore XL t-shirts? And ridiculously large jeans, and flannels, and, you know, Birkenstocks with socks. When I was in senior year, I cut my hair really short. Like a wedge cut.
CN: I wore a uniform, which was navy blue. We pushed it a lot with our school uniform, and in those days you would get sent home [if you violated the dress code].
GN: Keep in mind that it’s Florida, it’s a private school, and demanding some sense of decorum, the boys had to wear pants, not shorts, and short sleeve or long sleeve shirts and a tie. It wasn’t a uniform per se, just a classic dress code.
ID: What was the worst part about school?
KT: Early morning classes. And by the end of it, I felt like ‘I’m in school so long, and I have so much to do. Why can’t I just do that work on my own?’
CN: Having to follow all the stupid rules.
GN: We were without question the highest performing school within about 30 miles. That led to a lot of pressure as we applied to schools.
ID: What was a day in your life like?
KT: It started really early, and I had a half-hour drive. When I was a senior and my sister was a freshman, I drove us together every morning. School let out ridiculously early at about 2:30, so I had time to do sports. In the winter, we would ski. I was born in Minnesota, so I was practically born on skis.
CN: I woke up early and took the bus at eight o’clock, or I had to walk from town past all this weird stuff going on. I hated coming in late.
GN: Before I got my driver’s license, I had a little Vespa, my pride and joy. I would just scoot on the Vespa to school. In the morning, we had assemblies in the chapel three days a week. Then our class schedule, and then tennis seemingly year-round.
ID: What were your summers like?
KT: I always worked, so I was trying to make money. I also feel like we went to the mall a lot more than I ever do know as an adult. Teenagers hung out in the mall or went to the movies or had dinner with friends. I went to concerts.
CN: When I was younger, my grandparents would come up to the house and look after us because both my parents were working. And we’d go off during the day into the woods, and we’d play all day outside and go back for lunch. When I was older, you’d meet friends in town and go and do something or go to a library.
GN: I spent my summers working and traveling. My father was an airline pilot, and one of the perks of having a parent as an airline pilot is that you get to fly free. So I’d be able to fly free to and from Florida to L.A. [to visit family].
ID: Did you have any jobs in high school?
KT: Early on, I babysat, and I loved that. I’m the oldest of two younger girls, so I was babysitting them too. And then in tenth grade, I became a sandwich artist at Subway. I’ve also waited tables at different restaurants over the years.
CN: I worked in the bakery. That’s where I learned to tie boxes, because you had to know how to do that for the cake.
GN: I had a job teaching tennis to little kids during the summer months. And I worked at the equivalent of a CVS drugstore. And then a checkout job. Glorious job.
ID: What is your most embarrassing memory from being a student?
KT: I don’t know what my friends and I were thinking, but we thought it would be a great idea to dress up in crazy 70s clothes and all go to a restaurant together and pretend that it was totally normal.
CN: I don’t really have that many embarrassing things. I mean, my hair was a disaster, because in those days you didn’t have the products you have now. So I have all of these photos where my hair’s all over the place. Or once, on the very first day of school in sixth grade, there was another girl in my class with the exact same name as me, also called Catherine Noon. But she had a middle name, and I did not, so she was called Mary after that. She hated it, and she didn’t like me because I’d caused it.
GN: As if they’re going to be shared with you!
ID: What is one thing you wish you had appreciated more in the moment of being in high school?
KT: Spending time with friends. I didn’t realize how short that window was, whether that was being in musicals, or on a sports team, or just hanging out… I never appreciated how fast that time would go.
CN: The friendships. At the time, you had to physically write letters to friends when you went off to college. So, for the most part, we lost touch.
GN: Staying in contact with classmates was challenging.
ID: What is one piece of advice you would give yourself?
KT: Even though I knew what I wanted to do, I wish I would’ve taken the opportunity to explore other avenues or areas. I’m so glad I went to a liberal arts college, because even though I knew where I was headed, I loved that I took classes in linguistics and sociology and psychology. Don’t take yourself too seriously, and don’t get locked into an avenue.
CN: Do what you want to do. You’ve got plenty of time. You don’t have to make all these decisions about what you want to do, you’ve got time to change your mind.
GN: I always wish that I would have traveled more. My travels were largely restricted to the continental United States, so I wish I had more of an opportunity to see the world, maybe even a gap year. You’ll always have the opportunity to grind away academically, but you’re not going to have the opportunity to travel freely without obligations, jobs or relationship commitments.
By Tindra Jemsby
