This is from Sonoma Valley High School yearbook circa 1978...

I found it fascinating how the kids have stayed the same, yet the social mores have shifted and those that did the shifting are those that did what they did here in 1978.

BOREDOM AND BOOZE

"There's nothing to in Sonoma," is an expression of most Sonoma teenagers. They claim that if you want to do something, go to a show, ice-skating, you have to go out of town. Spend Friday night in Sonoma and this is likely to happen:

A group of boys are out. There isn't a basketball or football game so there isn't much to do. They drive up to a liquor store and get the oldest looking guy to go in and buy. As one boy said, "Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't." They buy a case and a half of beer, start drinking, and try to find a party. Most times they succeed.

The boys pass a carload of girls. The girls are pretty much "blown away". Girls will usually have older boys buy them hard liquor. Then they buy the mixer, fill up the car with gas and hang around. Where do they hang around? - at the gas stations or they'll pull someone over on the side of the road and talk.

The drinking is not just confined to those who can drive. It starts as a freshmen, but doesn't end after graduation. People under sixteen go out with someone older or walk downtown and hang out around 7-11 or the "Great Western bench."

What do most people do at parties? Most parties are spur of the moment get-togethers. If parties are planned they sometimes get so large the houses get ruined and the cops arrive on the scene.

As one girl said, "I go to parties to have fun and when I get bombed I have more fun."

Around midnight or one o'clock most teenagers have to be home, if they make it home. Broadway is usually deserted except for the few cops that cruise around constantly.

***

Sound familiar, yet distant... 30 years ago things were the same, yet the moral judgements are different.

j