"The Morning Table"

When I was in high school, there was a subculture I belonged to from freshman year all the way through my senior year. It was called "the morning table" or "the table". My high school had a vast cafeteria with a breakfast food buffet and a coffee station set up every morning, which would close exactly five minutes before the first bell of the day. Each morning my group of friends (Texas, Chris, Kate, Rick, Stephanie, Jon, Mike, Maggie, Jake, Pat, Casey, Steve, Sean, Tommy, Brett, Alex, Ryan, Brian, Elaine, Madi, Cory…) and I would come down and sit at one of the tables. We always sat at the middle one, right in front of a huge oval window that would extend out and grant a view of our lawn, our flag, and our parking lot. Some of us would do homework, eat breakfast, talk, but mostly the boys would play their DS and act immature. Throughout the day, we would sometimes ask each other “are you gonna be at the table tomorrow?” and we all knew where that meant. The standards that our clique developed were a little ridiculous but it was all in good fun. At the beginning of senior year, my friend, Austin, (we all called him Texas) came up with the idea to create laminated passes that consisted of VIP, Bronze, Silver, and Fresh Meat. VIP would consist of the “originals”, Bronze for people that were there starting sophomore year; Silver for people that were there starting junior year; and Fresh Meat would include all the freshman that stopped by once in a while. We all knew he was joking so we went ahead and made a list one day. Even though whenever anybody came that was not on the list, they were perfectly accepted so the list was completely useless. In addition to being “VIP”, Austin and everybody else decided to “elect me as President” because I started the group and introduced most of them to each other. I disregarded the name because it sounded somewhat silly but I was glad that they appreciated me for bringing them all into one big group. During our four years, all of us made so many memories. We have been through thick and thin. Of course we made fun of each other, got into arguments, hated one another for a week, played pranks on each other, but through all that we had a special bond. Unfortunately, we all started to fall apart into smaller groups during the beginning of our senior year. Arguments were taken much more to heart and people were forced to choose sides. I think it’s because everybody had a mindset of “oh…well I am leaving this town in 5 months anyway so I don’t need to try to make an effort anymore since I’m never going to see you guys ever again.” We used to always go out to dinner before our Homecoming dances, our Junior Assembly dances, our Sadie Hawkins dances, Halloween, and Valentines dances, but during our senior year that stopped. We went to dance but in smaller groups. However, even though we don’t really talk to each other anymore, I still think we all remember the many inside jokes we had, the football and basketball games we went to, the movies we saw together, the classes we had together, the parties we had, the reckless pranks and vandalism we did, etc. It’s unfortunate we couldn’t all stay close but life goes on. I’m glad I still keep in contact with some of them though.