When was this?

I just realized recently that little kids (let say aged between infancy and perhaps 7 or 8) have no concept of what life was before digital cameras. A friend of mine, whom I share a black and white photography class with, was taking pictures of her niece as part of her assignment and everytime she took a photo, her little niece would go up to her and pull at the camera to reveal the shot. My friend kindly told her that it was a film camera, instead of the digital ones that their relatives would use. The curious little girl then asked her what film was. Isn't that cute? I, on the other hand, quite unlike the little girl, grew up using those cameras that needed film to function.

So where is this going?

Well, when I was in middle school, digital cameras were few and often very, very expensive. So when my friends and I would take pictures and have them developed and printed, it was very hard to share them with everybody. One day, I was killing some time on one of those fancy, online, social networks and saw that an old friend from middle school posted a picture that: a) i don't have a copy of, b)i don't remember where it was taken, and c) i dont remember why it was taken. It was a poorly scanned photo of about 20 of my classmates and I, possibly in a part of sorts. I'm at the very back, holding up another kid about 2 feet taller than he really was. I don't remember why, and frankly, i can't care less. But what i do care about is what ever happened to that kid. I can't remember his name. His last name is Darden, and his twin brother is David. I think his name was Michael. As far as I know, he's in some college in California. Or was it South America? Michael and I were good friends. Our group always hung-out by the basketball courts. Sometimes we played, most times we just sat and watched. We even set up a soaking booth during our "Spring" fair. We offered our "soaking" hitmen services to anyone who'd give us 4,000 Rupiah (Indonesian currency, I went to middle school there) and we'd bust out the giant supersoakers and buckets of muddy water if anyone gave us 8,000. We had good times, me and Michael.

There's a bunch of other kids around us in that picture. There was Fiona who stuck with me through intermediate and advanced spanish. She was one of the nicest and sincerest girl I met when I lived in Indonesia. Then theres Kat Vassar who, when were in 5th grade, was the most tomboy girl you'd ever want to meet. She was mean too. But when we moved to middle school, we became really good friends. And perhaps we still are... not as good as before but we still talk, which is more than I can say about Shereen. I don't even want to know where she went...

This photo confuses me. But I love it. Its like a class picture that really wasnt. It brings back memories, good and bad. But I least I have something to look back to.