Iced Coffee [Black]

Let’s see… I was born in kind of a bad area in Philadelphia. I was getting into a lot of trouble; it was not a good scene. So, one day, after I got into a fight, while I was playing basketball, it was kind of the last straw. My mom was like, “No, you’re leaving and you have to go live with your uncle in Bel Air.”
So, I packed up and jumped on a plane and got picked up by a cab at the airport and we drove up to the house and I got out and it looked like palace. Opened the door: I was home.

So, you know, I went to school. I lived there with the family. They became my new family. There was my cousin, Carlton and Ashley, the butler, G. (Geoffrey was his real name), Uncle Phil and Aunt Viv. It was a good life.

But do you want a real story now?

-Logan, Fourteen Eighteen Coffee Shop

Iced Coffee Cubes and Milk

So, I recently went to France for Spring Break with Logan and a few other friends. One thing that we did that was kind of cool was that, when we were taking all the trains in the Metro through Paris to get from where we were climbing outside of Paris into Paris and then walking around, is that we found all these random tiles. Like, subway tiles. I think the first one we found was actually on the ground, but then we started finagling with the ones on the walls. I think we ended up with two or three from the subway. Then there was one that was falling apart on the outside of a building when we were walking. I think we were walking back from this cool little stationary store and the climbing store. It was a round, purple tile. I was trying to pick it off, and I couldn’t. Then Logan found a corner and he was able to wedge it off. Then we ran, or I ran. I don’t think he ran.

I found a cool little baby blue square tile and then also, when we were climbing in Buthiers, the landing area under all the boulders is sand, which is really weird. But, I was just walking while we were trying to find boulders and we got really lost and I found little pieces of dark blue tiles. I think I found like two or three little pieces. I don’t know what I’m going to do with random tiles but I have them, from France!

-Amy, Fourteen Eighteen Coffee Shop

Iced Coffee with 1 Sugar in the Raw and Skim Milk

I guess the memory I wanted to go with was the first time I went to an art festival with my mom. Ever since I was really, really young, I guess before I can ever remember an exact age, she had been encouraging me to do art. I was always interested in drawing, but she really gave the materials, the guidance, and the encouragement to do that.

I was eleven years old. It was the same year that my parents got divorced. Right after they told us that that was going to happen, she decided to take me to the Bayou City Art Festival in downtown Houston. It was in Memorial Park that year. Just this nice, beautiful, old, green park just like some of the ones we have in Dallas. So we went there and I wasn’t really sure what it was going to be like at first, because I had never been to any sort of festival like that before. But it was really, really fun. And it was really, really nice to see those people there for the same reasons. I mean it was just rows and rows of different artists’ booths. And they were there just kind of sharing the things they loved, and trying to make some money off of it. It was just really nice to see all the different kind of art there.

That was the first time I realized that the stuff I was doing when I was a kid, the things that I was making, and the stuff, these accomplished artists, were making, there was a connection there. They started off where I was. It was just really nice to see.

I haven’t kept up with art since then, which is fine. But that was a defining moment for me when my mom kind of opened up that whole world of art to me and I really appreciate that.

-James, The Pearl Cup

Iced Coffee with Cream

     So, it was one of my first days at Woodrow and I had to go to the restroom during class. But there were like, no signs. So I just randomly walked around the school. I didn’t know where the bathrooms were. Then I finally found a bathroom and walked in there. Then there were guys coming in too. Then I realized, I had walked into the boys’ bathroom. They started laughing, too. It was really embarrassing. I just sprinted out and went back to class. I never went to the restroom again.

[Sophie] Have you never gone to the restroom at school?

I do, but then I ask someone where the girls’ room is.

[Sophie] Are there signs at your school in Germany? Saying like, “Here’s the girls’ room.”

There are signs saying, “Here’s the girls’ restroom.” But here, there is nothing! And they all look the same.

[Sarah] They do have signs! Above the door!

Yeah, well.

-Paula, Legal Grounds

Iced Coffee

     It was last year. I decided it would be a good idea to try out for cheer since I had done it in middle school, and I thought that I could. I spent days learning this cheer and this dance because I was so excited. I wanted to at least make JV, because I was going to be a sophomore.

The tryout finally came. We had been going over it over and over and over again. I went into the gym and it was just three judges staring at me while I did this cheer and I was like, “WOODROW, WILDCATS,” and then I blanked.

It was like, a two-minute cheer and I got like the first two seconds of it, even though I had gone over it so much. So, I just slowly put my arms down from my high “V” in my cheer and I made this really ugly face and one of the three judges (it had been completely silent), she started laughing at me. So, I just curtsied and I spirited off, just going, “GO WOODROW!”

And that was the end of my cheer experience. I’m officially retired.

-Sarah, Legal Grounds