John Scialdone, Mike Sady, Brad Shargani and I made up a crew of four friends who hung out all the time. We listened to rap music, freestyled over Fuity Loop beats, flossed our '94 Corsicas and '89 Civics, and generally were the Whitesboro High School version of the Three Amigos + 1.
John's Dad collected Mustangs, and nearing the end of my senior year, he let Johnny start driving the black 1996 Cobra to school. He lived a few miles up my street, so he picked me up for school everyday in it. Wow that car was fast.
Around that time, Sady and I drove to Albany to check out the Abercrombie Outlet we heard was in a mall around there. Somehow we managed to find the mall with no directions, and after mulling around the distorted and damaged racks of clothes at AF for awhile, we walked around the mall and found a "hip-hop" clothing store. Nothing looked particularly interesting there, however under a glass case there were stacks and stacks of unlabeled tapes piled up. We asked what they were, and were told that they were mix tapes from local MCs and rap groups who just wanted to get their sound out. So I bought one for $10.
I swear we listened to that tape (both sides!) continuously for months until I graduated. Every single morning Johnny and I popped that tape in before we picked up Sady and Shargani, and then turned the volume way up and bumped it until we reached our school's parking lot. As soon as the final bell ran at 2:12, we were out of our classes and listening to our tape within minutes.
Those songs have been so ingrained in my personality, outlook on life, and brain that just hearing them immediately brings me back to the Mustang days — rollin' with the gang with the windows down, thinking that we were the coolest people on the face of the earth.
Unfortunately, when I gave my Corsica to Vehicles for Vision later that summer, I left our crew's famous mix tape in the stereo. The songs that played a tremendous role in my life for those few months were now gone — not making it with me to college. I was devastated when I realized that I forgot to take it out.
Most of the songs on the tape were originals produced by whomever put it together, however there were 4 songs on it that were not changed whatsoever from the original artists who produced them.
My memory and these four songs are all that is left from those days; our gang doesn't hang out anymore mainly because we are now going to school in all corners of the country. I haven't seen any of those guys since that last summer before college, but I still regard the times we had together as some of the best times of my life.
I now provide these four songs to you, my faithful reader, with the hope that you will listen to them and gain some insight into a great period in my life. The lyrics nor titles of the songs have any real meaning — but just picture the volume turned way up while four guys bounce their heads in unison with late-teenage exuberance that is difficult to recapture.
Or as 2Pac would say... "picture me rollin'". (The songs are explicit)
- "Race Against Time" by Ja Rule
- "Callin' Me" by Lil' Zane
- "Platinum Plus" by Big L
- "Wooden Horse" by Craig Mack
