1980. My senior year at a Catholic high school. The 80s may have begun, but we still had that fast and loose 70s mentality going on. Coupled with the burgeoning sense of freedom from being only weeks away from graduation, we were living in heady times. Life was, for the moment, about partying and getting away with as much as we could.

Our senior trip that year was to Disney World. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go; I had a lot of anxiety about traveling, about being away from home. But my friends — especially my best friend Teri — rallied around me, told me they’d watch out for me. It would be a chance for us all to have a blast together before graduation, before we all went our separate ways. Fine, I said. I’ll go.

This was a lifetime ago, when you could easily sneak drugs onto a plane, and collectively we brought enough pot with us to last us the whole trip. We had plans for this trip. Big plans. Disney World and its attractions were the last thing we were thinking about.

We were staying a motel in Kissimmee, right outside of Orlando. We were assigned rooms, and mine and Teri’s room was the furthers from the chaperones, so it became party central. Kids wandered in and out of the room that first day and we got high, watched television and planned that night’s party.

Our chaperones were, shall we say, lenient. I don’t think they wanted to be bothered with us and they holed up in their rooms…