Happy Friday: Here is my life. Part 2

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OK, here we go again with Peter at the keyboard. At the age of 14, I entered a new world. David Bowie entered and suddenly I was wearing cool clothes and patent leather flats. I copied a picture of him in black and white when I was decorating, and made about 200 copies to wallpaper a background wall in my room.

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I was probably the first to have a background wall in 1974 and I repainted my whole room and all the furniture, and ran electricity to a box so I could control the whole room and all the lights in all colours. hm, it started even then, haha. Much more attracted to the big new world.

Two worlds

In Stockholm I started going out with my mate to clubs and now the clothes came in, because it was really important what you wore. Purple and gold clothing, disco is here. We went to Domino on Hornsgatan and saw Magnus Uggla break through. Niklas Strömstedt was DJing there from time to time and after closing we went together to the hot spot Big Brother at Stureplan where Sidney was DJing. He was the first to really get disco to break through seriously in Sweden, and he is also one of the reasons why Stureplan became what it is today because there was only one discotheque at Stureplan then.

School obviously suffered because now everything else was more important, like girls, nightlife, alcohol, music and getting money for everything you did and that alone was a struggle. My parents were in rebellion because skipping school became part of everyday life, and my grades plummeted and I was constantly fighting with my mum and dad.

I didn't have time with them because there was a whole world out there to discover, and I have to do that now, haha. Not coming home on weekends because you had picked up new girls to sleep with was standard, and it wasn't popular at home either. I had a lot of curfews so you could say that I was periodised. One week grounded and the next week out again.

The climate was very harsh in the suburbs and at the age of 14 all boys have to prove themselves. Finns were very brutal and were responsible for a lot of beatings and often used the knife in fights. In my class there was a guy from Yugoslavia who I was friends with, and I went out with his friend's sister.

You don't fight with Yugoslavs, so I had protection there without thinking about it. Then I met a couple of Finns at a party who thought Swedes were wimps because they can't drink and can't fight. I sat in a storage room on Sångvägen in Järfälla and drank a whole weekend with these guys and after that it went out to all the Finns that Peter is ok, so he doesn't touch you. I don't know how or why I made my decisions but they were good at the time.

Blidö

The other world that I often visited was our summer house and I had a lot of friends there. I got my first summer job in an ICA store when I was 15 years old and I was big now, people thought at the time. Money was fun, but it was spent in a hurry. We pimped herring on Thursday evenings and we used to get two big buckets in a couple of hours and clean them and put them in bags, which we sold in the ferry queues to everyone who came to their summer places at the weekends. Good extra money and the weekend was secured.

My older brother and I bought a second hand motor boat, a Flipper HT which we named Jameson because our dad drank that whisky. We sent for big letters in tartan and it said Jameson all over the boat, and I still drink Jameson, it's amazing.

All our friends had boats, so we travelled around 15-20 boats to small islands and partied on weekends. I met people who smoked hash and I smoked about 20-30 times during the summer but it was so boring, because you were so tough and it didn't really fit me as a person. I've always been happy and upbeat, so I stopped that pretty quickly. Drugs have never interested me because I don't like to lose control of myself and I don't feel ok with drugs either.

I met the four Wallén brothers who were also new friends and all were involved in music every day. Ingmar and Ville were two of the Boppers members and with them we hung out quite a lot in the countryside. New bands in music were lined up in these years and everything from 10cc, Supertramp, Genesis, Pink Floyd, yes, as much as possible and who were immortal in music but the disco music was there and I love to dance.

At the same time, throughout my childhood, there have always been "musts" that provided knowledge. I had gone to sailing school and we had a sailboat and a motorboat and when we weren't partying we were out in the archipelago fishing. I learnt how to take care of all different kinds of fish, read charts, lie in shelters, put in and take out nets, go through and clean and simply survive in nature. How to saw, paint, build, repair, fix engines and shoot pistols and rifles. I probably had a pretty good self-confidence to be able to handle myself even then and I have never been afraid to try new things ever in life.

Full speed ahead

I promised my parents to get my act together in the ninth grade and managed to get my grades up to 3.0, i.e. a 3 in every subject and how I managed to do that was a mystery. Now it was even more busy in the city! Out every Friday and Saturday, dancing and hustling.

My drawing teacher was so impressed with me and my mate's outdoor life, so we sat down every Monday and told him all the things we had done at the weekend. He wrote a book about us called The String, which is sadly gone now after being lent out.

There were many times that you went home with girls and snuck in with them when their parents woke up, and then you went out head first somewhere in Stockholm and the trains had stopped running. It was just sleeping in someone's garden or gateway and waiting for the first train home but there was nothing strange about it ... THEN. I get tired just thinking about it.

After the plug

Stop the ninth grade and keep studying! Me! Not a chance because there is something called a sabbatical and I took that chance. Jobs were everywhere so it was no problem to get money. If you called for a job, they always asked when I could start. I worked in warehouses, hobby shops, clothing stores but as soon as I knew the routines of a job (two months) I quit and started something new. No new challenges then I leave, and that's what my sabbatical looked like.

Now I extended my outdoor life to Wednesdays too because I had a salary so why not, Wednesday-Friday and Saturday, here we go! Being out until 2am on Thursday morning and getting up at 6am is still 4 lovely hours before a working day. I was 16 and living life. I was also in love because I had met my first love that summer, and her name was Ann. Of course, everyone remembers the name of their first love.

During this year I also managed to be a vegetarian for 4 months. I met an older guy who I was friends with who said that you should be, shit I'm a "YES" eater. Said and done and into the health store and now I will be a vegetarian. It was not popular at home, AGAIN. Mum kind of screamed that now you can cook your food yourself and have your own shelf. I managed it for a while but then I had tried it, so it wasn't fun anymore. Poor my parents who several times just sat and cried and said that they could not cope anymore. Big love to them because they still fought on when I expanded the frames all the time.

Starting high school, being a punk rocker and being chased by raggers and later going with the raggers, moving away from home and going to the army will be in the next "Happy Friday".

What did you do as a teenager? I want to know:-)

Did you miss the last Happy Friday? Read the Here is my life

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