What Was Hinton?, Greaser or Soc?

id so much rather have a job, at least you get paid. i dont why you put even high school. in my opinion, high school blows grammar school away. more freedom, more friends (my school is a bunch of grammar schools combined), and good gossip. actually i want to be a 12th grader. my brother has like 5 periods and then he goes home and he has a car so he can do whatever he wants. hes so lucky!

I put "even high school" because a lot of people would rather do anything than go through high school again. I didn't really mind it, although it was mind-numbing. But hey, college is mind-numbing to me too

However, being in school instead of working gives me more time with my kids, which is why I prefer school, of any kind, to working. I'm in school around 12-14 hours a week, which is way less than if I was working even part time.

I guess school is never easy, no matter which decade you grew up in. I graduated high school in 1982, ( my age is showing), and it was no piece of cake then. The drug problem was present even then. I had at least 20 girls in my graduating class who had already been married, or already had 1 child, or was pregnant. We didn't know about AIDS then. I'll bet a bunch of the kids wish they had known about it. And the underage drinking problem, I don't even want to go there. It was really bad. And what was even worse, we had this huge designated smoking area at our school. Yes, they let the kids actually smoke on school property, and believe me, they were smoking pot in the middle of all that crowd. The school officials knew about it, but what could they prove?
The worse drugs then was LSD and heroin. Pot was small potatoes. Everybody knew where to get it. The prep and grunge problem was present also. I guess I could be classified as a soc, but i ran with the greasers. I was on the middle ground and loved the better of both worlds.
Stay Gold, Karen

I listened to it, and i totally agree with you.

I read that she was hanging with her friends, who The Outsiders characters were based off of, and they were walking down the street when Socs drove by and yelled out 'GREASERS'. She said that that's when it finally dawned on her, that she was actually a greaser.

Well, the whole reason she wrote The Outsiders is because one day, one of her friends got beat up for no reason. And I've heard roumers that the neighborhood used for filming was the one she grew up in so I'm assuming she's a greaser.

exactly, basically, greasers were treated like shit and hinton wanted to show that not all greasers are shit. its like today, i hate this about my school: they make it seem like were all so happy and getting along like perfect little kids, but were not. its not just one group thats treated like the greasers, its all of them. everyone treats eachother like garbage except your friends. if you want respect, you have to treat eachother like absoulte-total-completely-worthless-crap and you have to smoke and do drugs. not all of them, but a good plenty of parents have no idea kids do these things, they have no idea how lousy it is to be in those hallways those 4 minutes before each period. our lives revolve around sex and drugs. its like that song from green day- jesus of suburbia, listen to it real careful next time or look up the lyrics, its got a lot to do with how parents effect your life, wich is another point in the outsiders i guess. except hinton was trying to show that parents know what your going through (wich isnt true in all cases, but most) and green day is saying parents have no idea whats going on.

All I can say is AMEN! That pretty much describes my life perfectally!

I read somewhere that she was a Soc and she had greaser friends. She was walking home from somewhere and a kid got jumped (Ponyboy) as he walked out of a movie house in front of her. She wanted to get her anger out so she started writing about it.



beginning of the book

There's a good article here - http://milkriverarchive.blogspot.com/2005/...-se-hinton.html

States she lived on the North Side.

Great article, I learned a lot! I've never read that article before.

WoW, Isn't there a bit in taming the star running where Travis is forced to sit and watch telly? I know he nearly kills his step dad because he was burning his stories. That was a great article Thanks for sharing morsonfire.

Great article! Thanks for showing us!

I completely agree with you guys and the whole social classes. My school is horrible, and all the groups are split into different categories. The people I used to know are now "labeled" into different groups, so I'm stuck with only one friend I've been with since the start. Other than that, my closest friends at school have only been my friends for a couple of years. And lately they've been shunning me, including the friend I've been with forever (If you've heard me mention her in other boards, it's Sandy). My other friend Nad told me another of of the girls in my group hates my guts, and I don't even know why!
I hate labeling. As soon as I REALLY understood The Outsiders I understood my group, and that only led to them being different around me.
Do any of y'all find yourself in this kinda situation?

I thought that Susan was middle class, she played with the greasers but she would still be typecasted as a Soc. I'm not quite postive, though. And I would choose school over work, anyday, anytime. Not that I really know work yet.