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Until my teenage years I had been very quiet and obedient, keeping myself under my mother's protective wing all the time. Up to that time I had very few friends and spent most of my time at home.

But things started to change when I started the last two years of high school. At that time, in the early seventies, I did not get a place in any high school near my house and I had to study in one that was quite far away, in 23 de Enero, an area of very rebellious people located in the West of Caracas.

When I arrived at the new high school I was impressed, the girls wore afro hairstyles, very short skirts and made up with care. The boys, on the other hand, wore their hair long, shoulder-length. Those clothes did not seem to matter to the teachers, who by then were still wearing very formal suits.

This new environment had a decisive impact on me. A few months after I started classes, I also began to let my hair grow. The change was not well received by my family, my mother would ask me to cut "those horrible strands" and my father would offend me with all kinds of words. However, I stood my ground, I felt that for the first time I was making decisions on my own.

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Around that time I also began to change my musical tastes and became a fan of Rock. My first contact with that music imported from Northern countries was at some evening parties that took place frequently in the houses near the high school. 

Every Friday afternoon there was a party, where the kids would gather to dance and listen to Rock. The first groups I knew were Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin, later I met others like Black Sabbath and Pink Floid. That powerful music made me feel alive and penetrated to the deepest fibers of my being. I had never felt anything like it before.

In that new environment I also encountered political discussions. Groups were forming everywhere, talking about social injustice, political corruption, economic exploitation and other issues that were totally new to me. 

Those ideas also had a profound impact on me and soon after I joined the student groups that were protesting all over Caracas. Behind my mother's back I participated in all the protests that were organized and that in most cases ended with heavy clashes with the police forces. More than once I was on the verge of being arrested by the police, but luck was with me all the time. 

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I remember one occasion when the police had us surrounded in an industrial zone, we were cornered, all the exits were closed. At that moment we saw a wall almost three meters high and we climbed it, when we fell on the other side we realized that it was a factory of urns for the dead. We didn't think twice and each boy got inside an urn. We stayed there until about midnight when the bustle of the street had died down. I walked off into the dark and silent night to my home, about seven miles away. That night my mother and father reprimanded me strongly, it was one of the few times they both agreed to call me to attention.

My need to explore life was unstoppable, I began to associate with other boys in the neighborhood who shared my expectations. With them I learned to make my own leather sandals and to put appliqués on shirts and jackets. With them I also began to go further afield. During an Easter celebration we went to Margarita Island as backpackers, with very little money and willing to sleep in a tent on the beach. That was a great experience that will remain forever engraved in my memories.

For me, those teenage years marked a before and after. The changes that I initiated at that time accompanied me for the rest of my life. 

What I do regret is having given my parents so many bad moments. I think that maybe I was a little impatient and maybe things could have been less traumatic for them. But back then I didn't think about those things...

I am publishing this post motivated by the initiative proposed by my friend @ericvancewalton, Memoir Monday, in its twentieth week. For more information click on the [link]( https://peakd.com/memoirmonday/@ericvancewalton/memoir-monday-20-722-728-which-fads-did-you-embrace-growing-up).

Thank you for your time.</div>

Images edited in Canva and Photoshop

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version).

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