Several weeks ago, I pulled my dusty high school yearbooks off from a shelf in my office, hauled them out to my favorite chair, grabbed a cup of coffee, and prepared to take a trip down memory lane. From time, to time, I have opened one of the six that I own - and, no, it did not take me six years to matriculate through high school. In my small hometown, our high school and junior high school were under one roof so grades seven through twelve shared yearbook space. Back to why I'd ever open my yearbooks.......to look up the picture associated with a name that simply popped into either my or my SO's head. Suffice it to say, the dust on those books does not get disturbed or removed very often.
But, on this one particular day, at this one particular recent time, I did pour through the pages with care. What a 'trip'!
Through subsequent conversations, over the years, with both males and females, I have discovered that the subject "high school years" elicits one of three reactions: Fond memories accompanied by smiles and stories one would never believe, awful memories accompanied by anger or tears or both, OR no memories at all. These latter folk have purposefully and willfully wiped out any remembrance of their formative, but painful, years spent in high school.
I fall into the category of having vivid memories from my high school years. I can still see the hallways of my Freshman year 'old' high school, that was subsequently razed when the 'new' high school opened up. The new high school's layout and room locations are still etched in my mind, including most of my seat assignments. Certainly I have some not-so-pleasant memories from that period of my life, but they are few in number and are vastly over-shadowed by those memories that range from wacky to You-would-never-believe-it to life-shaping and character building. (Or, perhaps, the building of a character?)
I enjoyed my recent walk through the past. I found people I'd rather forget but I found many more that I'd like to 'catch up' with, not only to see what we all look like now, but to hear what everyone is doing, where they live.......all of those details that make us who we are today.
Let's all dust off our yearbooks and revive our memories. Some pages will require coffee, some pages might require an alcoholic beverage of some type, and yet other pages will require a beverage in each hand or even a trip to the psychiatrist. Tissues might be needed and that is when we can hug our dogs while we examine our pasts.
"Those were the days, my friends. We thought they'd never end......."
Ancora imparo
