Thursday, February 9, 2012

44 years later


Some people are still talking about high school.

artwork by Kelly Echols, class of 1976


Some while back, a guy I dated during the first half of my senior year in high school found me on Facebook and sent me a friend request which I accepted. Preceding that, I had connected with another guy from high school who I had a serious crush on in 10th grade. Alas, though we were friendly, he never asked me for a date even though I had screwed up my courage and asked him to the Sadie Hawkins Dance. The Sadie Hawkins Dance was the one function of the year where the girls were supposed to ask the boys for dates and I was thrilled when he accepted. I have a picture of that floating around here somewhere or did for a long time.


Anyway, through the Crush, the woman who seems to be in charge of all things alumni from my high school also connected with me on FB in order to make sure I got the info about reunions and other happenings. Sure, I told her, put me on the mailing list if you want but I won't come to any of the functions.

When I graduated, I left high school behind. It was not the best time of my life. I was shy, skinny, and flat chested and needless to say I was not part of the popular crowd, I didn't care for jocks, and I didn't join any of the organizations that help make you feel like you belong. Throw into the mix that I started smoking pot the summer before my senior year and I preferred to keep a low profile. Of the few people I ran into after high school, our paths crossing on occasion, was the Crush with whom we have art in common. (I know, that's bad english but I don't care.)

So back to the whole FB thing. The boy I dated took it upon himself to add me to the member roster for the alumni page. It has a varying number of people who post on it. I have no interest in any of it really, but it's sort of like a train wreck that you can't not look at, these people you never really knew and certainly weren't friends with going on about, well, high school. It's a bit voyeuristic, looking at their names and their pictures trying to remember them, if any of them were in my classes or homeroom. Surely I would remember the ones who had been in my homeroom, right? Not so much. A name sounds familiar here and there but I definitely did not travel in their orbits.

Apparently the page for our specific year on FB got archived and a new one was being put up and everyone started posting very old pictures again. There was this senior girls party, that senior girls formal, this other senior girls party, the sweetheart ball, the senior holiday party. Party party party. I was not invited to a single one of those parties. So.

It's really a little weird, listening in as it were, to their conversations about it. Perhaps they did forge lifetime friendships and if so I'm happy for them. I found my niche eventually, learned to maintain a social group but I'm just as happy alone or with minimal contact.

Which is certainly what I get out here in a small town.



24 comments:

  1. Typically, people who see high school as the high point of their lives... well, enough said.

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  2. I have kept in touch with those I wanted...which was NONE.

    I was the geek and the athlete, joined every club, still don't care to see any of my class mates. Kinda sad, isn't it?

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  3. i think high school stays with us our entire lives in some way - either as the 'heyday' for jocks and homecoming queens, or the low point for nerds or folks who don't fit in or get picked on. i was a mix of everyone and got along with every clique and group. and i loved it. but i moved away from home when i was 20 and only keep up with 1 friend.

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  4. I detested high school and have never had an urge to go to a reunion, though I have reconnected with a handful of people and have been so glad for these friendships.

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  5. High school. Ha. It is funny to me how many people from my old school still take it seriously. Recently, somehow added me to their email list and I see the same people still seem so very much in their old hs roles. I haven't been to a reunion yet, but will probably go to the next one -- 2015, 50 years! Really! I'm very much hoping I'll still be around. :)

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  6. my high school years were forgetable as were most of the folks from that time. I have never looked back and feel that that is just as well.

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  7. My 50th last year and in spite of being tracked down, I didn't go. Sadly, the friends I kept have died. The ones still left to put on reunions are the same as when I left.

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  8. Funny. The people I know from high school now are, with one exception, NOT people I knew when I was there, but we had a class of over six hundred. It was NOT a golden time for me, or even close. We were hippies and demonstrators. More kids attended the school production of "Mother Courage and Her Children" than most basketball games. Odd bunch.

    I have gone to reunions and found that some people I didn't know then were NOW people with whom I had a lot in common.

    We don't talk about "the good old days."

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  9. Great post! Well, at the risk of sounding different, I loved high school and had an absolute blast! But of course, living in Cajun country is fun, at any age. I go to the decade reunions, but don't really run with any of my old HS friends.

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  10. I couldn't give a shit less about high school or anyone I went to school with. I wish them well and all, but whatever. On the other hand, my mother went to every single one of her reunions until there were only like four people left, and age prevented them from doing it anymore. But the dumb thing is...I don't believe that my mother has ever had a really close friend in her entire adult life.

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  11. My mom used to tell me [ad nauseum] "High School was the worst time of my life." I don't know if it was an effort, on her part, to make me miserable or what - but I had a great time. We all kind of grew up together - and although there were cliques, etc. - we were all pretty much friends. 27 years later those of us on FB are all intertwining friends and when someone throws a happy hour or a family picnic get together - everyone is invited. Everyone. It's fun.

    The one thing we don't do is relive our high school days. Sure we have some inside jokes and memories we toss around [for the embarrassment factor - done out of love. heehee] but we all have lives, families, careers that we would much rather talk about. What is amazing is how old our kids are. :)

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  12. I too left high school and never returned. Nothing to return too!
    I was quiet and shy and only had a few friends. Nothing even close to life long. I did go to the senior prom but that was it. No groups or other parties. Sigh!
    High School did not blow my skirt up!
    Hugs
    SueAnn

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  13. My youngest sister went to our schools first big reunion about 12 years ago ... we marvelled (but didn't join her) she was not popular at school but suddenly at the reunions she was somebody - she loved it and it helped her through a difficult time in her life. All those people at the reunion were looking for something to remind them that they were/are somebody. Anyway what I really wanted to add was that at the first reunion she went to she came back a little huffy "All everyone did was get drunk or stoned and then tried to leap into bed with each other." "So" we (her elder wiser siblings replied) "No real change from school then?"

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  14. I know just how you feel! Recently a high school person friended me on facebook and what can I say? I sort of cringe each time I read her posts and yet--I. Just. Can't. Stop.

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  15. You know my best friend from high school, to this day I am closer to her Mom, we have stayed in touch every time I went home. I have not gone to any of the reunions. so I totally understand what you wrote. have a good weekend, hugs.

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  16. I was an in-between kid - smart, but not one of the "pretty people" - not at ALL athletic - terrified that someone might make me sniff glue... I mostly just did my own thing & read books.

    I've connected with a lot of the folks from high school on facebook - and it amuses me how DIFFERENT we all are. Some are liberal like me, most are conservative, we all trash talk our favorite college teams like we did then... I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be friends with some of them in real life, and I wasn't really friends with them in school - but I'm fascinated by this very odd network.

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  17. High school was not the high point in my life. Thinking back, it evokes feelings of inferiority and feeling like I was the butt of many jokes. I look at some of my old classmates on FB, too and marvel that most of them never left their high school personnas.

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  18. Great subject for discussion and the comments are priceless. I didn't like high school either and would not consider attending any reunions. It is amazing to consider how many people can't get past being 16.

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  19. Sometimes it is fun to reconnect, I still have a crush from high school I never saw again.I have one friend since junior high that stays with me often.

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  20. I felt pretty much like you did about high school. And I dislike FB for how very invasive and exposing it is. I'll peek in every now and then but never post.

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  21. I'm sort of interested in people I knew years ago - I mean, I like to know what they ended up doing and I wish them well. But I always think that if I liked them THAT much I'd have made friends with them at the time or at least kept in touch. They'd have seen the "real me" or I'd have seen the "real them" or something.

    I went to lots of different schools and it might have been different if one school had been part of my life for my whole childhood.

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  22. Someone started S.G.A. Alumni Memories (my Alma Mater). I look at it periodically (just did) but really know very few of the people who post to it. Most of them are much younger... at least 10 years, so there you have it... I was long gone by the time they reached high school.

    We had a VERY SMALL school and yet I find it difficult to pull out names from almost 50 years back. As far as I know there has been only one class reunion (the 20th I think) and I did not attend.

    I have some good memories of school days, but mostly NOT. I didn't quite fit in and I certainly don't now! Recently I told my SIL who lives in my hometown that I could never live there again because I am much too liberal for most, if not all, of the citizens there (at least the white ones).

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  23. my family was the one everyone talked about
    the dad who was always drunk
    the mom who never came out of the house
    a girl in my class lived right upstairs and she reported everything that went on to everyone so I had a miserable time until I became very tough and very funny

    I was very pleased to leave high school behind

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  24. Wait, didn't everybody smoke pot in high school? Boy, Ellen, could I ever relate to this. When my FB page first went up a couple of years ago, I got invites from HS people I was never friends with. They all still hang in the same places, and go out to the bars and, well, it's very weird. Maybe because, late bloomer I am, I still have young children.

    Funny, I read in TIME today an article by Joel Stein that started with: "The entire point of Facebook is to make you jealous. Why does that person have more friends than i do? Why do they go to such fun places while I'm at work?...."

    Facebook is high school.

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.