High School meme

[altivo]

From duncandahusky


1. Who was your best friend?
Who WAS it or who did I wish it was? Oddly enough, the senior class president in my senior year. A couple of guys from the band, too, and one or two of the girls who liked art, animals, and literature as I did. On the unlikely chance that someone would recognize names, I'll not name any of them here. I've lost touch with all of them many years ago.

2. What sports did you play?
None. I was in the marching band and got a letter sweater for that.

3. What kind of car did you drive?
Car? Are you kidding? I never had a car of my own until after I was in graduate school. When I was lucky, I drove my Dad's Chevy Impala (those were the days when an Impala was a heavy, road-hogging thing) or my Mom's Corvair.

4. It's Friday night, where were you at?
Probably at home reading a book.

5. Were you a party animal?
Nope. I never have been.

6. Were you in the "In Crowd"?
Not a chance of that. Honor Society, not a jock, too studious, not a party-goer. Closest I got was being co-editor of the school paper and on the yearbook staff my senior year. I was "in" with the teachers, for whatever that's worth.

7. Ever skip school?
Nope. Sometimes I wanted to just to get away from the social pressure, but no.

8. Ever smoke?
Nope. I never could see the point of it.

9. Were you a nerd?
Probably by most definitions, yes. Think gawky kid in glasses with the attitude and academic ability of Hermione Granger.

10. Did you get suspended/expelled?
Nope.

11. Can you sing the Alma Mater?
Nope.

12. Who was your favorite teacher?
Several. Always the band director (two of them during my high school years,) all the science teachers (even the chemistry teacher everyone hated,) and most of the English teachers (including the journalism teach.) For whatever reason, I didn't get along with the history and social studies staff very well. And the contempt I felt for the phys ed teachers was, no doubt, mutual. I finished the math requirements early so had little contact with math teachers by then.

13. Favorite class?
Anything to do with music or language. I was good at math too, but mostly found it boring. Biology was great, the rest of science was ho-hum.

14. What was your school's full name?
Started out as Haston High School but split into Crestwood High School and Haston Junior High between 9th and 10th grade.

15. School mascot?
Charger. A knight in armor, usually without a horse (silly). No one realized, I think, that the charger is the horse, not the knight. Haston's original mascot was the Knight, and I guess someone thought it made sense.

16. Did you go to Prom?
I went to the senior prom with a girl from the band. Mostly I felt so out of place that probably I should have skipped it.

17. If you could go back and do it over, would you?
Not on your life. There are things I'd like to go back and retry, and maybe get "right" this time. But those years are altogether best forgotten.

18. What do you remember most about graduation?
I was salutatorian. I gave a controversial speech that I later learned had barely slipped past the censors (we had to submit our speeches in advance, of course, and let the speech teacher coach us on presentation.) I avoided the round of drunken parties and stayed home for the family celebration that included aunts and uncles and grandparents. My grandfather and his younger brother got into a fight (I never understood over what) at that party and never spoke to one another again for the rest of their lives (four more years for Gramps.)

19. Favorite memory of your Senior Year?
Band stuff, mostly, and hanging around with teachers after school.

20. Were you ever posted up on the senior wall?
I'm not sure what this means, but probably not.

21. Did you have a job your senior year?
No. My first job for pay came during the summer break between first and second year of college.

22. Who did you date?
I mostly didn't. Had an actual "girlfriend" for a few weeks but she dumped me for a guy from another school. There were a couple of guys I might have considered but at the time I had no idea such things were even possible, and I'm quite sure they wouldn't have taken well to the idea. ;P

23. Where did you go most often for lunch?
School cafeteria. Rules were strict about it, you could not leave the school at lunch time and if you were not in the cafeteria at your assigned time slot, you had better be able to prove you were with some teacher.

24. Have you gained weight since then?
It's been 38 years and I was bone-skinny at that time, having shot up in height right before 10th grade. Definitely.

25. What did you do after graduation?
Studied for comps to avoid taking required courses in college, and went right on to Michigan State as a pre-veterinary student.

Comments

[chibiabos.livejournal.com]

Not gonna let on what your controversial speech was about? :p

[altivo.livejournal.com]

It was 1967, and the school was in a mixed blue-collar and white-collar suburb that was socially conservative even though it voted Democrat. The speech was called "I dare you!" and was about the importance of tolerance and non-conformity, especially among future leaders. They clapped, politely, even though I had pointed out that Jesus almost certainly had long hair and a beard (neither of which were permitted to male students at that time.) Within two years, some of them would be calling me a "communist" not for my socio-economic views, but simply because I opposed Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam policies.

The valedictorian, who went on to Annapolis and god-only-knows what happened to him after that, gave a hoorah patriotic red white and blue talk. Vietnam was just heating up well at the time. The mentality of most of the audience, parents and students, was definitely Archie Bunkerish.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

I love the idea that you mentioned Jesus's beard and long hair. Living in the promised land of culties, I very occasionally come across people who seriously quote the Old Testament to me about long hair on a man being shameful and whatnot. I always point to the example of Jesus. (In fact, most things the culties say can be completely trashed by invoking Jesus, which doesn't seem to make much sense. But that's another rant for another time.)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. In 1966 middle America, the Beatles were considered to have appallingly long and unacceptable hair for males. Find some pictures of Paul McCartney from back then. It's amazing what a difference a few years can make.

I can remember around 1970 being taunted and insulted by construction workers whenever I happened to walk past a building site, because they considered my hair too long. The insults were generally sexual, explicit, and nasty. Amusingly enough, ten or twelve years later, construction workers all had long hair and pony tails while gay men were all wearing extremely short hair: crew cuts and such. In fact, during the Iran hostage crisis, I remember warnings being promulgated in the gay community that terrorists were targeting US military personnel in civilian settings, and one of the things they looked for was short haircuts. That supposedly meant that they were likely to attack gay men as well.

Biblical arguments about hair length are absurd. Both testaments have examples that go both ways. Paul objected to long hair on men, but that was really because long hair was in fashion among political groups he found objectionable. As a Nazarene, Jesus himself undoubtedly had fairly long hair and a beard. Short hair and the shaven face were the mark of Roman civilization, and Paul was a Roman citizen...

The vehement argument that has always made me laugh the most came from a Baptist minister who insisted that because the "Lamb of God" who appears in the Revelations had short hair, it proved that Jesus' hair was short. His argument was based on a faulty understanding of the Greek word triche which in fact means "wool" and has nothing to do with human hair except when used as a metaphor for fine frizzy hair such as many Africans have.

[hellmutt.livejournal.com]

Awesome.

That is all. :D