April 8, 2008 |
| Memorable Experiences |
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We all had good and bad experiences in high school from which we carry memories today if we are lucky enough to be still with the living. One thing those of us who have been working on the reunion have experienced during our meetings is an unexpected feeling of time travel. It generally happens after someone comments about something from our high school years that we have long forgotten and may not immediately remember. Those comments eventually result in our recalling the moment and other details we have long put away in the back of our memory files. It creates a sense of being there again, even though it has been four decades.
We ask you to share your recalled memorable experiences and help us all travel back through time to the 60s.
One word of caution. This can make you cry with joy and sorrow.
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Riding In A Car With A Stranger
The Fairborn High School Class of '68 Fortieth Reunion will be held in September. As the day nears, I imagine many are comtemplating who they will see, who they will remember, and who will remember them. At the 21st Reunion, I was thrilled that I remembered so many by name and even though I just knew no one would remember me - I was a little shy and quiet - many indeed did! One former boyfriend even walked over to me and said, "There's my first love." I happened to be standing beside another girl he had dated, and we both asked at the same time, "Which one?" He never answered, and I'm sure, like me, she likes to think he was talking about her. What a thrill for both of us!
As we've met each month working on plans for the reunion, we've many times referred to the yearbook to put names and faces together. There were 519+ of us. Lots of faces and names to remember. Those on the committee who attended Central JH have clearer recollections of classmates from that end of town, and those of us from Five Points JH recall the south end better. But...there was one exception. This exception to the rule, much to my dismay, involved ME!
Dick and I had "gone together" sometime in the 9th and 10th grades. This I remember because I first knew him when we had an English class together with Mr. Bickel. Dick must be a little older, or as I like to think, I'm younger, because he got his driver's license during this time. My dad had always said I could not "car date" until I was 16, but one day Dick invited me to his house for lunch and my dad let him pick me up and bring me back home. His mother made pizza and served milk to drink. Must have been because she had a growing boy to raise. We had no boys at my house and always had soda with our pizza. They also had this very annoying dog - we had no dogs at my house either.
I had never been in a car driven by a newly licensed boyfriend before and expected him to be cautious, but I had no idea! Whenever a "red" color appeared on the horizon, he'd start breaking. By the time we arrived at the stop light, it would have already turned green then red again as we passed under it. When the turn signal came on, I wondered where he was taking me since I knew this was not the next street to his house. But then we passed that street and continued to the next. Evidently, since there were no seatbelts in cars in those days, he was just protecting me from any maniacs who might just happen to be on Ironwood Dr. at that moment who would rear end us if he didn't let him know "well" in advance that we were about to make a right-hand turn. His cautious insight then was probably an indication of the career he'd choose later in life.
I only remember being in a car with Dick one other time. After a football game at the high school - that's how I remember we "went together" sometime during the 10th grade. He had played and of course his mother was there - this was before he got that cute little convertible (which, by the way, I NEVER rode in ) - and after the game she drove us to their house. I'm sure Dick delivered me home from there, but I actually don't remember. It probably took so long that I wiped that part from memory.
Even after 40 years you'd think a MAN would remember the girl he had first had a car date with! Unless, I'm thinking, there was someone else that he had given a ride before me! We did stop dating not long after that! I don't remember the circumstances, but could be he had someone waiting in the wings and it just never occurred to me before.
The Sat. we met at Tickets, it was quite obvious to EVERYONE that he in fact did not have a clue who I was. Remembering Debbie didn't really matter to me, but I surely was relieved that he had forgotten her as well. The look on his face was completely BLANK and he did in fact tilt his head a little. Which caused me to tilt my head a little and possibly my mouth gaped open.
We women don't expect men to remember specific details, I realize that we've lost some ability at "quick recall" considering our ages, (and remember Dick is older than I am) but some hint of recognition would be nice. We had been in the play "Dobie Gillis" at Five Points together, I had been his "girlfriend" - not a very good one evidently - he had walked me home from school, he had bought us matching shirts, and given me a charm bracelet for Christmas (which I still have), and how many "Garnettes" does a man meet anyway? Surely the name (which he doesn't even pronounce correctly!) would stick! Maybe it's because I wear eyeglasses now, and he couldn't see my eyes so clearly through the lenses! I'd catch him looking at me with the same expression that my fellow middle school teachers and I affectionately called "Lights on - nobody's home."
Five hours later, when we had finally ended the "business" part of the reunion, it was suggested that we all go on a Memory Ride to the high school and other familiar places. Being the kind and forgiving person that I am, and the fact that I remembered the FIRST car ride with him, I offered to let Dick ride in my car.
As he got in, he mentioned something about the safety qualities of the Volvo, but I was busy turning on my blinker to signal that I was SAFELY pulling into the street and therefore, missed the intent of the remark.
We proceeded down Main Street on our way to what we knew as the high school building. Buildings look much smaller than they did back in 1968, and I got a little turned around and went in the wrong direction. Now, keep in mind that I left Fairborn in 1968 for college. I only returned during Christmas vacations and summer breaks and had not been within Fairborn city limits for probably 20 years since my parents moved to Florida. A little confusion was certainly understandable in my opinion!
It was about this time that I was thinking that Dick had turned into a very reserved and formal man. He sat straight forward with his legs pushed up against the front of the "firewall"(as he called it) and clutched the door handle and the safety grip on the console. I didn't remember this fact about Dick. I was thinking his "business" had taken a toll on him - that it had made him overly cautious and a bit "jumpy" especially when in the presence of two persons whom he obviously didn't know.
He never acknowledged that he recognized any of the locations we passed - not the street directly across from the entrance to Five Points football field which led to my house, not my house, not Debbie's house - except he did gesture toward the house he lived in on Glendale, but when Debbie and I pointed out a former, female classmate's house, he suddenly came to life and REMEMBERED (maybe she's the one he was driving home!) It might have been at this point that I asked him if he was the guy "The Bourne Identity" was about. That's when I started breaking harder - maybe I could "jog" his memory.
We eventually returned safely to his car in front of Tickets. Since I had to park my car, I did come to a FULL stop. He's fortunate; if I had read "Riding in Cars With Girls" earlier, I wouldn't have made a FULL stop. Debbie could have helped me pry his fingers from the grip he had on the console and shove him out the door as I coasted past!
High school reunions are great opportunities to return to a time when we were young and had less complicated lives. A time to look back and remember (or not) the people who touched our lives and helped frame the adults we have become.
Or maybe, just a time to GET EVEN!!
Garnette Gilliam Walker
Our senior year, a new English teacher whose name escapes me decided it was high time for Fairborn H.S. to have a school paper. A bunch of students volunteered for duty, and after a couple weeks, said teacher decided that I'd be the Editor in chief. Probably not the best move on her part. (One of my pieces, a review of a concert of The Association at U.D., got her hauled into the principal's office. Seems he didn't take a fancy to my metaphor of "mother's milk" in the review.)
The paper came out every Friday at 11:00 or so, just before lunchtime. The staff worked like dogs to meet deadline.
Some days before an edition, the basketball team played away at Stebbins H.S. I don't recall the outcome of the contest, but I was sitting next to a largish group of football players who had decided that their own cheers, and the crowd enthusiasms that resulted, were far superior to those that the cheerleaders on the floor were able to muster. You'll remember that one of the cheers involved a request to the referee to enjoy his mid-day meal.
In any case, it was boisterous. It was fun. It was possibly politically incorrect for 1968... for middle-class white kids living in a part of the USA where the "revolution" had not yet arrived.
The next school day, I got summoned out of one of my morning classes to report to Bushmeyer's office. Say what?
Bushmeyer had been to the game. He had seen me NEAR the offending group of vociferous students. He thought, as I was the editor of the paper, that I could write an article explaining what "correct" school spirit might look and sound like, and that launching into rude and/or offensive cheers reflected poorly on our alma mater.
I was up to the task.
That Friday, the paper containing an editorial on the effectiveness of the basketball cheerleaders hit the newsstands. Editorially speaking, it wasn't difficult to make the case that the cheerleaders were falling all over themselves -- the proof was the Stebbins game the week before. They had lost control of an audience that took the gravest of matters into its own hands. As I walked into the cafeteria that day for lunch, I was verbally assaulted by a group of basketball cheerleaders -- they were on the lookout for me, and they had no trouble identifying their prey. I think Nancy L was alpha in the pack. I maintained. Damn straight I was enjoying the attention!
To this day, it's the only time I've been ganged up on by gorgeous cheerleaders. A man never forgets an assault like that. And to think that it happened at Fairborn High.
Rumble beat.