- June 11, 2010 Posted by Candace 03:00pm
- High School Reunion: The Prequel
Thomas Wolfe said: “You can’t go home again.” Next week I plan to find out if that’s true.
My first day of high school. No wonder they stuffed me on top of my locker.
High school. Often referred to as the best years of your life. I might buy into that theory if the best things that ever happened to me were being stuffed on top of my locker on the first day of high school. Or being repeatedly suspended for dress code violations. Or being bone-achingly bored for weeks and months on end. Or being the lone flower child in a sea of card-carrying, Villager, Ladybug and Papagallo wearing, perfect hair, teeth, and skin sporting prepsters. No, I’m going to have to disagree.
They were not the best years of my life. Not. At. All.
But, since those years obviously didn’t kill me (though there were times that the prospect of death looked like an appealing alternative), they almost certainly made me stronger. And I did develop a small coterie of fast friends, who, like me, dwelt on the periphery of the social core. We were members of the Latin Club (Really? The Latin Club? Could we have been any nerdier?) rather than cheerleaders. Instead of going to dances or football games, we watched The Carol Burnett Show and Love American Style while babysitting on weekend nights.
At least that’s how I started out — miserable and marginalized. By the time Junior year rolled around, I had my first real date, then my first boyfriend. I started to come into my own. Make no mistake, my own was, at best, quirky and sardonic. In the span of four short years, I morphed from irredeemable geek to sarcastic free-spirit. While the popular girls roamed the halls in packs, heads bent in whispered conversation, enveloped in a cloud of Enjolie, Windsong and Charlie, I sat alone, shielded by attitude, anger, and the lingering scent of patchouli. My ultimate validation came in my Senior year when I was voted “Most Individualistic,” generally accepted to mean “Your ‘otherness’ frightens us, but we nonetheless find you oddly intriguing.” Still it was a grudging acknowledgement that finally I was someone, a force, if not to be reckoned with, at least to be recognized.
In the end, I managed to take all the rejection and adolescent angst and turn it to my advantage. At the dawning of the Age of Aquarius I was perfectly poised to join the hoards of groovy young people who were rejecting the status quo. The Woodstock nation, not the Junior U.N., was my government model. In my world, flower power replaced football. I didn’t need to be voted into the Keyettes, I was otherwise occupied smoking the occasional joint or sneaking into the Cellar Door to catch acts like Richie Havens or Linda Ronstadt. The zeitgeist had shifted and by the time I left high school, I was, well, kind of cool.
Out of the blue, a few weeks ago, my sister, my older-by-three-years, beautiful, Sweetheart Queen, Most Popular, loved-by-the-masses sister called to tell me there was a reunion afoot. Not exactly a formal reunion, but a gathering of those from her class who were celebrating their 60th birthday year. They were staging the gathering at a local church that, in a time long ago, hosted Saturday night dances (yup, the ones I was never invited to…those dances), and were including members of the surrounding classes as well. She asked me to go as her date.
Bobbe Pilk - Most Popular
And because, in my old age, I’ve turned into a bit of an adrenaline junkie, I said yes. Like many of my fellow Baby Boomers, the idea of a reunion strikes fear, and just a frisson of anticipation, in my heart. I’m reasonably certain I won’t get unceremoniously dumped into a corner by a wandering band of hoods, but am I leaving myself open for social rejection almost 40 years later? And do I care? What do I expect to find? Who will I reconnect with?
Find out after I return…
This post made me laugh and cry. I hated high school (except for you, Frank, Nancy, Becky, Bill and a few others) I remember my junior year one of the “popular girls” taking me aside one day and telling me that there were two types of girls at Jefferson — the pretty girls and the smart girls. And that I was one of the prettier smart girls — but not smart enough to be the smartest smart girl and certainly not one of the pretty girls. I cried my eyes out because I had been told these were the best years of my life and I was devastated that it would all be downhill from there. Fortunately I have loved my forties and am rocking my fifties. Love your posts!
I just went to 50th Miami Senior High School reunion and then spent 4 days with my dad…I’ll email pics to you…let’s talk and catch up…I’m assuming the trip to DC was fun?
Love the post. While I wasn’t stuffed into or on top of a locker in high school I did have a few confidence-shattering events I can drag up from dark places — but I don’t choose to very often. I’ll be attending only my second high school reunion since graduation in 1975 - the first was the 10 year. My Mom’s 80th birthday is a few days after the reunion & I’ll actually be in town (Dallas) so why not? Why NOT? Like you - I think I need to write a blog about this. Yikes. We’ll have to compare notes.
Our Thomas Jefferson High School reunion should finally reconcile the memories with the mirror. No Twilight Zone travelers we…the Keyettes were fools to abandon you. And the glorious nature of our nows is proof positive. Write on, dear sister. Right on. Amen or in your case, awe men.
Candace,
I absolutely loving reading your posts. You are such a gifted writer. This one goes right to the heart of an x-geek that never fit the mold. The younger sister of the queen of ‘everything’, most popular, the girl all my guy classmates wanted to date, brains and beauty. Makes me giggle now…. I graduated as ‘funniest in class’ a defense mechanism I am sure but it has served me well over the years.
Have an absolute blast at the reunion. Knockem’ dead.
Peg
Candace,
I really enjoyed your post, and I so remember that picture of you at the top. I want to help those of you who thought the \Cheerleaders\ were popular and cool to see high school from another perspective.
I was the \Captain\ of the Cheerleaders, the \President\ of the Civettes, Class Officer, and participated in as much extracurricular as could be handled and still maintain a C average in classes. I stayed very busy and enjoyed being a \leader\, but one of my biggest regrets in high school is that I was so busy \being\, that I really fell short on the \knowing\ and \experiencing\ of high school. I rarely dated or attended any of the school dances, although I helped plan them and decorate for them. Please know that although I do not regret the path I took, if I could do it over, I would focus more on relationships and less on activities. Maybe then I would have had a date for the Prom and more people who I was dying to see at the Reunion. My circle of friends was WAY too small, and my experiences were WAY too limited. Love to All the TJ folks I never knew. Nancy
Candace, I’m looking forward to being with you tonight at the reunion dance. To share a little of my high school experience with you, the coolest thing about it was talking to my classmates at the 40th and presently in the group emails flying around prior to tonight’s gathering, and discovering some very deep, thoughtful, creative, awesome people - facts about which I was unaware back then. I’ve found some kindred souls - including you-who knew we’d both want to see a play about Bucky Fuller?! As you know, Bobbe and I re-met 2 years ago and what a trip that has been — becoming partners with Cabot Cooperative, having them arrange speaking engagements for me so I can showoff my stuff as Life Coach extraordinaire, recently working with public housing single moms, who are doing their best to make a good life on very little. I hope for you tonight will be as cool.
When I arrived at TJ at the beginning of my junior year, I was the Hawaiian surfer chick, having just moved to Alexandria from Oahu. That went a long way toward being instantaneously popular. I loved some of my classes at TJ- Mrs. Senio’s English, Ms Earman’s art, geometry, lab science (because David whose-last-name-I-forget was my lab partner;-) Although I participated I hated all the drinking and partying and was so happy to find I didn’t have to do that to be fine…. More than fine. So glad to be in touch.
Dear Candace,
It was so nice to see You earlier this evening! I so vividly remember the way You looked that “first day” mentioned above. I have enjoyed enjoyed reading through some of your writings this morning, and am so very proud of all that You are, and the writer You have become!! I turned around and You were gone tonight…wish we could have talked longer. You looked so beautiful…down memory lane! I wish You well!!! ~B
OK what happened? No postings? Hummm.
I attended just one reunion-my 20th and found it to be rather healing and revealing. At least then, the men had become handsome and (some) of the girls had finally become kind(er). High school was anything but my “best years”. The reunion did restore a sense of self value which had been so frequently tromped upon in the five years at ole TJHS, as the first graduating class of having attended all years, including 8th there.
What has been great is FaceBook has reacquainted me with some friends who have confessed poor behaviors, entering into meaningful relationships albeit late-it is sweet. There was a lifetime of living to do after walking out of the doors of high school-I hope everyone who attended this reunion was finally able to bed those old ghosts and enjoy the fruits of forgiveness.