High School Daze

I closed my eyes today and I thought I was back in high school...let's see that was 1971 to 1975...to be exact...my high school days were on my mind today...this glorious and sunny fall day...I was celebrating my high school friend's 50th birthday...was it 36 years ago that we first met...how is that possible...and another friend joined us as well...I hadn't seen this friend since high school...more than 32 years since we graduated...32 years...how is that possible I thought to myself, as I drove home from the apple farm where we had gone to pick apples.

We were just like 17 year old school girls...only more mature...and with a few more wrinkles...a few more years of experience behind us...wonder if we ever realized that we would be meeting during our 50th year...that we would still be in touch after all these years...it felt just like the old times...we talked about the guys and gals from our high school days...and I remembered them...yes...I remembered Peter and Nancy...and Stephie and Laura...and Ginny and May...and Marianne and Debbie...I remembered the cool kids...and the smart ones...the ones with the Afros...and the ones with the sideburns...and the parts down the middle...and those who wore aviator tinted glasses...and bell-bottom pants...the quiet ones and the loud ones...the ones who sat in the front of the class and the ones who sat in the back.

I remembered the teachers...the easy teachers and the hard teachers...the young teachers and the older teachers...the new teachers and the more tenured ones...and those special teachers...the teachers that were special because they were such good teachers...or because they were so memorable...like my French teacher who wore a shirt with red hearts all over it...and a red tie on Valentine's Day.

I pulled out my high school yearbook when I arrived home...ooh...ooh...I really didn't look good in high school...didn't like my hairstyle very much...so 70s...let's see...what did it say in my yearbook...oh yes...I was in the Drama Club...I was on the Yearbook staff (I don't remember being on the Yearbook staff)...I was a Rexo Room aide (ah, yes...there were no computers in those days...instead we had to make copies of worksheets using a manual rexo machine that had nasty blue ink that got all over my fingers)...and I was also in Arista...think that was the acronym for the honor society.

Before I put my yearbook back on the shelf...I flipped through more pages to read all the notes that different friends had written...there was one note that stood out from the rest...perhaps because it said exactly what I was feeling on this glorious sunny fall day 30+ years later as I picked apples with my high school friend who was turning 50 today and the other friend who had turned 50 in March...it was from Spyro...wish I remembered Spyro......wonder what happened to Spyro...wonder if he became a writer...he sure had eloquent words to say when he was 18 years old...bet he never realized that his words would ring true three decades later on this glorious October day:

"Happiness is to be with certain friends like you. That is something I will treasure for the rest of my life. For it is worth more than anything else I value."

Judi