20 years ago I sucked it up and actually went to my High School graduation. Yes, I actually tried to miss it. This past weekend I returned and joined 6 of my classmates (hey - that is almost half the whole graduating class!) for wine, cheese, a tour of the school and a trip down memory lane. Considering they had some current students in attendance, they may think twice before inviting us back for our 25th.
It is amazing how stepping into a building where you spent a good portion of 7 years can make you regress. As Linda and I cut through the boiler room for old times sake, I found myself looking over my shoulder for a teacher to bust us.
I giggled as I drank a glass of wine in the Greenleaf room and half expected the current Headmaster to take it out of my hands and send me to detention (considering I hadn't eaten all day, he probably should have).
I toured the old classrooms. The Clash screamed in my head as I entered 6th grade home room. "Name your antecedent", The Merchant of Venice sprang to life when I walked into Mrs. Poole's old room. It was sad to see her unabridged dictionary was no longer there. I cried when I saw the new Macs in the computer lab. We had a computer lab when I was there. I took a Logo class right after my typewriting class - a class that consisted mostly of manual typewriters - a machine the current graduating class will probably not see unless they visit the Smithsonian.
There is a plaque in my old history classroom in honor of Susan Hayes. Everyone has that one teacher that made a difference in her life. Susan Hayes was mine. Just wish I had the chance to tell her.
I looked in on the old science lab and cried again. So clean. So new. So MODERN. It took everything in me not to pull the handle on the shower head in fond memory of a teacher who, needless to say, is no longer teaching there.
I cringed at the white boards. They gave me nasty flashbacks to a science teacher who would yell my name and then peg me right between the eyes with a dry erase marker to wake me up. Poor guy. It wasn't his fault every class I had with him was right before or right after lunch. I wonder if that particular legacy of his lives on.
I went in search of the art room and stumbled into *gasp* a SECOND science lab! Are you Kidding me?? *sigh* Do these kids realize how great they have it? Oh wait - maybe not. The door to the outside is closed off. Not cool.
As my other classmates reminisced about sneaking off to the bushes to smoke, I laughed. I would walk outside the art room door and smoke right there. Others would get busted in the bathroom. I'd be outside the art room door. With an art teacher calling out rather loudly whenever another teacher walked in the room. Didn't realize we had that many teachers with hearing problems.
It was weird going back but oh so wonderful to catch up with women I grew up with. Women who have more blackmail on me then God and women who cannot be begged, cajoled, or bribed to cough up the goods on me because for every story they have on me, I have one on them.
Two of the six I never lost touch with. They are my best friends, my sisters. We've been through it all together; hormones, boyfriends, shared crushes, the Mean Girls phase, Elvira, The Mean Girls phase, the Prom, weddings, births, death of a loved one. They've kept me sane. They've smacked me upside the head when I needed it.
The other 4, after having gone through puberty and high school with me still sought me out and speak to me. See, miracles can happen. In 6th grade, there were 25(?) of us. By the time we hit our senior year, some had moved on to other schools. New ones joined and for some reason, stayed. Come the beginning of June, 19 of us put on robe and mortar board and accepted our diplomas. High School is brutal but as I look back as the friendships I made and those that I've rekindled, I wouldn't change it.
That which doesn't kill us only makes us stronger. Forget Army Strong. This bitch is Woodward Strong.
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