Remember the Time?

Blog soundtrack:


High school memories. Are yours in the back of your head? Are they in that Cusinart 2.5 quart saucepan on your stove’s back burner? Are they in the far right corner of your dining room buried under that colossal dust kitty that you’ve been meaning to suck up with the vacuum for the last 3 weeks? Or, are they buried in the backyard along with your former pet hamster, Algonquin Neapolitan Hamy the 8th? (By the way, if you ever need a name for your new pet hamster, go here.)

This last year, my high school yearbook was opened at least once a month. This occurred when I gathered with my old, but suddenly new, high school girlfriends, the Lovelies. In fact, if I hadn’t been unemployed, I might never have had the “time” to reacquaint myself with each and every one of them. Just like when we were in high school, I can’t imagine being a phone call away from any of them ever again.



(L-R: Anne, Cathy, Laura, Marcia, Melissa, and me, circa 1980)

What did you say?
I look the same.
God, I love you!

I loved high school; in fact, I liked it better than college. I had a wonderful friend in college, Bitsy, and I loved her dearly. She and I were inseparable during those years; however, on a different level, I never felt like I had the “group” of friends in college that I did in high school.

I was not “popular” in high school, well, I was not how “popular” was defined in our high school. I don’t think I dwelled on that in high school nor did I long to date a football player. Okay, I lied; I did have a crush on one, but crush is the furthest it ever got, which probably was good thing given I once saw a sign posted high up in the hallway stating that this particular individual had “mean beer farts!”

Anyway, this week, high school is front and center in my mind; there’s also an associated wardrobe dilemma. (Yes, it’s not that I don’t have a dress to wear; it’s that I don’t know which one to wear!) This Saturday is my –cringe-gulp-gasp-OMG-is-the-football-player-with-the-mean-beer-farts-going-to-be-there? 30th high school reunion.

Thirty years. Back then, I had 70 years ahead of me, more if I was lucky, but I don't think I have that now given genetics. Today, I think, "Where did those thirty years go?! I'm still 18! Yes, I am!"

One of my Lovely friends recently told me that she never felt like she fit it in high school. I always felt like I fit in. Well, I fit into my crowd of friends; she was part of that crowd. So, you see, dear Lovely Melissa, you did fit in!

This is Melissa; she was featured in the Boston Globe.



When this was taken, she was in veterinarian school at Tufts. When her Dad asked the Tufts admissions people what she should do if she didn't get into veterinarian school, they said, "She should apply to medical school." Did you know that it is harder to get into veterinarian school than medical school? Therefore, if I have an ache or pain, I always ask her about it first!

Surely, some of us didn’t fit into other social crowds. We were not theater people nor were we the ones who smoked pot outside by the outdoor pursuit course. I’d like to think now that we were a crowd who had a little bit of everyone; yes, we were the United Nations crowd!

Note that I did participate in Model UN, so I think that entitles me to say that. Of course, my first Model UN gig at Salem High School in New Hampshire was a tough one. I was Afghanistan, and the girl I stayed with, Dana, was Russia.

This was right after Russia invaded Afghanistan. The ironic thing was that she and I got along very well. So, I felt very guilty that I was now quite literally sleeping with the enemy.

Anyway, I’ve already shown some of my embarrassing high school photos, so why stop now? I participated in volleyball (along with Laura, Cathy, and Anne) and track. Here’s me at a track meet at Acton-Boxborough. How do I remember that when I don’t remember what I had for dinner last night? I have no idea! (P.S. That’s Marcia Lovely wearing my Lincoln-Sudbury sweatshirt.)




I also participated in the previously mentioned Model UN, became the Program Director of the new radio station my senior year by correctly identifying a song by Led Zeppelin, and I wrote for the school newspaper.



I still have my high school folder full of papers and newspaper articles I wrote. I have a scrapbook full of track and volleyball newspaper clippings. I didn’t think I was that sentimental until I came across the rose I carried at graduation and the ticket to my prom along with the corsage that Doug gave me.



I fondly remember a toga party I went to in high school. I know a few of the Lovelies were in attendance. I made my toga out of a Peanuts sheet, and we sang “Old Black Water” over and over again.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, the day after the party, I was accused of throwing up in the bathroom hamper. I denied it vehemently until it was confirmed that someone else had thrown up in the bathroom hamper. Humph! Drinking and subsequent barfing was a skill at which I only mastered at the end of my senior year in college; this is why I haven’t had a Southern Comfort sour in 26 years.

All in all, when I look back, I was very fortunate to have grown up in a nice town, have gone to a good school, and to have met a lot of good friends. That’s a lot of goods I know, but it was all good to me then and it still is now. Of course, there were some painful times, but as far as I know, my birth certificate didn’t say “N/A” under “Emotional Turmoil.”

After I signed up for my high school reunion last Fall, I got an email via a high school website from a classmate named Kenny. I was surprised, because he was an athlete and his picture was definitely next to our high school’s definition of “popular.” He wrote:

“Jean, your dad was a baseball coach of mine when i was 12 and i want you to know that i thought he was the best. just thought you would like to hear that he really was a great guy and people still think of him. Kenny”

I wrote him back and thanked him for his lovely words. If there was a time I needed to hear something like that, it was then. If I had any reservations about anyone in high school, whether they were in my crowd or not, I cancelled them all after reading his note.

Lately, I find I need to keep myself moving through the days, and while I do, it’s most important to linger in the happy times, whether they be in the present or in the past. To be trite, I know happy times will be here again. Life’s cyclical, isn’t it? When everything seems all wrong, you have to know that everything will be all right again soon.

Most people ponder their past. Some even wish to go back to a certain point in time, so they can change the course of their life. I know; I’ve been there before.

I have regretted some decisions I’ve made in my life. At the same time, they are hard to regret now given that I made most of them with the best of intentions. Instead of regret, I now only think it would be nice to be 8, 20, 30, or 39 again for a moment or two.

I would tell Julie, my sister, not to run through the sprinkler with Patches, our cat. I would spend another night at the Stein, Brandeis’ pub, with Bitsy trying to unstick our $1 Waltham Supermarket flip-flops from the beer-saturated floor. I would sit on Crane Beach for another day with my Mom. And, I would go up to my Dad’s girlfriend after he died and kick her ass for not being with him when he died. These are my only real regrets now.

“If we spend our time with regrets over yesterday, and worries over what might happen tomorrow, we have no today in which to live.”

Sometimes I think I might like to go back to high school. I had a different feeling then, one which captured love and security especially within the four walls of my parent’s home. Today, I am glad that I can go back Saturday night even if it's just for the night. ♥

End blog soundtrack (I’ve used it before, but obviously, I love it and the video!):