High School
The New Progressive Party nominated Henry Wallace as their candidate for the Presidency, and Harry Truman was President of the United States.
It was 1948, 387 students graduated from Bosse High School in Evansville, Indiana, and I was one of them. The only thing we remember about that year was graduating. We spread out across the country to the biggest and smallest colleges and universities, or to jobs, skilled and unskilled, to take our places in society. Yet, most of us have never forgotten our four years together.
So it follows that when a former classmate says why not drive back to your hometown and join old friends for lunch, I go. I didn’t know that I knew that many really old people. When there was hair that you could see, it was gray. Some of my friends were so old they didn’t even recognize me.
We older folks do forget, you know. The old boys seem to forget more than the women do. Perhaps it is because the men don’t talk quite as much.
Andy attended. Most of us hadn’t seen him in years. Handsome, debonair, good posture and poise, he was the guy all of the girls wanted to date back in high school. I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, I suppose, but I was nearby when Tom went to him and said something like: “Andy, I can accept the hair, but those perfect teeth aren’t yours, are they?” With a slight snarl, Andy retorted, “They sure as hell are, and I’ve got the receipts to prove it.”
We all laughed. We laugh at trouble, because we have seen it in all of its forms and we are still here to laugh about it. And we’ve learned a bit about the way the world now works. Hell, we must have, because everyone was trading email addresses—although one must wonder how some of the arthritic fingers manage a keyboard. Yep. It was a lot of joy. But I wish they would forget to sing the school’s song. That’s one of the many things we just can’t do very well any more.
