Rant #3,728: Old Days

Continuing the high school reunion story that I told you about on Friday ...

When I put up on the Class of 1975 Facebook site that I was going to the event, I got a couple of likes, from people whose names I absolutely don't recognize at all.

But I did get a Facebook message from another person whose name I also did not recognize at all, and what he said took me for a loop.

He said that he remembered that I told him that my father was a New York City medallion cab driver!

I still did not recognize the guy's name, but his memory literally propelled me to try to find my yearbook online.

I went to several sites--all trying to entice me to buy my long-lost yearbook for anywhere from about $50 to $100--but I finally found one that I could at least access page by page, on the Classmates site.

So for the first time in many years, I went through the yearbook page by page, and I remembered how this yearbook infuriated me to no end when it came out, as I was barely mentioned in its pages, as if I didn't exist.

I remember questioning the editor of the book--I think he was in my Social Studies class--about my conspicuous absence from the yearbook--other than my mandatory head shot in the graduates section--and i remember he told me that they used mainly photos of his and his yearbook group's friends in the book, and that is why other than that photo, I had been pretty much left out.

I was even left out of the Senior Variety Show section, an event that I stole. He admitted that I should have definitely been included in that section, but ...

That one photo I had in the graduates' section pretty much said it all.

I remember that the photo was taken during a very windy summer day leading up to my senior year, my hair--yes, I had plenty of hair then--was a complete mess, and, well, looking back, it pretty much demonstrated how I felt about my high school "experience."

Anyway, I found the picture of the fellow who remembered that my dad was a cab driver, and it rung kind of a very muted bell, as I kind of remember him, but I simply don't remember having any dealings with him--

But I must have, because he remembered that my father was a cabbie!

I continued to look through the book, and I did see that there was a picture of the debating team, and yes, I am in the photo. In the back row, and the photo is very dark and you can barely see me.

There is plenty else wrong with the yearbook--there is an embarrassing placement of a photo of a girl who died during senior year in a car accident ... preceded by just a single page of the other senior class member who was directly involved in the accident that killed her--and suffice it to say that I won't be spending $100 to obtain a copy of this tome.

Again, I am not going to this reunion for myself; I am going with the hope that by going outside the box, I can help my son find a job.

I know that that is a job in itself, but if it takes returning to an era of my life that I completely despise, I will do it.

Heck, after an hour or two or three it will be over, and I can return to the life that I am most proud of, and that is today, right now, in 2025.

High school ...

Just four years of my 68 years of life.

Those high school years ...

Best forgotten.