Down Memory Lane

I have just spent a good portion of my day on MyFamily.com (the ElTigre page) looking at old photos and seeing who else has signed on. There were almost 200 pages of photos to look at. Most of them were of people that I did not know personally, but did recognize their names. This is a "neat" website and it brought back a lot of memories. I guess that I am going to have to go through my old photos and see what I can come up with just so I can make sure that me and my family leave their mark in the history of PHS. I graduated in 1964 and my brother graduated ten years later.

I did not join the Portola family until the fifth grade (most of the members of my class went to school from one through twelve). The pictures of the people that were in my class really gave me a start. I have a hard enough time remembering how they looked way back when, but now I have to see those young people in older faces. All of a sudden I realized just how much I have changed over the years. I look at pictures from when I graduated (1964) and wonder how I ever got to where I am at today - a grey haired retiree starting a new phase of her life.

I saw a picture of the guy that was the object of my first junior high crush. He did not know that I existed and truth be told I was probably better off for it, but that is hindsight talking. My trip down memory lane led me to remember that my date for the spring formal (7th grade) was the very same person that was my boyfried and date to my senior prom. Of course the years in between (8 -11) he was someone else's boyfriend and I did not have a boyfriend at all. I was what you would call a "wall flower" and was always the person whose name you may have known, but was always in the background and unheard from. I was never an outgoing person and thus never a member of the "in crowd".

I had my own group of friends however - I guess we were what the youngster today call geeks. We spent our time getting an education (the smart ones who did their best to make grading curves hard) and being the "worker bees" on the committees who got very little acknowledgement for our participation. I must be frank - there is actually very little that I remember about my years at PHS.

I remember some of my teachers - Miss Corbin (Corbi) who taught art and gym, Mr. Bibb who taught English, Mr. Thompson who taught band and English, Miss Christopherson who taught typing and accounting, Mr. Donninwirth who taught driver's ed, Mr. Cimaglia who taught geography, Mr. Popish who taught science and Mr. Rowden who taught math just to name a few. Each and every one of these teachers and all of the others did their level best to make sure that we learned all that we would need to make it in the real world after we graduated. They were fairly successful with regard to me.

I remember certain other things i.e. making dinner for our parents (a home ec project) - I was in charge of cooking the sweet potatoes with the pressure cooker - i opened it too soon and the sweet potatoes ended up on the ceiling before they made it to the dinner plates. I was also part of the group that made dessert (homemade ice cream), which activity made an appearance in the yearbook that year (a pic of me sitting on an ice cream maker while the handle was being turned).

I remember pep rallies for football games and basketball games but not the games because I lived ten miles out of town and did not have transportation back and forth. I remember exactly where I was the day that Kennedy was shot - in my math class - and who told us - Mrs. Parrish the school secretary. It was senior slave day and it turned out to be a bummer.

Like I said before I remember my first spring formal (7th grade and the last dance was to the tennessee waltz) and my senior prom (SAWADII was the theme) when I wore a red velvet dress and red velvet heels with rhinestone heart. (I still have those shoes after all these years - don't fit anymore but I can't bring myself to give them up.) By the way, SAWADII is hello/goodbye in Thai. This was in honor of our exchange student Polly Pesalapan (ph) from Thailand.

I also remember that I when I was a sophomore I went to the junior prom with Jerry Thomas. A tall "drink of water" that was sweet as sweet could be. He was another one of us geeks. A super nice guy that honored me by asking me to his junior prom. Unfortunately less than a few months after he graduated from high school in 1963 he was killed in an automobile accident coming home from college. The car was driven by his best friend Stark Hunter whose life was forever changed. I don't think that he ever forgave himselt for being the driver.

I remember the school bus driver that I had for my entire scholastic career in Portola - Jim Burton. I used to complain about the brakes squealing - he would say "this way I know they are working, start worrying when you don't hear them". He would often hollar at me "Hemping be quiet" - not that I was all that noisy, my voice just carried over everyone elses. He was also a stickler for being on time. You were at your bus stop on time or you got left behind. He waited for no one. We never missed a day of school for any reason - no broken down buses, driver sick, or weather of any kind. He was a good man and got us back and forth to school promptly and safely for many years. He was a credit to school bus drivers everywhere.

Well, between looking at old pictures, sending a message of thanks to a beloved teacher and writing this entry, I have managed while away a whole afternoon. This grey day was a little brighter because of these activities. This being retired allows me to do these things and not feel guilty about the time spent doing them - this is going to be fun.......till next time!!!