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!!!

First time blogger

I am a first time blogger - an "old dog learning very new tricks". I have decided that if I want to keep up with my family and possibly friends that it is time that I joined the 21st century and introduced myself to new technologies.

I do not really know what I am doing and am hoping that I can enlist the help of my niece to make this something that they would like to read. Wish me luck.

I spent 40 plus years of my life typing and you would think that I would be more proficient than it appears that I am today. My favorite key appears to be the backspace key - I have a tendency to skip spaces and sometimes forget to put letters in the right places.

It is a beautiful fall day here in Baltimore Maryland; but it means that summer is over and soon it will be winter - the most dreaded season to my way of thinking. I loved it when I was very young and could play in it until my fingers, toes and nose turned bright red; but now that I am in the 60 plus era I have very little use for all that winter brings - snow, ice, freezing temps, etc. etc. etc.

I have been retired since March 2007 - at which time I had all sorts of plans of things that were going to be done. Travel being the biggest - but not ready to really do it by myself unless I absolutely have to - I am waiting for a couple of friends to get healthy so they can go with me. In the mean time I have stayed home and relaxed, gone to lunch with friends who are still working and handled a couple of small emergencies on the home front. As it turned out it was good that I was home so that the emergencies (fallen trees, leaky basements, plumbing going wrong) could be handled and more importantly paid for. My travel time will come, just not this year.

Time really goes by a lot faster now than it did when I was working. I guess it is because I don't pay attention to the clock and calendar as much as I used to. That is a really good feeling. The only way that I have been keeping track of the days of the week is by what programs are on the "boob tube" (as we called it way back when) at night. I am a big fan of Dancing with the Stars (because I wish that I had the wherewithall too float around the floor like that) and NUMBERS (because I like the logic of mathmatics).

It is time to go...it is not the best in the west just yet, but as time passes I hope to improve this blog and make it better, maybe even add some pictures and other interesting things. Time will tell I am sure.