Tuesday, November 16, 2010

High School Yearbooks

You'll do it as I'm doing  now. Reviewing yearbooks. Remembering stories and people's faces. Recalling what was important  in high school. As I search for ideas to write, I'm drawn to several incidents that occurred during my high school days. So I reach up to the topmost shelf and wiggle my fingers until they touch THE BOOK. This one relates  my single year, the tenth grade, that I attended Central High School. I had earlier spent three years in junior high with many of the sophomores pictured in the Cotton Boll. For that reason I keep the book handy.
The photos are available when I'm helping someone research family members, when the annual is the only source for remembering a particular person, as cameras in the late 1940's early 1950's weren't like cell phones of today.

I've turned to a page to remember an old boyfriend; a friend  who recently passed away; a neighbor I"m sure I know but can't place; or a teacher I want to point out to R with a fond experience to tell. Yearbooks are the portals to revisiting our youth.

Recently, while researching on Ancestry.com, I came upon a notice that annuals are being collected and torn page by page to microfilm to add to their vast research resources . I have been trying to tear the Cotton Bowl away from my knarly grasp, like pulling a child from its  mother's arms. I'm fearful that if I send it off to the netherlands I'll find thousands of reasons for having kept it. That is something I'll have to work on.

2 comments:

20th Century Woman said...

I wouldn't give up my old year books. I like books you can hold.

Viv said...

I'm transferred from the Deep South to your home easily though your words. Home is defined by the nurture we received. My memory is a four-plex with a wide front porch.