What Aging Has Taught Me

The photo album slipped out of my hand, and onto the floor went pages and photos into a mix-up pile. I wasn't ready to sit down and gather them up at the time, but the mess was in the middle of a walking area. So I drew up a chair and leaned down to collect the memories of a lifetime. The album was started injunior high school. Each year as I received a photo or snapped one of my friends, I put a copy in this album. In the 1950's before college I didn't own a camera. They weren't items most average families owned. I must have used the old Kodak box camera that somehow my parents had owned since my birth.

I searched for and found my scrapbook. In it were all the articles of weddings and features of my friends. I gathered together the articles and paired them with the photos.

Picking up each photo became a journey. I laughed at the memory as I recalled the incident, my brain whirling through tons of mass to take me back to that time and place. I  wondered Where are they? What are they doing today? I  set aside a small stack of follow-ups. I wasn't sure of my next move.

A few days later I used Google to find the names of these friends. No hits. I checked FaceBook and found one. Tried the White Pages and found three. The latter had remained in Mississippi. Then I turned to http://.ancestry.com, where I'm researching four families. I entered the names to find death certificates. Bingo. Two. I was disappointed to find my junior high school friend Nancy had died  five years ago. A boy I had dated in the tenth grade died on his birthday two years ago. No one was supposed to die, this early, I told myself.

How to contact three guys who probably don't remember me? Be armed with reminiscences. First, I called South Carolina to GB. He vaguely remembered me (naturally, who would after 60 years?). I told him our connection--Civil Air Patrol in Mississippi, attended CAP camp in Montgomery, AL for  two weeks. . .he remembered slightly. Then I told him I'd email  him all photos. A subsequent call opened up good conversation. I was talking to an adult my age whom I'd know as a kid. Wonderful to know who he'd become, the career he'd chosen.  I promised to visit when I went through his hometown.

Next, I called Gulfport, MS. Talked to DK. I"d met through someone else. I had kept a newspaper article about his finishing army training, and I had a photo of him outside his tent during his Korean service.  He told me he'd suffered loss of all memorabilia during Katrina; he'd like to have the photo and article. We chatted and during that time he didn't remember me from King Tut. That was OK. I remembered him. Sent him the material hoping he would enjoy a walk down memory lane.

 The third guy, JS, I'd known in junior college. Why I had so many articles on his basketball career, I don't know. Perhaps at HJC he was the star player. I discovered he had married the sister of a high school boyfriend. While helping an AR genealogist with this family, I'd run into this star's name and it tweaked my brain. Until I found the photos and articles did I make the connection. Calling him gave me the chance to check up on the family he'd married into.

  BIG SURPRISE

One more contact left. A young woman who had shared CAP and  cadet life with me. I located her graduation invitation and name card accompanying. I had her full name. A search through White Pages brought  me no satisfaction. She was probably married and I wasn't sure of that new name.  FaceBook came to my rescue. Although she didn't use the page much, she had registered in the name I recognized. That connected us. Thank you FB.

Now GG and I are corresponding. No, she didn't remember me at all until I sent her the photos (We were 16 years old). We had separated when I went to boarding school in the eleventh grade and she had moved to Florida. She doesn't live nearby, so through emails we can keep  abreast of each other. Neither of us looks familiar, but the thin thread of cadet life keeps us together. We discovered how much we both had enjoyed the CAP encampment and the cadet program, sponsored by the Air Force. I don't recall us missing a single meeting held at Hawkins Field in Jackson. (Incidentally, the cadet program is still operational, at the same site.)

High school reunions are important. However, these friends were acquired from areas  unrelated to a specific school. Thanks to the Internet I can make connections. These people had appeared in my youth and contributed to who I am today. 

HERE I AM IN MY UNIFORM

AND HERE IS THE PATCH I PROUDLY WORE

Fifty Years Ago. . .

...I was a young teacher with four classes of tenth grade English and one class of Spanish in the original building housing Central High School in Jackson, MS. The half century class reunion of 1959 held its gathering last evening in Jackson at a site that was a wooded area fifty years ago. Those posing for a photo showed that despite the number of deceased, there were a large number still living. They are now retired or nearly so, have contributed much to their community, and only twelve years younger than I.

Today I wish I had begun my teaching at Central. I had chosen to "learn the ropes" in two small Delta towns before tackling a large school in the capitol city. Blessed is what I call my years at Central, a school being torn apart by progress--new high schools in the northern and western ends of town. Soon Central High would be an empty building with its wide hallways, creaking wood stairs, stalwart lockers lining the walls like sentinels, dark basement rooms, empty patios. Silent but for the echoes of the once-heard marching of ROTC students outside and the commands of their drill instructors, locker doors slamming between classes, and the thousands of feet pounding the wood floors only to quieten when the bells clanged to warn of classes beginning or ending. With little trouble I can transform myself mentally into those hallways just left or right of the auditorium. As I progress through the hallways,I hear teachers explaining the history lesson, the math problem, the rules of grammar. No school was like Central High, and I was in a bit of heaven last night as I saw and talked with many of my former students, my mind reeling with photos of them as seventeen-year olds.




There were five of us teachers out of ten who attended. At our table we talked about the meaning of this school and declared that our time at Central High was the best of any school where we had worked. We were family. What better way to explain the warmth we still hold in our hearts for these students and faculty with whom we worked?

A Weekend of Fortune

Everyone told us, “You’re inviting STRANGERS to stay with you ?” Our local son said, “Do you know what you may be getting into?”.

Everyone told them, “How can you just go that distance (Arkansas to Mississippi) to stay with someone you DON”T know?” “Do you know what you’re doing?”

Yet, two couples-- a fellow genealogist and her husband and my husband and I spent a weekend in our Mississippi home filled with unsuspecting surprises.The weekend resounded with camaraderie, common ancestors, and equal sharing of chores, making for a visit far more worthwhile than any of us expected.

I had met V online at www.ancestry.com where she was researching a family no longer alive. I had known this Jackson family during my high school years and had enough information to share with her. This family’s only son had been my first steady boyfriend. From there the emails flew. When I discovered V’s husband was a descendant from the same old Mississippi family as my husband, R, that sealed the trip. A family reunion was held on Saturday,October 4, an opportunity for V to located two cemeteries (only researchers like to wander among tombs looking for relatives), take snapshots (an important duty) and share stories.

The weekend came to an end and the couples who were complete strangers had become friends.