Once in a blue moon, I’ll pull out my high-school yearbook from Columbia (Tenn.) Central High School. The spine still crackles when I open it.
I’ve never been back to Columbia for a high school reunion, so all my friends from the Class of 1976 remain frozen in grainy black-and-white mug shots. In my mind, we are forever 17, Clearasil faces framed in blow-dried hair, fashions by the Brady Bunch, sneakers by Adidas.
High school was a bittersweet time for me. I wasn’t good at much aside from academics and drumming. I had few social skills and even fewer friends. I mostly kept to myself and worked afternoons and weekends at Derryberry’s Drug Store.
Mark KennedyI remember juggling feelings that my hometown was too small (population about 25,000 then), while my high school was too big. There were more than 400 kids in my graduating class.
All my high school memories are seemingly locked in a time capsule, trapped in the stale air of teen angst and aerosol hair spray. The few times over the last 39 years that I have looked at my yearbook it was mostly for amusement – to chuckle over those unruly 1970s hair styles, wide lapels and massive neckties.