It’s time once again for E.M. Kingston’s The Sunday Ramble. Her prompt is based upon a certain topic about which she asks five questions. We are invited to ramble on about that topic however we wish. Today’s topic is “High School Days.”
I graduated from high school 58 years ago, so I’m not sure I will be able to answer these questions in any great detail. But I’ll give it a try.
1. What is one thing you remember about your first day of high school?
The high school I graduated from opened in 1962, when I was entering my junior year. Mine was the school’s first graduating class. Because it was a brand new school for the administration, the faculty, and the students, that first day was rather chaotic. It took about two weeks after the opening for things to settle down into a more normal routine.
2. Did you participate in extracurricular activities or sports in high school?
I was a nerdy kid in high school, so I wasn’t on any sports teams, but I did participate on the debate club, did some drama things, and was on the student council.
3. Was Freshman hazing or initiations at trend at your high school?
No. The school had just opened (I did my freshman and sophomore years at a different school), and I don’t recall there being any freshman hazing or initiations there.
4. Did you attend your Senior Prom? If so, do you remember the theme?
Yes, I attended senior prom, but I don’t remember what the prom’s theme was.
5. Is there a favorite memory from your high school days?
This isn’t a favorite memory as much as my most vivid one. It happened on November 22, 1963, the day that then-President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas. It was a Friday afternoon and I was standing on a ladder in the high school gymnasium putting up decorations for a dance that was scheduled for that night. The school’s principal came over the PA system and announced that the president had been shot. Suddenly everyone — students and teachers — went silence. The only sounds that could be heard were people crying, sobbing, and sniffling. It was eerie, sad, heartbreaking, and devastating.
This, That, and the Other 
So off point but did they hold the dance that night?
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No, it was cancelled
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I wasn’t around then so I don’t think I can ever understand what the country went through.
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It was a very low time.
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I can’t even imagine it. Especially because it seems like the country was so different then…did more people respect the US government? I don’t know…It just seems like today if Biden were killed people would be out there cheering, not mourning the loss.
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Yes, we were a more innocent nation back then. JFK was young, dynamic, and charismatic, and it was a shock to the soul of the country when he was killed. Sure, there was partisanship back then, but “negotiate” and “compromise” were not dirty words.
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Ah, do you think it will ever go back that way again? Sad to think that we need something like 9/11 to wake up this country.
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I would like to hope so, but I’m not optimistic.
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Maybe not optimistic but realistic!
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I can’t even imagine a President being assassinated at the time. I remember the twin tower attacks when I was at school. I will never forget that, shocking and everyone was sad 😔
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The one main thing I remember from my first day of high school is meeting my best friend then (subsequently) — discovering, when we sat next to each other on the bleachers in the gym for opening assembly, that we had every single class together that semester.
I participated in a lot (well… sort of a lot) of extracurricular activities, although my mother didn’t want me to and had discouraged this. It only occurred because the school promoted doing so. I was an obedient youngster and would’ve done what my mother said; for the most part, I did obey her.
There was absolutely no freshman hazing.
I’ve never thought of that in high school.
I’ve heard of it in fraternities at universities.
I attended senior prom.
I don’t recall the themes.
(I went when I was a sophomore
with a skinny, nerdy senior at my school.
This was an exception to my mom’s general rule
against me going to dances before I turned sixteen.)
A favorite memory of high school is one of my teachers (Miss Hughes) always using extra class time, at the end of a semester, to teach about President Kennedy’s assassination (the grassy knoll and so forth). If she had completed all the course work, she would show us a black and white film she had acquired and talk about Jack Ruby and so on. She taught theology as well as English/composition/lit and speech. Actually, I think she only did the Kennedy thing at the end of theology semesters (two semesters in the four high school years). She may have done it after a lit or speech course, too; not after basic, required English. (My other favorite coursework would be scientific method, debate logic, and basic logic of proofs in geometry.)
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Oh… and the logic of computer programming.
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Is that the school from which you graduated — Albert Einstein, home of the titans?
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Yes it is.
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Cool.
I rode onto the drive past the old parking lot (in a cubby of trees) and around my high school, last summer. It made me happy.
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I’m not sure how I missed your ramble, but my WP was crazy with my notifications. #TeamNerd! I was pretty nerdy my own self 😀 I had the same experience that you had with the assassination as when 9/11 happened. How sad…I felt the pain in that memory. Both events were tragic days indeed. I didn’t exist back in the assassination, but I have done many research papers on him and Lincoln. Thanks for rambling with me, Fandango!
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I don’t have very many memories of high school…. probably the best remembered time was senior picnic as it was outside on a beautiful day and we had a chance to talk to many classmates we didn’t have any classes with. It was so relaxed and laid back… we already felt “free” from school.
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