20 Years Ago!

I'll admit just this once that it has now been twenty years since I graduated from Cloudcroft High School.  I hang around with a younger crowd these days (Timber, this means you), so I hate to admit my age.  In honor of our twentieth, I'll share some random memories and facts about my high school.

1.  There were 40 people in my graduating class.  One classmate didn't graduate, and he happened to be the president of the student body, a great guy, and now a successful lawyer.  I am still trying to forgive him for beating me in the presidential election on his campaign of silliness.

2.  Our classes were held in a round building without walls separating them.  We could hear what was happening in the classes around us and see things going on all around the building at all times.  This was our school from 7-12th grade.

3.  Mr. Mills, the government/English/Spanish teacher would seek me out before class when he really didn't feel like teaching what he had planned and tell me to be ready for a debate.  I was politically opinionated and had a different view than virtually everyone in my school.  I loved those debates!

4.  The school would take us skiing on Wednesdays during the winter.

5.  I got my name in the newspaper after every single volleyball game, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my mom was on the school board, right, Mom?!

6.  I played basketball and volleyball, ran track (but not track meets!).  I did mock trial and drama and student council.  I was class president from 7th grade on (if memory serves).  I kept b.u.s.y.

7.  I loved road trips to sports tournaments and camps.  We would often get into a fair amount of trouble.

8.  I am still a bit bitter about my one "B" in high school, that 89.4% in Biology.  To this day, I would love to skip any involvement with science because of that failure.  It alone cost me a 4.0.

9.  I'm pretty sure I can still sing the whole fight song.

10.  I still don't like the town associated with our sport rivals.  I also don't like their team color or their mascot.  That made it hard when Basia was assigned to a YMCA team with that rival's colors and mascot for her last basketball season.

11.  I think I may need therapy.

12.  "I shall not speak in thy lovely Algebra I class."  I wrote that sentence hundreds and hundreds of times.  Now I wonder why Mrs. Stowers didn't just have me work ahead or give me some harder work to keep my mind more occupied and my mouth less so.

13.  Wendell was always willing to go across the street to buy candy for us at lunch time...as long as he could carry my purse.  He is now a hotshot firefighter (or was 10 years ago when I last heard).

14.  Cissy was the best best friend.  The best.

15.  My job as the manager of the track team meant I needed to go into the coaches' office quite a bit.  The coaches' office was in the boys' locker room and had a window to the showers that was usually covered.  Usually.

16.  I lived a 45 minute drive away from my school.  It was even longer by school bus, and the roads were windy and crazy in the winter.

17.  Our entire high school would go to White Sands at the end of each school year.

18.  I wish Mrs. B, my English teacher, was my neighbor right now.  She was tough and had really high expectations, and I loved her.

19.  I would not recommend Mr. James, the 96-year-old, to substitute teach wood shop class.  After the board he was holding flew off the planer and into my stomach, he only replied that "he was glad that happened so we could see the dangers of the machine."  He also gave us the strangest riddles to work on for the entire class period when he substituted for science.

20.  Our 10-year reunion was kind of awkward and sad.  One classmate worked really hard at putting it together, and the only people who attended were those who didn't still live in the town.  The locals didn't bother coming, and there were a lot of locals.  I am a little relieved that nothing was organized for this year.  Facebook is enough of a connection for me.  When I graduated, I felt that I had little in common with many of my classmates, and that feeling holds true today.  Cloudcroft is a beautiful little town that I love to visit, but it doesn't feel like home to me.  Sacramento is my heart's childhood home, and the people I met there are the long lost ones who I would love to be reunited with instead.