It hardly seems possible that I could be working on a committee that is planning our 60th anniversity of graduating from Long Beach Poly High School. This first picture was taken in spring of 1947, when we are graduating from 6th grade. I will be calling many of these same kids on the phone during the next month or so, most all graduates from Poly too, as I make contact with them and gather updated information.
Poly was a big school, and we had 900 kids in our graduating class! When the Reunion Committee met a couple of weeks ago, because I'm comfortable on the computer, I offered to update the list for them. There were lists from several past reunions hanging around, and I took them, consolidated names and have ended up with 350 names. Like all the other projects I tackle, I laid out a time frame to completion, figured out a logical way to gather the information, and I've been working away at it each day.
But I just didn't figure on how many memories this would bring back! At least half of the kids shown above went all through school together; we go back a long with with lots of good times in common.
In the fifth grade a girl scout troup was formed, with all the members being pictured above. Then when we moved into junior high school, we took scouting with us.
This same bunch of girls graduated in 1953 from Poly High Schoool, and we all either went to work or to college. We mostly stayed close to Long Beach, and we held reunions every so often. In 1988, we piggybacked on a Poly High School reunion. One of the fellows in our 6th grade class photo came to the party and took the picture for us. We positioned ourselves in approximately the same order as above.
While the Girl Scouts provided a good extracurricular activity for us, we all really were a part of a bigger group, that of being connected to Poly High School. In addition to our friends in the scout troop, we all had good friends in our high school classes and the fun of those days has all come back as I've made phone call after phone call, re-connecting with my past.
With a class as big as ours, there are many of the people I've called that I really didn't know in school. I was pretty much a nerd at Poly, not at all one of the "Soshes" (what we called those teens who were far more socially advanced than my group was called.) I worked on the school newspaper and in the print shop, and one of my pleasures at the 50th reunion was finding my old linotype-buddies looking for the world like the middle aged people they are, not the strong young teenaged men I remember. It is nice to be a part of a group now - both a small committee and a larger "student body" - where age is a great equalizer and we are not divided by sororities and frats and student body elections! It's just all fun now.
And I am reminded of the senior prom I attended -- yes, with one of the linotype buddies that I grew particularly fond of - and who I've yet to find on the list I'm calling.
Some things in life are just simply fun! And working with this committee and making these phone calls and talking over old times with whoever answers the phone -- well, it's worth every minute I spend on it. The reunion isn't until October of 2013 - and it may well be the last one. But in the meantime, I am sure enjoying my "old" friends!
1 comment:
That is something. I find that I do not recall many of the names from my old school pictures. My brother can rattle off every single one from his class and from our younger brother's and sister's. I was never the social one in my family.
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