Retro Reading: Your Yearbook(s) by Various
Chances are you’ll find them tucked away in a closet, attic, a box in the garage or collecting dust on the bookshelf. You may even find yourself taking them out occasionally to look at the pictures, but very rarely reading any of the text.
It’s your yearbook and believe it or not it has been patiently waiting for the day you actually sit down and take the time to read it. Cover to cover.
For years I told myself that I would sit down and read all four volumes. In fact, I made it a part of the imaginary bucket list I have.
Over the years I found myself pulling them out to look up people who would send me friend requests on social media, or if a certain name popped into my head. If I saw the person had mutual friends I figured that I had gone to school with them so I’d look them up to see if I knew them. They really did come in handy for that purpose.
But, like Thanksgiving dinner, you can’t have one serving.
You soon find yourself wanting more and for many of us, these books act as our pre-computer life (one thing leads to another and another) and before you know it you’ve just spent hours in the past.
When I started my journey into the past, I knew that both good and bad memories would come flooding back, but I didn’t know that I’d start to remember things that didn’t seem important.
Starting with my freshman year I remembered the fear of high school, the times that I skipped more than one class for two weeks (and didn’t get caught) and the lack of extra curricular activities that we missed out on due to a two time millage failure within a few months.
In fact, that anger spilled over throughout my high school career (even though the millage had passed in the fall of my freshman year). Each volume following that year makes mention of it up to my senior year.
Then came the later years of high school and when activities were brought back, my classmates went onto making their presence known.
Whether it was sports, dating, family dynasties each page seemed to hold its own secret or answer to a long ago question. The yearbook knew.
I call my class the “Nowhere Generation” since we were in the middle of a lot of administrative messes and during high school, our teachers didn’t have a contract which brought a lot of tension. Again, extra curricular activities disappeared due to lack of sponsorship.
As I read each volume, I wished that there was more coverage on fun things that we participated in. A few pictures and two pages of Homecoming really didn’t make my day so many years later.
Sure most of the writing is terrible, but these picture books for “teenagers” (and eventually adults) really don’t give credit to the photographers. They truly were the heroes of these time capsules. Without them our memories wouldn’t be jogged.
I noticed that the editors seemed lazy when it came to layout and design, spelling and even plagiarism (almost word for word) when it came to summarizing up one classes year. And the funny thing is our yearbooks were the top award winners in the state!
While some of my friends opted to throw away their yearbooks, it was fun going back in time and seeing ads for businesses that are no longer around.
It was a time with no stress, daydreaming of the future and a lot of fun. Plus, we know how that part of our lives end.
