jimsjournal
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Bev did this meme the other day and I thought that I would give it a shot... IN YOUR SENIOR YEAR... 1. Did you date someone from your school? Well, yes and no. My girl friend during my junior year attended my school. We were still a couple when I was a senior but she had moved back to Connecticut. 2. Did you marry someone from your high school? No. 3. Did you car pool to school? No, mostly took a public transit bus to school and walked home. 4. What kind of car did you have? Didn't have a car in high school. 5. What kind of car do you have now? Toyota Corolla. 6. It is Friday night...where are you NOW? Now I am in our house in Rhode Island preparing to cook dinner for my wife Nancy and myself and then we will retire to the living room with some wine and watch the two concluding episodes of the final season of Battlestar Gallactica. 7. It is Friday night...where were you then? Probably out drinking with the guys. 8. What kind of job did you have in high school? During my senior year (and the summer leading up to it) I was working as a general purpose assistant in a furniture store (Andy's Furniture on lower Broadway in Kingston) where I swept and dusted and vacuumed and went out to bring back coffee and helped assemble some of the furniture but my main function was to be a delivery assistant, to ride along on deliveries to help the driver carry the furniture. 9. What kind of job do you do now? I was a computer programmer/analyst who got into doing software training for a major computer company where I've gone from writing courses and teaching them worldwide to working from home (what an easy commute!) doing editing and quality assurance reviewing of both classroom and Web-based course materials. 10. Were you a party animal? Uh... yeah, guess I was. 11. Were you considered a flirt? I dunno. In the right mood I think I was... but I have no idea how I was viewed. (I found out years later that some of my classmates were afraid of me. Huh? Sweet-tempered, mild-mannered, never caustic or sarcastic little me?) 12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? No. (Well, I was in band as a freshman but early in my sophomore year the band director decided that both the band and I would be better off if I had an extra study hall period instead.) 13. Were you a nerd? Picture a cross between a nerd and a hood. 14. Did you get suspended or expelled? Not quite. My guidance counselor wanted to have me suspended during my senior year. (She had also tried to keep me from being able to sign up to take the National Merit Scholarship test -- and since winning one of those scholarships is what helped me get through college, I was quite glad that she did not succeed.) However, I did spend a major chunk of my senior year on "permanent detention" -- which meant that I was supposed to spend an hour (or maybe it was only 50 minutes?) in detention hall after school every day, but I was taking an art class and my art teacher would let me serve my time in her room after school working on various drawing projects. 15. Can you sing the fight song? Fight song? Well, the fight chant was "Come on maroon and white! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!" And after almost half a century (oh, okay, 50th reunion won't come until 2011) I can still remember the words to the school Alma Mater:
Well, first off I must name Mr. Mason (referred to as "Tex" Mason by everyone) who was my biology teacher. I didn't especially want to take biology and I was lazy beyond belief and was a total goof-off but he was the kind of teacher who could make you learn despite yourself (and have fun while doing it) and I ended up getting 97 (of a possible 100) on the Biology Regents (a mandatory state-wide final exam in New York State) and to this day (from the 1957-58 school year) I can still tell you that the stages of mitotic cell division are prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase. That's what I would call a great teacher. I have to also mention Mr. Schwarz (my English teacher for my freshman and sophomore years), Mr. Kurtznacker (American History), Ms. Odell (Art), and Ms. DeWitt (for two fascinating and enjoyable senior elective social studies courses). 17. Where did you sit during lunch? The school was in the middle of town and we were not restricted to campus (and the cafeteria was far too small). My friends and I left the school and wandered up and down Broadway. I sometimes ate at a sub shop, sometimes at a hamburger restaurant, and sometimes at the large cafeteria at the Trailways Bus Depot, or sometimes (if I brown-bagged it) sit on the wall in front of the school on non-rainy days. 18. What was your school's full name? Kingston High School 19. When did you graduate? 1961 20. What was your school mascot? I don't think we had one. About twenty some years ago I recall being near the stadium where the high school football games were played and noticing that they now did seem to have a mascot (I think it was some kind of large cat, a puma or tiger or lion or something) but I have no memory of a mascot when I was a student. The teams were usually referred to as The Maroons (from the maroon and white school colors). 21. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Hey, ya know, it might be fun. 22. Did you have fun at Prom? Yes. By "Prom" I mean the Commencement Dance following graduation, a formal dance, one member of each couple had to be a senior, not one of those school gymnasium dances, it was held at a country club (and the 25th and the 30th reunions were held at the same site, which was a very nice touch -- and I'm hoping the 50th could be there as well) 23. Do you still talk to the person you went to Prom with? We dated through most of my first two years of college but broke up at the start of my junior year. Haven't seen her or talked with her since September of 1963. 24. Are you planning on going to your next reunion? Yes. 25. Do you still talk to people from school? Well, not so much talk as write. [Waves "hi" to Dick Duffy. ] 26. School Colors? Maroon and white. 27. What celebrities came from your high school? Hmmmm. I can't think of any, so I guess there isn't anyone too famous. 28. Did you play a sport? No. 29. What was your favorite club? I didn't belong to any (except for Latin Club when I was taking Latin). 30. What class or teacher did you fear? None. (There were classes and teachers I enjoyed and ones that I didn't enjoy, but I can't really comprehend fearing a teacher.)
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