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| Forty Nine Years Ago | |||
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Forty-nine years ago some ingenious classmate came up with a slogan for our graduating flock. “Give’em hell and let’em know, we’re the class of seven – oh!” A profound motto? I’ll leave that up to you. But we were young then. We were ready to set the world on fire.
Not quite a year before we marched down the aisle man landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong said, “That’s one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.” In only a few months we had changed our focus from the moon back to wanting to warn the world that we were on the prepuce of running amuck. I look back and wonder if perhaps we could not have chosen a more thought-provoking motto. Oh for an original thought.
But run amuck some of us did. I was one of the amuckers. We were trying to spread our wings and find ourselves. It’s not surprising, seeing as how our senior year began shortly after Woodstock. The top song that year was Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel. The big hit at the movies was M-A-S-H, which wasn’t surprising since we were still bogged down in the Vietnam War. The month we graduated a shooting took place at Kent State University. Those were tumultuous times, yet we were excited about our futures.
After we began to find ourselves, we were in the military, finishing college. We matured, got jobs, married, had children and grew brains. I never did find that handbook on how to raise daughters at Books-a-Million.
We did things the hard way. We didn’t have computers or Google. Wikipedia hadn’t been conceived. Some us were just thankful to have a calculator instead of a slide-rule.
Phones? They were still connected to walls, and if you called someone and they didn’t answer there were no answering machines or voice-mails to take a message. Life was hard, by golly.
We had to heat things up on the stove back then. Microwave ovens? What were those things? If you missed a television program you had to rely on a friend to tell you what happened the next day at school or work. VCRs were unheard of. CB radios were still a few years out into the future for the general populace. It would be another two or three decades before we carried a phone in our pocket, and another few years after that before we learned to text. Nowadays we can pretend we are Dick Tracy. Everything we need can be worn on our wrists.
A year after graduating we still wrote letters and made collect calls home.
We were lucky if our cars had an FM radio or an eight-track tape player. Cassettes? Not back then. Most of us listened to WLS out of Chicago or WKOR with Butch Luke from nearby Starkville if we weren’t tuned into WLSM in our hometown.
Some us married our high school sweethearts and stayed married. Some us married, found out we had not chosen wisely and married again. Some of us found out we weren’t attracted to the opposite sex at all. And some of us married Yankees. I was one of the latter. My mother never quite got over that one.
Some of us went on to obtain doctoral degrees. Some became dentist, lawyers and businessmen. Or should I be politically correct and say businesspeople. Back when we finished school politically correct wasn’t even a term.
Then there were those who became housewives, laborers and filled in wherever we could. I, for one, never figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I’m still giving it some thought. Others knew what they wanted to do since they were in kindergarten. Maybe that was my problem. I never attended kindergarten. I was that kid who entered first grade and suddenly realized I had to wear shoes all day long. Bummer.
Boy, did life throw me for a loop. I chose an occupation where I had to wear steel-toed shoes for 37 years. But I was blessed. I made it. There were times life gave me hell and let me know that being a part of the class of seven-oh wasn’t on its agenda. Still, I was blessed. Somehow, I made it out of that mill alive.
A few of our class members weren’t as lucky. Car accidents, depression, and health issues shortened their days. I remember Berlin Rogers, from biology class, telling us one day that life was going to happened to us. He said, “Look around you. Not everyone in this class will be alive five years after you finish school. Even more will be gone by the time you’ve been out twenty years.” I didn’t want to believe it, but he was right.
It’s been forty-nine years now and we have lost several that I’m aware of. Cheryl Burchfield, Don Chancellor, Paul Chandler, Mike Collins, Keith Donald, Larry Ferguson, Dan Fox, Larry Hemphill, Legan Kemp, Charles Massey, Andy Morris, Debbie Pickett, James Strickland, and Elton Watson. Those are the ones I’m aware of.
All of them were great classmates and friends. They left us too soon and deserve to be remembered. But Mr. Rogers was right. I know I’m lucky to be here. I escaped death three or more times over the years. Like I mentioned before I am one of the blessed ones. Thank you, Lord.
I’ll bet most of you feel the same way, too. You’re blessed if you’re still on the top side of the dirt.
So, here’s to the class of seven-oh. We have more yesterdays than tomorrows. Use the remainder of your days wisely. Embrace our differences and love one-another.
May I make a suggestion? How about let’s steal someone else’s motto going forth. I no longer feel like raising hell. I’ve got a walker and a cane in the closet for those bad days I occasionally have. We’ve probably already gone where no one’s gone before. I know the doctor that performed my colonoscopy has. So how about let’s steal Buzz Lightyear’s motto. “To Infinity and Beyond”.
Here’s to the future, whatever it may hold.
P.S. Thus far we have gathered about a third of our classmates’ contact information so we will be able to reach them when plans for our 50th reunion materialize. I am just one of the people trying to help them in their quest. Even though we are a year away from the fiftieth anniversary of our graduation, it will be here before you know it. Things like this take time and planning to put together. We would like to have cell phone numbers for each classmate so the committee can reach them by text message. Feel free to message me or text me so I can put you on the contact list. If you know of someone who does not text or use social media, help us reach out to them and get their contact information, please. You can post that information in the comment section, private message me, or text it to me at 270-564-1439.
We would like to include the spouses of deceased classmates, too.
Here is a list of classmates we need contact information on:
Jill Overstreet Black
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