High School Revisited

To start off, how about a little Throw Back Thursday?  These are my kindergarten and  senior year pictures. My kindergarten picture was taken right after a home perm.  Can you tell? 

My high school years (10-12) were spent at Ruskin High School, Home of the Golden Eagles. I graduated in 1976. While there, I was in the pep club, was a Chanter (wrestling cheerleader), Senior Class Vice President, on the Yearbook Staff, in Gold Choir and a few other things. I loved being in high school and hated to see it end. My best friends were Patti (Johnson) Buie and Sheila Smith.

I was a Chanter for only one year, although I did make it for my senior year as well. However, we thought we were going to be moving from Kansas City and I gave it up. We found out shortly thereafter, that we were not going to be moving for another year. So, I got in pep club and cheered the teams on that way. Here is a picture of the Chanters. My friend Sheila is the third one down on the left column. 

We had a lot of fun cheering for the wrestling team.  We got to go to a lot of meets and met lots of people from other schools.  That was a time when "mooning" was a big thing.  So after just about every meet, some of the wrestling team would find us girls and moon us.  They thought it was so funny how we would all scream when they did it.  Boys!  

Another thing that happened a lot during that time was "farming yards", and ours got farmed more than once. "Farming" was driving your car up onto someones lawn, stopping, then gunning the engine and leaving huge ruts in the ground.  They would tear up a lot of yards and since ours was on a corner, we were a prime target.  

And if that was not enough, there was TP'ing!  Oh yes, that still happens today too, but we got TP'd so many times that the people doing it almost set up a routine.  So one night, my mother stood at the window waiting for them. Sure enough, here they came, not being very quite I might add.  Just as they got to the yard, she yelled out, "You better get out of here right now!" Boy, they high tailed it out of there so fast.  Yes, we did get TP'd again after that, but not near as much. Inevitably, it would rain after they did it and what a mess that would make.  We would be out picking up tiny pieces of toilet paper, off the yard and trees, for days.

My ballooning.  Not a great picture but you get the idea.

I got ballooned one time, which was a whole lot easier to clean up.  They bought the long balloons and tacked them down into the yard, where they stood up straight.  There were balloons everywhere.  

Did you have a "strip" that you used to cruise in high school?  We did and we cruised it almost every weekend.  Ours went from the high school, all the way down to Truman Corners, on Blue Ridge Blvd.  Many times we would turn around in the McDonald's parking lot and head back the other direction. My friend Patti and I made a habit of stopping at McDonald's, getting an order of french fries to split and a drink.  We had such a great time hanging out together.  I got the opportunity to spend some time with her in Missouri about a month ago.  You would have thought that there was no time between the last time we saw each other.  We picked right up where we left off.  

Patti Johnson Buie and I, a few years ago.
Still great friends after all these years.

I fell in love right after my sophomore year with a boy from the rival high school.  A mutual friend introduced us and we dated, off and on for four years.  I remember going out on our dates and sitting next to him in his car, before consoles. Our first date was to the very first Star Wars film.  My mom and dad loved him and many times, after we broke up, he would still come by the house, I think to see them.  A funny thing happened at my 26th class reunion (no typo, we just decided to do it then instead of the 25th).  We had our reunion at a bar that one of our classmates owns.  I happened to look up and who should be sitting in the band area but my boyfriend from high school.  Now remember, he went to a different high school. So I walked over to introduce my husband and before I could say anything, he jumped in and said that he was not crashing the reunion but was there to hear the band.  Okay...  He didn't stay long after that.  What a coincidence...ha!  Our reunions are always so much fun and filled with lots of surprises. It is hard to believe that next year we will be having our 40th!  Yikes, can I really be that old?

Today's Terri's Tidbit:  Do you have a dear friend from grade school, high school or college?  Give them a call, right now, and catch up on each other's lives.  It will be a great way to brighten your day!