A Groovy Trip Down Memory Lane

Babby is the younger sister of Kathy McGrath, who I took to the Freshman Homcoming Dance. Their Mom had been one of two church organists, and Babby seemed to follow in her footsteps, accompanying the school choir on keyboards. In fact, I think she is the church organist now!

I don't recall interacting with Jenny much. She seemed sweet and pretty. Bobby was a cool guy whose hair I got to inspect in a microscope in biology class. (His hair was interesting, in that each strand was a completely different color, although the blend looked vaguely blond, a fact with sent Sister Marie to her genetics books.

My main memory of Bobby was of one day when we were going from the main campus to the gym a block south. For whatever reason (being boys I guess) he and I went from strolling, to walking, to walking fast, to jogging, finally to racing, right up to the gate! Now,I had zero confidence in my ability to do anything atheletic. So, when Bobby said, I had no idea you could go that fast! it really lifted me up, as I was not accustomed to any compliment, ever, on my physical prowess. (Or, really, much of anything. My family didn't do compliments.) In fact, I've received so few genuine expressions of admiration that I kind of have collected and treasured them. Bobby's was the first in my list.

Charlie was my buddy. He was one of the few football players who would talk to me, and even let me use as a model to play with camera tricks, as in this shot.

Dianna Bishop was a member of our in-group, though we sometimes treated her horribly. But she normally went to lunch with us on Senior Priviledge Friday; she went to our parties; she was in the folk trio with John Palmes and myself. My funniest memory of her was the time we went to pick her up for (I think) Senior Prom. I was doing the driving, and I think her date was with us. We stopped at the old family home on the bayfront and all traipsed in to get her, mostly because we wanted to see what her house was like.

I don't think we really knew it at the time, but Dianna's home situation was somewhat unusual. She was being raised by her grandmother and twin unmarried uncles who lived there. Grandmother was very old, with rules that made the ones in my house seem positively wanton. For example, Dianna was forbidden to wash her hair more frequently than once a week. (And her hair needed it more often, poor thing.)

So we were greeted at the door by the twin uncles, wearing matching dinner jackets. Were they also coming to prom? But they seemed very subdued. Come in, but please be quiet. Mother is laid out. Now, I had only heard that particular phrase in regard to funerals, or formal dinners. And when we were ushered inside, sure enough, Dianna's grandmother was lying on a bed in what would normally have been the dining room. She was ashen, lying in repose on her back, the sheets perfectly draped about her. Her hands came together above the sheet and held a white lily.

My friends and I threw puzzled glances at each other, as the uncles ascended the stairs to announced our arrival to Dianna. Obviously we didn't expect her to be going to the prom with her beloved grandmother so suddenly deceased. But we couldn't just leave without paying our respects, either. So we shrugged and waited…

and waited…

And then, suddenly, Dianna appeared at the top of the stairway. In her prom dress, calling down, Hi, you guys! Sorry I took so long! and flouncing down the stairs like Barbra Streisand in Hello, Dolly!, which had just been released.

So, as she explained as we fled the Haunted Mansion and hurried to the Veteran's Hall (where the prom was to be held), her grandmother, being old, can't manage the stairs; so her bedroom is in what would otherwise be the dining room; and she goes to bed early so everyone is supposed to be quiet. But the reality was, she couldn't hear much anyway, so you didn't really have to be quiet.

And the sheets? The flower? The dinner jackets?

That's just my uncles, she said, as if propping your aging mother up while she slept to look as if she were at her own funeral, was just the most ordinary thing in the world.

So, technically, Jimmy Tutten was not a classmate. His older brother, Tommy, had been; but he switched to public school after 8th grade. Like Charlie Hartley, Jimmy indulged my desire to experiment with camera effects, aas in this shot showing him to be in the palm of his friend's hand. No, we were kids and didn't think through to the implications.

But of course when I see Jimmy he reminds me of Tommy, a guy I greatly admired. He drowned saving a kid who was caught in a rip tide…coincidentally, on my birthday, which to me has made us permanently connected.

Joe was one of my favorite people. He was one of everyone's favorite people; he had charisma (like everyone in his family); he was Senior Class President and football quarterback. After graduation, he and I drove together to Tampa, where we both attended Tampa Technical Institute for a short time. I think we were supposed to room together, actually; but somehow there was no follow-through on that, and since I attended nights and Joe attended days, that was pretty much the last I saw of him. I heard he eventually married and died of stomach cancer.

I have no idea what was going on in this picture. I guarantee he wasn't sad! So probably playing around.

That's underclassman John Salvador climbing the trellis to the second floor balcony. I have no idea why. Behind the glass you can just make out Jenny Horty, Theresa Pandolfini, and possibly Kim Ellzey.

I didn't know Theresa well in high school, and Kim was a boarding student I didn't know at all (boarding students weren't allowed off the grounds weeknights, so we couldn't all hang out). But I did get to know Theresa better as an adult on social media, and we met for dinner a couple times when I visited St. Augustine. But apparently she's passed away now. Sigh.

Lunch in the back yard! These were the guys I mostly hung out with at school, even though both Charlies were football players. The summer after graduation, I worked as a lifeguard at the Ponce De Leon Motor Lodge swimming pool, and both Dave and Charlie Thomas came by to swim and hangout with me. (There were almost no other users of the pool, and of course I let my buddies in to swim! I was a nerd, not an asshole.

The very first time I saw Suzette, in fifth grade, she took my breath away. She was perfect. Perfect hair, perfect skin, and an amazing singing voice. As the joke goes: Just like the straight boys in my class, I was undressing the girls with my eyes. However, unlike them, I would then re-dress them in different outfits! —But Suzette needed no revisions, like Barbra and Judy and the other divas we love.

Sandy was another girl who was very pretty and seemed to have it all together. Okay, this one time I caught her applying makeup. The last time I saw her was a year or so after graduation; she had gotten a job as a teller at the bank my mom used.

These are all people I am friendlier with now than I was in high school. At a class reunion at a house on the beach, Ken and I were the only people who actually went swimming. Nancy came out to Arizona to visit in 2011 when I was recovering from necrotizing fasciitis. Terry and Debby have been helping me identify old classmates in these old yearbook photos. And Danny and I have each others' backs on social media political posts.

However, I do have a Danny story.

Now, there's a back story, starting with how I absolutely loathe confrontation. And growing up I had been involved in a couple of little kid fights that I didn't start, and felt ill-prepared for. Then there was a guy in fifth grade (it was my fault, but still). And just a week or two before this, my classmate Eddie had slapped me in the face repeatedly, in front of others, knowing I would never hit back, because Jesus had told us to turn the other cheek.

One other element to the backstory: Danny had always been the shortest boy in class,and I imagine he had been bullied, as well. But in our senior year he shot up and put on muscle and I suppose felt like he had to work his way up the pecking order. And since, after Eddie's display, I was clearly pretty much at the bottom myself, I guess he figured I would be the first rung on the ladder to his rise to the top.

But he picked the wrong day to do it. I had just run the half-mile from home because I got a late start; I was sweaty and annoyed before I even got to the school. And just as I walked into the classroom, with the kids already there but not yet Sister Fabian, the homeroom teacher, present, Danny, for no reason I could determine, just went and shoved me.

That was it. I wasn't specifically mad at Danny; I was just fed up after years of being pushed around for no reason. And I exploded. It was just one shove back, but it was like a superhero punch on today's shows: He flew back and crashed into the blackboard, which then fell to the floor. Having mostly avoided fights before, and not being a participant in the school's contact sports, I truly had no inkling of how strong I was, or how hard one must hit to knock another guy other.

The room went silent. No one had ever seen me stand up for myself before that…including me.

And it felt good, and I did in fact seem to garner a lot more respect during the remaining school year.

So, Danny, if you even remember this—thanks; it wound up being a significant boost to my personal growth. I hope I didn't hurt you. (But I guess I didn't; he eventually became a police officer!)

And then there's Thomas, probably the bravest man I've ever known. I say that because he was one of four Black kids to integrate my previously all-white eighth grade five years previous. Of course, by the time we were seniors he was on the football team so we didn't spend a lot of time together. But his dad became my mentor in photography; I was an usher at his sister's wedding; and his family was so very sweet to me always. So I never see Thomas' photo without smiling. These days he's involved in Fort Mose State Park, in St. Johns County which you should definitely see if you're in the area. Fort Mose is known as the first legally sanctioned free African settlement in what would become the United States. Established in 1738 near St. Augustine by the Spanish governor Manuel de Montiano, it served as a sanctuary for those fleeing slavery from the English colonies in the North.