In Danish "Husker Du?" (Pronounced HOOSKER DOO?) means "Do you remember?
Also the name of a 70's children's boardgame... and a rock band, too. But here it's a feature we are serving up to you to relive those golden high school "dayz". Here in our first installment, we will take you back to our Sophomore year...
September 1978 - we were headed to Clinton High School for the first time. Little did we know we were about to become the last class to enter CHS while it was still a three year high school. In the fall of 1979 our alma mater would start the year with a double dose of underclassmen as it switched over to a four year high school. Although typical today to have a four year high school, back in 1978 CHS was and had been a three year school for decades.
We had spent that last summer (if we were lucky) goofing off with our classmates from our respective junior high schools, all THREE of them... Lyons, Washington & Gateway, before becoming low man (and woman) on the totem pole. Sidebar: To be "low man on the totem pole" could actually be a good thing; in Native American lore, the position on the totem was NOT indicative of status or respect, low, middle or top, it didn't matter. It was up to the carver to declare which was the most important figure no matter their position on the totem... don't believe me? Google it! But I digress, we spent that last summer down at the Riverfront Park Pool, kicking back at Eagle Point Park (climbing the cliffs because of course, no one listened to their parents!) and in general in various forms of (harmless?) mischief.
But summer drew to an end and it was time to head to HIGH SCHOOL... AAaaahhhhHHHH! For some it was a scary proposition, for others it was an opportunity to meet new friends and shed that reputation that had been earned, deservedly or not, in junior high. It was also a time to grow-up. Now I don't mean grow-up as in "to mature". I mean grow up, as in GROW up. It wasn't so long ago that if you were anything approaching six foot, you were tall. Hell, if you were at least 5'-6" you were "average". It seems that today if your kids (or grandkids... geez some of YOU have gotten old!) aren't over 5'-6" by the time they enter high school as freshman, they're "short" for their age. Think about it, how many six-footers did we have as soph's? Maybe a dozen, or even two dozen? Today I challenge you to go into a high school anywhere in America and if you're not 5'-10" you're going to feel "short". But again I digress... wait a minute, these "flashbacks" really are more about digressing than anything, so... let's continue!
It's the fall of 1978, Watergate is fresh in our minds, as is Viet Nam and the Apollo programs. Inflation (which we didn't really understand... yet, was something approaching 9%! And we thought we were just about, very nearly "grown up", just three short years and we would be "adults", based on age only, not mentality, for some that was/is still years down the road! ; ) Our new school was, well, relatively speaking, still "new". It having just been rebuilt in 1972 after The Fire. It even had AIR CONDITIONING! Well, not in the shops building of course, where we all had our lockers, but that "new" part was air conditioned, WOW! And there was an elevator... PULL-eze tell me, no one actually ever bought an "elevator pass". That was just folk lore... wasn't it?
And new experiences didn't stop with the facilities, we also got to do self-scheduling. If you weren't scared going into high school, self-scheduling might just do it to you. We went to the Commons in the week or so leading up to first day of classes in groups alphabetically. Lo' be those who drew the short straw requiring their group to go last! You picked up your bundle of punch cards upon checking in, yes, I said PUNCH CARDS. And the battle began to build the "perfect schedule" as most students knew who to take for each class after being primed by their older siblings on who to AVOID! Alas, for those who were eldest in their respective families, they had better have older neighbors or at least cousins, lest they willing choose the "wrong teacher". The one saving grace in this whole process, for those who have forgotten, was that the alphabet "changed" each semester. If your group went in last the previous semester, you were slotted into the front of the line and every subsequent group was bumped down a notch. So after three years of rotating, at some point you too would be in that coveted "first to register" group at least once. Now that is "fair and balanced."
Well, that's about enough for this first trip down memory lane. We were a bunch of 15 and 16 year old's who thought we were, pardon my French (does anyone say that anymore?!) hot shit. We would soon be put in our place (remember the SENIOR BENCHES?)
[Do you want to submit your recollections? By all means, please do. Write up as little or as much as you like and email it to the webmaster. Submissions will be reviewed by our crack panel of editors and polished and primped into shape and posted on the front page of this...
The Class of 1980's own website on the World Wide Web!]