Thinking Back to High School?

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My high school was large with 5,000 kids in the Chicago area. Too many to know them all and too many to know who was the most popular. I just know that I wasn't in the popular group, nor did I care or envy. I don't particularly like to think about high school. I just remember the grind. I loved college and that's where I came into my own. Popular? Kinda, I guess, but not jock popular. I never thought about it.
 
oscash said:
I hated high school. So boring, why didn't they make the subjects more interesting? My eldest son was always clever at school, but he said if they had a teacher like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society he would have excelled.
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I had this English teacher for 2 years in a row who was German with a thick accent, try learning English with that. Hard to stay on
the honor roll under those conditions, I always believed it was a test to see if we were actually doing well in English.
 
What I really liked about high school were the football, basketball games and cheering them on and all the dances that I went to during this time. I didn't really think about the popular kids, just having fun and learning my subjects and getting good grades.
 
I‘m not sure how to answer. My 1965 graduating class had a whopping 67 people in it. While Warren G. Harding , 30+ miles SE in the city had several hundred. While there were definite monetary barriers, we all still were respectful to each other. The majority of us were raised on farms, or worked on family farms.

I guess the cool kids were the ones who could drive to school.

Except to my parents, it was not a big deal that I graduated in the top ten. My brain power wasn’t even close to the Valedictorian and the Salutatorian, both girls who went on to do great things academically.

Those of us who caught on quickly to certain subjects , helped those who didn’t. I was helped with accounting because it did not come easy to me, and the teacher was three sheets most of the time.

Conversely, I helped my dairy farm neighbor with his English and history reports because he had to be at the barn at 5:30AM to milk before going to school. In our adult years, it was my dairy friend’s older brother who found my first Tennessee Walker for me; a coming three year old that I kept until he passed at age 27 and is laid to rest on this farm.

If I had to sum my class up, it would be respectful. Each had their troubles, but never acted them out in school.
 
I've seen it go both ways with old classmates, good kids go bad and bad kids go good. If there was a category for most likely to spend Iife in prison I would have been a shoe in, yet I turned things around and have lived a very respectable life.

It makes me sad to hear of old classmates who have failed at life, but I'm also always happy for those who have lived a successful life, regardless of what they were like in highschool.
 
I have looked up some kids from HS and as of today all the ones I remember are passed. The HS I attended in central NYS was small but eletist in attitude. I didn't like those kids and I didn't like the kids who couldn't relate to school. That left the middle group and that group was like the kids on movie Grease. I was really in school to study so i pretty much kept to myself. Even today I don't like a lot of people around me.
 
well I'll own up to being bullied quite a lot...in my 25 student class....also will
admit to having learning difficulty and mental shortcomings, that no one
seemed to understand. and certainly made no effort to coach, me to be better,
or act differently.....had to take a couple courses a second time...I believe all that
stuff helped me foster a don't give a dam attitude, and don't care about tbem
attitude ,,,,,,
 
MACKTEXAS said:
I was sort of middle of the road - not on the popular list, not on the bad list, and didn't try to get on any list.

When I look back on those times, not many memories come to mind - good or bad. I just wanted to get school over and done with, be out, and have my own apartment.

There were class reunions every year, and I got invitations for awhile but they stopped after about 5 years, since I never attended any of them.
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This is very similar to my experiences in high school. I've had some friends but not that much. And class reunions never interested me.
 
IrishEyes said:
I had this English teacher for 2 years in a row who was German with a thick accent, try learning English with that. Hard to stay on
the honor roll under those conditions, I always believed it was a test to see if we were actually doing well in English.
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This is really strange.

Decades ago at the university during an excursion to Canada I met a German who was professor for botany at a Canadian university. He was a really nice guy, but he had a terrible German accent while speaking English. He sounded like the Nazis in these old American movies :ROFLMAO:.
 
George1959 said:
This is really strange.

Decades ago at the university during an excursion to Canada I met a German who was professor for botany at a Canadian university. He was a really nice guy, but he had a terrible German accent while speaking English. He sounded like the Nazis in these old American movies :ROFLMAO:.
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That isn't the only thing strange about it. She would suddenly start shhh'ing us till we were quiet, then stand there with her head tilted
and say "I hear my puppies calling me" Try not laughing to that as a teen.
 
I attended five different high schools in three years. One "friend" senior year in a class of 800. Barely passed. Worked part-time jobs throughout, wasn't allowed go to any games or participate in outside activities, except the Poetry Club my senior year. I won first prize! My parents laughed at me.

Couldn't wait to get out and away. Moved out of my parents' house the day after graduation. Been on my own ever since.
 
Messy said:
Oh goodness sports. The teacher from social studies also gave gym. The real gym teacher was exactly like the kind they make fun of in kids movies, but this guy was super chill. He would just let us play badminton in the other room and nobody cared.

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Our coach was essentially a wrestling coach, like you described in the movies. Dumb as a rock but a huge guy, and he was the one who would dole out paddling in the principle's office. I was paddled once for bad conduct and one time was all it took!
 
There were 703 students in my graduating class. It was hard to keep up with who was cool and who was not. I remember there was an upper classman who was extremely popular because he was a star football and basketball player. His brother (may he R.I.P.) was in my class and was also athletic Our class Venus (may she R.I.P.) and Adonis wouldn't have gotten my vote if looks determined, but popularity may have been a determining factor.

One of my neighbors was also an athlete and went on to play professional baseball, as did the upper classman I mentioned. I don't remember any mean girls or bullies, but maybe I just wasn't exposed to them. I don't even remember who was prom king and queen.
 
seadoug said:
We had a very small class of 55 students. The popular ones were the jocks and cheerleaders. I went to my 20-year high school reunion and the jocks were mostly fat and balding and had reached their peak in high school. One of the more popular cheerleaders wasn't allowed to graduate because she got pregnant in her senior year. One other had married her jock and they divorced soon after. So very few of the popular girls attended.

My girlfriend and were considered "popular" as a couple. I was not popular on my own. Too skinny at 135 lbs. It was a Southern Baptist high school, so most didn't believe in drinking or dancing (at least on the surface). Our table became the "cool" one at the reunion because we invited the biggest nerd in the class to sit with us, he brought bottle of champagne and we all shared it. Afterward, we all went out to the dance floor at the hotel.

I hated high school, although I still keep in touch with my former girlfriend.

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Adding onto this post. I just found a pic of me and my high school girlfriend at our reunion, 20 years later. I grew out of the "skinny, geeky" phase and she went from "cute" to "gorgeous". She had already married at the time and I was already into a couple of years with my hubs. The jocks didn't laugh at me anymore.

Reunion.jpeg
 
seadoug said:
Adding onto this post. I just found a pic of me and my high school girlfriend at our reunion, 20 years later. I grew out of the "skinny, geeky" phase and she went from "cute" to "gorgeous". She had already married at the time and I was already into a couple of years with my hubs. The jocks didn't laugh at me anymore.

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She is gorgeous Doug and you look movie star handsome! :love:
 
I played football and was offered a scholarship at a few universities, but I wanted to be a lawyer and none of the schools that offered me a free ride had a law program, so I sent letters of interest to 3 of the top 10 law schools in the U.S. I was accepted by all 3, so I picked the one closest to home.

I was a running back and set a new school record for total yards, but that record has since been beaten 3 times. In junior high, I was a field goal kicker and set a new school record for the longest distance, but that record has also been wiped out.

The cool kids were in a clique that allowed me to hang out with them, even though I seldom did. I had my own friends.
 
I used to have friends who were twin brothers. We were talking once about high school and one of them said they had graduated 2nd and 3rd in their class. I said wow! How many were in your class? "Three" was the answer. Who was the valedictorian? Their sister who was a year younger but had skipped a grade. I think there were about 12 kids in the whole school.
 
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