Looking Back with Nostalgic Fondness

Do you spend time looking back on your high school days with nostalgic fondness? Some do. "I hope I don't talk about them, but I probably will," Bruce Springsteen sang in his song, Glory Days. When I was your age, I walked five miles to school in 3' of snow..., might be lost on today's youth. It is more like, When I was your age, we watched black and white television, our black telephone had a rotary dial and was permanently attached to the wall. Or, there was no MTV. Or, only old man wore their pants hanging down over their butt so their crack was exposed. Oy, how long is that fashion trend going to last, I wonder.

Looking back with nostalgic fondness. We listened to AM radio stations. Whenever I hear the lyric, "a generation lost in space," I think of my brother, Richard. Others coming of age in the 1960s might have experienced it differently. I think Richard's generation was that one lost in space. And mine too. The 60s, as people think of the era, was much different than how I remember it.

My high school graduating class had about 650 students. Richard's class, a year before mine, was the first to graduate from the newly built high school. A trailer was already placed in the parking lot, for some classes, due to overcrowding.

Some days the girls were told to report directly to the gym before changing into gymsuits in the locker room. We were told to line up in rows. The first row was told to kneel. If there skirt or dress did not touch the floor, they were sent home to change. The girls in the next row had time to pull their blouse out from waistband, slide the skirt down over their hips, so when it was their turn to kneel they appeared to be complying with the dress code. No mini-skirts allowed. Today some boys and young men, old guys too, do cover their waist band round the thighs with oversize t-shirts, reminding me of those girls back in high school.

There was a tradition at my high school; the day before graduation was called Senior Dress Down Day. The boys were allowed to wear T-shirts, jeans and sneakers to school that day and the girls were allowed to wear slacks. When I was your age...

Senior Dress Down Day was cancelled because the principal said the tax payers would not appreciate seeing students coming to the newly paid for school dressed, um, down. What did my graduating class do? We came to school dressed as we always did, obedient to the Dress Code. Except maybe a skirt worn just above the knee. No mass civil disobedience for us. We wanted that diploma.

My aversion to dresses started early in childhood for two reasons. One was the boys used to peek under them from the lower level of the schools staircases. The other was wearing them was uncomfortable while running, playing tag and other kid games. Boys did not need to wear skirts when climbing trees, you see. Two years after I graduated from high school, the Dress Code changed. Girls were allowed to wear slacks to school. No fair! "Dorothy, why are you wearing dresses to school, now that you do not have to?" I asked my younger sister. Unlike me, she liked them.

Our ninth grade high school class was located in the town's Junior High School building. It was in ninth grade when Frank Campbell was suspended for coming to school with his hair dyed green with his mother's food coloring. He was Irish/American. It was St. Patrick's Day. When I was your age...

By the time my youngest brother entered Junior High, there were vending machines in the school's hallway selling sodas, candy and snacks. Chewing gum in class was another forbidden thing, when I was his age, forget about drinking soda or eating snacks. There were also paid security guards, with guns, monitoring the halls. The fabled 60s Make Love, Not War, peace sign loving flower-children, age of Aquarius days were over. What happened? Did relaxing that dress code lead to unruly students? Or did the change begin when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered? Our once well integrated schools became war zones, students segregated themselves along color lines, bringing knives to school. It got worse.

Drugs also happened. In my 1960s the only students who used drugs were thought of as juvenile delinquents; the bad kids. The adventuresome students experimented with cigarettes, beer and cheap wine. It was in later years when marijuana became as acceptable as that beer and cheap wine had been to 1950s teenagers. Also in my 60s, only fast girls lost their virginity. They had reputations; tramps. When a good girl became pregnant she had to drop out of school. Some had shot-gun weddings; others went away to Homes for Unwed Mothers, giving the baby up for adoption, returning to town feeling shamed. What was called "the sexual revolution" was not happening in my hometown in the 1960s.

The space Richard's and my generation was lost in, was the one of change from the perceived 50s and 60s generations. Many think of the 60s: bell bottom jeans, tie-dyed T's, guys with long hair, girls ironing their long tresses to make it straighter and unisex Afros. Had a student in our graduating class showed up with an Afro, like Campbell or the girls with too short shirts, they would have been sent home for a haircut. Refusal would mean suspension or expulsion. As noted, the girls were not allowed to wear jeans to school even on Senior Dress Down Day.

Woodstock happened in 1969. Woodstock was not the ending of the 60s decade people look back with nostalgic fondness upon. In my 1960s it was closer to the beginning of the fabled decade more than even mid-point.

Related Article: Woodstock: A New Look, Book Review.