There are bookcases
in my living room—an upper level of five shelves that go up to the ceiling
stacked over a lower level of countertop with shelves underneath. The bottom
section has matching latticed doors that I keep shuttered at all times because it’s
always incredibly messy in there.
Every so often, I
open the doors and clean things up. I sort through photos, jigsaw puzzles,
board games, old packs of cards, books that are too big to stack on the upper
shelves, old records, etc. I pack things to donate to charity, shove others in
trash bags to hit the curb on collection day; I also end up putting things back
into the cupboards—things I’m just not ready to part with yet.
I stumbled across my 1966
college yearbook the other day.
I poured a cup of coffee and thumbed through: page after page of young
women who looked remarkably alike…page boy hairstyles, knee-high socks, plaid
skirts, wool sweaters, Peter Pan collars and the occasional turtleneck.
We weren’t quite “Barbies,” but it was mighty close!
I digress.
Anyway, as I was
looking through the photos, I noticed that the school photographer had taken all our class group photos on stairways—page
after page of sequences of young women posed (alphabetically, by surname; we’re
of so little importance that we don’t even have first names) on stairways, one
after the other, all lined up like little Stepford Wives, hands on the railing.
We are all the same.
The caption reads: D. Gould, W.
Gillingham, E. Grant, L. Goldey, D. Gannet, N. Glesmann, K. Gardner, C. Givens.
And there I am, at twenty years old, standing on the bottom step.
I am so young that it makes me ache...
If only we could go back and talk to our younger selves, whisper a bit of advice. I was achingly young in 1966 too. No pageboy though.
ReplyDeleteThat was a very long time ago, wasn't it Kristin? I'm actually happier now than I was then. Still, it's surprising to see my younger self.
DeleteAh but I’m sure you’ve climbed to the dizzy heights by now! The problem with these posts is seeing our younger selves and getting all nostalgic.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I'm nostalgic, per se. I'm still surprised to be as old as I am now; but I look at the younger me and wish I'd known then what I know now.
DeleteI remember the Peter Pan collars, plaid skirts and sweaters, but the long socks were never part of the look here in Britain.
ReplyDeleteYou're lucky, Sue. They were always slipping down over your shins, looking slightly ridiculous. Did you have circle pins, too? Those were part and parcel of Peter Pan collars....
DeleteOh boy! Now I'm going to have to pull down all my yearbooks and peruse them again - something I do every so often when I'm in a melancholy mood. I don't know that I'd really want to go back to those days, but I do kind of wish I looked like that young, innocent, soft-skinned person again. :)
ReplyDeleteI almost don't recognize myself in these old photos -- was I really that young, that innocent, that idealistic?
DeleteWhat nice idea to pose on the stairs. We didn't have any suitably imposing staircases for our school photographs, and in fact there was no group photo taken, only individual head shots, in which some of us thought it was a good idea to pose wearing pretend glasses. I did so reluctantly just so as not to seem too straightlaced, and I've hated the resulting photo ever since!
ReplyDeleteFake glasses? That's a hoot -- were they regular-looking glasses or clown ones?
DeleteMemories. Yes we do look so young don't we? Where did that time go huh?
ReplyDeleteIt's such a surprise to me, Alex. Seventy? Really? It just went by in a blink...
DeleteI have to say, if I had benn presented with that photo out of the blue and asked to find anybofy there that I knew, I would have failed to find you!
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I find looking at the old yearbooks I'm interested in the changing fashions. Those changes are more striking in the female side of styles than the male. Most of us (males) are in the same suit and tie poses that changed little for many years. Now, any attire goes, down to sloppy jeans, wild hairdos and wierd hats. I just wonder how people in those photos will see themselves looking back some years later!
If I'd sent you that photo and asked you to pick ME out of that lineup, I bet you'd find me...but without a frame of reference, it's always tough! Agree...the coat/tie shots were boring; and being female was always a matter of being forced to wear gawd-awful stuff...the more things change, the more they stay the same...
Delete