My 40th high school reunion

 Hoover High School 1972

Who takes their daughter in law with them to their 40th high school reunion? Apparently only me.

As soon as we walked in she spotted a man she knew!
 He was the 5th grade teacher of both Laurynn and Chandler.
I went to school with his wife who was part of the reunion committee.

I was so hesitant about going. 
For some reason, since I had not seen hardly any of these people since graduation, 
I was worried that I may be the only one who had aged. 
I pictured them all as they were at 17-18.

I didn't take many pictures of my classmates. 
I think I was too busy talking to them. But I did take a few of some of our teachers. 
Can you believe we had about 10 of our teachers at our reunion??
The one in the middle I thought for sure was my math teacher. But he corrected me, "No, I taught Espanol!"

I found another teacher, Mr. Hammel....I asked if he taught math. He said, "No...government!"
I didn't remember him either.

So I went back to the tables and asked some of my classmates
if they remembered any of these teachers. They all basically said, "No." 
How can this be?? 
Then I thought back to what a self centered time high school is. 
It was all about ourselves and our friends. Teachers were just sort of in our background. 
But in reality we owe them so much. But we didn't know it at the time!

Then I went and sat by this woman.

She looked so familiar that I was sure I would get this one right. 
"I remember you! You worked in the office!" 
"No," she corrected me, "I was a PE teacher." 
Oh yes, Mrs Crosby!
(below back in 1972)

After lunch Amy and I took a tour of the campus. 
She also attended school here and kept saying nothing had changed. 
I thought it looked exactly the same too....only smaller!

So I took a walk down memory lane.

This is where I would walk into school each morning from the parking lot with my friends.
We would hear guys whistling at us who were all lined up between these posts.
Or maybe just at my friends. I'll never know.


We would usually eat lunch out here. Mostly M and Ms or a candy bar. 
I really wanted to go inside and eat a real lunch but back then it was not the cool thing to do. 
No wonder I didn't feel good most days back then.
And to this day, I have an aversion to candy. My poor sons didn't get much of it growing up.
And they are a lot healthier than I ever was, I might add.

These are the halls we would walk through as we changed classes every hour. 
I use to see how many people I could say hi to...6 times a day!
Also, see that first door on the left down that hallway? 
That was my math class and one day my friend Giselle returned my coat to me....
the one she loved and wanted to borrow for a few hours. 
Problem is she came in during class to return it to me, and we both got in trouble!


Unfortunately I spent many mornings here reporting my absent from the day before.
I don't know how they keep track of it now, but I use to bring a note from my Mom.


See that door by where all those people are sitting? 
One day during square dancing, my partner and I danced right out that door and didn't return. 
We both had to pick up trash the next day.


There you have it. Now you know all my secrets.






Some places, like this school, and family camp, never change.
 
Just the people do. 
Who would have thought I would be back on this campus all these 40 years later with my granddaughter!

Oh, here's something that changed... the price of things...
Even Amy was surprised about the price of year books now.


I'm so thankful to Renee, Karen, and Becky for all the work they did to make this reunion so much FUN.
(and Teree and Trish who I didn't get a picture of!)
Poor Renee wore herself out.

I have another post about my reunion that I will do soon.....
I want to show a twist of time and how it affected one of my classmates. 

5 comments:

Richard said...

Looks about the same. I don't think I've been back, but I more than made up for it with visits to Buchanan High School when our kids were there...come to think of it, I may have spent more time at BHS than I did at Hoover.

Anonymous said...

My father attended Hoover High School.... in Glendale. And now Ely, his grandson, lives one house away from that school!
I think I would have had more fun at my reunion if there HAD been more teachers. I actually have more memories and feeling of attachment to them than to my classmates!
Glad you had fun at your reunion. It's a bit shocking to see how much everyone has changed, no? Especially the guys. People look so different when they lose their hair!
darlene

Mar~ said...

What a fun walk down memory lane. I'm surprised you would even worry about whether or not everyone had aged, you look really great! It is a shock to see some of the classmates after a long time. When I saw some of mine and realized how much they had aged, I had to take a new look at myself, ha, ha!

Amy Nielson said...

I remember Mr. Hammel. He was also my government teacher, 18 years ago. I'm surprised that he still looks the same. ;) How fun to be able to go to your reunion!

Grandma Honey said...

Amy!...I was hoping you would see this. I thought of you while I put this together because I know you attended there also. I actually think I had Mr Hammel too because his name sounds so familiar...so did his face...but I just couldn't place him. It's been too long and I was not an interested government student at the time.

Look what happened last night

  Just a little pre-graduating gathering for our DIL Amy.... Not everyday a Mom of 7 and a Grandma of 7, graduates from college. It was not ...