A good meme from Village Charm
Class of: 1984
Class size: 780 or so? Starting nearer 1000
Did you know your spouse? I can exactly quote Village Charm on this: "This is going to knock your socks off, but I am unmarried."
Did you car pool? Um, no. Rode my bike or took public transportation (that is, a bus)
What kind of car did you have? I did not have a car until I was 25 or so. For at least a couple of years during high school we did not have a car at all, which no one could believe.
It's FRIDAY night where are you going? Friday nights... often sleepovers with friends that involved going down to Belmont Avenue in Chicago, or to Wax Trax, or to underage shows, or just hanging out and drinking underage.
What kind of job did you have? I worked at the public library shelving books, and also at Northwestern University, shelving books.
Were you a party animal? Eh, no. I did go to some big parties with what would now be known as hipster students, where live ska was played, there were kegs (one, I remember involved a nighttime chase after a hijacked keg, ending up at an obscure park), etc. And I went to a couple of cast parties (as well as throwing one BY ACCIDENT) including one hosted by John Cusack. I was impressed that he (that is, his liberal parents) had a big poster from the 1982 Nuclear Freeze March in NYC, which I had organized a minivan of student activists to go to, from Evanston, Illinois.
Were you considered a jock? You kid. I DID, after getting bronchitis, pleurisy, and pneumonia all in a row for a few months of senior year, have to take THREE GYM CLASSES A DAY in order to graduate -- one before school, one during, and one after. Fun times.
Were you in choir/band? Oh, so many. Not band. I don't play anything. But I was simultaneously in Chorale, Choir, and Choristers, the latter of which met before school. Also a Madrigal choir and a Gospel Ensemble, briefly, as the only white, only atheist member.
Were you a nerd? I guess? I was definitely one of the arrogant smart kids who butted heads with teachers she didn't respect and only did the work she enjoyed -- which was quite a lot of it.
Did you get suspended? No. I drove the administration crazy and they hated me for loud politics and activism, but they couldn't get me for breaking any rules.
Can you sing the fight/school song? I can. When I TAd for one of the worst right wing assholes at the University of Missouri, in grad school, Haskell Monroe made anyone who was late to his (7 AM) lectures stand up and sing their high school fight song. I was perversely pleased that I would have been able to do that. "ETHS/We will fight for you/For the right to do/Anything for you/We will cheer and we will win the game/We will bring you fame/Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!/Orange and the blue we'll proudly wear/May your banners e'er FLY/Victory comes while we sing/Many trophies we will bring/So fight! Fight! Fight, fight, FIGHT!/We will win the game for Evanston HiiiiiiGH!" Your life is better now. It could only improve if I had sound in this entry. I'm pretty sure there's an 80 year old on YouTube singing it, if you're really curious.
Where did you eat? There were four cafeterias in that giant high school, named by the directions and also with names of I don't know, boring former Superintendents. I ate in South, aka Bacon, aka the Burnout Cafeteria, not that I smoked, or was particularly successful at getting high. Bagged lunches from home.
Where was high school? Evanston, Illinois, "the City Suburb"
What was your school mascot? A Wildkit -- get it? A BABY Wildcat, like Northwestern. If only we'd taken their classy purple and white colors too, instead of pumpkin orange and navy blue.
If you could go back and do it over? I liked high school a lot, actually, though I was more arrogant then than I am now. I was a crazy manic socialist activist, and that was fun.
Do you still talk to the person you went to prom with? I could not even imagine going to Prom. Bizarroworld.
Are you planning on going to the next reunion? Good god, no, never.
Are you still in contact with people from high school? Yeah, actually, probably more people from high school than I am from college.
Did you skip school? I skipped a LOT of high school. A LOT. I had my parents' signatures down cold, good enough that I could have kited many a check. Make-up work was easy, there were no draconic policies about some maximum number of absences you could have, etc.
Do you know where your high school sweetheart is? Facebook for the win -- we had a traumatic break up and he hated me for years (like, cross the street to avoid me hate) but we got back in touch several years ago and are now quite close friends who chat a lot and often watch shows simultaneously on our devices and text during them -- Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, The Get Down... and movies.
What was your favorite subject? I always loved my French classes, even though two of the teachers were absolute asses. And I loved my history classes, especially Freshman Humanities with a teacher I adored and crushed on who became a real friend and who gave me a graduation card with my favorite Marx quote on it "Philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it." He called himself a Marxist of the heart and I puzzled over that a long time before realizing it meant liberal. Oh, and my US History AP class was excellent, too. I got to make a Document Based Question on the Haymarket Martyrs, among other things.
Do you still have your High School ring? I got one of those Jostyns rings, with an amethyst, even though I was firmly chastized by a fellow Red Diaper Baby for how trite and bourgie that was. Jerk. But then I lost it somewhere within a year.
Do you still have your year-books? I do have my yearbooks, though I never look at them. The only interesting bit is a focus piece on me as a Freshman, reading Against the Current, which profiled me as a socialist. Lest that seem lefty of the yearbook staff, the next page had a profile of a friend of mine as a knife collector.
Class size: 780 or so? Starting nearer 1000
Did you know your spouse? I can exactly quote Village Charm on this: "This is going to knock your socks off, but I am unmarried."
Did you car pool? Um, no. Rode my bike or took public transportation (that is, a bus)
What kind of car did you have? I did not have a car until I was 25 or so. For at least a couple of years during high school we did not have a car at all, which no one could believe.
It's FRIDAY night where are you going? Friday nights... often sleepovers with friends that involved going down to Belmont Avenue in Chicago, or to Wax Trax, or to underage shows, or just hanging out and drinking underage.
What kind of job did you have? I worked at the public library shelving books, and also at Northwestern University, shelving books.
Were you a party animal? Eh, no. I did go to some big parties with what would now be known as hipster students, where live ska was played, there were kegs (one, I remember involved a nighttime chase after a hijacked keg, ending up at an obscure park), etc. And I went to a couple of cast parties (as well as throwing one BY ACCIDENT) including one hosted by John Cusack. I was impressed that he (that is, his liberal parents) had a big poster from the 1982 Nuclear Freeze March in NYC, which I had organized a minivan of student activists to go to, from Evanston, Illinois.
Were you considered a jock? You kid. I DID, after getting bronchitis, pleurisy, and pneumonia all in a row for a few months of senior year, have to take THREE GYM CLASSES A DAY in order to graduate -- one before school, one during, and one after. Fun times.
Were you in choir/band? Oh, so many. Not band. I don't play anything. But I was simultaneously in Chorale, Choir, and Choristers, the latter of which met before school. Also a Madrigal choir and a Gospel Ensemble, briefly, as the only white, only atheist member.
Were you a nerd? I guess? I was definitely one of the arrogant smart kids who butted heads with teachers she didn't respect and only did the work she enjoyed -- which was quite a lot of it.
Did you get suspended? No. I drove the administration crazy and they hated me for loud politics and activism, but they couldn't get me for breaking any rules.
Can you sing the fight/school song? I can. When I TAd for one of the worst right wing assholes at the University of Missouri, in grad school, Haskell Monroe made anyone who was late to his (7 AM) lectures stand up and sing their high school fight song. I was perversely pleased that I would have been able to do that. "ETHS/We will fight for you/For the right to do/Anything for you/We will cheer and we will win the game/We will bring you fame/Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!/Orange and the blue we'll proudly wear/May your banners e'er FLY/Victory comes while we sing/Many trophies we will bring/So fight! Fight! Fight, fight, FIGHT!/We will win the game for Evanston HiiiiiiGH!" Your life is better now. It could only improve if I had sound in this entry. I'm pretty sure there's an 80 year old on YouTube singing it, if you're really curious.
Where did you eat? There were four cafeterias in that giant high school, named by the directions and also with names of I don't know, boring former Superintendents. I ate in South, aka Bacon, aka the Burnout Cafeteria, not that I smoked, or was particularly successful at getting high. Bagged lunches from home.
Where was high school? Evanston, Illinois, "the City Suburb"
What was your school mascot? A Wildkit -- get it? A BABY Wildcat, like Northwestern. If only we'd taken their classy purple and white colors too, instead of pumpkin orange and navy blue.
If you could go back and do it over? I liked high school a lot, actually, though I was more arrogant then than I am now. I was a crazy manic socialist activist, and that was fun.
Do you still talk to the person you went to prom with? I could not even imagine going to Prom. Bizarroworld.
Are you planning on going to the next reunion? Good god, no, never.
Are you still in contact with people from high school? Yeah, actually, probably more people from high school than I am from college.
Did you skip school? I skipped a LOT of high school. A LOT. I had my parents' signatures down cold, good enough that I could have kited many a check. Make-up work was easy, there were no draconic policies about some maximum number of absences you could have, etc.
Do you know where your high school sweetheart is? Facebook for the win -- we had a traumatic break up and he hated me for years (like, cross the street to avoid me hate) but we got back in touch several years ago and are now quite close friends who chat a lot and often watch shows simultaneously on our devices and text during them -- Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, The Get Down... and movies.
What was your favorite subject? I always loved my French classes, even though two of the teachers were absolute asses. And I loved my history classes, especially Freshman Humanities with a teacher I adored and crushed on who became a real friend and who gave me a graduation card with my favorite Marx quote on it "Philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it." He called himself a Marxist of the heart and I puzzled over that a long time before realizing it meant liberal. Oh, and my US History AP class was excellent, too. I got to make a Document Based Question on the Haymarket Martyrs, among other things.
Do you still have your High School ring? I got one of those Jostyns rings, with an amethyst, even though I was firmly chastized by a fellow Red Diaper Baby for how trite and bourgie that was. Jerk. But then I lost it somewhere within a year.
Do you still have your year-books? I do have my yearbooks, though I never look at them. The only interesting bit is a focus piece on me as a Freshman, reading Against the Current, which profiled me as a socialist. Lest that seem lefty of the yearbook staff, the next page had a profile of a friend of mine as a knife collector.