It has been over a year since I started my stories about growing up in the 50's and 60's. There have been lots of comments about how I should write a book. In a way I guess I am with just little stories about how much fun it was and still is growing up as a so-called baby boomer.
There are a couple of more stories about high school and then on to the serious but silly attempts at gaining some maturity.
Quite by accident while looking for something important this week I came across a school newspaper from May of 1964. It had a little block at the top of the front page that gave activities for Senior Week. Now I know when the Prom was but there are some events left out. One of the days during Senior Week was the day set aside for students to work at the school to off set their Office E's. Anyone but me remember those?
Maybe Muskogee was the only school to award Office E's. You won them by doing something stupid. The offense was not great enough to get suspended but still not acceptable. Wonder if the participants in the Secret Clubs got Office E's? With three or more you had to show up on the designated day to "work off" the E's or there was the threat of not graduating. Working meant picking up trash around the school and helping teachers with things they needed to do. I was lucky, I had three, so I got to attend the work day. All three of the E's were for really silly stuff that the Dean of Girl's thought was serious. It wasn't such a bad day until you remembered that most of the nice, well behaved class members were doing something fun that day.
Needless to say with five hundred students in my Senior class there was no Senior Trip like smaller schools had. What teacher or parent in their right mind would have wanted to chaperone five hundred kids? Instead we had a Senior class Picnic. Everyone met early that morning at Spaulding Park since there was enough room to line up all the cars. Equipped with numbers on the cars we drove maybe twenty miles to Greenleaf State Park for the day. If "number police" were along the road to make sure we did not get out of line I didn't see them. There must have been rules such as no sneaking off into the woods to look for wild flowers or bringing any type of beverages. If anyone broke the rules I missed out on it for a change. A road race back to Muskogee would have been fun but somehow they lined the cars back up in order mainly to make sure no one had gotten lost or snuck off.
The next evening was the Senior Banquet. I had made a really cute dress for the occasion. It was just a simple yellow sleeveless dress made out of a pretty lace. Since friends decided to go spend the day at Lake Tenkiller jumping off of the cliffs, I joined them. I look at those cliffs now and wonder what I was thinking but the day was fun with no one drowning or knocking themselves out. The only thing that did happen was that I did get a horrible sunburn. If you have never had the opportunity to combine a sunburn with a scratchy lace dress you have really missed out. For decades I have wondered how I managed to eat and give a speech holding that dress up off of my shoulders.
Next week I will finish the stories of Senior Week but when I was looking through the old school newspaper I noticed an interesting story. Muskogee was the pilot city for President Kennedy's Physical Fitness Program. There are actual videos on YouTube. During the month of May there were tests to gather data on the program. The requirements for the girl's in the 17 year age range were, 42 sit-ups, 45 pull-ups, running the 600 yard dash in 2:30 and the 50 yard dash in 7:30. It didn't say the whether the times were seconds or minutes but I would hope for hours. Perhaps on "some" Tuesday of some month I will see if I can pass the test now.
I enjoyed all the comments I received about the Senior Prom story. No matter what high school you attended I am sure there are some great stories. Please feel free to share them in the comment section at the bottom, via email or Facebook.
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