high school horrors, junior year

So I stumbled across my junior year yearbook today.

Well, that is, if stumbling involves saying to your beloved out of the blue, “Hm. Wonder where my junior yearbook is?” and schlumping up the stairs, then rummaging in a closet and dragging out box after dusty box of mortifying personal ephemera, then yes, I totally stumbled across my junior year yearbook today.

Right off the bat, I feel I must confess that I was on this yearbook staff and I don’t say that to brag. Au contraire, pippa. I say that only because it means in some part, I share culpability for the cover, which will forever and always look like this:

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You’d think such a brazen hussy orange might have faded a bit over time, but, nope. Still the same shade as the day I got it 173 years ago.

Now our yearbook was called “Ragnarok,” which means “Hark ye, Norsemen! Yonder approaches giant orange flame ball to engulf our plastic Viking ship and lead us to an initially fiery — then increasingly watery — grave!” I also heard it meant “the end of the beginning” or “the beginning of the end” or some such blather. Both of which seem right somehow, no matter where you went to high school. So we were the Norsemen. The mighty-mighty, black-and-orange Norsemen. Please picture, if you will, our despised and despicable football team in this precise shade of orange. Then picture, if you please, our water polo team — our county-wide championship water polo team — in their choking orange Speedos. Just the color I want to see cradling all that is manly.

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Here I am, on the right, posing for the yearbook staff page with some other chicks whose names escape me, so let’s just call them Becky and Bonnie. What doesn’t escape me now, and didn’t then, is the fact that it was clearly striped-turtleneck-and-tight-vest day and those beyotches, Becky and Bonnie, did not bother to mention that to moi. Sadly, since I was not informed of STATV Day, I was left to my own feeble sartorial devices. Which is not a good thing. Because — and I certainly can’t deny it in the face of photograhic proof — I obviously got up that morning, the morning of secret STATV Day, went to my closet, channeled my inner Armani, and said, “Hmm. I’m feeling a sort of preppy ski bunny vibe with a twist of Gene Simmons today!!”

Oh. Yeah.

And here’s an artist rendering of my Gene Simmons superboots with the man-eating heel, in case you can’t really see them:

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Believe me. The man-eating, chew-you-up nature of my boot heels cannot be overstated. Totally practical for preppy ski bunny man-eaters like me. Good, too, for scraping paint.

So let’s review. Becky and Bonnie had called each other the night before and squealed, “Eeeeee! Striped turtlenecks! Tight vests! Don’t tell that other chick, ‘kay? ‘Kay! Eeeeee!” Or maybe it wasn’t “Eeeeee”; maybe it was “oooooh” or “wooooo” or “hahahahaha.” Well, it’s a theory, anyway. Whatevs. It all boils down to this: Those beyotches, Becky and Bonnie, were good to go with their secret sartorial scheme. I, on the other hand, on the outs and clueless, strutted from my house that morning, ready to, you know, rock ‘n’ roll all nite and party ev-er-y day.

That is, if you replace “rock ‘n’ roll” with “ski ‘n’ ski” and “party” with “study.”

At school, when I discovered Becky and Bonnie’s secret sartorial scheme, I felt a lot less strutty about pretty much everything in general. When the moment came to take the photo, Becky and Bonnie pushed their way front and center in their coordinated STATVs. I fell back, put on a game smile, and tried to hide my Gene Simmons superboots behind the bike.

But I still secretly loved them.

I wish I still had them.

My Gene Simmons superboots with the man-eating heel.

Eeeeeee!

7 Replies to “high school horrors, junior year”

  1. I think orange and black are the two worst school colors you can put together. Of course, my school colors were orange and black. And, we were the Fighting Ironmen. And, to kick it all off, I went to Normal Community High School.

    I never went to the swim meets, but I can just imagine those boys in their orange Speedos. But, seriously, Ironmen? Swimming? Playing basketball? It seemed all to clunky to me.

    And, yes, I’ve heard all of the “normal” jokes there are out there.

  2. My school colours weren’t so bad (purple, gold, and white or black – it was a huge controversy, although hardly manly. However, we wer called the “Ambassadors.” Can it get lamer than that?

  3. Yes, it can, MM. We were the ‘Barons’ after Snoopy and the Red Baron.

    Two of the kids went to a high school whose mascot was the Trojans. This led to a very regrettable incident in a convenience store involving my eldest daughter and her much younger sister, who’d just learned how to read. I’ll let you figure it out…

    Tracey, two of mine were coverd in burlap, which sounds terrible, but was quite chic. Then my senior year, we reverted to vinyl again, with foul Peter Max bloopy lettering (this was in the early 70’s).

    I’ve had my picture taken while up a tree, so I can hardly talk about the bike racks. Plus, you are much the cutest of the three.

  4. You look beautiful in your Gene Simmons boots!

    Okay…we were the Gaels…pronounced Gay-El. I know you are thinking “What IS that?” Exactly. Everyone thought that. It is, apparently, an Irish Knight.

    Secondly, let me just say that the sound g-a-y makes, should never, ever be part of the name of a school mascot. It just gives the other schools too much to work with.

    Oh, and to top it off, our colors were orange and blue, because orange is so flattering on 90% if the world’s skin tones.

  5. The Gaels – like Iona College! That isn’t actually so bad. We had decent colors (sky blue, black, silver) and were called the Raiders, so I’m lucky on that score, but we had the world’s worst school song. I think I’ve mentioned it before: sung to the tune of Danny Boy (which is already tough to sing), with lyrics like “We shout your name in glory; your fame shall e’er live in our hearts!”

    NOBODY’S HIGH SCHOOL IS EVER SHOUTED IN FAME. Even the high school IN “Fame” wasn’t shouted in fame.

    However, I do like your yearbook cover, Tracey, because it reminds me of the movie poster of “Time Bandits.”

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