Let it be

The other day, I got an offer in my email in-box from one of those pay services that helps you to reconnect to your high school friends.

I passed on the offer (I think Facebook works just fine for allowing me to stay in touch with my classmates) but the email did include one intriguing item – a digital version of the 1970 yearbook from my high school.

I feel very blessed to have graduated from Farragut High School and I am thrilled that I share this affiliation with my daughter. My son plans to ‘join the club’ when the Class of ’13 commencement is held next May. Sometimes, they tease me about the ‘olden times’ at FHS, but honestly, my class year was more recent than ’70.

(As an aside, I realize some of you might have graduated from high school in 1970 or earlier. No offense intended!).

Interestingly, 1970 is the year my sister - also an FHS grad - was born. In fact, her early June birthday might have just been days after the FHS Class of ‘70 graduated.

Speaking of FHS, the late 1970s marks an important historic distinction for Farragut, actually. In 1977, the ‘new’ high school opened (across Kingston Pike from the 'old’ high school). The Class of ’80 was the first to go all four years in this new facility. The former FHS became Farragut Middle School and served in that capacity until the new Farragut Middle School opened in the 1980s.

In 1970, however, a new FHS facility wasn’t on the minds of those students. The world was a very different place.

Those students were dealing with the very serious issues of the time - war and drugs (both were depicted in images on some of the early pages of the book). Imagine how heavily those issues weighed on those students as they approached the array of exciting spring activities that led to the end of the school year (and for the seniors, the end of their high school years).

If they danced at the prom to songs like “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Long and Winding Road,” there may have been some extra significance. “Let it be,” as a theme, might have been prophetic.

On a lighter note, it was interesting to see the fashions of the time (so much different than when my senior year began in 1980). It was also interesting to see how many teachers were at FHS in 1970 that were still there a decade later (quite a few, really).

Paul listened with great interest as I told him about the theatrical productions featured at the school in 1970, including such notables as “Arsenic and Old Lace” and “Barefoot in the Park.”

In the FHS world of sports, baseball, basketball and football teams all enjoyed successful seasons (so what’s new, right?) and, of course, I was interested to read about the work of the school paper (then titled, as it was in 1981, “The Crow’s Nest”).

Some things, it seems, don’t change with time!

The major points covered in the 1970 yearbook were the same ones we had in 1981 and, also, that the current seniors will celebrate in 2013: in-class assignments and extra-curricular fun, teachers and administrators, dances and parties, love and friendship.

Those are the pillars on which you build a high school career. Those pillars create memories to last a lifetime.

JG 

(Source: farraguths.knoxschools.org)

Originally posted 7/24/2012