Senior Spectrum
Newspaper
Nov 2008
Our Other Publications
Generation Boomer
Magazine
on-line
Golden Pages
Directory
The Eclectic Observer
Class of 1953
I am soooo over Gary Lind. It took my 55th high school reunion to finally dump those memories of unrequited love for the blond, god-like football hero I’d worshiped from afar since grammar school. Gary never knew I existed or, if he did, chose to ignore me. As a high school Sophomore, I’d had a friend pass my note inviting him to a Sadie Hawkins dance (girl’s choice, and what a lot of courage it took to plead my case). Gary didn’t bother to respond, but I forgave him, convinced the note went astray. Typical delusional behavior for the besotted teen I was. Gary could do no wrong. He was perfection personified. Paging through our high school yearbook, there he remains, more handsome than Brad Pitt is today, with a smile that could melt icebergs.
As I wandered that 55th reunion, squinting at name tags that included copies of our Senior photos, I had to ask if Gary was in the room. “Of course, he’s right over there,” replied a former classmate. My head swivelled in the direction she’d pointed. And there he was. Almost recognizable, but with a toothpick dangling from his lip, greasy gray hair, wrinkled shirt, dirty slacks, wearing glasses. Gary the handsome? Gary the charming? Gary the object of a 59-years’ long crush? No way! What a relief to discard this minor obsession. The reunion, though, was more fun and interesting than I’d expected. I’d spent my four years at San Juan High School in California, from 1949 to 1953. At the time, San Juan was considered a rural school, surrounded by communities that emphasized the out-in-the country, agricultural nature of the area - Orangevale, Citrus Heights and Fair Oaks. There were citrus groves, orchards of stone fruits, acres of olive trees. Our neighbors with their halfacre had a cow for milk, pigs for slaughter, and a vegetable patch of huge proportion. The Gibbons owned a dairy farm. Other neighbors raised chickens or grew table grapes. (One member of our class of ‘53 still lives near the school, and continues to farm with dairy cows, chickens, a vegetable garden, and fruit trees. His property is undoubtedly worth millions today.)
Fair Oaks, Orangevale and Citrus Heights are now suburbs of Sacramento, bedroom communities sandwiched between I- 80 and Hwy 50. The school itself is squashed up against one of the area’s busiest roads - Greenback Lane (so named for the route taken by fortune seekers during California’s gold rush).
The original buildings date to 1913, but many remain from my time there and the school district has made a decision to spend millions of dollars to create a “new San Juan High School.”
Our tenure at San Juan was an age of innocence. Most of us had never tried a cigarette or anything more than a sip of alcohol. We took Driver’s Ed and borrowed the family car only for special occasions. Proms were held in the school gym, decorated for the occasion with crepe paper streamers and Kleenex ® flowers. The girls wore skirts and neat blouses, saddle shoes and white socks. The boys were in twill slacks and sport shirts. Only the “bad” guys wore Levis and T-shirts, with duck-tail hairdos. “Bad” girls had their ears pierced and wore too much makeup. We had two Japanese- American students in our class; that was it for minorities, and we weren’t aware their families had been interred during WWII. Those among us with Hispanic surnames had been in the area for generations. Television hadn’t totally invaded our leisure time.
The Class of 1953 showed up for our reunion dinner in Sacramento dressed conservatively, many of us wearing sensible shoes. A former, popular classmate served as MC for the evening, bringing us up to date on recent activities and reading the sad list of those who’d passed away since the 50th reunion in 2003. I reconnected with a dear friend whose Mother had been the areas’ first conservationist/environmentalist before such words even existed. It was a pleasant evening. And not one cell phone chimed the entire time.