I am in the process of sorting through everything in my parents' home, and in so doing, I have been looking through all my childhood memorabilia, the majority of which I hadn't seen since my parents packed up my belongings and moved them from the home I grew up in to this house some 45 years ago. My 2024 A to Z Challenge theme is based on the treasures I have found in the boxes and the drawers and closets. Join me on my bittersweet journey back to my childhood.
I don't know how universal this is, but every year, in the early fall, the traveling school photographers descend on nearly every school in the US. (I touched on this subject in last year's A to Z Challenge and you can read "D is for Dimples" here if you would like.)
They aren't great photos, but they are a priceless record of the latest trends in hair styles and fashion.
I vividly remember that when the photo packets arrived at school and were handed out, we could hardly WAIT to cut out the small photos intended for sharing with friends and start trading.
I think you know what I found in the closet.
Not all of the photos I found were dated, so I had to use the backdrop and color saturation to figure out the school year as best I could, and even that was a crap shoot. After way too much effort sorting and re-sorting the pictures, I decided to lump them together into three groups: elementary school, junior high, and high school, although the high school group might also include some 9th grade pictures, and while 9th grade is ordinarily part of a high school, in our school district it was part of the junior high. I did the best with the tools* I had to work with (as in relying only on my memory).
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| Elementary School photos that range from second grade to sixth grade. My second grade photo is in this group. Can you find it? |
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| Junior High. I'm in here one time. |
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| High School. Maybe some 9th grade/junior high. Three photos of me are in this group. |
There is so much history with the faces in these photos. I grew up going to school AND church with some of these friends, and our parents were also friends. Some were classmates as well as neighbors. And then, there are those special few that you have never stopped knowing, all these many (MANY, like maybe 46 since we graduated) years, those ride-or-die friends that you know will always have your back (looking at you, Jan and Abbie).
Let's face it, a group of people who survived crooked bangs cut by our moms and huge collars on our shirts will be friends forever. How could we not be? And I would be remiss if I didn't give a little shout out to Facebook for its part in helping us stay in contact with each other.
I love your old school, school photos. I think we might be about the same age based on the clothes and style of photos. Yep, school photos back in the day were a big deal and especially when they came and you could look at them.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for coming by! Congratulations on being a survivor of 60s and 70s fashion! I'm 63, graduated from HS in 1978
DeleteI do remember cutting out the singles to trade! I was always jealous of those popular kids who traded with everyone and ran out of photos. Not me, haha, I always had plenty left over. What's funny is that now one sees girls everywhere with long hair parted in the middle, after years of being out of style, it's back.
ReplyDeleteTrading those photos was such a big deal! And that long hair parted down the middle is most certainly back! Would love to see individual looks like layers and different lengths come back so they don't all look cookie cutters!
DeleteI love going back through old school and family photos. Things were so different! When I reminisce over school yearbooks, I still vividly remember so many of those kids, and through the power of social media, am still in contact with quite a few of them.
ReplyDeletePeople who think they are too cool for social media are missing out on connecting with old friends! I have all my yearbooks, but they were at my house when I wrote this from the lake house; otherwise, I could have dated them better! Decided to let that go and just take a stab instead.
DeleteDiscovering old photos of our friends can be amazingly nostalgic, is it not? Great to see those pics!
ReplyDeleteDid you get school pictures like these taken every year, too? I didn't know if it was just an American thing or if it was more worldwide.
DeleteI am in contact with several of my high school classmates, though my high-school best friend passed away several years ago. I do still have several of their school photos. The funny thing to me, sparked by your comment on how school pictures reflect the fashions of the time, is that I see definite fashion trends in photos of my husband during his days as a teacher. They got photographed, too, in many of the school photo sessions. One of my elementary-school pictures is an absolute horror, because the photo shoots for my class were scheduled after physical education class on a very hot spring day here in Florida.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Facebook, I'm in touch with quite a few old classmates. It's fun to see how we've all grown up. I have had school pictures taken every year, too. The director of the school I was at for 18 years kept a current photo of each of the teachers to use as obituary pictures if we needed them. Kind of a joke and kind of for real! Fortunately, we never needed them! My 4th grade school photo is DREADFUL, because my hamster died the night before AND I was in the process of growing out my bangs!
DeleteYikes, are we that old.... I have many a photo from the dark ages, and I'm content with leaving many back there (those crooked bang ones) and others are revisited now and then when nostalgia comes knocking.
ReplyDeleteSending smiles, Jenny
It's funny - I still feel 11 inside, so realizing how old I really am sometimes shocks me! Congratulations on surviving the crooked bangs!
DeleteThere are so many wonderful memories in those photos, I'm glad you found them.
ReplyDeleteHailing from India, it's lovely to know how young ladies appeared in school in the US. https://www.sundarivenkatraman.in/
ReplyDeleteI went to school before school photos started. We only got a highschool graduation photo and I was boycotting graduation so I only appear in my year book in groups. My kids all had them though. Until we started homeschooling. And my grandkids get them. Although I don't get copies of all of them every year, now that I think about it.
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