Yearbook

It was a book from 1974, 44 years distant.  The book was about to be thrown out, but I recovered the book if but for no other purpose than to find pictures of one particular person. It was a high school yearbook, the ones that provide memories of past days of youth.  The photo of the person I was looking for was stuck between Melvin Fritz and John Goodwin.  The picture I found showed a female with long hair; a slight smile crossed the closed lips, the type that could almost become a smirk.  Being black and white there is not way to discern color. 

Long hair must have been common at that time, as of the six girls on the page, five had hair longer than shoulder length.  I should remember long hair as being popular since only two or three years before this photo when I was in 7th or 8th grade there was a silhouette project for art, and the silhouettes were hung in the library for all to see.  There was one that stood out not due to the particular profile being well executed in silhouette, but a prank pulled to the art work.  It was of a girl with long hair draping down her back, with heard and hair obviously in black construction paper and someone had placed a white streak down the back edge of the hair.  From that day forward she received the nickname "Skunk."  Today that would be bullying, back then it was funny, although the girl was not amused.  But, back to this story.   The faces on the page had last names which stretched from Falk to Grinwald. If nothing else, a high school or college year book can give us a snapshot in time.  Clothing, and hair style is more easily discerned than that of any particular values.   For example, unlike today all the boys on this page were attired with a tie with sport or suit coat for their senior class photograph. Yet, values can be discerned by using other measures--activities in which one participate can be one measure.

Page from 1974 Senior Year Book
Mukwonago High School

The name of the person I wanted to view was followed by activities in which she had participated.  It reads: "FMCC 4; Chorus 1,2,3,4; Chamber Singers 4."  Clearly, the person liked to sing.    This person transferred into this school during her freshman year, but one has to pity poor Melvin, the boy to the left of her photo, who transferred as a senior and has no index of what he may have done while in high school.    That simple note makes him an outlier from the other 13 on the page.  Of the 14 persons listed on the page, the index on the right side identifies three (not including Melvin) as not having participated in any extra-curricular activities.  Jim Fleury was the jock on the page having participated in football and basketball all four years, baseball his first two, and track his last two.  A three season sport athlete.  He also, somehow, found time for intramural volleyball his last two years.  His photo reminds me of the character Johnny Clay, the three-season athlete in the movie "Radio" (which depicted events in the year 1976).  Johnny Clay meet Jim Fleury.

Choir Photo, Sophomore year

I commandeered the yearbooks from a pile of books to be tossed or recycled or reused, to the dismay of the person doing the tossing. This is history being tossed, and I needed to recover some artifacts.  I recovered yearbooks for her sophomore though senior years. And while she cannot recall what the FMCC in the prior paragraph meant  she did know of the three class photos, she made the dress she wore in two of the photos, and she also knew what color the dresses were.  Yellow, was the color of the dress for her senior year.  Her Junior year she wore a sweater with a large turtle neck collar.  The collar made me think of the movie "Love Story" and the big sweaters with overly large collars worn in the movie, which was made in 1970.  Perhaps she was wanting to hide something on her neck, but I really doubt it.  While she can recall the dresses she made, wore, and their color(s), her only recollection of FMCC was that it may have been medical related.  Apparently FMCC left little in the way of long-lasting memories.

Mixed Choir

Yearbooks are for a person, or in this case their spouse, to peruse and look back in time.  She has never really shared much of her high school years and while I can see her slight smile in her senior photo, her chorus photo group photo has no smile, but more a look of disinterest.  It must have been some choir class, since few seem to be smiling.  With some imagination one can call out the red, blue and white colors in this 1970's floral print hand-made dress.  Notably, the length of the dress is above the knee, but longer than other girls in the front row. She would not, it appears, be sent home from school for a dress code violation.  I am sure her mom would have made sure that did not happen.  The same dress is being worn in a photo of her in mixed chorus, where she is seated and partially hidden by the girl sitting in front of her.  In this photo she has a large smile on her face.  I guess this class must have gone well, or she was thinking of what she was going to be doing after school.

Junior Year, where's Toni?

I could have further perused the books for notes and commentary about lost or forgotten loves, mundane or perhaps true notes about how she will be missed, or some other aspect driven by young hormones.  But, she told me none existed, and ever the non-doubter (yes, I really am the antithesis of my namesake), I believed her.  Times and styles have changed, but yearbooks remain the much the same.  They provide memories and photos of the past, and note school accomplishments.  The yearbooks of my wife's high school years, absent the pages I mined, lie in the Dane County landfill, a few miles from where she presently resides. That is many miles from Mukwonago, and years distant from her days in high school.  But, the few mined photos may provide some interest in years to come.

Junior Year answer:  fourth row down, second from the left