Ten years. Hard to believe it’s been a decade since I graduated high school. But yesterday, I received an invitation to our reunion, so it must be true. An old classmate had tracked down my email address, clearly investing a lot of time and effort in the process. He’d signed his name Bob Udall.
I remember the high school years as a time of heightened emotions and work: prom, homecoming, clubs, grades, friendships and promises.
If only I had my class yearbook with me. It sat on the top shelf of the bookcase in my room for years. I called my mother. “But surely, the yearbook must still be on that shelf?” I ask.
After the first couple of years, the seldom- opened yearbook had gathered dust and some of the pages stuck together. Initially, I’d looked at it frequently and then the yearbook and the people in it gathered distance.
With the high school reunion approaching, I’d give anything to take a quick peek at my school yearbook pictures, to jog my memory or better still to see what everyone looks like today, to know what they are up to. I know that no school yearbook can offer me that, although I wish it could —a yearbook online, perhaps. Maybe some of my classmates are company executives, others inventors, scientists or writers. Many of them may be married, with children, while others, like my old yearbook, remain on the shelf.
The the school yearbook where I teach now is now completely digital. It’s SchoolFlicker, the paperless yearbook.
Memori –
School teacher, young parent, erstwhile student, and resident of the blogosphere.