Dave
Klein - The Federal Gov't, around 2003, sent out a safety advisory warning
employees of the hazard of falling out of one's chair in the office. I
have always enjoyed Dilbert and really get a kick from the rage he can
create among certain mid- and upper-level Management. That is, the ones
that can understand cartoons.
I can also attest to the Gov't practice of spending everything in the
budget so as not to get less next year. Around the end of 1991, I was
told my share of budget for supplies was $17, and to spend it! After searching
the catalog I ordered a 12" X 36" Cork Bulletin Board for my
work area. A REAL useful tool.
Chuck
Cooper - (CBC) Government has taken another vital step to protect your
privacy. Remember how a year or two ago your doctor visit required several
pages of extra paperwork, regarding who could find out how you were? Well
now another page is required, giving the nurse permission to call your
name when it is your turn. I was told that if you didn't sign the nurse
would have to walk around the room whispering to individuals that looked
like they might be you. Fortunately nobody had ever refused to sign.
Please, if you have the chutzpah to refuse to sign, please report here what happened!
Circulating - The advantages of aging:
- Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
- People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
- Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember
them either.
- Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable number.
- No one expects you to run into a burning building.
- There's nothing left to learn the hard way.
- Your joints are more accurate than the National Weather Service.
- In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
CBC- Under social security now, the people who had the higher income receive a lot more than those that enjoyed lower lifetime earnings. Bush has proposed something that should be dear to liberal hearts, pay everyone the same (approx, after taxes). People that probably need it the most get more, the more fortunate, less. And it extends the solvency of the SS system for many years. Did the Democrats jump on that? No way. If it is a Bush proposal it is no good, regardless of the merits.
Please note that I express no opinion on the proposal. While not feckless, not stupid either. What is your view?
Anonymous entry from a member of the class of 1957.
So - the deal about High School is that everyone remembers the class ahead
of them (the cool folks you wanted to be) and no one remembers the class
behind them (pesky kids). Probably true. I remember a lot of folks from
the Class of 56-a lot of tall, great looking people. Babs and Sonny. Dutzie.
Marylou McClung. David Anabel. Sassie. Patty Ranft. Frank Wolf. Punky
Esping. Lola LeMieux (okay, not tall, but what an amazing name) - Chuck
Cooper!
I remember no one from the class of 58, but I ran into one about four
years after I graduated and he informed me that I had said something really
mean and hurtful to him at Highline. Probably this is why we don't remember
those pesky kids.
The Pirates Log pictures have clearly been photo-shopped to give everyone
much, much worse hair - nobody had hair like that. But I think everyone
did wear those letter sweaters, and white middy blouses, and clearly everyone
(I'm gazing at the Pledge of Allegiance shot) was much more pious and
demure than kids today. Had our James Dean already been arrested? Dropped
out? He wasn't on drugs. We lived in Burien.
Probably Mr. Johnson, Bertie Davis, Miss Gibson and all those folks had
quite a different take. One more set of adolescents, know-it-alls, passing
through. They can't leave soon enough. (I saw Miss Gibson this summer
in Des Moines, and she seems somehow to have become about my age….how
did that happen?)
So - the other deal is that people who were out of it in high school show
up at reunions if they become successful (popular) eventually. Also, people
who were really popular in high school show up because they still think
they are popular. (Insight: Popularity is everything is clearly the lesson
of high school. Becoming a physicist at a top University-Paul Boynton
in my class-cuts no ice in the great cosmic scheme of things.) Nothing
erases the high school imprint; you have to move into an alternative universe.
(The person in my class who we should all have known was gay moved to
the East Coast pronto and got on with it. Smart1)
And just as we change, the school itself, and the neighborhood, also change.
For a job I had about five years ago I was checking high school free lunch
data ( a pretty good indicator of poverty) and Highline is right up there.
The immediate Burien area now has lots of folks whose first language is
Spanish. And in addition to not being able to get to the school any more
because of confusing new freeways, the building is totally reworked. You
will not be able to find your old locker (so your dream about forgetting
the combination was useless. Worry about something else). Burien now has
giant flower pots hanging from poles-a desperate attempt to turn the place
into a 'destination." The planters look good, but one wonders. Our
McDonalds is a Taco Bell. Bells of Burien (I think, as I write this, that
Diana Bell was in the class of 58 - and went to Stanford) is long gone
- nothing is as we left it. It's like a lot of other places.
But then, let's face it -we're old. Sorry folks, but there it is. We've
become senior citizens. Each of us makes something different of that good
news/bad news term. I think it's a relief that we cannot go to our lockers,
walk the old halls, and live the old dream. What do you think?
Highliner 57
CBC - To anonymous. An interesting take, but not mine. My annuals have more notes from the class behind than from the one ahead (and thanks for all the "good luck wishes" people, it sure worked). And what was wrong with the hair? And demure? And who worried about popularity, except maybe with one girl at at time? For the record, Linda Walker refused to date me because she was a class ahead (even if only a few weeks older). She said it had nothing to do with popular, or "me", and I believe her. And I would like to visit my old locker, walk the old halls, and see if things still match the vivid memories. And old? Not yet kid, I'll let you know when!