Facebook is the 2022 version of what we once enjoyed in the yearbook or the high school annual. Except statuses are never updated, re-touched professional photos don’t wrinkle, what you were in 1972 is what you remain. Published with your 1970s style, pursuits, personality, achievements forever bound at the age of 17 or nearly 18 or fully 18. Old yearbooks are historical markers – the year in photos – the year in black and white. Today they serve as memory tools, something to clear the cobwebs and fuel the ruminations. Why have I kept them? The high school years I remember are a long dark tunnel of striving to be myself and pursue my interests but being confined at every turn by boundaries I was not allowed to cross; parental boundaries, personal boundaries, insecurities, popularity contests for which I had no prerequisites. Yet, I hang on to these tomes. 1970, 1971 and 1972. Frankly, I find them inspiring. Not the individual photos, oh no. Not the ballpoint pen inscriptions, though two or three of them were authentic, sincere and custom. The memories that stay with me to this day are the snippets of literature, poems, song lyrics – the prompts that set the stage for the journalistic layout of each volume.

Tiger 1970: Moving On

Like a long, lonely stream I keep runnin’ towards a dream, movin’on, movin’on.

Like a branch on a tree I keep reachin’ to be free, movin’ on, movin’on.

Cause there’s place in the sun where there’s hope for everyone,

Where my poor restless heart’s gotta run.

There’s a place in the sun and before my life is done,

Got to find me a place in the sun.

A Place in the Sun Ronald Miller, Bryan Wells (1966)

Do you remember the emotion? Do you remember the angst? Do you remember the feeling of being heard and understood, wrapped in a hug by words? Do you remember the need to belong? And the comfort of knowing there was a place for you? I do!

I was sophomoric, emotional, hormonally vulnerable and the words hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh, I had heard the song before. But here it was. In the high school annual. Chosen by a yearbook committee I had never met and they understood!

Tiger Seventy-two:

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; for they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons…

If you compare yourself to others you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself…

Keep interested in your career…

Exercise caution in your business affairs… From Desiderata, Max Ehrmann (1927)

Even though I was a fan of literature and a consummate reader – particularly when I should have been doing my homework and carving a place for myself in academia – I had not, to that date encountered Desiderata

The impact was huge. At a time in life I could rarely think of with any placidity. From years of comparing myself to others; first chair, second chair, highest soprano, lowest alto, most virtuous, worst kid on the block, law abiding hedonist, fair maiden or cuckold, jilted sweetheart; came this gem of advice for a life well-lived. I took it as seeing into the darkest needs and recesses of my soul. I found the printed plaque. I nailed it to the wall. But I rarely stood and read it. More often, I returned to Tiger Seventy-two where I could savor the scent of the book binding and read the prose poem traditionally. And gradually over the years as I bucked the inevitable challenges of relationships – both business and social – I turned the pages and aged gracefully (I hope) with the other members of the Class of ’72. I read penned inscriptions, some insipid and false and some personal like this from a favorite music teacher, “…students who feel and enjoy as you do are rare.” Gradually I came to feel at peace with my past and God as I understood God, to feel like I truly was a child of the Universe no less than the trees and the stars. And to know that at least one or two other persons actually “got me” and understood who I was and who I was meant to be.

399 of us, regardless of any other shared background or similarities were thrown together as the Class of ’72 by a collection of Jerrymandering statistics known as transportation boundaries, classroom capacity, and baby boom. Therefore, we have a shared educational experience of one to twelve years that causes us to meet every decade or so – and particularly this 50^th year – for a thing called a reunion.

“And gay lustiness will give way to age and truth” Tiger 1971, Janet Schwietert, Tiger Tales 1967.

I planned a mini adventure wherein I rose at dawn, pulled on my board shorts and shirt and put the kayak in the water, heading upstream to Oxbow preserve. Along the way I sited a big lumbering cinnamon bear on a sandbar, seven geese swimming, ten ducklings and a momma duck out for a morning gander. Returning home, I called my 90-year-old dad. He informed me that my brother -at that very moment – was winging his way to the Artic Circle – presumably to explore and observe and capture photos. Now that is an enviable adventure! 

My roommate – the wilderness ranger, rose before dawn the next day, left the house in her Forest Service uniform, drove the agency truck to Silverton where she loaded 900 pounds of hay onto the vintage narrow gauge train that’s been chuffing through the wilderness for more than a hundred years; added panniers of tools and a 70 pound backpack, rode shotgun (without the shotgun) back to the Chicago Basin flag stop where she met two team members to unload the hay needed to feed the mules -beasts of burden who schlepped in the explosives. For the next three days they (the humans not the mules) slept in scout tents, planted explosives; communicated by satellite with emergency rescue helicopters, guarded unsuspecting hikers from entering the danger zone and pushed plungers on explosives gained through specially arranged permits to clear out the rock fall and avalanche log jams; cross-cut and cleared the resulting fallout; tidied up the whole process like they had never been there and caught the train back out to civilization. All so that the Continental and Colorado hikers can stay the trail and leave the wilderness untrammeled. That too is adventure. Choose your own. Adventure. Make it a good one.

On the weekends, she plays piano at a French bakery, but Monday through Thursday she works at a school – not just any school – but a school of music. And because it is a school, staff and students have been wearing masks throughout all the long, dreary months of the pandemic. The school offers private lessons on any instrument you would expect. The school also has bands for all ages. There is a music together group for preschoolers taught by an educator of near grandfatherly age who also does his share of picking, strumming and slapping while leading adult bands of many genres. There is an instructor with a doctorate in music who spends his days with elementary groups and his evenings as the leader of adult bands; beginning, intermediate and advanced; always rehearsing to answer the call to play at the next available gig. In these bands are wanna-be-performers, used-to-be performers, and graying students who work day jobs as doctors, lawyers, executives, or retirees and spend their hobby money on big band instruments, keyboards, and guitars. Students of all ages come through the front door – close to 400 of them – and she greets them and gets to know them and asks about their day and their music. She knows them in their N95 masks and their bandanas and handmade and decorated masks, but mostly she knows them by the schedule they keep – the large spreadsheet that takes up the entire desktop of her 18-inch computer monitor – and doubles when scrolling to the right or left. There is the 93-year-old cracker jack drummer, now blind, still playing with a jazz band.  There are the middle school and high school students who have been with this music school long enough to have established a reputation as smooth vocalists, up and coming keyboardists, shredding guitar players. There are the adults who assemble after hours to be in a band and leave snatches of conversation in their wake  – opinions on music – not usually classical music – more often music and musicians of the 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s – and even the turn of the century – the one 22 years ago.  She also knows them by their voice and personality and attitude – especially attitudes about music and other musicians.

Along about the first of March, the mask mandate ended in Colorado. Schools and communities began relaxing the requirement as COVID case numbers began dropping dramatically. Masks came off at the music school. At precisely 2:00 PM she reached for and released the loop from her left ear and removed the loop from her right. It was immensely liberating. It felt almost awkward for a few hours. Now she is greeting 400 or so strangers every week, people with noses and mouths and teeth and smiles. Some of these strangers are quite handsome, and some are homely. But she is glad, so glad she got to know what they were really like – kind, dashing, petulant, stubborn, accommodating – before she was distracted by appearances. And she is happy, so happy to remove her mask and let those other strangers see that she is truly smiling at them from behind the desk.

VOX Harmonics – high school vocal band