It's a fascinating thing about diversity

"We weren't just whitebread, we were racist."

That's a pretty courageous comment that was left at the end of an earlier post, and although it's easier to see this 40 years later, some folks never do figure it out.

I had exactly one black kid in a class with me the whole time I was at Woodson, and that was my senior year in symphonic band. I don't know if I ever met anyone who talked less than Larry Smith, although he may have been so intimidated that he figured the smartest thing to say was nothing.

The defining moment for me in high school came as a senior. I don't know if any of you were in the same homeroom I was; the teacher was a woman whose name I can't remember. It may have been Howell. She was a German teacher who I think actually had come from Germany.

It was the fall of 1966 and there had been quite a few riots that summer. I remember her comment: "The black people don't want to work at all. All they want is the welfare."

She already wasn't real fond of me, but when I spoke up, it got a lot worse. I couldn't believe myself when I said out loud, "That's a really racist thing to say."

A few days later we elected our homeroom representative to the Student Government. The class elected me, but she refused to allow it. A week later, when she was told she didn't have the right to block an election, I was elected again.

But I digress.

The black kids I remember from Woodson dressed pretty much like we did and talked pretty much like we did. Can you imagine how we would have reacted if they had worn dashikis to school?

In the fall of 1968, when I was in the Jefferson Society at the University of Virginia, we had a guest speaker. Charles Hamilton was the co-author of "Black Power" with Stokely Carmichael, and during the Q&A period, one of our Southern gentlemen asked him, "Mr. Hamilton, would you like to be white?"

I always thought he missed a bet with his answer. "That's an insulting question."

I would have liked it if he had talked about how being white might make life easier, but that didn't mean it was better.

I don't think we knew that.

Sports just not worth it anymore

I would never have thought there would come a day when I would feel this way, but I am completely fed up with big-time professional and college sports.

It's odd to hear myself saying that. For 16 years, I made my living as a sports reporter in seven different states, covering some of the biggest sporting events in the world.

Super Bowl? Been there.

World Series? Done that.

Final Four? Twice, including the amazing Villanova-Georgetown game in 1985.

But other than a few Dodger games -- I still love going to the stadium -- I haven't watched a sporting event all the way through in close to 10 years. I don't think I've watched pro football on TV at all in five years.

There's just too much ... I can't think of any other way to say this ... shit going on along with the games. Steroids, mega-contracts, gambling, thuggish behavior on and off the field.

I feel like weeping for young kids growing up who really live and die with their favorite teams. How do you explain to a young kid that because he doesn't live in a large enough city, his favorite players won't stay? How do you explain to him that his favorite quarterback enjoys watching dogs fight to the death? Or that his home-run hero cheated, lied and took all sorts of drugs to do what he did?

My son isn't a sports fan. He loved playing sports, and we go to ballgames, but he doesn't follow any teams. He gets excited when the World Cup comes around -- he was born in France -- but that's about it.

That's why I didn't have to explain anything about Sean Taylor to him. (Of course, he's 22. I don't have to explain much to him) I don't know if Taylor was a random victim of crime or if his death had some connection to his own past. It doesn't really matter. It's tragic either way.

Heck, we grew up in a simpler time, cheering for Sonny Jurgensen and Charlie Taylor, for Frank Howard and the rest of the hapless Senators. Probably the happiest day of my life to that point was Dec. 31, 1972, when the Redskins beat Dallas to advance to their first Super Bowl.

Do kids still care that much? Do we even allow them to care that much?

I still read the sports pages. I still check for scores, and I still feel a twinge if my formerly favorite teams lose. But that's all it is. A twinge.

Mostly I get about as much enjoyment from sports now as I do following politics and business.

Which is to say, not much.

Were we really completely 'whitebread?'

If you look at yesterday's post, the picture from the reunion, there's one thing that's very apparent.

All of us were white and most of us were what would be called "Anglo."

Now I know that not all of the 804 of us in the Class of '67 were white and Anglo-Saxon, let alone Protestant, but there was definitely a WASPy flavor to our school back then.

Think about it. We lived in the Washington, D.C., area, and in only one of the four years we were at Woodson were there any black kids on our basketball team. As for Latinos, I work in a city that is 68 percent Latino and even though we must have had a few kids with Latino names -- lovely cheerleader Susan Morales comes to mind -- there certainly wasn't anything going on in terms of culture beyond the Spanish Club.

So tell me.

What am I missing?

Were we really that whitebread, or was there something going on that I missed?

Not just getting older, getting better

We started our family retirement tour this weekend, checking out places we might consider retiring to in 2010 after we sell our overvalued L.A. area home.

We spent the weekend in a fascinating little community just outside Tehachapi. It's called Bear Valley Springs, and it's got great mountain homes with fabulous views for less than $400,000. To those of you not living in our state, that may sound ridiculous. Well, I don't blame you. California housing prices are ridiculous.

Anyway, we returned home feeling pretty good and I found the reunion CD in the mailbox. Thought I'd post this picture for all of you. Figured it was a nice start and an easy post after a four-day weekend.

So remember when you look at the picture, Class of '67: We're not just getting older, we're getting better.

And as the great south Florida philosopher James Buffett once said, "I'm growing older but not up."

Truly the best family holiday of all

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, the most uniquely American of all holidays and the one of which I have the fewest memories from youth.

For some reason, I remember 1974, a big family gathering in Columbus, Ohio. I remember being absolutely certain the Redskins would finish their victory over Dallas -- Staubach had been knocked out of the game -- and then Clint Longley came off the bench and threw that long, last-minute touchdown.

Driving back to Virginia that Sunday, we got stuck in a snowstorm and my fiancee and I wound up trapped in Breezewood, Pa., for two days.

Today I've got family in Virginia and Ohio, my lovely daughter and her husband in Beijing and my son, his girlfriend and my wife with me here in California. Life is good.

The picture is the last of those from Dena, and it isn't a member of our class. Cheryl Newman was a freshman cheerleader in 1966-67, but this picture says more about the exuberance and the sheer happiness of being young than any picture I've got.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Looking for Margie Smith . . .

Does anyone out there know where Margie Smith is? We didn't see each other much after she married in '71. The most recent address Dale has on her is from '97, in Florida.
At that time, her name was still Marjorie Smith Danzig. I'd love to check in with her again, my memories of her are of an adventurous, fun-loving, and compassionate person.

Many thanks.

~ Dena Ward Clayton
awareness@mindspring.com

Where Were You That Day?

This is the month President John F. Kennedy was shot. It was1963; our freshmen year.

Where were each of you on that never to be forgotten day?

Another plug for the message boards

All right, ladies and gents, or as they said when I lived in Vienna in 1977, meine damen und herren.

Check out the message boards. So far, at least, the only person who has taken advantage of them is Dena. If you're not interested in the first two topics I posted -- great songs and movies of 1967 -- create topics of your own.

As for the pictures, let's move along to another one from the yearbook, one of our posters here -- the lovely and vivacious Gail Schultz.

Enjoy.

More to come.

We've added yet another new feature

Check out our message boards by clicking on the appropriate link at "67 Topics" on the right side of the page. It's a little bit of a pain the first time because you have to register a user name and a password (make them the same, it's easier).

After that you can comment on existing topics as well as creating new topics of your own.

We'll throw in a picture here of one of our most frequent commenters, the lovely Nan.

Your First Day at Woodson

Making the transition from a Middle School to a High School is pretty intimidating even knowing most of the kids you have gone to school with for the last 8 or 9 years. For those of you who came to this area from somewhere else, how scarey was that first day, whether it was your freshmen, sophomore, junior or senior year?

I came from a junior high school in Montgomery, AL that probably had about 60 classmates in the entire 9th grade class. My first day sophomore year at Woodson left me in shell shock. And we had only 5 minutes between classes??????

Did everyone else who was new to the area have the same feeling?

If I don't post this one, I know Dena will

Most of these pictures have been coming courtesy of Dena Clayton, who actually could be posting them herself but hasn't figured out how.

I've been using my Microsoft Picture It software to frame them properly and add highlights so that we're getting a little more than old yearbook pages.

As for this picture ...

It's amazing how many people have looked at this picture and laughed, but the irony of it all is that I was really proud of it.

Sure I looked like the ultimate doofus with my mouth hanging wide open, but take a look at how high my feet were above the horse.

I really cleared that baby. These days, I'd probably pull a hamstring
just running up to it.

Still more about these amazing pictures

I'm posting quite a bit today, but you can blame it on Dena for sending me all these great pictures.

I've already punked Dale and myself, so now it's Sean's turn. Except for one thing. When I saw Sean's picture in the yearbook, I found myself thinking, "Wow! Now that's a cool picture."

I decided to show you both his picture and the guy next to him, just for the contrast. The guy next to him -- who I legitimately don't remember -- looks like a high-school kid.

Sean looks like a member of the Rat Pack, ready for a night on the town in Vegas with Sammy, Frank and Dino. His hair looks great and the look on his face tells us that he is way too cool for the room.

Am I right or am I right?

I wonder why we were all so serious

If you look at our yearbook pictures, one thing you will see is that very few of us were smiling.

Maybe it was because we were such serious people, but I doubt it. I have a feeling it was probably that we knew these were our senior pictures and they were the ones that would be sent out with our college applications.

I know that's how my mother got me to cut my hair shorter than it had been since eighth grade. She reminded me these pictures would be sent to my grandparents, which turned out to be a real mixed blessing.

For the next 15 years, whenever I would visit my grandparents, my grandfather always pointed to this picture on top of his television and said, "We liked it when your hair was like that."

Now I was never Arlo Guthrie or Abbie Hoffman, but I couldn't tell him that my hair was actually never like that -- except the day they took that picture.

Still, I wish I had thought to at least smile.

Yes, we were children, but still ...

It's very strange to me when I look at these pictures.

Editor's note: Aren't you at least going to thank Dena?

Oh, pardon my manners.

Editor's note: You mean lack of manners, don't you?

Ignore him. He's just upset that he missed the "Full House" marathon. But anyway, thanks to Dena Clayton and her trusty scanner, I've got some old yearbook pictures for the site.

What's strange about them is that we were mostly 16 or 17 when they were taken, but when I look at the pictures, we look much older than the 16- or 17-year-olds I've seen in raising my own children.

Maybe it's that the pictures are black and white, or maybe it's the difference in styles. But where I could look at female friends of my daughter or my son at the time and see nothing more than young kids, you know what I think when I look at this picture?

Hubba hubba.

Now I know I've embarrassed Dale enough by talking about how beautiful she was in high school, but I'm serious. When I look at that picture, I don't see a 17-year-old.

I wonder why that is.

Maybe it's because I know the person she grew up to be, or maybe it's because in looking at pictures of myself, it puts it all into perspective for me.

Anyway, it's a nice picture.

These days, we might as well not exist

Remember when it was all about us?

We were the Pepsi generation, those who thought young, the ones folks selling everything from soda pop to fast cars wanted to reach. We were the pig in the snake, as some have described it, the big bump in population traveling from crayons to caskets.

In a "Doonesbury" some years back, Garry Trudeau poked fun at the Baby Boomers by saying it would be obvious when we were starting to die because USA Today would be running articles about the hot new funeral homes.

All right now. When was the last time you felt an advertiser was trying to sell his product to you? If you're a member of the Class of 1967, it was probably about four years ago, unless the product was pharmaceuticals, denture creams or adult diapers.

You see, the coveted demographic advertisers are seeking is called 18-54, meaning that if you're under 18 or over 54, you're not their audience. It's a little short-sighted at both ends of the spectrum, especially since those 55 and older have more money these days than any other segment of society.

I asked a friend in advertising about that contradiction, and her response was that even though older people spend money, their buying habits tend to be well established.

Now I don't know if all that's true. Some of us may have had fathers who always bought Chevrolets or Zenith television sets, but I've never bought the same kind of car twice in a row in my life.

I'm not buying denture cream, and I don't think I've ever asked my doctor for a different drug than the ones he prescribed. As for Depends, I wouldn't tell you if I were buying them.

But isn't it weird to not exist?

Isn't it weird to be ignored by advertisers?

I don't know about you, but I bought my first iPod after my 55th birthday. I don't think all my habits are set in stone just yet.

I still don't care for Pepsi.

Never did.

I'm a Dr. Pepper man.

Child abuse in the 1960's???

Nowadays we hear of child abuse, domestic abuse, ADHD, and many other mental, emotional and physical issues that shape a person's future.

Ever wonder what was happening in our era? Statistically you have to figure it was all around us.

I was oblivious. A few years out of high school I heard a neighborhood "kid" committed suicide. Made me wonder if anyone noticed his pain.

Do you all remember being suspicious that something was going on with a friend's situation?


Gail

Into the Wild...Another Woodson Classmate

This is not about our 1967 class, but it is about a former W.T. Woodson classmate. There is a movie currently playing in theaters that is about the life and death of a former WTW cross-country athelete, Chris McCandless. It is directed by Sean Penn. I was clueless until I read a huge review a week or so ago in the insert magazine "Fairfax Extra" of the Washington Post. The movie is titled "Into the Wild" and is the true story of a young man's tragic battle with nature. I plan to see this movie, but have not yet been able to manage the time. I also noticed this weekend, in the "Book World" insert in the Sunday Washington Post, the book "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer, is No. 2 on the Bestsellers List for nonfiction.

Has anyone either read the book or seen the movie? I would love to hear what you think.

Where in the heck did I leave my car?

The last of the pictures I received from Gene Bacon via Dale, and I've got to admit I'm wondering about this one.

I showed it to my 22-year-old son and his response was simple.

"Why?"

Probably a fairly good caption for the picture.

"Why is there air?" "What's the meaning of life?" "Where in the heck did I leave my car?"

Actually, if that picture had been of me, the caption would have been simpler.

"Tuesday."

A tribute to someone who deserves one

I hope this isn't more than momentarily confusing, because the picture has nothing to do with what I'm writing about.

This is something I've been thinking about for the last three weeks, because in some respects, I really wondered why I had gone to the reunion. My younger brother Steve, who was 7 when I graduated from Woodson, put it best:

"Why are you going to your reunion? You hated high school."

Maybe, but time really does heal almost all wounds -- if you wait long enough.

As it turns out, there was one really special person in our graduating class, even if we didn't know it at the time.

I never met Dale Morgan until October 20th, 2007, more than 40 years after we left Woodson, but she deserves so much credit as the person who has put a tremendous amount of effort into keeping our class together. Or at least as together as 804 people scattered all over the world can be.

I saw it in her reunion efforts, and in her open friendliness with people she never knew and others who weren't even part of our class, and I have seen it so much in her friendly comments to people on this Web site in the last three weeks.

She really is something, isn't she?

It is my loss that I never knew Dale in high school. She was just one of those beautiful girls who seemed so much like young goddesses to me at the time. I have come to see since then that all of us were just kids with our own flaws, weaknesses and insecurities, and I did what I could to make sure my own kids had as little trouble in that area as possible.

If any of you were fortunate enough to have read Dan Jenkins' wonderful book, "Baja Oklahoma," you may remember that in the final scene, Willie Nelson introduces the heroine, Juanita Hutchins, as "the mother of our country."

In an earlier comment, Dale told me how lovely my daughter was and then said she hadn't been fortunate enough to have children of her own.

Wrong, Dale.

In the very best way, you are the mother of our class.

I'm proud to know you at last.

All right then, so it wasn't Gene

So Gene isn't in the pictures.

He's the one who took them.

I still want to know where they met Wilford Brimley. I thought he was terrific as the manager in "The Natural."

Hey everyone, send more pictures.

So this guy has got to be Gene, I guess

More of the Bacon pictures.

Since this was the only one with one person in it, I figure it has to be the guy who sent them in. He actually looks pretty good for a guy even older than we are.

You may have heard of the game, "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," that people play on the Internet.

Should we consider "Six Degrees of Gene Bacon?"

Thanks for the pictures, Gene. Sorry to abuse you, but it's all in the spirit of fun.

Gene, Gene, he's our man ...

Gene Bacon wasn't a member of our class.

He was one of the big kids, a senior when we were juniors, and while his name sounds vaguely familiar, I don't remember knowing him. To be fair, though, I would probably be more likely to remember him if he were a beautiful girl I had worshipped from afar.

Editor's note: Didn't you worship all girls from afar in high school?

Hey, I was young and foolish.

Editor's note: Now you're just foolish.

Anyway, Gene sent Dale some pictures of him and some Woodson friends of his from the Class of 1967. Since we're suckers for pictures here, we'll start posting them. We'll leave it to you to tell us who you are, where the photos were taken and which one is Gene.

Have you seen this with your kids?

My daughter graduated from high school in 1998, and I was pretty amazed when I attended her Class Night. She had a 3.7 grade point average -- grades I only dreamed of -- and she didn't rank in the top third of her class.

In fact, the top 20 percent were all above 4.0, thanks to advanced placement and honors classes. There were six or seven kids who all had perfect 4.5 averages, the highest you could get by taking a maximum number of AP classes.

Even though Pauline's grades were only great, she managed to enter college with nearly a third of the credits she needed to graduate. Of course, since we promised to pay for four years, she used the whole four years at UCLA and got two bachelor's degrees.

The purpose of this isn't to brag about my kids -- well, maybe a little -- but to ask you if your kids had the same competition for grades and the same grade inflation that we have here in Southern California.

When I graduated from Woodson in 1967, I had only about a 3.1 average. That was good enough to sneak into the top 20 percent of the class, and I don't think we were stupider back then than our kids are now.

For one thing, we had a tougher grading scale -- 94 for an A, 87 for a B, 80 for a C and 70 to pass. My kids were always on 90, 80, 70, 60.

It's odd. You may have noticed that Woodson now ranks consistently among the top 100 high schools in the country because of its large number of advanced placement and honors classes. We didn't have any of those, as I recall.

Did your kids enjoy themselves in school, or were they constantly working for grades?

Memories of Teachers, part 1

We recall teachers for all manner of different reasons -- inspiring, boring, unreasonable, friendly, strict, brilliant, outrageous.

It's humor that shows up in my clearest memories of certain teachers.

Here is the Miss Watkins' story I mentioned in a comment on 11/4.

One day, Miss Watkins shared a vignette from a visit home to Georgia the previous summer. She attended a church meeting in which the congregation was debating whether to keep the King James' version of the Bible or to begin using the Revised Standard Version.

A silver haired lady bolted to her feet, her eyes flashing fire. To dramatize the woman's rermarks, Miss W. intensified her own southern speech and she delivered this line loudly, and with gusto, "If the King James Bible was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!"

The fourth period English students cracked up, Miss Watkins laughing right along with us.

She always treated us as adults who were on par with her -- what a class act. Who else enjoyed Miss Watkins?

Which teachers do YOU remember -- and why??


~ Dena Ward Clayton

Here's the last of the old pictures

Look at those kids, all bright-eyed and looking ahead to the future.

I seem to remember the gold sashes were for honors graduates, so who were those two?

This is the last of the graduation pictures.

More About Our Senior Yearbook

Alright...got 23 entries which is pretty good feedback. Most of you still have your yearbooks, at least based on the 23 entries. But I received enough feedback from the Blog plus a few personal emails to make my decision. I have some funds left over from previous reunions and I am going to get our senior yearbook online. Let's see how this goes and maybe we can do the same thing with the freshmen, sophomore, and junior yearbooks. I am paying to have it shipped and scanned because I do not have a scanner at my house. Let's see if this goes smoothly and perhaps someone can offer to scan in the other yearbooks. If we send this company the pages already scanned in, it is free (so they say....).

This is going to be on my back burner for right now due to the upcoming holidays, but anyone who knows me, knows I will get it done as soon as I can. At that time, I'll let you all know.

Have a good weekend!

40 years later, are we still dreaming?

I've been looking at these graduation pictures and thinking about what that night meant to us.

Most of us were 18, although I wouldn't be 18 until that December, and we had completed the first real accomplishment of our lives -- finishing high school.

I seem to remember that a really high percentage of us were going on to college. I wonder how much the specter of Vietnam came into play for a lot of the guys.

I personally was at a place in my life where I really could have benefitted from working for a year or two or even joining the Army before starting college, but there was no way my parents were going to let me anywhere near jungles and rice paddies.

I wonder how many of us were dreaming that night of the things we hoped to accomplish, things like making a lot of money, running for office, becoming famous or helping to change the world.

Well, 40 years later, most of us have probably done the things we're going to do. We've had our careers, raised our families, made some money.

Do any of us still remember the dreams we dreamed in June 1967?

Did they come true?

Can they still?

A lot has happened in 40 years

A few years back, Billy Joel did a song called "We Didn't Start the Fire," chronicling all that had happened since the beginning of the Baby Boom.

Lots of stuff.

What always amazes me is when I think back -- way back -- and find myself realizing that something had happened since we left Woodson.

For one thing, nobody had heard of Billy Joel in 1967.

But think about this ...

Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, the Chicago convention, the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia ... all since 1967.

The moon landing, Woodstock, the big Vietnam War protests ... all since 1967.

Kent State, Spiro Agnew, Watergate, the trial of the Chicago Seven ... all since 1967.

POW/MIA bracelets, pet rocks, WIN buttons, "Disco Duck," heck, disco itself ... all since we left Woodson.

What else?

Helen Roberts is a "Class" Act!!!

Alright...I WAS going to write about something else, but I got this delivery at the door this afternoon..from our very own Helen Roberts. That sweetie not only ordered all of us those class, camaraderie-building pins that had "WTW 1967 4o years" on it for our Friday night football game (10/19/07) for WTW's Homecoming game, but she mailed the remaining ones to me for anyone who missed the game!!!! A little clapping here for Helen!!! Helen has, to my knowledge, never missed a reunion. Plus, to my knowledge, was the financial 'wind beneath the wings' for our class' first reunion----the 10th reunion. She financed that reunion and took the chance of not getting paid back. She is, if none of you know it yet, a really neat, class act, person. I may tell you more about how I became the reunion "mama" as I have become known to many (how sexy is that?????).

Any0ne need one of those pins?

There's something happening here ...

"... what it is ain't exactly clear."

The famous Buffalo Springfield song that says so much about the '60s came out shortly after we graduated, but it seemed an appropriate metaphor for this announcement.

Folks, we're taking off!

I don't know if any of you ever click on "View My Stats" on the right side of the page, but you ought to. For the first two weeks, this site did pretty well, generally pulling 80-90 page views a day, which is very good for most Blogger sites. Our best day ever was 142 on Monday.

Then yesterday we had 295 views, and so far today, we've got 113 at 10:15 a.m.

Wow!

You're making it great, and we're trying to make it better for you. I've got Dale and Gail signed up to blog when they want to, and I'll be happy to add more of you who want to join in the fun.

Just let me know.

Another picture of two real beauties

When I was in symphonic and marching band in high school, I thought the loveliest girls in the school were in the Baton Corps.

Not to slight any of our cheerleaders -- or any of the other beautiful girls of the '60s -- but coming into contact with the majorettes day after day gave me an appreciation for them.

Joan Ansheles sent me a picture of herself and Rande Barker -- two former twirlers -- on reunion weekend, and all I can say is that both of you look wonderful for 40 years after graduation.

Much more like the Class of '77 or even '87. I'm not even sure these women were born when we graduated.

More pictures from any of you will be greatly appreciated.

Kids, grandkids and pets, too. Although go easy on the pets.

A post for Gail -- and a question

After all the wonderful reunion photos she sent, posting this for Gail MacLeod seems like the least I can do.

After all, as she said, "Blogging doesn't come easy for 58-year-olds."

Since I won't be 58 till December 11th, I guess I can post this:

Judy Juray and Barbara Schmidt -- remember when they crashed their car and died? First people I knew who died. Also, an odd memory at a freshman orientation. Our principal said something to the effect of, "A lot will happen in the coming four years. Some of you won't make it. Some of you will die.

I was in the girls' locker room when the coach came to clean out Barbara Schmidt's things from her locker. Creepy.

Dealing with death probably has become more common to us at this point in our lives. In fact, there were 32 classmates listed in the memory book as deceased. I knew a few of them. I sat beside one of them -- Ray Redd -- twice when we were on "It's Academic." If any of you want to share memories of our departed classmates, this would be a good place to do it.

Even the legends are starting to show up

All right, the lighting isn't great in this one, but here's more of an up close and personal view -- definitely no cell phones -- from graduation.

You can tell it's '67 from the guys' haircuts.

An amazing day on the site. More than 100 different visitors and more than 200 page views -- far and away our best day yet.

Even some of the legends of our class like SG President Bob Douthitt are commenting now.

This site's taking off, folks.

Those were the days, my friends

I don't know if it's possible to make out individuals in this picture, but boy, was that a long line.

Another in a series of snapshots from our graduation.

More to come.

Question about our senior yearbook

I was going to ask Mike to publish this question at some point but will do so now since he has given me access to post on the Blog (YIKES, Mike! Are you crazy?). I noticed he also invited any of you to step up (and for those of you who do your best communicating through writing, please take this opportunity so Mike does not have to prod us each day to step out of our shells). I hope you do. Anyhow, on to my question:

Question: How many of you have lost, misplaced, burned, thrown out, or otherwise are missing your senior yearbook? This is not a trick question; I have a very good reason for asking, but cannot tell you if I do not get at least a representative reply from the class.

Dale Morgan

A question, a photo and an offer

I doubt we're going to pick out any faces in this picture, but some of the ones that are coming are better.

Here's the question:

Are there any of you out there who would like to post to this site? Not just comments, but doing some of the heavy lifting -- i.e., the writing -- about things that interest you.

I want Dale to write from time to time. She is the one who has done more than anyone else to keep the Class of '67 together as an entity over the years. I'm just a Johnny-come-lately who took the initiative to start a site for all of us. I love to write. I get paid to write. But I should not be the only one writing here.

I have already invited Dale to write. If there are others of you who would like to be invited to contribute when you want to, just let me know.

Now for a true blast from the past

All right, people.

We've been enjoying all these pictures of ourselves in the present. Now we're going to start giving you something different.

Something older.

Something from June 1967.

Over the next few days, enjoy these pictures and comment on whatever memories they bring back.

You can't all be in the CIA or the Witness Protection Program. Some of you need to start commenting.

The last of the MacLeods at least for now

Let's see. This picture, from left, is Spiro Agnew, the Doublemint twins, Peter Lorre and Audrey Hepburn.

Editor's note: No it isn't. All of those people are dead.

No, the people in the picture are alive.

Editor's note: You know that isn't what I meant.

The Doublemint twins are dead? Oh no!

Anyway, this is the last of Gail's great reunion pictures. I'm open to printing more, either from the reunion, of your children or grandchildren, or even pictures of you from when you looked the best you ever looked in your life.

I'm waiting.

Sometimes someone else has a good point

Nan, I withdraw the poll question.

I think a better question -- and someday we may try dealing with it -- is why our kids are growing up so fast these days.

Another picture -- and a poll question

A lot of backs in this picture.

Five of you answered my Halloween poll, but now I'm going to post a new, more serious one.

Remember, you will be completely anonymous in your answers, but I hope more of you will take the time to answer this one.

I've talked with my kids about how things were different when I was in high school, and I don't expect comments on this (although you're welcome to use "Anonymous if you want), but I would like a simple yes or no answer to the poll question.

Look to the right for it.

Back to Gail's pictures for the wrapup

Who are these people and what did they do with those young kids we used to be?

Actually, most of the folks in these photos of Gail's that we've been running look pretty good for people who are pushing 60.

Still got a couple more photos to go, and we'll get to them very soon.

Then, unless you people start sending me pictures to use, I'm going to have to start posting shots of my kids.

They're great-looking kids, but I'd rather have pictures from you.