An update for those of you who want one

Believe it or not, "When I'm 64" is still progressing, albeit a little more slowly this month.

We're moving from our house into an apartment at the end of the month, so getting everything ready to go -- some to our new home and some into storage -- has taken a lot of time.

But stories are progressing, and I'm still waiting to hear back from some of you who promised me you would participate.

Some of your stories are great.

So bear with me. We'll be gearing up again in August.

Mike Willis in "Two Bit Taj Mahal"

Eleven of our WTW 67 classmates watched Mike Willis perform in the play "Two Bit Taj Mahal" last night at the George Mason University. All I can say is that if any of you have an opportunity to see him perform, it is well worth your while. He truly is a natural. Our group met early for dinner, carpooled over to the theater and were totally enthralled with the entire performance. Afterwards, Mike was kind enough to meet us again at a nearby establishment where we laughed and picked his brain all about the play. We just had a great time!

Now's the time to keep it going

I'm really pleased with the way you have responded so far to the request for questionnaires. I've already got answers back from eight or nine people and the promise of answers from a half dozen more.

We still need more, though, and I have been pursuing some of them on my own. In addition to asking more of you to send in your own, I would appreciate it greatly if you would go to the other blog -- When I'm 64 -- and help me in a different way.

I'm going to post a different file for each of the people who have sent in their questionnaires, and as I get more, I'll add them to the list. If you know these people now, or if you knew them in high school or later, please take a couple of minutes and write at least a paragraph or two (more is welcome) about them that I can use in the stories about them.

Thanks.

Off to a very strong start

The response from many of you has been good to our initial request for participation in "When I'm 64," our proposed book about what a long, strange trip the Class of '67 has been through.

We're going to do something that could help tremendously with the research and reporting for the book. I have set up another blog site, called "When I'm 64," on which I'm going to post people and topics for which I'm seeking memories. When you check it out, the idea is that you will add comments of your own that can be used in the book as we see fit.

I hope you will visit the site frequently as I add things to it.

Thanks.

A post from a former "lurker"

Editor's note: This was sent to me as an e-mail with permission to post it.

Dear Mike,

I need to come out of lurking to tell you how much I have enjoyed your blog. Last December I suddenly realized that it had been 40 years since our graduation and “googled” Woodson 1967. Sure enough, there was a reunion with pictures posted on the web and a wonderful blog,
your blog.

What fun it has been to recapture all the memories with your help….although there are many I wish to forget. Your blogs have been thought provoking and have shown how much we’ve grown and matured. They’ve made us wonder why we did things and why we didn’t.

Your blog in April about how cruel kids can be really hit home with me. I remember the classmate you wrote about who was the “most abused of the class.” He’s still on my conscience. He was on my bus and I remember how he had trouble finding a vacant seat. He tried, he really tried to be accepted. He always had a smile on his face and a kind word, but we shunned him. How could we be so mean?

Since graduating, I’ve lived all over this country – from East Coast to West Coast and some in the middle. I’ve always had a excuse not to attend a reunion – too far away, no time, “why would I want to do that?”, etc. Sounds like you had many of the same until this year. How lucky for us, you decided to attend.

Thanks to Gail and her camera, I enjoyed pictures from the reunion. We’re still a good-looking bunch. And has Carol Pallesen aged a day??? I don’t think so. What’s her secret? Is it for sale? And Mike Willis is a movie star? Didn’t we all hope to be? How did he do it?? And Mike, you were one those “really cute guys.” If you hadn’t had your eyes on those beautiful baton-twirling Cavalettes (is that what they were called?), maybe one of us would have had a chance. So sad! I’m sorry to say, I never knew Dale, but I wish I had. Many thanks to you, Dale, and Gail for bringing us closer and celebrating our bond.

Vicki Wetherington Hoffmann

An invitation to be part of a great project

Within the next few days, you should all be getting an e-mail from Dale informing you of this project, but I want to spell it out in a little more detail for those of you who are interested.

For the last 30 years, I've made my living as a journalist. Some of you have been kind enough to comment positively on my writing ability, and I want to use my talents as both writer and journalist to write a book about our class.

Some of you may have read Michael Medved's book from 20 years ago or so called "What Really Happened to the Class of '65?" Medved wrote of a California graduating class 20 years after high school, but what I want to do is something different.

We graduated from Woodson in June 1967, right at the beginning of an extremely eventful period in our nation's history. We were early Baby Boomers, the Pepsi Generation, the age group that was convinced we would stay young forever.

The summer that we graduated, the Beatles came out with the Sgt. Pepper's album, maybe the most significant rock album ever (except of course for the Archies). If you're like me, you remember some amazing songs off that album, but one that must have sounded funny to us was "When I'm 64."

Heck, we weren't ever going to be 64.

Were we?

Well, those of us who made it are now 58 or 59, staring 64 -- and the years after it -- right in the face. It has been a long, strange trip from 18 to 64 for all of us and I want to chronicle that. I think it can make for a wonderful book about the Baby Boom and the effect we had on America.

I want to do it in a similar style to what Medved did, with each chapter being about one member of our class -- or two in some cases. So I'm looking for 25-30 people to answer questions and be interviewed about your lives.

I want ordinary people and stars, class presidents and kids who just sat and watched. athletes, actors, class clowns and most likely to succeeds.

This is a non-fiction book, so I will be writing about you as a journalist -- under your own names. So if you're hiding from an ex-wife or safely in the Witness Protection Program, you probably don't want to participate.

One thing I promise you -- Nothing will be published that you don't want to see published. I will give each of you approval of the chapter written about you, including the chance to have it withdrawn from the book.

The chapters will be headed with song titles from 1967, and they will be based on archetypes. For example, a song like "Never My Love" could introduce a chapter about classmate sweethearts -- we've got a few -- who fell in love at Woodson and are still together.

Here are some of the archetypal examples I'm looking for -- volunteer yourself or suggest someone:

The Jock, the politico, the "can't miss" kid, the queen, the outsider, the clown, the dreamer, the dancer, the preacher, etc.

I've gone on long enough. You don't need to post your own interest in this as comments -- I'd rather hear from you via e-mail. But I will tell you this -- some of you who don't volunteer will be hearing from me to ask (cajole, beg, whatever) you to participate. I want you in the book.

I hope you're interested.

All right, I have learned my lesson

I received a really nice e-mail today from another classmate of the female persuasion, someone who admits to being a "lurker" on the site since December.

I learned my lesson the last time I chastised someone for simply lurking and not participating, so this time I won't mention the name of the lovely lady who wrote to me. I'll just say that I looked her up in the yearbook -- I don't think I knew her in 1967 -- and maybe it's just that I have a thing for 17 year old girls, but she looked very pretty.

Editor's note: We're going to get in trouble if you keep heading down this direction ....

After all we went through with you and the Olsen Twins, you've got no right to complain.

Editor's note: All I said was that they were lovely young ladies.

Yeah, but they were 9 when you said it.

Anyway, I was very happy to hear from this particular classmate.

I hope to hear from a lot more of you.

Two kinds of people in this world

I keep coming back to this thing about meanness.

I once heard somewhere that there are two kinds of people in the world -- those who give nicknames and those who receive them. One of the most unpleasant characteristics about our lame-duck president is his penchant for giving nicknames to everyone he comes into contact with.

Yes, even the Easter Bunny.

Don't ask.

I'm ashamed to admit that I was a nickname person for a long time. In fact, I think it's a little like being an alcoholic. You don't stop it -- you just recover from it, one day at a time.

The saddest part of it is that all too often the people who receive the nicknames -- usually meant to denigrate them in some way -- accept them in the mistaken hope that they're being accepted.

This might be a little of a reach, but I think there's an element of the Stockholm Syndrome operating here.

In the summer of 1970, I was working as a night manager at the old Red Barn fast-food outlet in Fairfax. Along with a Navy enlisted man who worked for me, we gave nicknames to almost everyone else in the place.

There was one kid -- just 16 that summer -- who was all too eager to please, to be part of the "in-crowd," as it was. I remember his full name, but rather than embarrass him totally, I'll just call him Gary.

We called him "Sack."

It wasn't short for "Sad Sack," or anything only halfway obnoxious. No, we let him know that "Sack" was short for "Sack of ...."

Nice, huh?

It would have been one thing if he had protested, but he didn't. He answered every time we called him, as in "Sack, clean up the lobby" or "Sack, cook some hamburgers."

But what I remember the most about it was one afternoon when I answered a ringing phone.

"This is Sack. I can't come in tonight."

I wish I could apologize to him.

What does summer still mean to us?

When we were in school, there was something magical about first starting to feel the warm breezes of summer.

Remember those spring days when it just felt too good outside to be cooped up in a classroom? Remember all the times we asked our teachers if we could hold class outside, and how wonderful it was on those rare occasions when they said yes?

Most of all, though, remember all those countdowns toward the last day of the school year, and the marvelous feeling of waking up on a weekday morning and knowing that you didn't have to go anywhere you didn't want to go?

Summer was special then. Nearly three months of just enjoying life, or of working a little to make some extra spending money. We always felt sorry for the kids who had messed up during the year and had to go to summer school. I had that happen to me the summer after eighth grade, and I was glad it never happened again.

I remember all the great summer songs, and how summer songs were different somehow than others. I think the last one I remember came out around '73 or '74, a song called "Beach Baby." It was good, but not as good as our summer songs.

Maybe that's because summer doesn't mean what it once did. Summer isn't three months of lazy bliss anymore. It might be two or three weeks of vacation, or it might not. There's no special feeling about the beginning of summer, no melancholy feeling when a chill in the nighttime air portends the beginning of fall.

But some folks still manage to enjoy themselves, as the five pictured above did at Nags Head in 2007.

Good for them.

Our lives are about firsts and lasts

When you're young, life is all about firsts.

There's your first step, your first word. The first time you dressed yourself, fed yourself or took care of business in the bathroom.

Then there's learning to read, learning to write, to do math or all sorts of other academic pursuits. There's the first time you successfully hit a baseball, or caught a football, or made a jump shot from the top of the key.

Then there are the big firsts. The first time you kiss someone, or touch them intimately, or make love. The first time you hear -- or say -- the words "I love you" to someone outside your family.

You get the picture. There are plenty of unpleasant firsts as well, like the first time you realize you aren't a good enough student, or a good enough athlete. The first time you don't get a job you want, or lose one you have. The first time you realize the feelings you have for someone aren't reciprocated.

The first time someone says, "But I like you as a friend." And those were the days before "friends with privileges."

When you get older, the firsts are fewer and farther between. Many of them are our own children's firsts, and seeing my kids experience all the joy and pain of their own firsts means every bit as much to me as my own.

As you get older, you start having more "lasts" in your lives than firsts. All of us had the last time we walked the halls of Woodson as students, the last time we saw each other on a regular basis. That's not completely sad. You finish high school and you move on to the next stage of your life. It's as natural as waking up in the morning.

But what about the last time you were happy with someone? What about marriages that fall apart? When my first marriage was coming to an end, I remember waking up on a morning in January 1980 thinking that this was the last time I would wake up with her, the last time we would share breakfast or just idle conversation in the morning.

It was, but I was lucky. I found something better, and I sincerely hope my last day with Nicole will be the last day of my life.

I've been thinking lately about the last time I saw my dad. It was when I was home for the 40th anniversary reunion in October. We spent some time together. He was frail but very alert. His old self mentally. I talked to him on the phone in late February or early March, and a few weeks later I found myself thinking I hadn't called for a couple of weeks.

He died before I had a chance to talk to him again, and I don't remember much about the last time we talked.

We're flying to Virginia tomorrow for his funeral service Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery, but I guarantee Tuesday won't be the last time I think of him or miss him or wish I could have one last talk.

We always remember our firsts.

We need to think about the lasts too.

Apparently some of you are ... lurking

I got a very nice e-mail the other day from another one of the golden goddesses I never had the nerve to speak to in high school.

Julie Conrad, who is now Julie True (what a great name!), wrote to me to let me know that she had seen my dad's obituary in the Washington Post Tuesday. Turns out it was a very nice article, and aside from wondering why my two married sisters kept their maiden names, there wasn't much in there that surprised me.

Julie, another of you who was very beautiful in high school (see the picture), told me she has been checking out my various blogs but hasn't gotten around to posting any comments anywhere. I believe she used the word "lurking."

Editor's note: Did all the girls in the senior class have to wear the same dress for the pictures?

Uh, yeah. They took turns. They had to burn the dress after they were through taking the pictures. Don't you have an Olsen Twins Fan Club newsletter to write?

Editor's note: Oops.

One thing I often do after one of you gets in touch with me is check you out on the Classmates.com Website. I looked up Julie, and I saw something that always makes me wonder. As with many of you, Julie True signed up for Classmates and then didn't answer any of the Q&A's or write anything about yourself.

I guess that's another form of lurking.

So this isn't aimed just at Julie, but at all of you. If you're visiting this site, post comments and let us know you're here. If you're on Classmates or Reunion.com, take advantage of the site and post interesting stuff about yourself.

But even if you don't, keep visiting.

You're always welcome here.

Were we really cruel when we were kids?

Were we the cruelest generation?

It's a question I have been asking myself lately, living in one of the great melting pots of civilization. Kids out here to go school with black kids, Latino kids, Asian kids from almost every country over there. We were so homogenous -- basically 98 percent white and Anglo -- that we were left with only each other to hate.

Oh, I don't mean we all hated each other. Far from it. But with all of us basically the same, we gave each other a hard time over things like looks, athletic ability, career choices, stuff like that.

When I attended the 40-year reunion in November, I was reminded of the fact that the big controversy of our time was "collegiates and greasers." In some other towns it might have been called "preppies and rednecks," or some other variation on a theme. What it amounted to was a conflict between those who were going to work with their hands and those who were going to work with their minds.

Those of us who were "collegiates" were our parents' dreams. We were going to have white-collar jobs, own houses in the suburbs and read lots of good books. The "greasers" would live in slums, have a hard time getting clean after work and watch low-brow television shows.

We didn't realize that auto mechanics. electricians, plumbers and a host of other blue-collar trades would wind up making a much better living than a lot of office workers and teachers.

But we sure made those kids feel like shit. We sure let them believe they could never be as cool, as smart or as blessed as we were. We sure let them believe there was nothing they could ever do to make us accept them.

It wasn't just them, either. There were plenty of kids who were a little too clumsy, a little too slow or a little too ugly to be popular, and there was always at least one of us around to make fun of them.

I remember one story that was making the rounds during our senior year. A girl in one of my classes -- no names, please -- really wanted to go out with a guy who was probably out of her league. She supposedly offered him $50 to go on a date with her, and his response was that he would do it if she would wear a bag over her head.

I had a good friend who wasn't overly masculine. He had to suffer through a lot of "queer" and "homo" stuff, and he got pushed around by some of the testosterone cases in gym class.

We had a kid in the band -- once again, no names -- who was a little too fat and a little too strange. He took more abuse from people than anybody I knew.

None of these people ever come back for our reunions. I remember one of them writing in one of the reunion books that there was no way he would even spend one minute more with members of the Class of '67.

Sure, we were just kids. Most of us probably think we would never do anything like that now, and some of us kid ourselves by saying we weren't that big a part of abusing anyone even then.

I don't know if I can say that, but I know to my everlasting shame that I didn't stand up and defend them when they needed it. One of the most abused kids in our class was someone I didn't know at all until I spent senior year preparing for "It's Academic" with him.

It turned out he was a perfectly nice guy, but he won't be coming to the reunions either. He died sometime in the last 40 years.

There's been one thing I worked very hard to teach my son.

Don't be mean to anybody.

In his first year of college, his roommate came to me and paid him a real compliment. "Virgile is the nicest person I have ever met in my life."

It made me wish I'd been nicer myself.