I was thinking of those words from Randy Meisner and the Eagles the other day when I happened upon my old high school yearbooks. I hadn’t opened them in years and they were surprisingly worse for wear, the spine on one cracked and some pages kind of chewed on by some unwelcome visitor to our home over the last years.
As I turned the pages, in my mind I heard Nickelback’s record “Photograph” with its refrain, I miss that time, I miss their faces, You can’t erase, You can’t replace it. I miss it now. I can’t believe it. So hard to stay. Too hard to leave it.
Yeah, I know. It’s fashionable to rag on Nickelback for some reason, but they never hurt me and I do like a few of their songs and this one goes deep with me for a lot of reasons.
Anyway, I turned the pages of the old books and there it all was, those bygone days of my misspent youth. The hair. The fashion. The girlfriends. The cars. References to wars and movies and music and even old TV shows. The teachers that tried to mold us into whatever it is we have become. It was all there, frozen in time.
And the comments and tags and signatures. Some of them deeply heartfelt and some of them just… goofy. “Stay cool! See you this summer! – Jamie” And now, fifty years on, I have no idea who “Jamie” was. Some were exceedingly brief. “Have a great summer—see you next year!” while others were nearly half a page of memories and goals and lessons learned (or not). As I turned the pages and moved from year to year I noticed a few things.
There were quite a few entries from people that used to be called nodding acquaintances. Not quite friends, but certainly not strangers, either. These were people I’d meet in the hallway between 2nd and 3rd period, shuffling along on our ways to becoming well-rounded adults. You’d see them every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and so, as the name says, you’d nod at them, often with a smile. Sometimes a greeting, a “Good morning!” or a “Cold out there today, huh?” or something like that.
There was a gal I used to see a few times per week that way, between classes and on my way to set up for pep rallies and such, pushing my amplifier and guitar case through the halls. Nod, smile, platitude…. On to the next one. It wasn’t phony, it wasn’t made up, we had a big class and we didn’t have a lot of time to get from class to the band room to the gym to get set up and so on. But I couldn’t not acknowledge the folks who said hello or smiled and nodded.
I grew up the new kid in every school. I was always the weird kid. The kid from across the country who talked funny, dressed funny and didn’t know anyone. As a consequence, when I got to Norfolk and people took time out of their day to say hello, I never felt like I had enough friends that I could afford to throw any away, so I always tried to give everyone at least a little time. “Hi there! I hope we can win, tonight!” “Hey! Thanks for coming out, tonight!” “I saw you cheering for us last week—that was great!” that kind of thing.
The year after graduation, I left Norfolk to start my career[s]. I took a few jobs, got married, moved up- and down in the world. And after ten years I got invited to come back for our first reunion. I didn’t want to go. My wife had gotten pregnant with a child that wasn’t mine (don’t worry—I still got to pay for everything) and had divorced me. When I thought I was having a family, I left my radio career and started over in computers.
The little update sent out to our class was full of Doctor And Mrs…. and I felt like such a loser, having accomplished so little. But a good friend of mine told me you don’t go to reunions for yourself, you go for the other people who’ll be disappointed if you’re not there.
That struck a chord with me. There were a lot of people I would want to see. Maybe there were a few who might want to see me, too.
Turning the yearbook pages I happened to notice the entries from one girl were a little… deeper than the others. She was always nice to me. I was always nice to her. But I didn’t really know anything about her. I didn’t know if she had sisters or brothers or a job or liked Mrs. Garrison or had plans for the summer or anything, really. But there was something in her posts, almost a pleading, aw-shucks kind of quality, that struck me after all of these years.
When bullies get caught, their first line of defense is always “Aw! I was only foolin’!” like they think that will actually get them out of whatever trouble they’ve stepped in. When people are insecure about deepening a relationship they often adopt kind of the same thing. They’ll ask you out and then quickly add they were only joking about it, so if you turn them down it doesn’t have to really hurt as much because, you know, it was all just a joke. Her entries were like that.
“It would be great to go cruising main with you some night, listening to some music and getting some french fries…” and then quickly adding something like “wouldn’t that be a hoot!?” or “can you even imagine?” to knock the edge off. They were all like that, to one degree or another.
We had class reunions every five years and I tried hard to get to them, though I was long since not a part of my Norfolk upbringing. It was always at least a two-hour drive to get there and none of my family remained, so there was lodging to arrange and food to worry about and so on, so it was an effort on my part.
But she was always one of a dozen or so people I wanted to see again. I wanted to catch up. I wanted to hear about wives and husbands and kids and careers and all of the rest. These were people who were important to me in ways big and small and while it was true I had no contact with them for years, I still held them in high regard.
I’d heard at one reunion she didn’t want to go because it was held at the country club. Hell, I didn’t even know Norfolk had a country club! But she thought, somehow, that this made the whole affair a bit too hoity-toity for her and so she didn’t go. The next time I’d heard of another excuse and by the next one it seemed nobody knew anything or gave a damn.
I read on Facebook a while ago that this woman died of complications from diabetes. She lived in a nearby city, not in Norfolk. That sounded like maybe a job or a family was involved, but I never knew. I miss her. I wish now I’d made a special trip in one of the off-years and tried to look her up. I would like to have told her what her smile and nod and greetings meant to me, when I was becoming whatever it is I am now.
