And these few precious days I'll spend with you...

For reasons that are unclear to me at the moment, I ventured into the garage today where shelves sag under the weight of hundreds of dusty but well loved books.  Of course what I was looking for was at the tippy, top.  Moving stacked books and boxes aside I placed a foot stool in the cleared space and with long tongs attempted to grab the book.  On the third attempt I wound up with the book falling on my left toe.  At least I had it.  Limping into the kitchen, I wiped it off with a damp cloth and then sat on the couch to page through my 1962 Galena Park High School yearbook. 

  

Egad 51 years since graduation.  How in the hell is that possible? As I put the book on my lap, a graduation card falls out along with a calling card embossed in my maiden name. Not you understand that I ever called on anyone, leaving a card behind on a silver plate. Did anyone in Galena Park do that in the '60's?!?  The greeting card is from my paternal grandparents. It is the only thing I have from them in their hand writing and I just found it today.

The yearbook is very heavy, about 12"x 9"x1", bound in fake white leather with gold embossed lettering.  The word Jacket is on the front because we were the Yellow Jackets, along with the school emblem and 1962 with gold rays radiating out.  I haven't seen any recent yearbooks so I don't know if they've changed much.  Mine is a treasure trove of photos of staff, faculty, students from three grades, and poor attempts at candid shots of activities and clubs.

The inside front and back covers  show a lone male student sitting on a bleacher.  Not sure what to make of that.  Of course this is Texas and football is king.  But across from the young man are the following lines  from the pen of Sara Teasdale:

Into my heart's treasury

   I slipped a coin

That time cannot take

   Nor a thief purloin--

Oh, better than the minting

   Of a gold-crowned king

Is the safe-kept memory

Of a lovely thing.

Certainly a not unfitting verse for a yearbook.   I do wonder who chose it.  I assume it was a teacher. I don't remember many, hmmm, any poets in my class, but then maybe I just never met them.  As I turn each page, I realize that so many memories from that time are gone.  Yet the book does serve to evoke some.  What has struck me also is how terribly smooth and innocent are all the faces.  Fifty-one years change us somewhat.  Gravity gains the upper hand; illness, accidents, childbirth, work shape our bodies;  disappointments and success, sorrows and joys etch our faces.  We all look so unformed then and yet at 17 or 18 we carry within us a blueprint set by almost two decades of living that has the potential for only so much change.  As my cousin said recently we can modify behaviors but not our essence.

Gail & Neal, circa 1961 when the photo would have been taken.

Prim and Proper are the words that come to mind as well as I thumb through the photos. There's not one mischievous look among the hundreds of expressions.  Bland...that's the word.  And yet I know these classmates were not bland.  Why could not the photos have reflected some animation, some angst, some self reflection, some exuberance?  It's all very careful, cautious.  I wonder what the photos from the year 1968 or 69 look like as Texas finally enters the hippie era.

When I graduated,  it was the custom to sign each other's yearbooks.  You would sit somewhere, pen in hand and sign your name over all the pictures of yourself.  Of course the popular kids have the most pictures.  The next level of autographs includes an endearment and one's name over the picture.  Then comes notes written on pages with a bit of blank area.  These notes usually tell you what the person writing thought of you and your chances of succeeding in life.  Sometimes there is a pro forma feel to these notes, like this one...'You are very sweet and nice.  Continue to smile and have fun', or this one  'You are a smart and pretty girl. It's been fun knowing you'.  I never thought of myself as sweet.  I tried to be nice.  Did I smile a lot?  Did I have fun?  My perception of myself in those years simply does not stack up against what is written.  So was I who they thought I was or who I thought I was?  Eek....

Then comes those who know you a bit better or you've had more classes with them or they are actual friends.  And then there is the best friend.  She wrote among other things, 'Here's hoping your friendship will never end but continue wherever we may be'.  And it has.  We've managed to stay in touch though we see each other infrequently.  Her life, beliefs, interests are very different from mine and yet we still share whatever initially drew two eighth grade girls together to talk hours on end about life and what it might bring.  And then there are the few notes written by teachers.  I come across one that quite surprises me as I don't really remember him.  A history teacher, he writes...

"The best is yet to be", the poet sings, And so it is.

No one wants to be detained.

All progress moves on what has been.

"The last for which the first was made."

I'm ever grateful for you.

Sincerely,

Dick Gwyn

It's lovely and I haven't read it in probably a half century.  What did I do to make him grateful I wonder?   I hope my work, my behavior validated his work as a teacher.  As a former student of the '60's and a former teacher as well, I know that we students and teachers  seldom disclose what we feel about one another unless it's in frustration or anger.  I'm grateful that Dick Gwyn wrote this so that though memory fails me I still have a  'safe kept memory of a lovely thing.' 

Finally there is near the beginning of the yearbook, a flyleaf, a blank page and at the top in my 17 year old hand writing is the word Reserved.  This is the page for the guy or gal in your life at that point in time.  In my case, his name was Neal.  I suppose he won my heart for many reasons.  Oh there were the givens.  He was handsome, dark curly almost black hair, blue eyes and a devastating smile.  But he also had a fine intellect, a beautiful command and appreciation of language.  He once hand copied one of Elisabeth Barrett Browning's sonnets and passed it to me in Mrs. Manley's junior English class.  It's the one that begins, 'Go from me, yet I feel I shall stand henceforward in thy shadow'.  Hauntingly beautiful, I was almost in tears as I read it surreptitiously.  So this page was saved for him.

It begins with 'Dearest'  and continues with a promise to always be there if needed, and ends with 'All my love'.  He signs it simply, Neal.  So many of the other notes which end with a single first name remain a mystery.  Who wrote this?  Why didn't they put a last name so I can look up their  picture and perhaps recall them.  I've not forgotten Neal's last name because a year or so later he proposed.  We married on October 16, 1965 and I've shared his name for close to 50 years. I plan to hold him to his promise.

Mr. Gwyn and Mr. Browning had it right...

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith "A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

By Robert Browning, Opening  Stanza of "Rabbi Ben Ezra"

Neal & Gail circa 2007  Prescott, AZ

  

Gail Mangham, August 26, 2013