Ten years ago I was the emcee of my high school class reunion. This year I sat and watched. It was better this way. As I'd walked into the room I realized I knew almost everyone on first sight.
Now, as they passed in review, called up one by one, I saw a double image: The same person in 1960 and 2010. The same smile, the same gait, the same body language, the same eyes.
I was witnessing a truth. Within our bodies of 67 or 68 years lived all the people we had ever been or seemed to be. All the success, all the defeat, all the love and fear. We were all here.
We went to Urbana High School between 1956 and 1960. We were the first post-Elvis generation, and one of the last generations of innocence. We were inventing the myth of the American teenager. Our decade would imprint an iconography on American society. We knew nothing of violence and drugs. We looked forward to the future. We were taught well. We were the best class.When we came back to our reunions, that's what we were told, anyway. Marie Bauer, who against all odds made me love geometry, told us that among our teachers the class of 1960 was held in the highest affection. Coach Smith told us the 1960 Tigers were the greatest football team he ever coached. Maybe that's what he told every team. Still, we did win the Big 12 championship.
Many of our hopes were delusions. One of our class members would die as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. Another would die mysteriously fighting with the rebels in Nicaragua. One was lost to Alzheimer's. Most of us would have success--one building a church, one becoming a bank president, one working for the CIA. Getting married, having children, having grandchildren, and now those still alive were here together after 50 years, at a new hotel located more or less where we used to pick strawberries for 10 cents a quart on the University's South Farms.Most of our class members were still alive. This would probably be my last reunion. At our tenth reunion, held at the now-disappeared Moose Club in Champaign, there was still a little unfinished romantic business in the air. Twinges of old jealousies and heartbreaks. We noticed those who had once gone steady, the boy's class ring worn on a chain around the girl's neck, resting between her breasts in a gloat of possession. Now they had married others, but that night they smilingly took the dance floor together.
There had been hardly any drinking in high school--none, in fact, that I ever saw. Or much smoking. At the Moose Club in 1970 a lot of us were smoking or drinking, and one classmate wanted to ride back to Urbana on top of my car. Here he was in 2010, one of the most respected men in Champaign County. But still--this is the point--still absolutely the same man, sober now but with the same sardonic grin, the same sideways amusement at life. Here were girls I dated, and parked with in the moonlight to quote Thomas Wolfe on his trembling romantic destiny--his, and of course, ours. Then we kissed not so much in a sexual way as with the tender solemnity we thought of at the time as love. In 2010 that is all so long ago, but the same persons live inside, and while we live we share memories.
Here was one of my best high school pals. We worked together producing the senior class talent show, based on memories of four years. He and another kid constructed a plywood Time Machine pierced by dozens of light bulbs. He stood behind it, furiously rotating a copper strip past contact points so the lights formed a pinwheel effect. When Principal Braun looked behind the plywood after the show, he was aghast: "My God, Larry, you could have been electrocuted!"Here was the girl I co-hosted the UHS radio show with. "Do you remember the time we interviewed the Smothers Brothers?" As I remembered it, Tommy needed all of his cluelessness to conceal his astonishment that we were high school kids. Here was the kid whose house I stopped at nearly many mornings before grade school, so we and his sister and brother could ride there together on our bikes. Here was this year's emcee, a best-selling psychologist, who has probably forgotten he once threw a hard-packed snowball that gave me a black eye, but I haven't.
He probably hasn't either. I am beginning to realize most of our memories are still in there somewhere, needing only a nudge to awaken. Here was a girl who appeared with me in a class play. She recalled that I had a monologue just before she was to walk onstage and kiss me--which, she said, was mortifying because she was shy. I hadn't thought about that play once in all these years, but now into my mind came the memorized monologue. From where? From where everything still is.
I went to school with these people for four years. With those who attended St. Mary's grade school, for 12. Those were the formative years of my life, and they are embedded in my personality. They evoke associations more fully than most of those I experienced later. One of the most noble undertakings in the history of the cinema is Michael Apted's "Up" series of documentaries, which begins with a group of British 7-year-olds, and revisits them every 7 years, most recently in 2005 when they were 49. These films are the proof of Wordsworth's belief that "the child is father of the man." Looking at my classmates, I wondered if perhaps the person we are at 18 is the person we will always be, despite everything else that comes our way. All that happens is that slowly we become more aware of what matters in life. As I looked around the room, was it my imagination that -- having been taught a few lessons in life -- we all seemed...wiser?On the Saturday morning we took a bus tour around the twin cities. Down the leafy old streets we remembered as children, past our old houses, past Lorado Taft's status of Lincoln the Lawyer, which faces the high school. We saw ghost buildings on every street, and called out what used to be but was no more: The Elbow Room, the Urbana-Lincoln Hotel, Mel Root's all-night restaurant, the old Steak n Shake, Hood's Drugs with its chocolate and marshmallow sundaes. We drove out into vast new "developments" rising from the farmland southeast of town, $500,000 homes surrounding a golf course, looking exactly like similar "developments" all over the nation and not like Urbana neighborhoods.
We drove around the enormous campus, half the buildings new since our time, most of the old buildings still there. Past Memorial Stadium with ungainly "sky boxes" now surmounting the grandstands where rich and poor once froze alike. Past the Morrow Plots, the nation's oldest agricultural research field; the undergraduate library next to it was buried five levels into the ground to avoid casting shade on it. Past the Assembly Hall, which we all remembered being built -- the world's largest rim-supported dome, holding 16,000 people, now threatened with obsolescence because it wasn't large enough to accommodate the new scoreboards. The new scoreboards!We passed Taylor Thomas Subdivision, named in honor of our much-loved history teacher, possibly the first African-American to teach at Urbana High. In his civics class he taught me much of what I believe about politics. When he attempted to buy a house in a neighborhood mostly populated by professors at the university, he was rejected by the good academics because of his race. He bought a lot just outside the city limits and built the home he and his wife occupied until he died. He never mentioned that in class.
Our sightseeing trip took us down a road through the University Farms where we once parked to make out. There in a corn field, the University is building the new Blue Waters supercomputer. Our home town, the birthplace of HAL 9000, would now give birth to a computer more powerful than the next 500 largest supercomputers combined, operating at a quadrillion instructions per second. I remembered our high school science fiction club, and how we went as a group to hear Arthur C. Clarke speak on campus. Was it that visit that accounted for HAL's birthplace?Incredibly, four of our teachers were at the reunion. Here was Dan Perrino, our bandmaster and music teacher, so beloved he is now Mr. Urbana. Paul Smith, who told me I was one of his best physics students, although that's not how I recall it. Carolyn Conrad, who inspired me in English and drama. The poetic Carolyn Leseur, who turned me on Charles Dickens for a lifetime, and who told Chaz I was always reading a book during class. It's true. I read during every class when I could get away with it. I had no idea she knew. Our teachers were a gifted faculty. Knowing all we know now, I think we can be astonished by what a first-rate education we were offered. Some of them should have been teaching at the university, but their spouses already were, and Illinois had a nepotism rule.
The legendary teacher of our time was Mrs. Seward, whose dreaded senior rhetoric class we began to hear about as freshmen. She was exacting and unforgiving, a tough grader. She spoke softly but firmly, and once stood looking dreamily out the window, her arms crossed, and said, "Oh, students, this morning I walked into my farmyard and listened to the worms making love." She issued lists of Rhet Words we had to try to find in our reading. They figured in our grade. She had an eagle-eye for sharing. I found Thomas Wolfe to be a gold mine of Rhet Words. When I found a word, I'd copy it in pencil on the flyleaf. From my copy of Look Homeward, Angel: Scrofulous. Immanent.
She was hard, but she was good. She intimidated us with her standards. It was said that the University of Illinois simply waived the freshman rhetoric requirement for any graduate of Mrs. Seward's. This was hyperbole, but it could have been true. When I walked into her class, I thought I knew it all. I'd already been writing for a year at the local paper, that summer full-time.She returned my first paper marked with a D, and I appealed to her in shock. "Mr. Ebert," she told me, "when, oh, when, will you learn that the paragraph is a matter of style, and not of punctuation?" Mrs. Leseur confided at the reunion that when the faculty was voting on the members of a senior honor society, I was blackballed by one teacher for being a "smartass." And who was that teacher? "Mrs. Seward." Yes! True to her standards. This long-delayed information filled me with great happiness.
On the death in Nicaragua of our classmate Joe Sanderson.
The embedded photographs are by galechicago at flickr.com. The interior is of the original Chuck Wagon Diner, where the following song was on the juke box.
Your Ms Seward is my Mr. Smith, Milton, Mass not Urbana. We were the transition year.
Do you remember, the night Caryl Chessman was executed, May 2 1960? Was that a night of significance just for me or for our year?
Roger,
We have been following your delightful comments in twitter all weekend and now we have this excellent finale to the reunion. Dan P. continues to remain solidly connected his students from 50 years ago as well as his to voice students today. The stories he can tell! He is quite a fan of yours. Ebertfest has allowed so many more people to put 2+2 (Roger and CU) together and perhaps come to understand you better as they learn about your roots in the central Illinois prairie. Thanks for another fun set of stories. I arrived in town about as you were leaving but through your stories, and my townie friends, I feel I have experienced some of those earlier days in Urbana-Champaign too.
Ebert: Are there any videos of Dan's "Medicare 5, 6 or 7?" I Googled for them but of course all I got were links to Medicare.
Most of my HS career was spent trying to not get noticed while daydreaming about being someplace else. Reading an account such as yours makes me feel both envious and regretful. Thank you for that.
What a difference a decade makes! I'm a child of the "assassination generation." Kennedy, then King, then...the other Kennedy. And of course, Kent State came along just a year after I graduated from high school. And my memories of high school begin with first day of school hives that rose up like a physical manifestation of the panic I felt at going from a completely black school to an almost completely white and decidedly wealthy one where the kids looked like they'd been made by Mattel.
But the education was remarkable both in and outside of the classroom...and when those last two assassinations happened, we were forced to live the liberal politics we so voiciferously espoused. And I was proud that most of the school walked out together, in solidarity, when the administration refused to hold a special event of any kind to acknowledge our grief. All those white kids shoulder to shoulder with the handful of "colored" ones, arm in arm, streaming across that huge lawn together, singing.
I have not been back for my reunion because my best friends were all a year ahead of me. But you've made me think that perhaps it would be worth it even so, just to see if the things we wrote in each others' yearbooks, the "Most This" and "Mostly Likely to That" turned out to be true. I kinda hope not, truth be told. I hope they fared far better than that!
Great story. Here's something I thought of - I wonder if your education benefited from the GI bill? Those spouses at the U or teachers who went to school and had just enough experience when you came along. I hope someone remembers me (a teacher) as fondly.
Hello, my friend.
This was so American; yet, it was "Humerican", and that leads me to my question which I asked you before but I had no response:
Have you ever considered writing an autobiographical novel?
I will ask Dan tomorrow about the videos. I know WILL TV has some recent TV studio recordings (~10 years ago) on hand and I know they are also putting some of their older material on web servers so I will also ask WILL IT staff tomorrow. There last CD was in 1998 as I recall. Some of the younger ;-) members still perform in groups around the area.
More info as I find it.
Wow Ebert, talk about timing. I watched American Graffiti for the first time earlier today and was just intrigued by the time period. My parents fueled my love for classic cars and stories of mythical drive-ins, but they were teenagers in the seventies. I soon realized I was getting second hand accounts. Yes, I realize you didn't exactly live like in the movie (or did you?) but a few points here really acted like a catalyst to help me understand. Especially: "We were the first post-Elvis generation, and one of the last generations of innocence. We were inventing the myth of the American teenager."
The way I see it, you and your classmates were part of the coolest teenage generation. All us who have come after might have tried to live up to you guys, without even realizing our true goal, but have fallen flat.
Thank you Roger, your blogs are always interesting and inspiring.
"Paul Smith, who told me I was one of his best physics students, although that's now how I recall it. "
shouldn't that be NOT how I recall it?
Thanks for your thoughts and summary of our class reunion. It was so good to see you there. I think that this was the nicest of the 5 reunions we've had so far. Memories and friendships as well as good wine seem to improve with age (one good thing about growing old!) Wishing you all the best.
So lovely. Your memories are clear as a running stream. It is true that we carry all ours within, but your reserve seems especially rich.
What would have happened if you never took Mrs. Seward's class? I think we all remember that first adult who dared to challenge us not out of spite or arrogance, but because they saw the best in ourselves. I had my own Mrs. Seward, back in grade 2, without whom I wouldn't have written a single word.
Ha - and you're still a smart ass (thank god - I still fondly recall your Transformers sequel review last year). So Mrs Seward you can shove your honors society.
Have you ever seen the Australian (or maybe New Zealand?) film series that follows a group of girls, beginning in the early 1970's, and returning every few years to peek in on their lives again? Format is the same as the 7 Up series and just as good but not as lauded. Always wondered why.
Anyway, great read on an earlier America. Its nice to know that some of the myths of that period are true. It did seem like a more innocent time. Im not sure I would have wanted that for myself but Im definitely jealous of your education atmosphere and everything you seemed to have gotten out of that.
...sorry - that film series - I think it was titled "Sweet Sixteen."
Any more info about that friend who died fighting in Nicaragua? Did he fight for the Contra's or the Sandinistas? That sounds like an interesting story to tell.
Ebert: Lots of information. I just posted this:
http://j.mp/9Bo8Sk
Wonderful article, Roger. Our 50th is coming up in 2013, so your words bring to mind memories of my own high school days. Thanks for sharing!
I run through that "development" every evening, and each time I think, This is in Urbana? Thanks for sharing my sentiments, Roger.
I'm only five years out of high school, but one of the best things about graduating and moving on was that teachers finally opened up to us about their more private lives and things that were going on in the school that we only suspected.
A story: I played in band for all four years of high school, both marching and symphonic. I played tuba, which meant in marching season, I had to carry the massive, 60 pound metal sousaphone on my back with a minimal amount of padding. I hated this. I wanted so badly to be a drum major but our band director seemed to never pay attention to me during the auditions, and I never got the position.
Two more pieces of information: I was the only member of the band whose sole focus was on the tuba, and our band director was also a tuba player when he was in college. After I graduated, I came back one day my sophomore year of college to take him out to lunch. The first thing I confronted him about was the drum major thing. He said that I delivered fine auditions both time, but I was the only person in the tuba section who knew what I was doing and, damn it all, he wanted to see me succeed. And I did. I've only played on and off since high school but I had an enormous amount of success while I was there, and band was part of the reason that I blossomed socially and was able to have a good college experience. I don't know why this small, trivial piece of information was so meaningful, but it really made me appreciate some of the teachers I had in high school, and how they knew they were guiding me in the right direction, even if I didn't.
Now my theater director, on the other hand, I will never forgive her for not giving me the lead in Fiddler on the Roof. Maybe in 20 years.
"All that happens is that slowly we become more aware of what matters in life."
Amen.
I'm just now getting to the age where one's place in the world becomes more clear. Me and my friends no longer look like overgrown versions of our teenage selves, and few of us retain the same self absorbed perspective of youth.
I had nothing but Mrs. Sewards in high school... because I skipped every class that didn't challenge or interest me.
What a beautiful remembrance of your high school years. It's terrific that you got to go to your 50th.
I drove my father to his last reunion years ago. They decided to quit it at their 62nd. (Had dinner with my dad tonight! He's 86 now.)
Last week when I was looking through my high school yearbooks, I had a similar experience. I was amazed at how my mind zipped right back to those moments. At how familiar those faces looked so many years later. At how I see those faces when I meet those friends around town now. Our mind is an amazing instrument.
I had that same experience with the English grade. It was my first paper for Rhetoric 101 at U of I. "But, I got straight A's in high school", I argued in her office hour time. "Well, they didn't serve you well. Do better". She was right.
Great article, Roger.
Fascinating article on your friend, Joe Sanderson, and his death in El Salvador.
And, the diner photo is exquisite!
How wonderful to see your mention of Dan Perrino in your column. He is truly an institution in the community (as well as in Quincy, IL).
Wonderful, wonderful! I've become more nostalgic for your memories than my own. Neat trick that.
I can well imagine your little town being the epitome of good ol' 50's Americana. When sodas were a nickel, movies were a quarter, and all was right with the world. You're lucky that CU still has that look and feel about it. At least, that's the impression I got during my brief visit during Ebertfest. I gave credit to the University, which seemed vibrant and 'life-giving' to the city which surrounded it. Lot's of smaller towns tend to die. Yours seemed very much alive.
I found a nice little place on South Neil St. called Merry Ann's Diner that could have been plucked from the time you talk about. The look and feel of the place was very 50's. I enjoy my breakfast and observe the scene. Two sore-back men shamble in, slide into 'their' booth. Hardscrabble fingers wrap around mugs freshly filled with coffee by an unpretentious waitress of a certain age. How are ya this morning darlin'? Fine - just fine - got the last of the crop in yesterday. 'That so'. Yup - that rain came just in time, soil was kinda crunchy. Well then, you got that taken care of. Yup. You having bacon or sausages today? Sausages I think. Comin' right up.
I'm not making that up none - neither. What stuck in my mind was the word 'crunchy'. It's so specific. I leave the diner and walk north.
I like the tree lined streets and old, cared for houses. With the smell of fresh cut grass floating over creaky porches and American flags. I shambled myself, along a few of those streets. Got a feel for the place. There is a man working on his yard, shoveling little scoops of racked up leaves into what had to be the world's oldest wheelbarrow. He seemed to pause without stopping what he was doing, to give me a friendly hello. You know, small town stuff.
Your memories of home give me hints of a favourite author. Winnipeg's own Gabrielle Roy. Have you read her by any chance? Rue Deschambault? Street of Riches? It's packed with vignettes about her, her house, her town and life. It starts...
When he built our home, my father took as model the only other house then standing on the brief length of Rue Deschambault - still unencumbered by any sidewalk, as virginal as a country path stretching through thickets of wild roses and, in April, resonant with the music of frogs.
Ebert: *Sigh*
I feel fortunate to have heard long ago from my mother, this: "I know I look old, but I don't feel old. I feel like the same person inside that I always was, but the mirror is confused!"
I was too young at the time to relate, but old enough to look in her eyes and see that she was, indeed, 20 in spirit. A fantastic lesson learned.
Wow, it must be hectic at those high school reunions. I'm sure with someone as famous as you, you probably don't get a break at those things.
Ebert: After you've known people for 50 years, they're all equally famous.
On my last trip to Chicago for my niece's high school graduation I went to my alma mater, Lindblom. The principal took me on a grand tour. The school has rooms I never knew of: a greenhouse and a skylit grand study hall/ballroom. Most of the classrooms, science labs, and industrial arts shops seemed a lot smaller than when I was a student. A couple of days before the tour my brother asked me if I wanted my yearbooks. Sure. He brought me three books. It took a few seconds to recall I went to Corliss my freshman year. Oh really? He went back into the house and brought me the fourth (or first) book. I have never been to my class reunion but hope to go to the next one.
I was given an overbearingly Evangelical homeschooling from 5th grade all the way to 12th. My free time was spent mostly indoors, playing videogames and nurturing social retardation.
The thought of that time being my "formative years" fills me with terror at the thought of being so underwhelmingly mediocre for the rest of my life.
(Currently 23 and working part-time in fast food. Good God.)
Ebert: Take a class in American Lit at a community college?
Gosh, I wish I didn't miss my reunions. All the moreso now.
I read gratitude in this piece. But, regarding this point, "This would probably be my last reunion."
As much as I'd like to play the naive young fool and complain about the apparent pessimism, I suspect that it is an objective recognition of the sunset that sets upon each of our shoulders. Nevertheless, the sunset is a thing of beauty, no? As beautiful as the rise.
Be well, old new friend.
"When he attempted to buy a house in a neighborhood mostly populated by professors at the university, he was rejected by the good academics because of his race. He bought a lot just outside the city limits and built the home he and his wife occupied until he died. He never mentioned that in class. "
Good man that!
You wouldn't have imbibed his ideology in politics had he told that , would you?
Ebert: I was against racial prejudice "intellectually," with little actual life experience. I suspect I might have been very disturbed to learn such a thing had been practiced on such a good man. He was a Baha'i, incidentally. He later became the Superintendent of Schools.
I imagine the table seating at the New Utrecht High School reunion will be arranged according to which episode of COPS the students appeared on.
fascinating. I can only imagine what it would be like to meet the same people after so many years. Somehow one always loves one's school/college mates more than the other friends, maybe because of all of them being together at an innocent age, when the material world hadn't yet spoilt people and life hadn't yet taken its toll.
My mother still wonders how and why me and my brothers are comparatively so much darker and less inclined to idealism than her generation and before; I use to just shrug it off, but as of late I know now that she's right – my innocence was short-lived, prematurely cut-off by friends and classmates who informed me of the shocks of MTV before I'd gone through puberty. There was a time of frustration and desperation where I sought to regain my rite of integrity, hoping to dispel of the drudges I'd stumbled upon accidentally; however, I soon realized this was an impossible feat, and instead went forward with the knowledge I knew with hopes of rising above the pop culture influences of peers.
With an increasing emphasis on worldliness and information availability, I guess this loss of innocence can't be helped. However, I was fortunate enough not only to be guided wisely and kindly by a single mother, but by numerous teachers who patiently and competently taught me the skills necessary to succeed in the academic system and life analogy. In fact, I still visit my 9th grade biology teacher whenever I can, catching up with her and kindling a endearing teacher-student relationship that I cherish dearly. She was one of the first teachers to see me, a scared and nervous freshmen, as someone willing to work hard given the opportunity. I can never thank her enough – the woman is simply amazing.
Reading your last comments on Ms. Seward, I can't help but laugh in empathy. My equivalent to your Ms. Seward is my pre-freshmen and sophomore English teacher, Ms. Freed.
I remember that when I first turned in my essay, I was surprised that she generously gave me a "D." I knew I had zero understanding of writing and prose – terribly poor teachers supplied during my years at a terribly unforgiving and unsupportive middle school did little to help me at all – and I remember her surprised look when I went up to her during break, handed her my paper and said something along the lines of "Hi Mrs. Freed, I got a 'D' on my first paper. Frankly, I'm not surprised because I can't write at all; I don't even understand what I did wrong specifically except that nothing I wrote comes close to quality. I really, really need help and I want to get better at writing, so what should I do?"
I like to believe she had a favorable understanding me after that encounter. Casting aside all pride, I let her tell me hit me hard on the first go, and slowly and steadily I improved with each feedback, each essay and each composition that she responded to. My "D" turned into "C-," and over a miraculous 6 week summer course I managed to turn out "B-" and "B" papers.
About a year later and I was back in her classroom, this time for a semester of British Literature (our school has an interesting schedule in which some classes are offered everyday for a full semester and some classes are offered every other day for the whole year). This time a bit of confidence lay within me – right up until the moment she gave a big spanking "B" on my essay which I thought I "so deserved an 'A' on." The rest semester was a battle royale, a constant struggle of trying to understand why this tiny woman who barely looked above 5'4" and 100 lbs could so fiercely cause all of us to shrivel in self-doubt and perplexity as to why we (frankly) sucked at writing. In fact, one of the most famous sayings about Ms. Freed was that "she returned all of your essays dripping in blood." This, of course, was a hyperbole – it was actually red ink.
The most infamous moment occurred during our final, where we had to sit down and write a paper on "Macbeth." It was during that moment where all of the sudden, out of nowhere – like a rock suddenly flying out and hitting your head with a ker-THUNK - did I understand what I'd been missing in my writing all semester. It was an epiphany, a miracle, a vision – THIS was what had been missing, THIS was what I'd been blind until to up until this moment. A triumph, a success, a breakthrough!
Too bad it happened on the last day of class, and by all means on the final.
I got a "A-" on that paper – I jumped with glee and joy the moment I saw it, given how I'd never broken the "B+" essay grade barrier – but left the damn class with a "B+". Only until a about a year a half later when I saw that essay did I realize the woman had been incredibly generous with her grading – she could have easily tossed it aside and given it a ample "C+" without further notice. I did, however, learn a whole lot from her class, things that I've taken on and applied to my life as I continue to learn. The grades are long gone, nothing but memories that perhaps have an attached pride or hilarity for daydream musings.
You're so right Roger, about how great teachers can make so much of a difference. I can never take credit for where I am based solely of my own doing: without the support and care of family, teachers and friends, I highly doubt I'd be at the same level of thought and venture I am today. I can only hope that in the future, there will be better incentive for higher quality teachers to be more abundant to students nationwide, for I know there are a great many out there who only need the means and opportunity to show their truest potential and shine, just like I was all those many years ago.
This spoke so truly. I'm getting familiar with a place I've never been. It's rather like one's familiarity with the towns Chekhov's characters live in, or Wilder's, or Friel's. I've had an invite for my 50 years since our matric year, which will be in 2012. I've had little contact with most, last saw some classmates who gathered to make an afternoon of it in 1987. Many took paths other than university, which for those who did meant UCT and living at home. The deaths of teachers are really like parental deaths. I would always bump into a couple of them each time I wandered round Rondebosch Fountain shops, elegant, interested in one's doings, and always supportive of the school and of each other. Many of my teachers at Rustenburg High School for Girls were single. Our Physics teacher had taught my mother in the 30s, and was going strong in the 60s. Only in their obituaries did I find mention of private lives, of the role many of these women played as daughters, aunts, sisters. They gave us so much. Thank you Miss Joubert, Miss Heath, Miss Cartwright, Miss Bowles, Miss Kenyon, Miss Kent, Miss Allen, Miss Reid, Miss Dose(still alive) and Miss Thomson, Headmistress (though she frightened me at the time, and never approved of drama out of school, which I did a lot of).
Ebert: In 1989 I went for lunch in the little place down Main Road from the Pig and Whistle (then closed!) and the man behind the counter actually recognized me.
Touching and insightful as always. It spurs memories of my own. Thanks.
P.S.
A closing </i> tag might be needed with "On the death in Nicaragua..." just before the comments section unless you intended the italicized effect to literally and metaphorically propagate into the comments.
Enjoyable piece, Roger. My daughter graduated from high school with many of the same kids she started kindergarten with. They were a special group, smallest for the system, eagerly awaited by middle school and high school teachers. Her memories will be a little more like yours.
I remember a moment in my own high school period when Time magazine, maybe- memory is fuzzy but I held that magazine up as an authority for many things, printed a demographic piece saying exactly half the population of the USA was under 18. I believe I was 17 at the time.
Ten years behind you. I have moved back after an absence of decades. Fortieth this year, reunion is set for late August. I'll go for some of it. The Friday includes attending a free outdoor concert downtown. The county school is celebrating too. I went to county for the first year and a half, transferred to city school to finish. That evening could be a little jarring. Looking forward to it.
The year after we graduated girls could finally wear jeans and slacks to school. For us it was skirts and dresses, always. Length checks, skirt must come down at least to fingertips with arms down at sides :>)
I recently learned that one of the teachers at my elementary school is still teaching there, some 32 years after I had finished his class in the 8th grade.
I found some of my old classmates and learned about the on Facebook.
It reminded me how much I hated the school, was glad I moved away and how I had despised that teacher.
Sometimes memories are best allowed to die.
"Looking at my classmates, I wondered if perhaps the person we are at 18 is the person we will always be, despite everything else that comes our way."..RE
If so, it's bleak indeed, to be done so early and be replaying the same gramaphone groove for the rest.
Life in fact is recreating and renewing (evolving so to say) itself every moment on what for want of a less hackneyed term one may call the spiritual plane, and this should go on till the last breath.
To quote from Daisaku Ikeda's peace proposal for 2010:
"There is an expression to the effect that if you have not met someone for three days, await your next encounter with a sense of anticipation. In other words a person who is growing and developing will show signs of change in just three days. Those who posess the spirit to seek out the depths will not overlook these changes but seek them out with acuity..."
Paraphrase of quote from the movie "Slacker" (I believe):
If I ever say that high school was one of the best years of my life, please shoot me!
How fortunate that you were able to "go home again", Mr. Ebert. To be truthful, this prior statement conmingles admiration and envy. My 30th Haverhill High School reunion will take place next year. I do not plan to attend unless I learn that some old classmate acquaintance with whom I reasonably got along also plans to attend. This reluctance is somewhat ironic because I was considerably successful in high school. Although I was not the valedictorian or salutatorian, I was in the top 1% of my class and therefore became a National Honor Society member. I always made the honor roll. I won prizes in English, Greek, and even Spanish (even though I could never maintain a Spanish conversation with a native). Many instructors cherished and helped me. I wish I could correspond with them, but most likely are dead or senescent. Although I do not consider myself a "people person", I did "hang" with a small cluster of students.
So why this antipathy, or at least indifference, to going to my 30th? I suppose it's because I attended high school in the 70s (1977-1981) and somehow a feeling of "enhanced" academic competition permeated the atmosphere. I was taking "high" or "advanced" classes with many students fixated upon excelling in school and getting into a top-tier college. I admit I was one of those students. We strove for a "95" and became crestfallen if we got just a "90". My contemporaries were ultimately, and simply, rivals. In fact, I saw high school in general as a necessary, evil boot camp to overcome, not as a nuturing oasis. I was eager to proceed to college and interact with truly mature, sympathetic, and multifaceted students. Of course, dolt that I was, I didn't anticipate the college pressures that would make those of high school seem like a tropical vacation (but that's another story).
Also, anyway, reunions of any kind are probably heading for a redundant obsolescence. Nowadays, if you want to learn about a classmate, you can consult the Internet - Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Classmates.com. You save time, money, and aggravation.
Was your 1960 class particularly competitive and cutthroat? Your blog makes your 60s high school years sound downright idyllic. Was receiving that "D" the worst situation you faced? Nothing about high school was unbearable or despicable? If not, you indeed enjoyed a charmed formative existence.
Ebert: Quite truthfully: Nothing about high school was unbearable or despicable.
Am I the only person in North America who has no particular nostalgia for high school? I do feel nostalgic about university, but to me, high school was just an annoying stepping stone on the way to getting out of town and going to university.
I've been thinking a lot about the metaphysical forces that constitute 'my generation'. Already I'm putting it in quotes. I said to someone the other day that a standard demarcation point for my generation is hip-hop. If you were a geek before my generation, you didn't like it. If you were a geek in my generation, you adored it. But there are thousands of those little litmus tests, from the degree of cynicism to your pop culture icons. There is a need to feel attached, not just to the human race, but to a group set apart within that wider whole, as if we are seeking to be independent and communal all at once, having and eating. Nostalgia is a drug, I think, in the classical sense. It hinders the senses; is this a bad thing?
I think I matured at around age 4.
But I've been on my own since then.
I never had any parenting, but I think I'm one of the few who didn't need it.
Rog, I can't believe the same man who penned (keyed?) this beautiful essay, full of wistful but not rose-colored memories could have remained dry-eyed during "Toy Story 3", much less to have written that it is a "jolly, slapstick comedy, lacking the almost eerie humanity that infused the earlier “Toy Story” sagas, and happier with action and jokes than with characters and emotions." Man, I cried like a 5-year old girl. They are both the Remembrance of Things "Passed".
Wow, listening the reminisces of someone who was happy as a teenager... Someone who had fun, made friends, met people you'd be remotely interested in having a conversation with now, and made some memories worth recalling all these years later.
This is just too alien a concept for me to grasp. ('Specially the "happy" part.)
"Am I the only person in North America who has no particular nostalgia for high school?"..Michael Wong
I happen to share this lack of nostalgia, and not just for school, though I am not from your continent. Perhaps there is too much left to be done, or maybe the present is good, or maybe I am deficient in the nostalgic streak.
Monica, I was not a happy teenager, mostly trying to be invisible due to family crises. Nevertheless young and at peak time for emotional highs and lows. Haven't blocked out everything. There were some good experiences mixed in there.
My former brother in law says we never really get older than about twelve. He may have a point.
College was more to my liking. It felt like a reward for getting out of high school without getting pregnant.
As you put it, I already feel much, much wiser in my mid-20s than I did at age 18. Somehow that makes these years more enjoyable than my time in high school.
I always enjoy your pieces about "our time." I grew up in a small town on the other side of the Mississippi River and graduated in 1962. We also survived on WLS. It was only 200 miles and the signal carried just fine across the flat terrain. I appreciate the comment re: American Graffiti. I always tell our children - you want to know about my town and my time, watch that movie.
Ebert: Do you know that Dick Biondi is still on the air?
Reading your entry today, I wondered about the future of such reunions. I am 33, and received a call from a friend about whether I was interested in a 15-year reunion. Of course, I'm now "friends" on Facebook with over half of my graduating class (most likely the half that is interested in reconnecting with old classmates), and I know where they are, how many kids they have, and in the case of those that over-share, what their latest maladies are. And, frankly, I did not feel a need to reconnect over a beer at the Homecoming game. Part of me says that is unfortunate, that despite my swearing it would never happen to me, I'm replacing real relationships with friend requests and status updates. Would it perhaps have been preferable to have NOT accepted these Facebook friends, saving them instead for trips down memory lane every 5-10 years? Roger, are time, space, and distance necessary in order to gain the proper perspective on the memories of your friends, and your school, and how they impacted your social and academic development? What of those now graduating who, through social networking, may never actually say "goodbye," even for a time, to these friends, and this time of their lives?
GREAT article, Roger. Thanks so much for including the link to the story about my brother Joe. Jenny and I just returned from Los Angeles where we met with Hector Tobar, and he is revising his book proposal. The new title is "The Battlefield Adventures of a Butterfly Collector: the Life, Loves and Letters of Joe Sanderson, American Globetrotter". The book will be about Joe's entire life, not just his days in El Salvador. You are quoted in the proposal. Thanks again.................steve sanderson
Ebert: That's a book I very much want to read.
Hi Roger,
Congrats on being one of Time's best Blogs of 2010.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1999770_1999761_1999759,00.html
All the best,
--Jeff
Hey! Where's my post where I wrote "Gorgeous. Just gorgeous." ? Too small, slipped down some e-crack? Just gorgeous, Writer.
Had the chance to walk around Urbana or Champaign or both, for the first time last April. Old parts of town. Even met high school mates of yours, Rodge, and not unlikely, people you knew, still there, still working.
I got to feel all "midwest" again, which my family left when I was about to turn 14.
Upstate New York was quite a change from the reassuring best-little-town-in-the-world optimism of the midwest -- where even "the bad guys know us and they leave us alone."
No town is free of sin, but this crumbling old upstate NY village in its troubled sleep had long lost its blanket of neighborly optimism such as covered the midwest -- which I could still see in the locals of Urbana. The guy at the tobacco shop gave me a free lighter.
To sum the tone of this place up, the first greeting my brother got when he walked downtown to the local teen hangout was "Ohio, huh? Well why don't you move right the fuck back to Ohio?" That fellow eventually became mayor.
People's relationships were formed something like fossil layers of a rigid little class system. It was a marvel to behold for an optimistic democratic farm-fresh Ohiya schoolboy -- real good in school indeed, to boot.
Even the teens were crankier and more pessimistic, as though bent with age inside and steeped in sins they weren't even committing; some, including my best pal and my older brother's best pal, were suicidal. Those two killed themselves at 17 and 19.
Being uprooted and placed in a psychologically gnarled old tree of a place made my four years of high school a youthful anthropological trip. I'm still on it, no schooling necessary.
As it was nothing I was known for, I wouldn't have it as a shared memory should my classmates gather again. Nor could I point to any other teacher than the circumstances as they were as a great personal memory in the hallowed halls of my learning -- not by intent, anyhow. Excepting Sister Mary Bart in Ohio Catholic school with her sentence diagrams.
My yearbook disappeared so long ago I can't even say when. There's a photo of our Graduation exercise in it. At the moment it was shot, the valedictorian was making a speech about how people "create their own reality." At that moment, some rows back in cap and ground, I'm smiling to myself with head down. I thought it was an awfully naive thing to blurt out; the tone of her voice rang with the breathless spring of apple-cheeked youth.
She and I have kept in touch for years now. I once wrote her a letter saying one creates his own reality. She replied that they do not.
Ebert: But one has no choice but to do so.
I received your "gorgeous" but as a rule don't publish brief compliments, because it could seem self-congratulatory.
FYI Roger:
You write Michael Apt's Up films, it should be APTED!
Actually, I was voted "Most Likely to Skip the Reunion" by my class in high school. (Oddly, though the superlatives ran in the school paper, of which I was an editor, I never voted or even had the opportunity.) Which I did, five years ago, though our ten-year reunion was a picnic in a park back home in Pasadena, CA. I am far from the only one to have decided against the trip just to spend an afternoon.
But it wasn't just the thousand-mile trip which prevented my attendance. I, too, am Facebook friends with various of my classmates, but I don't have much to say to them. My position in our school was always a complicated one. Most of my classmates had gone to elementary school and junior high together. They had in-jokes and rivalries going back nearly a decade before we met, and they had a hard time fitting me into them. This was probably at least in part my own fault; the people I had been friends with for the same number of years went to a different high school across town, and my heart was with them and their music department. (Freshman year, our orchestra ended up being a viola trio.) Though I hadn't entirely fit in with them, either.
Part of this, doubtless, was being bipolar. I haven't been in control of my own moods pretty much as long as I can remember, and it means I can be very difficult to deal with. I have more control now than I did then, but even now, I am difficult on my friends. I am a repository of memory for my friends and family--once prompted, I can remember things in greater detail than pretty much anyone else. However, all the memories from Back Home (and I've been in Washington fifteen years, nearly half my life) are tinged in pain. I envy you your . . . peace, I think I would call it. I plan to go home once before my mother retires, sells the house, and moves to Portland. But I'm not sure I will return after that.
Excellent article, as always. You've reminded me of Madeleine L'Engle's thoughts on aging:
"I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be... This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages...the delayed adolescent, the childish adult, but that they are in me to be drawn on; to forget is a form of suicide... Far too many people misunderstand what *putting away childish things* means, and think that forgetting what it is like to think and feel and touch and smell and taste and see and hear like a three-year-old or a thirteen-year-old or a twenty-three-year-old means being grownup. When I'm with these people I, like the kids, feel that if this is what it means to be a grown-up, then I don't ever want to be one. Instead of which, if I can retain a child's awareness and joy, and *be* fifty-one, then I will really learn what it means to be grownup."
Thank you so much for this wonderful piece. I smiled all the way through it. Especially when I came upon the picture of "Steak and Shake" where as a teenager drove round and round in my first boyfriend's '55 Chevy. Born in Urbana, I was raised in Champaign then moved to Boston in '74 for college and never left. When I make it home on occasion I feel like I have come home atlast.
Mr. Ebert,
That's "Medicare 7, 8 or 9." I used to book Mr. Perrino and his group quite often when I worked in student activities at the Illini Union, and I'm so glad to hear he's still active.
There is a brief article here: http://news.illinois.edu/news/01/0501perrino.html
...but alas, no media clips that I could find.
Thanks for a wonderful article.
--Dan, U of I '87
I'm not sure if this counts but I'll mention it anyway ...
A while back I was in a Chase bank outlet using the ATM when I heard someone say my name. I turned around and there was a stocky man with a white beard who said he'd known me in grade school.
I didn't recognize his face and asked his name. He told me the name, which was vaguely familiar, but I still couldn't place him. We chatted for aminute or two, and then went about our respective businesses.
Since that meeting, this has bothered me a bit:
As I said, I couldn't place the guy at all.
But - he recognized me.
At once.
On sight.
After close to fifty years.
In recent times I've had several opportunities to attend school reunions, and I never go.
I guess that deep down, I've been afraid of what happened with the grade school guy.
Imagine that multiplied by a couple of hundred.
I've never been good at making friends at any level, and a reunion would most likely be a nightmare for me. I have enough of those already.
So how was your weekend?
Awaiting something on the passing of Stuart Brent.
I had a Mrs. Seward last year. His name was Mr. Moran (who recently wrote a local book called "Proudly We Speak Your Name" about teaching at my high school. It's on the internet somewhere. He was my school's Golden Child. I've never seen so many red marks on a paper, or so many mocking (yet pithy) comments. One, though, made me smile. It said "Hyperbole is NEVER persuasive." Please settle this for me, Mr. Ebert. Is that sentence not hyperbole itself? I was too afraid to shove it in his face after class one day for fear of being shot, or worse, being proven wrong in front of my entire class and having to live with the shame of it.
Ebert: Hmmm. If hyperbole were not persuasive, Glenn Beck would be out of business.
Congratulations Mr. Ebert on getting noted in Time as one of the essential blogs of 2010! Well deserved! You are an amazing person and I'm so glad you are still here on this planet to "give" to the rest of us!
It's harder to maintain the delusion of perpetuity when you see your decades-aged classmates.
RE - feel free to post or not - this is mostly feedback regarding the video search.
baz
---
Regarding Medicare 7, 8 or 9 - Sorry to say WILL's recordings of them is in tape format and not yet ready to be posted to the web. Stopped in to visit with Dan and Marge P. today and Dan says he has no knowledge of any digital material. (Hello again to you Roger! sez Dan)
There is perhaps a supply of other video tape and film out there but it has to be found to be converted. Perhaps I will send a letter to the UofI Alumni Association magazine.
DClark - I have also told others that a chunk of my young life was pretty similar to that portrayed in American Graffiti. It was very Dreyfuss-esque.
Roger - I enjoy reading your journals so much but this one was one of my favorites. I realized this weekend how lucky we were to have such great classmates and teachers. Many of our classmates traveled a great distance just to reconnect with friends. Some of our classmates I had not seen in 50 years, and you are right, it didn't take long to reconnect and remember the good times we had in school. Thank you for your inspiration and kindness to everyone. Your the Best!!
Rogfer - thank you for remembering Uncle Joe. He meant the world to me.
This is crazy. Our class just graduated a week or so ago but it feels like the days are getting longer and summer's setting in already. You remember that "what now" feeling?
In the middle of the school year I walked into the Video Production Room to do a last minute project on one of the computers.
A photographer was shooting pictures of the Film Club for the year book that day and the teacher, who's a great guy, talked me into it. I'm not even in film club! But my picture's in the Film Club section of the year book, along with my captioned name.
It's crazy that something like that's going to stay in everyone's yearbook almost forever. Like in ten years at our class reunion, at least according to the yearbook, I'll still be a graduating senior of the class of 2010, and a member of Mr. P's film club.
Just curious, how many were in your graduating class in '60? How many at the reunion?
We had 907 in our freshman class in '74 in Pekin. Graduated 680 in '78. Tail end of the baby boomers, I think.
I was thinking as I re-read your excellent article that I've had many sets of friends in my lifespan: high school, college, military, 3 different companies. But, it's the high school friends that are lifelong friends.
I think Dick Biondi just had his 50th anniversary on the air this past spring. Happened to stumble onto it while scanning radio stations.
High school is an amazing thing. I remember being a freshman and thinking graduation day would never come. In those four years I sometimes pondered what we would all be like when we were adults, but surely that was forever away and we would never know. The subsequent twenty-three years have passed by more quickly than those four did.
When I see my old classmates, what amazes me is how short our time together was—even less for the junior or senior year “new kids”—and how closely we are all bonded in that scant time. Since then I have made friends with many others and spent more years with them than I did with those from high school. Still, that high school bond transcends almost all relationships that have come after. When we get together for a reunion it’s as if we’ve known each other all our lives and that it was just like yesterday that we last saw each other, receding hairlines, expanding waistlines, and laugh lines aside.
What I enjoy most about reunions, and reconnections through venues such as Facebook, is seeing how people have changed yet stayed the same. I get the biggest kick out of sitting together with “kids”—for we are still kids in each others’ eyes despite the graying hair, children going to college, some of them even grandparents!—from different social circles back in the day. It’s like our own Breakfast Club laughing over drinks, reminiscing, and singing together like lifelong chums though our paths rarely crossed in school. It was so very nice one evening to reconnect with an ex-girlfriend and talk with her for hours just about life. There was no animosity left over from that long ago breakup, no need for apologies, and no hint of reigniting an old flame. It was just two people sharing their lives with old, dear friends.
Amazing. And Beautiful. The next reunion—marking a mere quarter-century—is only two years away, and I’m already looking forward to it. Thanks for sparking memories of my own by sharing yours.
I was bit overwrought, there. It happens far too easily when you live in the middle of nowhere for far too long.
"Take a class in American Lit at a community college?"
I did go to community college for five years, recently graduating - a certain John "Bluto" Blutarsky quote comes to mind. After 18 years of sheltering and indoctrination, the social experience was invaluable. Come to think of it, my time at community college was to me what high school was for you and many others.
My American Lit "class" consisted of visiting the college library for Kurt Vonnegut and James Baldwin. I believe I was going through "Breakfast of Champions" when Vonnegut died. So it goes.
I took Survey of English Literature with resident hard-ass (everyone needs one!) Professor Fabella. An A- paper I did on "The Rape of the Lock" still hangs on my wall, my proudest A. Prof. Fabella has retired from teaching and now attends as a student.
Ebert: Well, then, you are taking the right path! And Prof. Fabella has as well. I could quite happily have stayed in lit classes all of my life.
@KathyB & Monica
Without implying that RE needs to feel guilty about having been relatively happy, if so, (after all, so may have been case with the great bard), it is true that many of us would prefer to forget more than to remember. Consolingly, Tolstoi said that unhappy people are all unique, whereas happiness is a uniform commodity.
I just read the story about your classmate Joe Sanderson. What a guy! There is a movie or a book there to be sure. I hope his brother has gotten a copy of his journal. If he had not have died, what else could he have done? This man was an adventurer of the like you rarely hear about. Cool.
Oh, Mr. Ebert. I so nearly stopped early and began upbraiding you over one of my most ardent pet peeves -- the line about how you were "one of the last generations of innocence" (your innocence, were it so, was an anomaly not a conclusion). But then I continued, to see your knowingly and shamelessly romantic memories of your class and your era. Sorry for the near snap.
What a thrill to read your thoughts, Roger. I loved the reunion, too, but could never have shared my feelings so eloquently. I also counted Mrs Seward as one of the best teachers I had, for those occasions when the word doesn't come these days but another does. Love to you and Chaz.
Ebert: Oh, Pegeen, you were so...Pegeen. Perfectly Pegeen. I've always had such admiration for you.
Although my formative years ended before high school (marijuana ruined any chance of adolescent bliss, or nostalgia for that matter), your remembrance of those years is, as always, vicariously sentimental.
Like many of your readers, I too had a Mrs. Seward (though I had to wait until college for the bittersweet introduction). She was well over 70, yet more formidable than Tyson. Her class was Milton. I think I signed up for it out of some inexplicable need to persecute myself, knowing full well of her brutality. She graded papers by underlying text in different colored pencils, each hue significant of some transgression (it goes without saying what a brown underline meant).
I received a B+ in her class, and I have never felt more victorious. I credit her militant teaching style with making me a better writer. She will always be there, glaring down at every sentence I construct, clutching a rainbow of prismas in her hand.
Years ago I was in play adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Novel, Dandelion Wine.
A novel about a 12 year old boy's glorious summer, in the fictional town of Green Town, Illinois in 1928 (Bradbury grew up in Waukegan.)
The book is mostly focused on small town routines from that period, and the lessons the boy learns in what is probably his last summer as a carefree kid. The boy, Douglas Spaulding, is on the cusp of adulthood but not there yet. He is able still to experience all the childhood joys of summer and all it's freedoms, but somewhere, in the back of his mind, he has the uneasy feeling that things won't be this way forever.
The title of the book, about a wine made in the summer by the boy's grandfather, basically is about storing all of the joys of summer in a single bottle.
I fell in love with that book. Your writings on your past almost feel like a continuation of it.
Ebert: I love it too. Mowing the lawn with the Green Machine.
Good afternoon, Mr. Ebert:
The cardinal rule of reunions is: Do not attend a reunion unless you are absolutely certain that a fellow alumnus with whom you have still remained friends after so many years will also be attending, or unless you have a spouse, or boyfriend/girlfriend, willing to come with you. Otherwise, you will have a miserable experience. Corollary: if you can attend a reunion with a "pack", or a "posse", or a clique, or any other group of friends, then by all means do so. I did not heed either rule when I attended my Tufts University 25th reunion recently, and I ended up leaving in frustration and disgust. Did Chaz or anyone else accompany you to the reunion, Mr. Ebert, or did you go alone?
"Ebert: After you've known people for 50 years, they're all equally famous." I find that doubtful. If one was obscure or marginalized during one's high school years, longevity alone will not surmount that tendency. You have to "shout to be heard". I imagine you must have had an enrapt throng following you. One can only wonder how many fellow alumni were persuaded to attend because of your mere presence. However, was there any fellow alumnus or alumna who didn't recognize you?
Like Randy Masters, I would like to know how many people were in your graduating class, and what percentage actually attended the reunion.
Trivia Note: Hank Azaria, of "The Simpsons" fame, was in my Tufts graduating class of 1985. I believe he was even in one of my English classes: American Humor.
Ebert: And learned all he needed to know.
Yes, Chaz was by my side, and after three reunions and other meetings she knows many of my classmates.
Roger - I loved your article about Urbana. My years as a contemporary of yours at Illinois certainly helped me to remember the Steak'n'Shake, the Orpheum Theatre, and more. I also enjoyed recalling the occasional discussions in the basement lounge of the K Room across from the Journalism building that I was fortunate to sit in on with you and other Journalism students. I've enjoyed your movie reviews over the decades, and wish you well.
High school is an amazing thing. I remember being a freshman and thinking graduation day would never come. In those four years I sometimes pondered what we would all be like when we were adults, but surely that was forever away and we would never know. The subsequent twenty-three years have passed by more quickly than those four did.
When I see my old classmates, what amazes me is how short our time together was—even less for the junior or senior year “new kids”—and how closely we are all bonded in that scant time. Since then I have made friends with many others and spent more years with them than I did with those from high school. Still, that high school bond transcends almost all relationships that have come after. When we get together for a reunion it’s as if we’ve known each other all our lives and that it was just like yesterday that we last saw each other, receding hairlines, expanding waistlines, and laugh lines aside.
What I enjoy most about reunions, and reconnections through venues such as Facebook, is seeing how people have changed yet stayed the same. I get the biggest kick out of sitting together with “kids”—for we are still kids in each others’ eyes despite the graying hair, children going to college, some of them even grandparents!—from different social circles back in the day. It’s like our own Breakfast Club laughing over drinks, reminiscing, and singing together like lifelong chums though our paths rarely crossed in school. It was so very nice one evening to reconnect with an ex-girlfriend and talk with her for hours just about life. There was no animosity left over from that long ago breakup, no need for apologies, and no hint of reigniting an old flame. It was just two people sharing their lives with old, dear friends.
Amazing. And Beautiful. The next reunion—marking a mere quarter-century—is only two years away, and I’m already looking forward to it. Thanks for sparking memories of my own by sharing yours.
It's fascinating to me that you find Mrs. Seward's blackballing of you to be something that fills you with happiness. I'm nearly 40. I was raised by social justice types. My knee jerk reaction to reading that was an oh so mild outrage that something other than academic merit should account for membership in an honor society. But that sort of desire for fairness was inculcated in me at such a young age that it's almost subconscious.
I just came back from my own high school graduation, where I had a tough time feeling any emotion. I didn't live in the vicinity of school (people often joke that I practically live in another town). And for the first two years of my high school life, I was enrolled in our school's IB program, which seriously hampered my academic and social performances. It really wasn't till my senior and last year did I actually feel a part of my school community.The high school experience our valedictorian--a good friend of mine--described is one that I envy. But as you said the memories are there. Even in those rough first two years, there were some great laughs and memories. And in my final two years, I was able to break out of my shell, so to speak, and be part of the school community. I guess what I'm feeling now is regret. Regret that I practically wasted the first two years of high school and had more time to spend with the friends I mostly made in the last two years of school. One thing is for sure, these will be friendships I keep and cherish for the future and I will do my best to make up for those lost two years and then some.
Interesting article, although how come no pictures from the event of you and the classmates? Had a problem doing that, meaning that the classmates forbade you to put them up? It is ironic that I've also gotten back in touch with some of my high school classmates through Facebook. Many of them are now married with kids of their own. I was able to attend a reunion in 2008, but not many I knew were there due to it being summertime. There was one again in October of 2008 but I was unavailable due to a previous committment. However, saw on Facebook some of the pictures taken and it was amazing to recognize many of the classmates from the past and how some looked different now and one boy didn't seem to age at all. A question I have is were your teachers still at these reunions? Wouldn't most of them be retired, if not dead, by now? I know most of mine are retired.
Ebert: Four were there and very much alive.
I thought photos would be more appropriate for facebook than for a general blog. There was a group photo taken, but I arrived too late for it, and my absence seemed...ah...a little too prophetic.
Adolescence, for me, was less than memorable (due in no small measure to marijuana). However, I find your remembrance of high school to be somehow vicariously nostalgic.
Like many of your readers, I too had a Mrs. Seward. Unfortunately, my introduction did not occur until college. She was tiny, well over 70, and more formidable than Tyson. She taught Milton, and I must have registered for the class in some absurd act of self-persecution. I knew full-well of her reputation for classroom brutality.
She graded papers by underlining text with different colored pencils (each color representing some great transgression -- it goes without saying what a sentence underlined in brown signified).
I received a B+ in her class and considered myself victorious. In fact, I credit her with making me a better writer. To this day, when I sit down to write, Old Lady Milton is often there. She glares over my shoulder, lips pursed, a rainbow of prismas clutched tight in her disapproving hand.
Ebert: I took a Milton class at the University of Chicago from a distinguished and aged scholar, and realized I could never have gotten into Milton without him leading me by the hand.
My Mrs Seward was the Rev. Brother W.I.McKeough of the Irish Christian Brothers to whom I owe whatever English and Maths I have. With his cane and his affection he wakened me from academic latency. From him also I received a not very long lasted period of Christian flavored piety . In his better moods he was a series of grunts as he puffed at his faithful pipe and in his anger he was like sudden claps of thunder, sometimes followed by a rain of blows with the nearest available implement. His parting gift to me was a stanza of Longfellow's poem "Psalm of Life" on a two inch card. Years later I was to see him at a distance visiting a psychiatric clinic. Much later when I went to visit him after considerable procrastination, I learnt he had passed away on the previous day. Ever since I re-learnt prayer he enjoys a permanent slot.
You might notice that the comments are somewhat evenly divided between people who have fond memories of high school and people for whom it was nothing more than an obstacle to overcome. Two people from the same school with the same teachers in the same year walk away with entirely different experiences. The comments are a good smorgasbord of social types who as described in the Madeleine L'Engle quote above are still more or less the same person inside, although sometimes people can come out of their shells in college and beyond.
You obviously fell more into the first category of someone who engaged with people and the typical activities of an outgoing young man.
As was true for one of the other posters, most of my friends were in the class before me, so I have not attended any of my reunions. What may have cinched that resolve into place was seeing Gross Pointe Blanke. "It's as if everybody had swelled." Indeed. I imagined the high school reunions to be as snarky and disaster filled as that portrayed on the screen. After all, the greatest comedy is rooted directly in reality.
A lot of my life was also outside of high school, as this was the 1980s and early 1990s, and I was making a lot of interesting friends on pre-internet local chat boards during the personal computer revolution. I was hanging out with them outside of school. By the time my senior year rolled around, all my school friends were basically gone, so graduating was merely a small stepping stone and I never looked back.
Now that the 20th will be rolling around in a few years, there is an idle curiosity brewing about people I only vaguely remember. Attending the reunion would be like meeting everyone almost for the first time, with some very vague shared memories to kick start conversations with. Your blog is egging me to think about going, just to see what has become of some of my contemporaries.
I really enjoyed this entry and your last one, having grown up in a Catholic family.
Roger:
I was so sad to have missed the reunion. When I read this article, I was overjoyed. Your depiction of all the old familiar places and people was not only eloquently written, but also very heartwarming. Although I couldn't attend, your words allowed me to vicariously share the events of last weekend. Thank you, thank you!
P.S.
I had Mrs. Seward's class with you and I remember those weekly lists vividly! I don't think anyone who took her class could ever forget her.
Ebert: Oh, yeah.
You still have that great smile?
Good morning, Mr. Ebert:
Some random ramblings:
- My 1981 high school graduating class numbered 501.
- Haverhill High School resembled a prison fortress and even had a security guard (named Emanuel or "Manny") patrol the grounds. But we did have an Olympic-sized swimming pool (12 feet at its deepest).
- The high school I attended was not the original one. Haverhill converted its original high school into a "new" city hall.
- I took the SATs for college twice, without Kaplan or any other supplemental preparation (aren't you glad you were spared that prerequisite?). Out of a possible combined score of 1600, I obtained 1380.
We eagerly await a blog of your college adventures. Hopefully, it deviated somewhat from your "Mayberry-ish" high school experience! ;)
Mr Ebert,
I am a physician (University of Chicago grad)with Stage 4 breast cancer. I've survived 2.5 years with a nearly normal quality of life with the help of Chinese medicine and, now, hyperbaric oxygen. Chinese medicine can help prevent cancer recurrences, correct side effects of treatment and normalize bodily functions such as blood sugar levels. It has been refined for 2500 years and frankly astonishes me.
You and Gene Siskel have always been my favorite film critics. I always turn to your column for real insights into films - your writing has become so soulful!
I sincerely hope you have no plans for retirement - mental activity is essential for health and longevity!
All the best,
Julia White
Another fabulous entry.
One of my favorite memories was running into my own Mrs. Seward on the subway one day as a graduate student.
He'd taught me for two years and pretended to remember me. I know he didn't, but it was a delight to tell him how much he'd influenced me and to see others on the train respond to the experience of running into a treasured old professor.
Stop talking about your last reunion and such. You're here and you seem happy and determined. If it depresses me as a fan, I can't imagine what it does to your family to hear those remarks. I hope that you aren't becoming complacent. Nobody is born with an expiration date.
Rosa Doolittle e-mailed your reunion article, and although I don't know her, I told her I loved her for sending it.
By the way, Roger, don't get any misguided idea that the '60 class was the favored one! Miss Bauer and Perrino always knew ours was the most special! And, by the way, we were on the cusp of something: We females and members of other minorities, especially, were so repressed, just waiting to burst out~ Have you read (prolly!) Fred Kaplan's The Year Everything Changed, 1959?
And, also, by the way, your were never a smart ass: Her assessment was wrong. You were simply more entertaining than the forlorn frog we dissected and certainly more than she! Who can blame you for that?
The same teacher told me my senior year: "You are not as good as some people think you are." Needless to say, I have a different "take" on Seward's teaching abilities, and her mean remark brought tears, not happiness. In my humble view, I think she should have been taken far away from students and sent mebbe to central office.
For some reason, we somehow all felt, growing up, that Urbana was the epicenter, and we still wonder at those years and give thanks! Char Nesmith Brady ('59) says our fondness for Urbana and each other is because we danced together for four years, Friday and Sat. nights, at the Tigers' Den.
A belated "Thank you" to you & Chaz, whom I adored the minute she strutted across the Virginia Theatre stage to show off her new high heels. You two do know how to throw a party! Man oh man! My husband and I agreed, as did the other '59er attendees that all life should be one long, Ebert filmfest~mebbe on a cruise ship next time!
"If that wasn't great, I don't know what is." (Kurt Vonnegut) :-)
Love,
Gaynell (Widdows) Wood
Urbana High School , '59
U. of I. '63
Ebert: I never thought of that! The Tiger's Den was the key. The school was small enough that many of us saw each other there week after all...and rock and roll was new...sigh...
Once again, Roger, lovely, lovely thoughts.
How funny that reunion experiences, whether they be the 50th or (my recent) 30th, are so similar. Of course it could be due to the presence of both Mrs. Conrad and Leseur at Crane's Alley :-).
(Personally, I think they show up at all of the reunions for the free drinks...). During my tenure at UHS, Carolyn Leseur had assumed Mrs. Seward's Senior Rhetoric course -- in every way, including her intensity and fierce application of red ink. I used to love her challenge at the end of selected classes: "Who said the following?" I rarely guessed correctly, but triumphed when she asked who said, "We are not amused." I stumped the class, having just finished a biography of Queen Victoria (which I read surreptitiously at my desk as well).
My, how that woman shaped me: to strive, to achieve, to become.
Yes, Yes, Yes. You are the continuity of all memories. They are burned into the synapses of your mind. Frequent activities develop deeper tracks through the synapses, but in actuality, all of the senses get filtered and stored. At the end, when all of the synapses fire and 'the course of a lifetime runs over and over again' they/you decide judgement. You tell what you have learned.
You are the same person at three at ninety-three. There is nothing quite like a family to remind you of that. And all are equally storied, if not famous.
My own high school ended a year early as I jumped to college. The three years I had were enjoyable but timid. I've always imagined that all would have been different that last year had we not moved. But deep down, I know I would have been as timid.
Dear Roger,
What a wonderful recap of a glorious weekend. What many people do not know is that, despite all your personal success, a Pulitzer Prize, a successful TV show and years of helpful and insightful movie reviews, you never forgot those who shared your youth. I remember when you Hollywood friends found out that you had to leave early for a class reunion and thought you had really lost it. I'm told that you said "I wouldn't miss it for the world."
The most poignant moment of our reunion was seeing you and Chaz dancing and her singing the words of the song to you. The two of you make beautiful music with but one voice. What a joy to spend even a few more special moments with you. You are a most treasured friend.
Larry McGehe
Ebert: Larry, I was so happy to you see, and to see that grin. You always seemed to be up to something. We had some great times. I can still see you grinding the Time Machine. Born to be a Mad Scientist.
[Me]:. I once wrote her a letter saying one creates his own reality. She replied that they do not.
Ebert: But one has no choice but to do so.
---Amen. Like my saturnine German pal once said, "I fear Man is doomed to accept responsibility for himself."
I received your "gorgeous" but as a rule don't publish brief compliments, because it could seem self-congratulatory.
---Got it. Gorgeous, Rodge, just gorgeous. Except for that one misspelling there.
"Most of us would have success." 51%? Guess = 92% in conventional terms, 100% in cosmic terms.
Dear Roger,
I was talking to my husband tonight about the films opening this weekend and wondering what you would say about them. I talked to him about how I've been watching you or reading your reviews as long as I can remember and how they are always so perceptive and right on.
I used to go to the Cannes Film Festival for many years and one of the highlights was running into you on the street! You were so gracious and approachable. And the best book I ever read on the whole Cannes Film Festival carnival is your 14 Days in the Midday Sun, which I still own a proud copy of and recommend to anyone about to embark on a trip to Croisette. Thank you so much for all of your wonderful writing! With much gratitude, Liz
@Kelnarsio_Tbagz: Reading this also made me regretful and envious. I am class of 1999. Most of my mental energy in high school went into planning my next drinking session or trying to lose my virginity. We are a lame generation.
My high school memory is full of mixed feelings. I enrolled in one of the best high schools in my state. It was the place where I started my 12 years of my life in the dormitory. The school was located far outside of my hometown city with the big mountain behind it; the nearest town was about 5km from it.
It was far from home(in my standard at time), but I was happy in my way. When I visited that place for the first time, I spent the time with reading "Paradise Lost", and spent more time with the books from the small library(I was disappointed by the brevity of "Paradise Regained"). I don't think I understand "In Search of Lost Time", but I liked the first two books. And I wanted more and bought books for myself as before. My room(shared with my roommate) was the world where "One Hundred Years of Solitude" could lean on "L.A. Confidential".
My Mrs. Seward was an English teacher during the first year. I had learned English a bit, but he gave me the new paradigm about how to read, write, and speak. He bombarded us with many textbooks. Our young minds diligently followed his instructions. He emphasized on the application, and I began to read books in English thanks to him. One of the first books was the abridged version of "The Great Expectations" for the young learners, and then I proceeded to the next step. I started with Stephen King's books because I had been a big fan since I was 10, and then got interested in others. Furthermore, through Internet. I enjoyed English websites including IMDB and your homepage and ordered CDs from Amazon and other sites.
In case of colleagues... It was not so pleasant. I was oblivious to others' hidden hostility, and came to know later that how much they despised me. It was small world where there was less than 150 students. The individuality was sometimes crushed at night. Sometimes they beat me. Sometimes they abused me with verbal insults. I was treated like a weirdo by them. Nevertheless, I survived with my books and CDs, and I'm all right as you see. But the reunion with them? I'd rather sell them, except female students, to the Asian slave market if they have the one at the Strait of Malacca. However, on the second thought, I think I LOVE to hate them like the characters in "Grumpy Old Men". I think I will have to accept the invitation later.
Besides that, I love my high school and its surroundings, which made watching "Blair Witch Project" quite creepy. http://yfrog.com/7ghqlbj
Wonderful memories here, Roger, but let me suggest just one thing. You were young at a particular time in our nation's history that was quite special and would soon disappear. I'm a bit younger than you, but I have very clear memories of the 1950s and early '60s, so I'm in somewhat the same boat. What I find difficult is disentangling the childhood wonder and specialness that are part of those memories from the actual specialness of the time. But I think it's important to do so.
I went to a U of C event a few weeks ago at which James Fallows was one of the featured speakers. Briefly discussing his extended experience in China and comparing that country with the U.S., he said that China's problems were much greater than any we face. Even so, there's an exciting sense over there that China is on the upswing, that great things lie just ahead. While in the U.S., there's a sense that has been around for a long time now that we're in decline, our best days are behind us.
In the 1950s and early to mid-'60s, I believe, we were like China is today, in this particular way. We had lots of problems but also we believed that they could be solved and, more than that, a REALLY exciting and wonderful future awaited us. I couldn't wait to become an adult and go out and do great things for myself and my country.
Today, my 13-year-old daughter dreads her future. She's looking forward to high school and college. But after that, the prospects are bleak. Just look at the Labor Department's list of promising "careers" over the next 10 years. Immodestly, I'll say that my wife and I have been darned good parents. And we know a lot of other parents who go all out for their kids. But none of them can give our children what we had--that hope for a bright future.
I suppose that's why, in these dismal times, it's especially pleasant to revisit those years. By the way, given your gifts, you can't do this sort of thing too often. I'm already looking forward to, and counting on, your remarks on the Urbana reunion in 2020. Be there.
"Now, as they passed in review, called up one by one, I saw a double image: The same person in 1960 and 2010."
There's a beautiful scene from Proust's Time Regained that deals with this same situation - in the summary, it should be listed as "The Masked Ball."
My ten year reunion is coming up next year -- I graduated high school in 2001.
I went to a big high school, Bronx Science, with I think around 2700 students altogether, so we weren't a community so much as a loose confederation of communities. The people I knew I knew well, but I don't think I even met half of the people in my senior class. I was less social than most. I was shy, internal, kept my head down.
I wrote short stories. I still do, but back then they were more my world than the actual world. Some were inspired by high school. Some were just inspired by the setting. Others were complete flights of fancy. Every once in a while in college, which took a lot of people from Bronx Science, someone I had never seen before would approach me and tell me he remembered me from high school. I'd feel guilty for not remembering him, and then feel a bit exposed. Who else was noticing me while I off being invisible? Was I doing something dumb at the time?
I'm looking forward to the reunion almost as much as I'm dreading it. Some people go to reunions to measure themselves against other people's success, and I'm holding down the curve. Bronx Science, a specialized public high school, attracted and bred overachievers. "What do you do?" is my least favorite question. I blog. I bounce between unpaid and underpaid writing and editing internships. My current aspiration is the work my way up to minimum wage doing something I don't hate.
I hope there's an open bar.
Having graduated Champaign Central in '70, much of this great piece is fairly personal to me. In those days, Central and the new Centennial were not allowed to face each other athletically, unless playoff tourneys cast them together, so Central-Urbana was a rivalry of undiluted, mutual contempt. My own 40th high school reunion is this August, and last fall, Central whooped Urbana 50-0 in football, so that is the state of the art we will exprience. Sorry to rub it in, but you're the one who raised the Big 12 championship thing. ;-)
Ebert: 50-0? And my day started so well.
Dear Roger, just catching up with this essay. When we were working at the University beginning in 1963, the Illiac II was in service. I suppose it helped to inspire the creation of HAL.
I remember the well known campus map which wanted to place the Illini Union in the prime position, with the reader facing the main entrance. This meant that the top of the map showed South, and I stayed unoriented and confused for most of our first year.
Beginning in the late sixties, I made a number of trips from Rochester and was a guest at the Illini Union, interviewing doctoral candidates for Xerox. Never had imagined I'd have such a job. Then again, never imagined that still later I would have press credentials for twenty years at the Toronto Film Festival.
Cheers to you.
Ebert: One of my classes took a field trip through the original Illiac. I seem to rememeber five floors of vacumn tubes.
Reminded me of your reviews for "American Graffiti" and "Peggy Sue Got Married." Do you still feel that "we walk like ghosts through the spaces of our adolescence?" I've always found that one your most true words.
We're not quite as big on high school reunions here in Canada as you seem to be in the U.S., but if I ever did get to attend one I would love to see my old friend Jeff Skoll again.
We attended computer class together back in the days of Fortran and bubble cards, and the year after with Commodore PETs. We used to cut class on occasion to go for a smoke - or a *smoke* - out by the Catholic school playground and come back in time for Mr. Daniels' enriched English class, where we would write A+ essays on books we had never read. I'm pretty sure I asked him to the prom even though we were just friends, but he either wasn't going or already had a date.
I wish he'd taken me up on it. My date was a dud.
Years later I saw Jeff on ABC's 'Person of the Week'. He'd done pretty well for himself, making millions as eBay's first president, then becoming a noted philanthropist and producer of socially relevant movies like 'An Inconvenient Truth', 'Syriana', and 'The Soloist'.
If you run into him at a film festival, tell him Jennifer Holding says 'hi'.
I consider myself young but I have some moments where I view myself beyond living in the moment, and rather as my future self looking back at what I am doing. It's strange to think we can never have an "objective" viewpoint of how we were until we are removed from it -- and I suppose time and growing older could help that. I'm not sure what I mean by objective since nothing that involves our personal experience can be called that. But I have an irrational fear of getting older and reaching those benchmarks in anniversaries, or even those requisite "life" things like graduating from college. I used to absolutely loathe yearbook signing (despite being on the yearbook committee as an editor) because, aside from representing the end of things, it also meant that there was an inherent need to have a (precious) memory of something or someone -- and when you didn't, then what? Or if you do, to render it in any way beyond where it already is in your mind might actually alter it. Anyway, your entry makes me optimistic about whatever reunion I might have in the future. You make everything sound so lovely.
Interesting read, 50's-60's America sounds like a fascinating time to have lived, films like American Graffiti really interest me because of this. I'm from a completely different world - From New Zealand, and I only finished high school last year, in December.
Sadly, I've already fallen out of contact with a lot of my high school friends. We've all spread out, only a few remain in the same city as me - They're all at University for the next few years, whereas I have no intention of going to Uni. I'm attending a Polytechnic, which if successful, will lead to Broadcasting School.
Reading this made me imagine what my reunion will be like, I'm excited! Regardless of whether or not I succeed in my dreams, I look forward to seeing how everyone has done, there are already people from my high school who are successful - One girl I know has just been hired on as a host on a big national kids television show, which is very exciting.
I met up with a few of my friends last week for the first time in six months, and the amount of change that has happened is truly surprising. I can't even imagine what the years will have in store for us.
I can't wait for a reunion many years from now. Thanks for the read, Ebert.
Roger:
I really reqret not being able to attend the reunion. After reviewing the class photo, the DVD, and especially your terrific article of UHS and Urbana reflections so many positive memories flooded back.
I've followed your career with great interest and congratulate you on your many many accomplishements.
Thank you for sharing your memories. It's a great recap for us all.
Best wishes.
Gary Faust
Ebert: Hi, Gary. I think I liked this one the best of all. Fifty years gives you a perspective.
This year I went to my 35th college reunion. The College generally expects people to stop coming after the 50th reunion, but the indomitable class of 1940 refused to stop coming back. So this year was their 70th reunion. Last time around they were 87; this time they were 92. Several were in wheelchairs, deaf, etc., but they said that as long as they were above ground, nothing could stop them coming back. When they led the Parade of Classes, there were tears in everyone's eyes. This is just to say that those old ties are strong and rewarding, and may we all keep coming back as thoughtfully as you have, Roger.
Ebert: It becomes more meaningful the older you get. I hope we have a 60th...and I hope, for that matter, I'm there.
Yes, the enormous size of the Illiac, and one can only imagine its cost to create...all beyond belief.
One additional Urbana recollection from 1963. Going to the library--a department in the basement, to obtain a copy of something, and there behind the counter the clerks would, in certain instances, make copies for customers on a Xerox machine. First time I saw it. Known as the Model 914 because it could print on 9 x 14 paper, it could turn out a copy in, I think, about two minutes. Naturally, not a piece of equipment that the general public could even touch.
Ebert: I labored for hours in the archives down there, compiling the stuff for my book An Illini Century.
Ebert: I was witnessing a truth. Within our bodies of 67 or 68 years lived all the people we had ever been or seemed to be. All the success, all the defeat, all the love and fear. We were all here.
You would definitely get along with my dad. He often says that we are all of the ages that we have been, as well as the age that we are now.
I had my tenth-year reunion a few years back, and while I don't think there was any "unfinished romantic business in the air," I certainly saw double with my classmates. In some cases, the images from then and now (both physical and otherwise) were remarkably similar. In no cases were the images remarkably different.
And yet our essence remains the same. By the time we reach high school, we are like rough drafts; we revise ourselves in the years following graduation, but the essential story--the story of who we are--is already written on the page and scribbled in the margins.
Mr. Ebert:
"I hadn't thought about that play once in all these years, but now into my mind came the memorized monologue. From where? From where everything still is."
Doesn't this kind of personal experience . . . shake the foundations of your non-theism . . . even the slightest?
Ebert: No. It teaches me that the human brain has memory as one of its purposes, and that from time to time memories spring up from years and years ago. I believe that Pegeen mentioning that play triggered the dormant memory, which would have lain forever untouched.
Now if I started having someone else's memories...that would shake me.
Grace wrote: I had my own Mrs. Seward, back in grade 2, without whom I wouldn't have written a single word.
And many of us who read your blog are thankful that you did. :-)
As for me, I had teachers that encouraged my writing, and others who helped me grow as a person. In fact, one of them asked me to speak to her class less than a month before I left for Seattle.
The funny thing was that I didn't have a class with the Mrs. Seward at my high school, who was in charge of the English department. In a way, that might have been a good thing, since my writing might have become too formal had essay structure been drilled into me. What I needed was a teacher to show me the creative possibilities inherent in writing, and I got her as my tenth grade English teacher.
Thank you for that remembrance of Urbana. I graduated in 1966 and, like you, am often astonished at the people that I so casually encountered in our school and community. I lived in the house directly across from UHS ("And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach") with the Lorado Taft statue right outside my bedroom window.
As an aspiring beatnik, the only boys of real interest were those intellectuals over at the University. We could encounter them at will by just going over to the Hillel Foundation for the Campus Folksong Club. In my memory, it was YOU, Roger Ebert, who would stand on a chair and sing
"I am the man, the very fat man, who waters the workers' beer.
I am the man, the very fat mean, who dilutes all their cheer.
And what do I care if it makes then sick or it makes them a little bit queer,
Oh, I am the man, the very fat man, what waters the workers' beer."
Please say it is so. The Turk's Head is long gone but do I still have that guy on the chair?
Ebert: I did indeed sing that very song. Another of my favorites was:
http://j.mp/cJRR7e
You have made me quite happy. It doesn't hurt to have a little verification of memories these days.
You were one very cool guy to this High School Bohemian. (You still are!)
I won't try to indulge in too much Urbana neighborhood nostalgia but it was YOU who brought up Pete Seeger. If you lived on Washington then you may have know the Preston Tuttle family? Heath Tuttle took me on my first date and it was a Pete Seeger concert at the Union.
And I am still sticking to the Union.
Here is a blending of your generation with mine:
This is the Wu-tang clan, a hip-hop group, whose music was used that used music from the Beatles to create the beats. The RZa is part of this group, who composed the music for "Kill Bill." The whole album is on youtube.
(samples "she's a woman")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOkQyf0XFe8&feature=related
(samples "I am the walrus")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex4IKMMRDWQ&feature=related
(samples "and I love her")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-vNOyIw8wQ&feature=related
(samples "you never give me your money")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unoekCJr6MU&feature=related
(samples "girl")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P17NVGqMe-Y&feature=related
Ok, you get the idea.
Actually, this was the one I heard first:
Someone also mixed Jay-Z's "Black" album with the Beatles "White" album, which was called the "Grey Album."
(samples "while my guitar gently weeps")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw25MVuSN3Q
(samples the outro from "cry baby cry")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ck0NeNVr7c&feature=related
I think I made a mistake about the "I am the walrus" part on that last one; I'm not sure what song that was
Here's "The Grey Album" starting from track #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TSGKPzsn1c
Here's "Wu-Tang vs. The Beatles" starting from track #1 (numbered)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4pRmJAWFQ4
Mr. Ebert:
Have you accompanied Chaz to any of her reunions (high school or college), assuming she has attended any? If you have, did you and she enjoy them?
Ebert: Yes, I attended her reunion earlier this year. She was on the organizing committee.
Good morning, Mr. Ebert:
It it interesting to speculate (at least I think so) how your high school experience and perspective would differ if you and your classmates had been subjected to SATs or other college admissions tests.
Mr. Ebert:
My morning newspaper brought me an article about you and your newest project (The Pot and How to Use It). This caused me to come to this site to see what else is going on in your life.
I read your posting on the high school reunion you attended and that has lead me to send you this note.
I, too am of your generation (High School Class of 1960) but of a different place (small farm town in Northern California). I am however very familiar with Urbana and your time there. I married Sally Gallagher, Urbana class of 1962. She often spoke of you and her other friends and classmates at Urbana(she credited you with teaching her a great deal about how to drive a car).
She left Urbana in 1962 only to return for family visits. A meal at Shake and Steak was always a part of our visits to her home. I was very moved to read your remembrances of that time and place.
I lost Sally to cancer in 1996 and so I have followed your fight with cancer with more than a casual interest. She and now you have shown me an incredible amount of strength and grace in how you've chosen to live your life.
I am attending my own 50th reunion this fall(89 class members) and I hope that I can look back with as much pleasure as you have.
Ebert: I am so sorry to learn that about dear Sally.
Roger, what a walk down memory lane, although you walked along a bit ahead of me.
Some random thoughts:
I listened to a lot of radio (have always sung along) as I grew up, and especially liked the "oldies": I can remember getting misty-eyed listening to "Moments to Remember" while composing myself for sleep at the age of 14, hoping that I'd have all those experiences during my high school years too.
But I was an "Air Force brat" so I went to the first 3-and-a-half years of high school in Hawaii (at a large school made up of half military and half local kids). My two best friends cycled out, due to their fathers' transfers, before I did, so there I didn't have even the whole 3 1/2 years with them. The last year and a half, I attended a much smaller school on an Air Force base, so it was easier to get to know my classmates.
My senior year I was voted Most Likely to Succeed, but I considered myself a failure because I hadn't dated at all. So much for THOSE "memories to remember"! LOL
Even so, there WERE some great memories--driver's ed with the football coach/history teacher; bus rides to "away" football games; writing for the school newspaper and doing a school column in the "city paper," doing a scene from "Macbeth" for an English assignment, with everyone in modern clothes and with the sound of a train whistle upon the line "Hark, I hear horses," reading "Pygmalion" aloud in English class after seeing "My Fair Lady" and getting to read some of Eliza's lines.
I was really conflicted about attending the 30-year reunion. So vivid were my memories of feeling invisible, geeky, nerdy, and insignificant during that year and a half that I was really shocked to find that the head cheerleader herself remembered me. :-) And, upon learning that I was newly divorced and still shell-shocked, she gave me her email address and told me to write anytime I just wanted to "talk."
There were even a couple of guys in the class behind me that admitted they'd had a crush on me! Wow, they must have gone to school with someone else who had my name!
The newspaper-writing experiences and the "Macbeth" and "Pygmalion" experiences were all tied to my senior English teacher (who was a big influence on many of us). I got to visit a bit with him at the reunion. Even though my class was only the second one he taught in his twenty some-odd-year career, the memories I shared with him sparked corresponding memories for him.
Later, a group of us chuckled in bemusement that we still felt that we should address him as Mr. instead of by his first name . . . even after learning that he was only 7 years older than we were!
Our class had been sophomores when Kennedy was assasinated and would be in college before Viet Nam heated up and the next two assasinations occurred. So disillusionment had not yet set in.
Dress codes were instituted during our high school years, but mostly for the length of boys' hair. We girls wouldn't have even entertained the idea of coming to school in pants unless it was Field Day, but we WERE subject to the skirt-must-touch-the-ground-when-kneeling test.
For me, many of the memories I'd hoped for in high school occurred in college, where I spent all four years and where I developed a friendship that has lasted to this day.
But I too remember high school as a time of hope, anticipation, enjoyable learning, and becomeing "more myself."
Thanks for the memories, Roger!
Ebert: It's often an English teacher who awakens students.
About mullets being illegal in Iran:
that reminds me Woody Allen in "Sleepers"
"I'm what you would call a teleological, existential atheist...I believe that there's an intelligence to the universe, with the exception of certain parts of New Jersey."
I checked on here to see if you had responded to my question in this entry and I was surprised and happy that you did, since you hadn't done that with me in the past on other comments. Thank you very much, Roger. It was a thrill.
Loved this post!! It's funny but I was thinking the same thing about seeing the double image 1979 - 2010! Through social networking sites, I have gotten in touch with many of my high school and even elementary classmates. And several of them have traveled to Chicago (from Ohio) to see me sing. It always amazes me that they would do such a thing. I see them and the first image is like a photograph of who they were in high school, elementary school and then there they are: grey haired, some grandparents, divorced and always full of life. Sadly, I have never attended a high school reunion. I am always gigging on those summer weekends - booked way in advance.
When did we get to be these old folks?
Ebert: You've still got some time to put in.
I cannot share your equanimity about having been blackballed from an honor society for being a "smartass." Despite my undeniable academic superiority in HS, I didn't make National Honor Society and remain furious and unforgiving to my alma mater for that fact. I guess they just didn't do a very good job of "socializing" me into the type of conformist automaton that is clearly their ideal assembly-line output. Shame on me; I thought for myself, and was ever-willing to call a spade a spade (or a moronic teacher exactly that, directly or by unambiguous implication).
Roger, thanks for reminding us of how important those days were for all of us lucky enough to grow up in downstate Illinois. Of course your being editor of a campus paper that lasted for 4 weeks was equally important to your career development. Hope you are well. B.
Ebert: Hey, B! As another editor of Spectator, surely you recall it lasted through a school year and was sold (for $200, I think), the next fall.
Roger;
Thank you for the recent walk through the halls of UHS and down Urbana's Main Street from a Webber school and UHS 64 grad.
I had the additional experiences of student teaching under Taylor Thomas in 1968 and a bit of the shock that came with teacher lounging it with our many venerable teachers- These were fun and magical times not soon to be forgotten.
Dewey G. Hollingsworth
Thank you for such a wonderful story. I too had all the same teachers just a few years later. What memories I had forgotten. But I have never forgotten Mr. Thomas...I was not aware of the story re: his his housing situation...and as I was a "townie" at the U of I...as were many of our classmates, I would have thought that through the years I would have learned of his subdivision. The only other teacher I remember that you did not mention was the French teacher Mrs. Stravinsky...yes the wife of Stravinsky's son a professor at the U of I...just to put another point to the quality of our teachers.
Again, many thanks for the memories!!
Ebert: Of course.
The thing is, I didn't take French. I wish I had. I ran through their kitchen once with her son, and asked him in the back yard who the old man was. "My grandfather." So I was two, or is it three, degrees of separation from Coco Chanel?
Only YOU would make the connection to Coco Chanel! Ha! Ha! I just pinch myself as I have grown older to have had a degree of separation from Igor himself!
Thanks for the memories. I went to UHS from 1966-1969. Just a few years later ... same teachers but oh the differences in what was happening in life. Protests, riots, hippies, we sure must have given the teachers a lot of battle fatigue. A troublesome time to grow up in. Even so, some things never changed -- the classes, the requirements of the teachers, the hang outs, the quite streets. A less innocent time for many but we were a generation on the bridge of the past with the future. Some of us still had the innocence of those who walked the halls before us. But a lot of that innocence got shattered by the outside world, the university and society changing out lives forever. I am a little wistful of your memories because some of those were my very early years of high school. Unfortunately, I cannot say that my class had the same closeness.
Not to nitpick at such a lovely piece of writing, but: You said Nicaragua. You meant El Salvador.
Mrs Seward recalls to my mind my sophomore history teacher, James Rutherford. He taught at Amity High in suburban New Haven in the 1970's. He required every history paper to use at least 3 books from the school library, which were to be returned to the library when our papers were due and were to be placed on reserve for him to check our footnotes. The footnotes were checked, and research papers were returned with extensive comments about organization, style, and sourcing.
Any research papers showing evidence of plagiarism were given the once over. Papers with plagiarism were given a ZERO. This meant for high tracked students, an F for that semester, a maximum of a C average for the year, not making the honor roll for the year, loss of eligibility for the honor society, and, at that time, in that school, not being allowed to take the AP history exam. He stuck to that standard and was usually backed up by the history department chairman and by the principal. Not always.
Some years after I graduated in 1977, I was told that some kid who's dad was on the Board of Ed submitted a paper that evinced plagiarism. Mr. Rutherford refused to remove the zero from the boy's record and and refused to let the boy submit a new paper for additional credit. The history department chairman and the principal implored him to do so, since the kid's dad was connected enough to get them fired, possibly without their pensions. He argued that it was most important to up hold standards when under political pressure, but he was forced to resign.
Great memories. I graduated in 1971 and knew many of the same teachers.
I would like to say that my parents wanted to sell their house to Mr. Thomas, but received a higher offer which, unknown to them until later, turned out to be from the man who owned most of the land around there and did not want the Thomases living there. Our neighbor hood was not full of academics, but did include Smitty, Coach Warren Smith.
Ebert: Damn. That man was a rat.
Was Smitty a great neighbor? He made a big impression on a couple of generations.
Have followed Roger Ebert's reviews and career for many years and I applaud his courage and outlook in his handling of his physical problems. Loved being able to see and hear him with Donald O'Connor
and "Singing in the Rain."
I do want to mention another graduate of Urbana High School and ask that you check out his career. He is my nephew, Ronald Morrow. This man has an amazing military career. Just put his name in Google and see what you come up with. He is a General in the National Guard and has served with his men in Iraq. I don't think he has ever been remembered in the newspaper, but I think he deserves to be thanked for his service.
This weekend is my 40th reunion of UHS - the class of 1970. I will not be in attendance due to other commitments, but reading your post was almost as good as attending. As many have said, the times were different in many ways. And, yet, Ms. Bauer and Ms. LeSeur both were still forces to be reckoned with. And, Smitty, what a true American image of a football coach. Thanks for the memories.
"Oh, Students, this morning I walked into my farmyard and listened to the worms making love."
-Mrs Seward may have been refering to our world of wonder before noise polution comprimised our finite hearing.