The mom of one of my high school buddies passed away this week. Her funeral is tomorrow. She may be the last of that generation among my friends.
There were several unusual features about my high school experience. I attended Catholic schools and the various parishes fed into the same high school. The schools at those parishes ended at different grades. Some schools, like the one I went to, stopped after 6th grade. Others went to 8th grade. Consequently, I started attending "Central" in 7th grade while others joined in 8th grade and 9th grade.
That created interesting dynamics as cliques or tribes or posses absorbed additional people, expanded and divided.
I didn't have a single "best friend" 7th-through-12th grade. It changed as circumstances changed.
However, my friend whose mother's funeral is tomorrow was generally in my top-three from 9th until 12th grade and even into college.
The Information Superhighway before the Internet
Kids will be stunned to learn that the information superhighway existed in the 1970s before the internet was invented. We called it "The Library".
If, by chance, you were on good terms with the librarian, then you had a very-high bandwidth portal to that highway.
My friend's mother was the librarian at our high school.
Another quirk about my high school is that it embraced the idea that kids naturally sought the knowledge they need, just like kids always choose the most nourishing foods and most wholesome activities. We were expected to do our own class scheduling (preparing us for college, don't you know) and to master academic material and take tests at our own rate.
Somehow, I did not have a single English/Language/Compostion class during my high school career. I did, however, probably, set a record for the number of hours I spent in the library reading the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedias of Science and Technology (go ahead, ask me about boron nitride or T-T-T curves or the Kreb's cycle). I should not have been allowed to graduate but I think the academic advisors were embarrassed by my falling through the cracks and they were willfully blind to my deficiencies.
Even after graduating from high school, the librarian continued to influence my life. I was scheduled to graduate from Michigan State with a BS in Engineering in March of 1981. It was during the low-point in the business cycle (Jimmy Carter's malaise). More of my class got jobs in Texas than in Michigan.
However, about two months before I graduated, the librarian called my mom and told her to tell me "Call this number and say 'I have skills in Computer Aided Engineering'." The librarian's husband had connections.
I made that call and got that job and was able to stay close to family (which was a very high priority for me).
And so, tomorrow, I will go to the visitation and then the funeral Mass. I will not say very much. My role will be similar to a neutron absorbing rod in a nuclear pile or sound absorbing panels in a room. I will be "background" just like when I was when I was one of those nameless, faceless bodies who was in the library as reliably as the furniture.
And we knew the Dewey Decimal System inside out... along with how to use the card catalogs...
ReplyDeleteOne of the downsides of growing old is losing our references to the past as older people die. My first summer job was in an RAF maintenance unit loading rail cars with supplies for the UK’s dwindling overseas stations. There were several veterans of WWI working there who I have didn’t have a lot to do with and still regret it.
ReplyDeleteSome of my happiest hours were in the library. Probably why I live with a library surrounding me now. Subjects from Heinlein and Asimov through 1900's "modern Farmer series (salvage books from a library) and various how too books abound.
ReplyDeleteThe "OLD Books" we tossed make me angry.
When we are young, we do not see the benefits of conversing with the older who have valuable experiences we do not have. I have so many questions now for my Dad, now gone since 1997. I would have asked more questions about what his hometown was like when he was growing up. Same for my maternal Grandmother, who raised a family of 10 children during the Great Depression. She was a backyard gardener nearly up to her demise and had backyard chickens for eggs and 'Sunday Dinner'.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like your friend's mother had quite an influence on the direction of your life ERJ. My condolences to her family and friends who knew her well.
Being a picked-on, unpopular kid all through my grade and high school years, the librarian was always my favorite teacher. We moved a good bit growing up (Dad was working on his Ed.D), so I learned a good handful of school and public libraries inside-out. Favorite books might have my name on the checkout card over a dozen times in a row.
ReplyDeleteWe homeschooled our sons, and have an extensive home library (700+) to this day. Back in the early oughts, we'd go to our local (Carnegie!) library used book sale and pick up a box full of classics. After a few years, I noticed those had dwindled to nothing, being replaced with a bunch of marshmallowy woke nonsense. We quit going.