Remembering - Graduation

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Just remembering... to way back when

I graduated on 3 June 1969... except it was a Tuesday evening and not a Wednesday. Don't you just love my spectacles... is that the cat-eye look :-) My hair behaved... does it make sense to wash, roll and stick your head under a hot hair dryer (no hand-held hair dryer) and then put on an awful looking mortar board?

There were 232 of us in the Class of '69. It was the largest class so far of our high school which had its first graduating class in 1965.

The graduation ceremony was usually held in the school auditorium. That was too small of a setting for our class. Our ceremony was held at Mills Memorial Stadium... our community football field. We had to march halfway around the stadium on the dirt track.

Umm.. you know I'm a klutz :-) Well, I whammed my baby toe on the day bed leg and broke it (my toe silly!) when we were painting the walls... my brothers' room if I remember correctly. The day bed sat in the living room and one had to step around it to go from the dining room to the hallway that led to the bedrooms. This happened three or four days before the ceremony.

We were not allowed to wear sandals for the graduation ceremony. The shoes had to be white. I did find some low heels to wear (before toe incident), but they were a bit tight. The shoe stretcher was used on them and I think my sister wore them some to help break them in. Of course, not enough stretching for my baby toe.

There was a long dress rehearsal the day before the ceremony... which meant I had to wear the tight shoes and my hurting baby toe had to hurt more. I did not think I was going to make it through that long hot day. The temps were probably only in the upper 80s, but when you are in the sun and it is humid it is hot. I think the whole track was a mile so you go around half of it about six times in one day and you are tired.

The walk around the track, trying to breathe in the humidity with a coat (gown, but it felt like a coat) on. Yep, graduation... an evening of torture!

My Daddy knew how to make this girl happy. He bought butter pecan ice cream (I got to pick the flavor) for our celebration... the good stuff not the imitation or ice milk actual Ice Cream :-)

I was glad to be home and eating ice cream in my bare feet. It didn't take much to make me happy back then and it still doesn't.