When Aqua Net Ruled: Class of 1988

Now that we have Facebook, every day can be a high school reunion, but a lot of people I know are within a few years of their real live-and-in-person 20-year reunions. Mine was last year, and because I couldn’t make it, I decided to remember the best parts here. I hadn’t thought about it since then, but last week friend mentioned she was planning for her reunion when she found all my posts. So I thought I’d round them up into one place. I wouldn’t want to go back, but weren’t the 80s fun? Read more

Pros and Cons of Putting 16-Year-Old Girls in Wedding Gowns

1988 – All About the Hair

Virtual Classmates: Why Facebook is Better Than Your 20-Year Reunion

My 20-year high school reunion is coming up next weekend and I won’t be there. I have opted instead to venture down a virtual reunion road this summer. It’s been fun, don’t you think? I had hoped Classmates.com would have been a little more enlightening, but so far I’ve received more guest book signatures from random grads looking for what – I don’t know, than from actual classmates. I know I should have done this earlier, but since diving into MySpace and Facebook last week, I can honestly say that Facebook beats the face-to-face reunion any day! Here’s why:

- Everyone is more beautiful on Facebook
- Facebook lets you search for whoever you want, and they don’t even know it – do they?
- Once you get bored of Facebook, you simply log out – no excuses, no remorse
- It’s much easier to save face on Facebook when someone hasn’t a clue who you are
- The extent of Facebook communication is probably all you really need
- You can brag on Facebook without having to say anything out loud
- You don’t need to lose 10 pounds to log onto Facebook
- Your husband won’t come into contact with any of your old boyfriends on Facebook
- Your hustband won’t know you didn’t have any boyfriends in high school on Facebook
- Facebook saves you all the guilt you’d inevitably suffer when you realized you really didn’t want to keep keep up with all those old best friends ever who seemed even closer after that bottle of wine at the reunion, but who you realized as soon as the next day at the picnic you have absolutely nothing in common with (excepting of course the whole eighties nostalgia and the wine)
- There are no women in prom gowns looking for love on Facebook (that I’m aware of)
- You can’t be too catty about who’s had what done on Facebook

And best of all?

- You can exploit your Facebook adventure for the creative process! Hell yeah I cruise Facebook and call it research. Yay for Facebook. Friend me, would ya? I like *so* want to be in the popular crowd!

PS – Next week is the last post in this series. I recall promising a picture… ?

Class of ’88: Famous Sehome Alums

For this week’s intallment of the virtual high school reunion (aka I don’t really want to go), I decided to do a little research on our dear alma mater. Did you know we have page in Wikipedia?

We all know about Hilary Swank right? Not sure if she would have been a freshman in 1988 or not. So she’s a big deal, but did you know the conservative radio host Glenn Beck hails from Mariner pride as well? According to Wikipedia he graduated in ’86. So much for believing what you read. Let’s not forget Jon Auer and The Posies, who are going strong.

There’s another note on the timeline that I question: they say Iron Maiden played in the Sehome gym in appreciation for help with a broken down tour bus? Hmm. They say it was October of 1986. Anyone remember this?

I say we populate that wiki page with all our stunning accomplishments – what do you say?

What have you done that you’d brag about at the reunion?

Class of ’88: News You Never Noticed

Just in case you missed current events your senior year, here’s what happened in the months leading up to graduation:

1/8 – Dow Jones falls over 140 points, or 6.85%, to close at 1,911.31. Ouch. I didn’t even know what the Dow Jones was in high school.

3/16 – Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter are indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States ala the Iran-Contra Affair. This is the plan where we traded guns for people. Good plan.

3/26 – Jesses Jackson defeats Michael Dukakis in the Michigan Democratic caucuses to become the temporary front-runner for the party’s nomination, later to be defeated by George H. W. Bush. The Democrats have come a long way.

4/12 – Sonny Bono is elected Mayor of Palm Springs, CA. Arnold Schwarzeneggar dreams of greatness.

5/16 – A report by U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop reports the addictive properties of nicotine rival heroin and cocaine. Did anyone tell the Smoke Hole?

What do you remember that was going on in the world beyond the halls of high school?

Class of ’88 – I Secretly Wanted to Wear the Little Skirt

Firecracker firecracker boom boom boom, the boys got the muscles, the teachers got the brains, and the girls got the sexy legs- woo, we won the game!

Welcome Class of ’88 (and friends). I’ve heard from a few of you that you’re enjoying this little trip down our virtual memory lane. Feel free to say hi in the comments! Everyone wants to know what you’re up to! Feel free to share a secret. Or two.

My secret wish? It’s not pretty, but it’s true.

Before we moved to the ‘Ham, I’d tried out for, and been placed on the flag and rifle team at Ferndale High School. I would have wielded a wooden faux gun on my shoulders. I would have swung a flag with purpose. But we moved (again).

At the beginning of Freshman year at Sehome I thought for sure I’d be a cheerleader eventually. When school started I learned that cheerleader-hood was closer than I’d imagined. You had to be a senior to be a cheerleader, but there was a pipeline system. You had to join the Pep Club. How fun did that sound?

I walked perkily into that first meeting where the smell of tempera paint hit me. Various not-so-popular girls kneeled on the white linoleum tile painting on wide swaths of colored butcher paper. Go Mariners! Beat the BHS Raiders! Ruck the Faiders! Unfortunately I was way too cool for this. I soon gave up the fantasy of being a cheerleader to those girls who were willing to serve their time.

Then for a fleeting moment junior year, it seemed there was another chance to be a cheerleader. Apparently I wasn’t the only cool girl to forego the pep club route. No one wanted to be a cheerleader. Tryouts were coming up and there was some doubt as to whether our class would even be able to staff a full squad. We were that cool. School spirit lagged under the influence of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Ferris Buehler’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club. It was just not cool anymore to be mainstream, to be a cheerleader.

A friend and I joked that we ought to try out, because we would – of course – make it. It would have been SO easy to beat some of those pep squad girls with their pageant hair and mitchy-matchy barrettes. It would have been such a lark, a joke. Except for that little moment, maybe a day, maybe a week, that I entertained the thought. You can bet the minute I would have gotten my hands on that cute little polyester skirt there would have been no turning back. While working the pep squad was decidedly uncool, wearing the outfit, having all eyes on me as I walked down the hall on game days would have been intoxicating.

In the public version of this little fantasy, my friend and I would deny the honor upon receiving it, perhaps an awful snub scene in a school assembly. As if we’d have had the guts. As you can guess, we didn’t try out. Who really wants to stand outside in the cold on Friday nights and pretend you’re interested in a game you know nothing about anyway? And how could I have thought I could represent the school when I was barely making to class?

No, the cheerleader route was not for me. But it might have been fun. Every once in a while I still cue up Toni Basil and work my inner pom squad. It’s enough. Now, if only I had the skirt…