One of the blessings and curses of Facebook is the feature that tells you who has a birthday coming up. Seeing Linda Folsom’s name pop up reminded me that I had run across this photo of her in a box last summer. The original was a Polaroid taken by her brother, Steve.
I made a deal with Steve
Linda and I dated briefly (the briefly part was her idea). Steve was a fellow photographer on either The Tiger or The Girardot (or both), so I cut him a deal: I’d give him a roll of Tri-X 35mm film for him to shoot informal candids of Linda.
(Whenever I tried to take her picture, she’d threaten to pummel me with my Pentax, something I noticed girls, including Future Wife Lila, were prone to do.)
Steve is the guy with Central’s most unique eyebrows on the left. You’ll have to go to my Mad Men of CHS post to get the IDs of the other guys.
Rat Fink Steve didn’t bring back 36 photos of Linda. In fact, he must have used the roll for something else, because all I got was the single Polaroid above. I wouldn’t tell him, but I always liked the way he captured her smile.
Other Steve photos
- Steve the debater
- Steve in the Red Dagger play. I think he’s in shots 18, 67, 69 and 70, but I’m not sure about all of them.
The Twin Game
Linda had a twin sister, Laura. The night I walked up to the door for our first date, Linda and Laura played the twin game with me, challenging me to pick the right one. Their grandfather, who must have seen this game before, was standing behind them. He give me the high sign without them seeing him. It wasn’t long before I didn’t need the grandfather’s clue to tell them apart.
Laura is the girl on the far right in the front row of the bus headed to an out-of-town debate trip. This link has a bunch of the students identified by readers. Click on the photo to make it larger.
Betty Folsom
I was looking for some photos of the twins’ mother, Betty, who taught English and Journalism. I came up blank on any photos, but I DID find this press pass she signed for me.
It was fun reading the Facebook comments of the younger relatives of Linda, Laura and Steve who had never seen the trio in their high school days.
Gee, the guy on the far right (with the Elvis-looking hair) must have shared the girls’ aversion to being photographed. (Unless he had some other reason for flipping you the bird.)
The fellow on the right was Pat Sommers, who was my debate partner. He had a tendency to tell the world he was Number One. This wasn’t the only time he shared that information with us. He still has his hair.
I think you might have misidentified Laura in the last picture – while the girl on the bus looks like Laura, I believe that is Margaret Randol.
Margaret is looking straight at the camera. The girl next to Margaret and next to the window is Laura.
You got me on that one… I’ll look closer next time.