Central High School Archives

January 27, 2014

Hanging Around Science Class

I really SHOULD remember the skinny kid in the corner, but I have a lousy memory for names, particularly when the faces are missing. I know I never saw him down in the cafeteria. I guess he spent all his spare time hanging around in the science lab, probably talking to guys like Jim Stone.

This must have been the biology classroom because it doesn’t have the sinks and things that were in the chemistry lab.

Grading chart

The picture is not quite sharp, so I had a hard time making out the grading chart on the blackboard. Here’s what it looked like, as close as I could figure: E – 99 to 100; E-minus – 95 to 97; S-plus – 92 to 94. It was too fuzzy to see the rest, except that I think 70 would get you in the M range and 30 to 31 would win an I-minus. Anything below 26 was an F. Click on the photo to make it larger. Maybe you have better eyes.

I don’t know if Central still uses the E-S-M-I-F grading scale or if they’ve gone to the more common A-B-C-D-E-F grades.

I DO remember well those flying saucer light fixtures, mainly from looking up at them to avoid eye contact with the teacher who was looking for a student to answer a question.

January 17, 2014

The Folsoms

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.

January 10, 2014

Getting Ready for the Dance

Here are a few photos I found later that go along with a post I did on Decorating the Gym back in 2012. I held back on them because they were pretty scratched up and nor particularly sharp. I needed some quick content today, though, because I’m planning to do a computer upgrade this evening and I needed to get everything shut down so I could do a backup.

(Thanks, by the way, for all you folks who click on the Click Here button to do your Amazon shopping. That helped made the upgrade possible. I was running low on disk space for all these photos.)

Sackman and Towse

Miss Kathryn Sackman, left, American History teacher, and Miss Lucy Ellen Towse, physical education instructor, discuss what acts of tomfoolery the students are contemplating.

When I look at those ceramic tile walls, I can’t help but remember the way sounds reverberated off them. It was a curious mix of bouncing balls, yells, the squeak of rubber tennis shoe soles on slick floors, punctuated by bleats from the coaches’ whistles. I file it away with the unique sound of silverware hitting thick china plates and the buzz of milk shake mixers at the Woolworths’ lunch counter.

Other decorating photos

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your left and right arrow keys to move through the gallery.

January 3, 2014

Those Are SOME Cheerleaders

I’ve shot scads of cheerleaders at high school, college and pro games. Every organization must have used different qualifications. Some girls were picked for looks; some for popularity; other for spirit; others for athletic or dancing ability; others must have been daughters of community movers and shakers. This group must have been selected for having the hairiest legs. (Click on the photo to make it larger, if you dare.)

It was taken at Central High School, but I don’t know what the event was. I see people from the classes of 1964 and 65, for sure.

Better looking cheerleaders

If you need to wash your eyes out after looking at that photo, here’s a selection of other cheerleader photos and stories.’