Hang on, Little Tomato

I am thinking about you. I've been thinking about you every 5 minutes for the last 3 days. I tried to distract myself with technical articles at work, but tonight when I burst into tears at the dinner table, I realized I wasn't dispelling with the worries as much as spinning them around on a lazy susan of anxiety. (Feeble metaphor, I know.)

I feel comfortable speaking for most SHSers who live somewhere else when I say we are thinking of all of you who still live in Louisiana and Mississippi. And to everyone with family back home, I am thinking of your family members, too. I'll stop distracting myself and instead concentrate on sending positive vibes in your direction.

Safety Dance

Time for another random dance photo: Laura Spreafico and Mark Shaw. We called her Spreaf, and she let us. I think this was Saga Ball, but I can't be sure, and I don't have a name to credit for the photography.

Do you have any photos you'd like to email me to post on here? This is not a threat, but I'm thinking of starting on the senior portraits I have and quizzing you about the names.

Will You Get Serious?

We can reminisce until the cows come home, but it won't get this reunion planned. You might say to yourself, "Kris, will you relax? We've got many months to dream of this extravaganza." But I want you to see how seriously I am taking your Reunion Pleasure. So I have some questions. So email me at krisfrom86@yahoo.com right away.

Are you coming to Homecoming on Friday, October 21, this year? We're thinking of roping off a section at the game and then going out afterward. It will probably be a casual enough gathering that we don't need an RSVP number, but if you give me your contact information, I'll tell you where to go.

Talking about dates for the summer reunion in 2006, would you want to spend a holiday weekend such as Memorial Day weekend in Reunion Bliss? That's a Saturday date of May 27, 2006.

If not, I like the date June 10. What are your deepest feelings?

I figure there are two ways you can get involved, depending on your level of Reunion Enthusiasm. Do you have definite opinions about what you want or don't want in a weekend, so we can put your name on the committee? If so, will you come to Slidell ahead of time to meet with the committee or will you contribute long-distance?

The second way is to help me track down our classmates. When the time comes that I feel even more Reunion Serious, and it will come, can I ask you to provide contact information for friends and to investigate for a list of names I will provide?

(You can email me and say "Put me on the committee," "No committee for me, but I will help you locate people next spring," or "I'm too busy to help, but here's my contact information so you can keep me informed." I reiterate my promise not to sell or share your contact information.)

Now listen up! I don't want this to be a party of only people I knew. If you came to this blog because of the SHS web site, but you don't know me or any of the people mentioned, or anyone from senior play or the tennis team, or anyone in the photos here, or anyone who brushed her hair every day after lunch because she knew she was going to see that cute junior on the way to fifth period--well, don't let that stop you from contacting me. I am merely the recorder, the secretary if you will.

Someone emailed me and said, essentially, "Aren't you going to have any African American people on the committee?" and I'm glad she did. Only recently I looked through the senior portraits in the yearbook and thought, hey, didn't we have more black people in our school than these pages indicate? But when I think more about it, even if our togetherness times were just as segregated by color or ethnicity as any cafeteria you've ever walked through (and memories may differ), this question isn't about racial inclusiveness. It's about plain ole inclusiveness.

So I'm saying that I want you there, even if you don't know my name and I don't know your name. I want you and your SHS friends to come together and laugh as loudly as I and my SHS friends do when we get together next year and look at photos of each other's children and joke about the pants she wore that looked like they had paint splatters or the dye job he did using only Sun-In or the time they shaved their heads or danced in a talent competition or laughed at the girl with gum on the back of her pants.

And by the way, that made me blush really, really hard.

What We Carry, by Deneane

Nostalgia is an amazing thing. So many things spark memories of my years at Slidell High School. Obviously, reunion years bring musings, but other things do, as well. How many of us have children already in high school? I do, for one. Just the simple act of watching my daughter enjoy her years has recollections washing through me. I had no idea, for instance, that I still know all the words to our alma mater and fight songs.

Think about it. I bet many of you do, as well. I sit in the stands or sell concessions with the other parents on Friday nights and watch the purple and gold Trojans of Northwestern High School in Rock Hill, SC, burst through the gaily decorated paper wall held up by the cheerleaders, but my mind’s eye still sees a band of kelly green and white Tigers charging onto the field. My ears pick up the sounds of the Trojan band playing their fall heroes onto the field, but my heart hears the words “Fight, Tigers, Fight, down the field and show your might....” When I sit in the auditorium of my son’s middle school and watch the drama class struggle valiantly through a production, I find myself back on the stage in the cafetorium, holding hands with my fellow castmates on the final night of the senior play, fighting back tears as we sing the alma mater together, one last time.

How many of us have carried pieces of our years at Slidell High School into the world and placed them somewhere for others to pick up and carry and enjoy? Were any of us so inspired by a teacher, a lesson, or an event that it has cropped up, five, ten, or twenty years later, at moments we could never have anticipated? My children go back to school for the 2005-2006 school year tomorrow. Soon, the student council at my daughter’s high school will begin working to implement a spirit program very similar to the Mark Contest we all remember. And for some reason, the phrase “thy truth shines a guiding light” has been running through my head.

Deneane P.