Oh, Those High School Days!

A couple of posts ago, I mentioned high school in passing so I thought I'd go back to that and tell you what my high school was like. It was probably a fairly unique experience, so maybe you'll get a laugh out of it.

I went to a very small Catholic high school. My graduating class was all of 72 (yes, seventy-two) students. At the time I went there, it was nearing the bottom of a long slide into death...I bet the whole school (7th thru 12th grades) didn't have more than 300 students. The school actually IS still alive and churning out grads, but only because it was taken over by a larger, obviously more successful organization.

The school was so small that not only did the teachers and principal know everyone by name, they also knew your family history, older brothers and sisters, younger brothers and sisters, pets, and sins you brought up in confession. (okay, I'm joking about that; they really didn't know your pets.)

You know how every class/school has cliques? Jocks, stoners, band geeks, brainiacs, etc? We didn't have so many cliques, mainly because we were too small to have so many things to do. We did have sports teams (football & basketball; there may have been track and softball.) Obviously I didn't belong to the "jock" group! Back in the day there was no money for most extra-curricular activities, so we didn't have a music department, let alone a band. (No band geeks or glee kids) There was no drama department. (When my older brother and sister went there, there was I think one play per year. By the time I got there, even that much had petered out) I think we actually did have a couple of stoners, although the worst drugs we knew of back then were beer and marijuana. Maybe that's just me; obviously I wasn't a stoner, either!

Even the teachers were characters. Seeing as it was a catholic school, there were a few catholic nuns still teaching at that time. Biology was taught by Sr. Pius, who was about as round as she was tall. Math classes were taught by Sr Mercia, who would say a prayer before each class. There was also a man (Mr. Nolan) who taught history (I think) who was famous at our house because he was the first person (as far as we knew) to ever predict that California was going to fall into the ocean. (Obviously THAT prediction hasn't come to pass yet!)

You know, looking back my school wasn't very exciting at all. Compared to the city's public high school that looked like a maximum security prison, our school was pretty tame! We got a pretty good education, didn't learn a lot of bad habits, and a good number of us went on to college. I still can't believe that it's been 30+ years since I graduated. In many ways, I'd hate to go back to that age again, but in others it would be nice to get to redo things that I screwed up the first time!

I hope this hasn't been too boring for you. This entry didn't turn out to be quite as entertaining as I thought it would! Oh well, I'll keep trying! I may never be an author after all since I couldn't even make high school more fun!