As the logs crackled in my patio fireplace, my four high school yearbooks sat on the cement sill, perilously close to the flames. For the past two weeks, I’d thought about destroying all of them. Sure, Brett Kavanaugh had just been sworn into the nation’s highest court, despite references to “boofing” and “100 kegs or bust” in his high school yearbooks. But I should have nothing to worry about, right?
And yet.
I opened the 1976-77 edition, my freshman year, when my height put me at approximately waist level of the girls I was attempting to impress. While most of my classmates were celebrating removal of their orthodontic wires, my braces had just been installed. Surely, my first high school yearbook would produce no incriminating evidence in this most awkward of years.
“I am glad we got to be good friends in biology. Love ya always,” wrote April, a passage that should have made me smile but instead raised alarms. WHO was April? What might I have done to make her love me? Nearly 40 years later, where was she and what were her feelings toward me now? Her post also referred to me being “transferred” out of our shared biology class, mid-term. I had no recollection of the switch but now, seated in my office chair, a pillow supporting my chronic back, I began to sweat. Why was I moved? Was it discipline related? Did I make some anatomically inappropriate comment? After all, it was biology class.
I moved on to sophomore year. Sue, the first girl I ever asked on a date, made a reference to the 1978 Homecoming dance in her post
“I’ll never forget that night.”
What? What happened “that night?” My memories of the dance were only slightly less murky than my relationship with April. Was there inappropriate touching when I tried, futilely, to pin a corsage on her? I didn’t think so, but did Sue’s mom, who thankfully completed the task, agree? Sue gave me a quick peck on the cheek when the night was over. At approximately 10:30 p.m. Were my dad alive today, he could have confirmed the story, for I remember him watching the encounter from the street. At 15, I was still without a license and there was no Uber. Dad was my ride home, and I remember him trying to stifle laughter as I climbed into his station wagon.
But Dad is gone and I can’t remember anything else that occurred. Will Sue?
I opened the 1978-79 edition. I read the first entry. And froze.
“I enjoyed your crude jokes,” wrote Scott.
Yes, in junior year, I remember occasionally tossing out barbs related to my math teacher’s receding hairline and my writing instructor’s manic gestures while holding chalk. But crude? I racked my brain. Perhaps I offended someone during lunch hour, where my mouth usually ran full throttle in between bites of pizza and tater tots. Could Scott be a character witness if my sense of humor were ever called into question? After all, he enjoyed the jokes in the late ’70s. But people change.
A post from Dan in my senior yearbook proved most troubling. In between, “we’ll have a great last summer” and “good luck in college,” was this sentence:
“It’s been a real gas with you, stealing construction signs.”
Brian chimed in on the next page. “Let’s go drinking together some time,” he wrote.
I closed the book and placed it on the stack. I thought my high school years were uneventful, but evidence to the contrary was all there; in writing. I was a drunken thief who told offensive jokes, had questionable class attendance and may have acted inappropriately with women, some of whom I can’t even recall. If I tossed the books in the fire, I’d be destroying evidence that could impact me negatively on my next job interview.
Unless that job is an appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.
