High School Memories and Once a Hornet Always a Hornet

If you attended Metcalfe County High School when Mr. Chambers was there then you know how great a coach, cheerleader and all around person he was. He embodied school spirit and when he attended pep ralleys and asked/told everyone to spell Metcalfe, we obeyed. And if we didn’t do it loud enough to suit him, then we did it again and again until we got it right.

I loved my high school years (most of the time) and while I wasn’t a cheerleader, many of my friends were. There weren’t as many options of after school activities back then and if you could scrape up the money and catch a ride, most everyone went to the games.

The gym wasn’t big but it was always filled to capacity. Lots of regular attendees from the community all had certain places they liked to sit. If you got their seat it was worse than ousting them off their church pew on Sunday. For the most part the games were fun and everyone exhibited good sportsmanship. But there was one team that when they came to play, the noise could raise the roof. Their coach was Bobby Knight on steroids. I seriously worried he would have a stroke because his face turned so red. And the language! If they had bleeped his swear words it would have sounded like a L A traffic jam with horns blaring.

Our cheerleading sponsors were often as tough on my friends as the coaches were on the ball team. There skirts actually covered their body parts and they knew to behave on and off the court, or if not, be could at hiding it! Mrs. Ennis was a math teacher and cheerleading sponsor for years and she could put the fear of God into you with just one icy glare. I did my best to stay out of her way and it wasn’t until many, many years later that I found out she was really super nice and not so scary. Still a little scary, but not bad.

There were so many things about those years that even now, decades later, I remember so clearly and those are the things that helped make me a Hornet for life.

1. Who kissed who in the tunnel.
2. Who sat by who on the stage in the mornings.
3. Who kissed who behind the giant maroon stage curtains (there was a lot of kissing going on back then).
4. Who broke someone’s heart.
5. Square pizza and corn.
6. The student who couldn’t clap in time with the cheerleaders and I wanted to take her little hands and help her so bad.
7. Back then there was no “me too” movement but if there had been there were a few teachers who should have been in trouble.
8. Beta trips, FFA, FHA, and what when on during the bus rides there and back. Once Mrs. Ennis yelled at me on a Pep bus to turn my music down and I almost wet my pants.
9. Talking and laughing with Hammer and singing when the Roll is called up yonder during lunch. As a grand finale I threw my roll up in the air and it landed in a light fixture. For all I know it’s still there, moldy and all shriveled up.
10. Living the good life of the young and stupid/unaware of reality and what life had in store for us.
11. School dances and running an elderly aunt’s underwear up the flagpole.
12. Trying not to cry during graduation but losing the battle within 5 minutes of Pomp and Circumstances.
13. Signing year books and writing in code so our parents wouldn’t know what we’d been up to. Then years later not remembering what the heck we were talking about.
14. Lunch room “mystery meat.” Never did know what it was made from. Anyone out there know?

I could go on and on with the memories but strangely enough the one thing I don’t remember is my senior ring. I don’t know what I did with it and haven’t seen it since college. When I graduated college I didn’t even bother getting a ring, fearing it would end up like my high school ring.

If you read my last post about losing my Aunt Kate, you will understand what comes next in this post. If you didn’t click here and read it first.

Aunt Kate, or Kate as I called her, went to the same high school I did. She was a cheerleader and had a group of loyal girlfriends who remained friends throughout her life, just like me. I imagine we shared more than a few similar experiences. She was only about 12 years older than I am.

Yesterday I got a package in the mail and it looked like a shoe box.

“Ordering shoes again?” my husband asked.

“I guess,” I replied. Sometimes I have memory lapses and packages arrive and I don’t remember I’ve ordered something until I open it. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, hang in there, it will.

I’ve been sick (strep throat and ear infection) and I took some medicine that was supposed to help me sleep but instead did the opposite. It was 4 this morning before I fell asleep. Sometime around midnight I got to thinking about the shoe box. I tiptoed in the bathroom so I wouldn’t wake up Bill. I started to open the box and realized it had been taped by someone determined to freak out the person trying to open it. Their plan worked.

I stabbed it with a toothbrush. Tried piercing it with my husband’s mustache trimmers. I had sweat rolling down my forehead so I opened a window and dug through bathroom drawers in search of a weapon I could use on this box. Finally, I found a pair of nail clippers. I nibbled away at the tape until it gave up it’s contents.

A little book and a box. Sent to me by Kate’s daughters. Uh oh, I thought. Here come the tears again.

A Book About Books

Kate and I shared a love of reading. We discussed books, authors and recommended ones we liked and why we liked them. The book was a journal of sorts where she wrote about everything she read since 1995. The number of books she read was beyond amazing. I knew she was in a book club but I’m sure the book club didn’t read all the books listed in her journal.

I looked through it and found some that I had recommended to her and several she had told me about. Sharing books you love is like sharing a part of your soul. I loved being able to see the hundreds of books that Kate enjoyed that helped keep her mind as sharp as her body (until she got sick). I told one of her daughters I never thought of Kate as old because she never acted that way. I wish I could be more like her.

The Box

I couldn’t imagine what was in the little box and when I opened it I was surprised. Kate’s high school ring.

I may not remember where my high school ring is but this one slid right on the 4th finger of my right hand. It was a perfect fit.

A friend of mine said “happy tears” are good. I’m pretty sure my tear ducts don’t know the difference in happy or sad tears….they just squirt.

Thank you, Leah and Leslie (Kate’s and Gary’s daughters). I’ll treasure both gifts. She was an amazing woman and I’m so glad she had you and Gary and the grands with her at the end.

How many of you know where your high school rings are? Am I the only one who doesn’t have a clue what happened to theirs?