Chick Chat, Group Post

Chick Chat: The Way We Were…in High School

Some memories fade with time–or we wish they would. Others seem like they happened just yesterday. Sometimes all we have is a photograph to remind us of the way we used to be. Just for fun, the Chicks share a few thoughts from their (ahem) not-so-distant pasts…

Lisa Q. Mathews

Mostly what I remember from high school was training at the ice rink, studying in the car, hanging out at the beach with my friends at night, and looking forward to college. Our class was large (more than 500), so pretty much everyone had circles of friends and acquaintances. I guess I was on the preppy side, because it was 1970s Connecticut, after all. (Think Ice Storm.) I loved school, other than Math (I quit numbers forever after 10th grade), and took extra language classes. At a recent reunion, a guy I didn’t know well at the time said he remembered me always running somewhere–and looking ticked off. What? I told him I was probably just late for class–but then I saw this photo in my old yearbook. It’s excerpted from a larger National Honor Society photo (I’m far left). That’s definitely a smirk. I had no idea. I thought I was a 24-7 ray of sunshine. Maybe I was skeptical of the photographer and his stupid jokes. Or mad that I was still growing out an unfortunate Dorothy Hamill haircut.

 Ellen Byron

I hated high school so much I graduated in three years. I didn’t even run it by my parents, I just did it. I asked my mother about it last year and she said, “You graduated early?” The nail in the coffin of my high school career was this: I’d had a crush on this guy named Vince Hyler since junior high. (That’s what they called it back in the day.) We were ships passing in the night until the first day of tenth grade, when my homeroom teacher called role and said these magic words: “Vince Hyler?” I almost passed out from joy and then someone said, “He moved to California.” (And no, I’ve never seen hide nor hair of him since.) When the bell rang, I went to my dean and said, “I need to graduate early. There’s nothing left for me here.”

I was a different stereotype each of my three years at Scarsdale High School: faux hippy year one, faux Baha’i year two. (This super cute guy moved to town who was half Irish/half Persian and a Baha’i, and suddenly all us gals were Baha’i wannabes. I even went to a fireside with Seals and Croft after a concert at Lincoln Center.) My final year I was sort of preppy with lingering shades of hippy. A prippy? Here’s my yearbook pic, along with a picture from our senior class retreat. Yes, my hair was that long. (Sometimes I sat on it and, ouch!) And yes, that’s a cigarette in my hand. The dopey smile is because in addition to smoking, I was high. (FYI, “Seideman” is my birth name. I took my dad’s middle name because “Byron” was much easier for people to pronounce and spell right. Except for the fifty percent of the time when I’m “Bryon.”) Also, I was never “Ellenmaria” except here. My parents were so discombobulated by my birth they forgot to give me a middle name, so I made this up.

Leslie Karst

I’m one of those strange people who loved high school–and junior high, too. It was the age when I discovered the joy of learning (I have several amazing teachers to thank for that), but also the age I discovered the joy of partying. (Though I always got my homework done before going off to those rowdy parties.)

My eleventh grade was spent in Oxford, England, however–not in Santa Monica, CA, where I spent the rest of junior and senior high. And boy was that fun–they actually served me beer in the pubs! Here’s a photo from that year in England, with an “Andy cap” I purchased in Oxford and which I still treasure.

Kathleen Valenti

I wouldn’t get all Bruce Springsteen and call them my glory days, but I did enjoy my mid-eighties tenure in high school. The AquaNet. The Jellies shoes. Nights cruising the main drag. (Which took six minutes.) They were good times made great by friends I’m still besties with to this day. I was a band geek and drama kid, and although my school was giving major John Hughes haves-and-have-not vibes, everyone was cool in spite of the Breakfast Clubish cliques. Here are a couple o’ pics from the time.  (Can you spot me in the band shot?)

Becky Clark

Like Leslie, I loved everything about junior high (7th-9th) and high school (10th-12th). I had so much fun! I did almost everything school had to offer: cheering at football, baseball, and basketball games (although not as a cheerleader); dances; planning and performing skits in the pep assemblies (I got in soooo much trouble once when I borrowed one of my sister’s fancy dresses for one of the skits. Totally worth it.); parties; cute boys; excellent friends; hanging out at lunchtime; homecoming committees; student council … even going to classes! I had the most fantastic teachers. I can only remember one teacher I didn’t like. He was fired the next year. Coincidence? One of the joys, though, was being in choir. And in 9th grade, I reached the apex of my choral career—the Highland Pipers. It was our elite madrigal group. We competed across the state and—don’t be jealous—we got to wear velvet maxi skirts, rather than just the cotton ones of the concert choir.

These pics are 7th grade, 9th grade, and the summer after I graduated and got braces. What a fun trip down memory lane!

Jennifer Chow

I definitely liked high school way more than middle school. My favorite part was joining tons of clubs. While I was certainly in the nerd camp (Science Olympiad, Academic Decathlon), I also enjoyed Environmental Club and Interact. Plus, I got to pursue new interests, like drama. Although I also clearly had a literary bent–I was involved in yearbook, journalism, and the school’s literary magazine. Participating in multiple activities allowed me to have a wide variety of friends, all of whom I’m still grateful for to this day.

Academic Decathlon–we often studied during school breaks!
Drama club [I’m in the red shirt]. From speaking a single line to being stage crew to directing a one-act play…
Social time! My prom pic with my friend Jamie.

So readers, what were YOU like in high school? Let us know in the comments!

50 thoughts on “Chick Chat: The Way We Were…in High School”

  1. i absolutely love these stories and pics. High school was a mixed bag for me. My dad died from lung cancer in February of 1982, when I was a sophomore. That sent me down a dark road of destructive behavior (drinking, smoking, etc.) that took me 4 years to emerge from.

    On the upside, I did a lot of things. Played tennis all four years, junior class president, two years on the yearbook staff, and the high point of playing Harold Hill in the spring musical my senior year.

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    2. JC, I’m so very sorry about the loss of your dad, especially at such a young age. But it sounds as if you rocked high school overall, despite the challenges–wow. Would love to have seen you as Harold Hill. Do you have pix?

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  3. Wow, you guys were babes in high school (of course, you still are!) Wish I was there with you.

    My high school experience was very different from most. I attended an all boys Jesuit military day school in Manhattan. I commuted each day from New Jersey, and with about 4 hours of homework a night, I didn’t have much time to get in trouble. We wore several different uniforms – dress blues with a white stripe on the pants legs, a lightweight summer gray uniform and army greens when we were upperclassman. Of course I had to travel to school in all of these so I thought I stuck out like a sore thumb. I was in the marching band and the pep band. We marched in all of the major New York City parades. The football team played in the stadium on Randall’s Island and I had to play clarinet at all of the games – it took about three hours one way to get from home to the game on a Saturday. We had a dance once a month at the school on Friday night. The Jebs brought in girls from all the local catholic schools. If they couldn’t see light between you when you were slow dancing, the guy got knocked on his ass and written up. College was a breeze in comparison.

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    1. What an awesome background, Tom–now we know why you are so well-behaved! And I’m sure we would all have been friends. I played clarinet also–we had to wear ugly vests with pom poms on the bottom edge for parades. Nightmare. (PS Many years later, my daughter and son went to Loyola in NYC)

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  4. I did NOT like high school – or middle school. I was the geeky outsider. Smart, didn’t wear the right clothes, or the right makeup, didn’t have the right haircut for heaven’s sake. I had one good friend I still talk to and a bunch of others I am friends with on Facebook, but rarely talk to outside of the odd birthday post. I did music. Despite being a good singer (or so others said), the primo roles in the musical went to weaker singers who were more popular.

    The only time I got popular were the senior picnic (because I got to drive my mother’s station wagon, that seated 9) and the trivia competitions at the end of AP History, because I was a trivia nerd.

    There is video of me high-fiving my father on the way back to my seat after getting my diploma and that says it all. I went to my 10-year reunion, looked around, said, “I’m good,” and have never gone back.

    Now college? That’s a different story.

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  5. I was home schooled 4th to 10th grades and then went to public school for my last two years. Same high school my mom graduated from, although it was a ways from where we were living. (Now, I would have gone to a high school much closer to home that they opened a couple of years after I graduated.)

    I didn’t go to a lot of games and dances. Did go to my senior prom with a friend. Took drama my junior year and accounting my senior year. Was kind of all over the place, but did make some friends. Sadly, we’ve lost touch. And my reunions seem to never fall at times I can make it home since it’s a drive to get there.

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    3. Mark, I always think of you as athletic, so I’m surprised you didn’t go to games. But for some reason I can totally see you in the drama club! That was my oasis. No surprise, since I went on to get a Theatre Arts degree in college!

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      1. I guess my acting ability is top notch because I have you fooled. 🙂

        Although, in your defense, you met me in my mud run/ultimate Frisbee days. Which is the most athletic I’ve been in my life. But I am a slow runner. Like second half of the pack. It’s why I’ve pretty much stopped playing ultimate Frisbee, I am a liability on most teams because there is no one I can guard on defense.

        But before 15 or so years ago, you had to drag me off the couch to get me to do anything. There are still days where I just want to read or watch something instead of doing what I know I should. And since I’ll be in the office three days a week starting on Tuesday (boo!!!!!), it’s going to get even worse.

        As far as watching sports, I’ve never done that much of it. I do go to professional ultimate Frisbee games, but that’s pretty much it. My brother is the big sports watcher in the family, but we didn’t grow up watching much TV at all.

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  7. Shocker: I was a nerd. But, so were my friends. I was popular in junior high As a cheerleader and captain of the volleyball team. Moved to different school for high school. Wasn’t popular or unpopular. My friends circle was mostly my church youth group. It was the 70s and we were sometimes called Jesus freaks.

    My sister Chicks were (and still are) way cooler than I. But I like to think they would have been friends with me in school as we bonded over mysteries, obsessive interest in murder, writing aspirations and a quirky sense of humor!

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  8. I was a nerd before they were invented. It was called a “brain” back then. I felt that no one liked me because I broke the curve in all my classes, plus I was in orchestra, not band, and that was not cool. I had a small circle of good friends, some of whom I still keep in touch with, but I was to unsure of myself and so shy the I would walk from class to class with my head down so I wouldn’t have to say HI and not get one back. It wasn’t until college and a very very brief flirtation with the idea of suicide that I decided I needed to be someone different. I looked around and saw how other people said hi to each and and dove in. Now, I talk to everyone who will answer me, in line at the grocery store, the airport, wherever. To shorten this very long story, I hated high school! Couldn’t wait to get out of town and go to college.

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  9. These pictures are great. I was in the smart-kid, journalism, multiple foreign languages crowd, plus Girl Scouts. But I was also determined to be elected a cheerleader (yes, it was a popularity contest), and I was for my senior year. Like Lisa, I abandoned numbers after tenth grade.

    I didn’t figure out my true wild side until college – but it wasn’t too late!

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  11. I love this SO much! El and Leslie, you have me in stitches!!
    I was the quiet wannabe prep in the 80s. (Same time as Kathy) Anywhoo- I was forever at the roller rink or belting wrong notes out in choir. Fridays were for dates. I went through guys on my chewing gum schedule. Many were chicklets. No Hubba Bubbas. I tried to find “the right guy.” There would never be one, as I came out at 24. Now, in my 50s and a widow who has re-entered the dating pool, a high school classmate found me, she told me she had a wicked crush on me. She’s moving back here from GA in a few weeks. 💕♾️ She sent me roses today. I guess being a quiet prep pays off?

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  12. I was the most like Jennifer and Kaye–a nerd. I was even on the chess team and debate team. I entered college as a Physics major. In a few classes, I was the only girl. Lots of guys picked me as their first date because they knew me and I was safe. I did defect and ended up graduating as an English teacher.

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  13. I was a nerd, but that wasn’t the term used in the early 1970s. I was mostly quiet. Loved History and English. In my high school, we wrote a lot of 500-word essays, one per week, for English. I never joined any clubs except for National Honor Society. When I won a 4-year National Merit Scholarship, none of the counselors knew who I was. I had a very small circle of friends, but have remained in contact with only one of them. For me, the best thing about high school was we were in Hawai’i, and as a half-Japanese half-Caucasian kid, I finally found a place where I wasn’t a freak for being mixed-race. I use the Hawai’ian word “hapa” to describe myself, my sons, and my grandsons.

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  14. I loved high school far better than junior high. I had gone to a Catholic school from 1st through 6th, but my parents decided to place me at Gay Junior High for my 7th grade year because they did not teach math well, they thought. What a difference. And just when I was just starting to like it, I had to go to the new junior high due to boundaries. All of my friends went to Vernon (9th grade by itself in the old high school building) and I had to go to Coakley. I missed going to Vernon by one street. Our town only had one high school in Harlingen, Texas at the time. I was 14 when I started as a sophomore (my birthday is in October and my parents started me at 5 in 1st grade or I would have had to wait two years as they were changing the start date to 7 then). It was a memorable time. I had my first date with my now husband on February 29, 1964. We had gone to St. Anthony’s together, but he was a year ahead and, in those days, you mixed only with your grade level. But high school was a different animal. We dated on and off throughout high school (broke up, got back together, broke up, got back together, dated other people to make each other jealous) and then just us from college on, though we lost 14 months when he got drafted for Viet Nam. I was in Student Council and Executive Council in high school and drama and National Honor Society in 9th grade. My sophomore year I was a Cellar girl (can you say beatnik?) and married my now husband at a mock marriage booth, my junior year a Candy a-go-go dancer in a cage (red satin sheaths with white fringe), and in 10th grade a Playboy Bunny (black lace hose, satin vest and satin short tight shorts, with bunny ears and tail. Mine was apricot. We did a Rockefeller like dance on stage in the Cafetorium with kicking legs and at the end turning, leaning over and shaking our bunny tails). All of those were to raise money at Fall Festival for our classes. I was also in skits at pep rallies. The ones I remember were as football players in the locker room and as cheerleaders from around the world–I was from Africa with 4 others. I had a lot of friends but was not in the popular clique. Every day after school we cruised Clyde’s. There were over 600 of us graduating in 1966. That was a long time ago in a faraway place, but I do have photos to remind me as all of you do above. After 6 years of dating, 13 years of being engaged, we just celebrated our 41st wedding anniversary this year (unless you use our leap year anniversary of 15 years together, also this year and the one Hubby celebrated). So, I must say high school was good to me. Why are all of mine so long when you guys are the authors. Do I ramble too much, or do you just make me reminisce?

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