Graduation Picture

This is my graduation picture. Now I graduated before some of you were born. You know, I've never been shy about my age IRL but here in the box I am. Well I graduated in 1970. Everyone's hair looked like this. And every female wore a sweater. My hair only looked like this on pictue day because I rolled it with pop cans and wore the pop cans to the picture place. Then I sprayed the hell out of it. 1/2 hour later it had waved and frizzed up again. I can't even remember looking like this.

Graduation was a joke. I didn't apply myself in high school. I was painfully shy. I don't know how I got the grades to graduate.

Growing up in a small southern Ohio town was very easy in some sense and very sheltered but I hated it. I couldn't wait to graduate and leave town. After HS I enrolled in a business school called Portsmouth International Business College or PIBC. The school had a heavy international student body. I met some amazing people. One girl, Candy was from the Domincan Republic. She was such a hoot. I remember thinking that she was the absolutely wildest girl I had ever known. There were three girls from Nicaragua. They were not at all shy about the fact that they were sent there to marry an American. One married a local boy. She was very thin and pretty. I can't remember her name. Another named Rosa was not so lucky. The one that I became close to (her name is Maria - I can't believe I couldn't rememger it until today) fell in love with another international student from Tailand. That was my first experience with any predjudice except black/white. Her parents were appalled. It seems that their culture saw the orientals as lower than blacks (remember this is the 70's). She said her parents first wanted her to marry an American, then another Nicaraguan, then maybe an African American but never, never ever an oriental. She said that it was illegal for an oriental to enter Mexico (to drive to her home land) without a special permit which was rarely given. They married against both family's wishes. His name was Anon. He described Tailand as a beautiful country and had pictures of his head shaven for some religious ceremony. After I moved away I lost touch with them. Then about a year later I ran into them in Columbus. We had a great reunion. Then for some reason her family relented and let them go to Nicaragua. About 4 months after they were in Nicaragua the huge earthquake hit Managua. They were caught in the midst of it. I remember hearing about the earthquake when driving home for the weekend. I cried so hard that I couldn't see the road. They, luckily survived. I got a letter about 2 weeks later. They came back to the USA after the earthquake. I eventually lost touch with them. I can't remember how and why. I hadn't thought of them for many years and don't know why I did today.

A few questions:

So who have you lost touch with?

Do you have a graduation picture to post?

Did you enjoy HS or are you like the majority of us who would never, under any circumstances like to return to those confusing days?

Next - moving to Columbus and having some really wild times. This is building up to "How We Met".