Showing posts with label High School. Show all posts
Showing posts with label High School. Show all posts

22 November 2010

Where were you when you heard of the shooting of JFK? I was...

in English class. In the middle of class, our teacher was called out into the hall. Several minutes later she returned looking very pale. She braced herself against the wall holding her chest and said "He's been shot! The President's been shot." We were released for lunch. The radio broadcast was piped into the lunchroom. That is where I heard that the President had died. It was very traumatic for all of us. President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson had visited our high school on the 13th of December the previous year. I even touched Kennedy's sleeve as he walked along the fence shaking hands. And then came the Jack Ruby episode...

Posted via email from South of Tonight

31 August 2009

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Now for something completely different. This photo is the closest thing I have to a high school senior picture.


Check out the suit and tie. That's how one traveled in those days.

Our family moved to Kano, Nigeria the summer before my senior year. I completed my last year in high school through correspondence studies while living in Kano. It was a blast. I may have missed all the senior year activities but I would not trade it for the time I spent in Kano. What could be better than to spend a year in a totally foreign culture at such an impressionable age.

Given Nigeria was a former British colony, still with close ties to the mother country, and The Beatles were in the middle of their career, it was a teenager's paradise. We, there were six kids about the same age, would listen to "Pick of the Pops" on the Beeb (BBC) and get the latest news about music in England. Each week we would go into town and check out the latest British record releases at the Kingsway department store. At Christmas, the English kids came home from school in England and brought with them the brand new "Beatles For Sale" LP. Did I mention heaven?

The photo was taken on a Seine River cruise in Paris. I was on my way back to the States to attend university. I have the fondest memories of that year. One of the most wonderful years of my life.

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