I think I like this ID picture best now.
In 1974-75, you needed 22 credits to graduate. After junior year, I had 18. If I took the full six classes in the first semester, I only had to take two classes in the second semester to get to 22. I wasn't opposed to getting more credits if there was a class I was interested in. I would have taken another computer science class in a heartbeat. That was my favorite. Computers were different animals then. Ours was located off campus in a room probably bigger than my house. Don't remember how we were connected. You would work on your program for a while and then save it to a yellow tape. When you wanted to use it again, you would feed the yellow tape back into the computer and then go back and correct all of the errors because the tape feed was horribly unreliable. Fun times. :)
I went off-campus to a fancy studio uptown for my senior picture. We were told that the photographer will be able to clean up all of our blemishes but won't be able to do anything about our hair. I had my share of acne as a teenager but there were guys who had it much worse than me. All of the seniors have smooth skin in our pictures this year. The studio provided the tux. It was filthy and it stunk. The shirt had brown stains on it that I didn't even want to think about and I don't think I can adequately describe the stench emanating from the jacket. I don't know how many guys had worn mine since it was last cleaned but it had to be a couple of hundred. I don't remember how many pictures he took but I couldn't wait to get out of that thing.
And, finally, that plan to just take two classes for my final semester in high school was realized. I would get out of school at 10:10AM after trigonometry class and head home. First period was PE. Life was grand ... for about a week. I did not have a driver's license yet. Typically, I would take the streetcar to the end of the line, transfer to a bus that would take me to another bus stop, and then catch another bus home. The streetcar and the first bus were Orleans Parish. The last bus was Jefferson Parish. The Orleans Parish transit workers went on strike about mid-January that year. No streetcar, no second bus. I would have to walk. It was five miles to the Jefferson Parish bus stop. The transit workers were on strike for several months. Put a lot of miles on my shoes and my now-deteriorating knees that semester. The caption on the photo to the left is "Senior Robert Ferrara going home". Couldn't get it in the scan. I remember that kid taking the picture but, at the time, I didn't know it was of me. He had to be a freshman or sophomore.
Him: Sir?
Me: Kept going because nobody addresses me that way.
Him again: SIR?
Me: Who? Me?
Him: Yes sir. I'm taking pictures for the yearbook. Can I use yours?
Me: Sure.
When I was a freshman, one of the seniors had to take freshman physical science again in order to graduate. He was not only a senior. He was a star football player, who later played at Tulane, and is now an NOPD detective. We would break into groups of four to do experiments and he was in my group. We were in total awe of him. That kid photographer made my day. I don't give a rat's a$$ about the "sir" part but the reverence and respect he showed to an upperclassman, who was NOT a star football player, well, I hope he's doing well in life.
Quote of the Day
Of course, as others have noted on the Internet, I am no rocket surgeon.
Helen A.S. Popkin, MSNBC.com
Blog of the day here.
Quote from said blog: "The purpose of these thousands of meetings in fluorescence filled rooms is first, to save the most senior jobs, and second, to save the most senior jobs."
That tux story made my skin crawl a little. My parents bought me a new suit for my senior picture, as I needed one anyway.
btw-When I worked at Lifetouch, a couple of times I went to the Muncie plant where they processed senior pics. Retouching was all by hand then and I saw some real artists at work there.
I imagine they did that by hand for us, too, Dave, although I never gave it much thought. To make some of our mugs look decent, they had to be artists. :)
I could have graduated early. However, I stayed in because there was one course I wanted to take since I knew I wouldn't be going to college.
And since all students were required to take gym, I signed up for four quarters of swimming my senior year. But by that spring, they called me in to the office to tell me taking any one gym class all year wasn't allowed. So I switched to golf and badminton those last 9 weeks. LOL.
PE was required of us, too, Marie. 4 years worth. We only needed 3 years of English and Math, though.
Golf and badminton were classes?
The only way to graduate early at De La Salle was to take summer school. I considered it one summer but not for long.
We didn't have a golf course. Among things like having to learn the rules and terminology, I recall having to "drive" a golf whiffle ball in the grassy area between the sidewalk and the street. Ridiculous! It was the most frustrating and unrewarding sport I've ever attempted.
There were all kinds of weird gym things to chose from, like horseshoes and croquet. Oh, I think they offered yoga, too. All of this would have been for seniors only, though.
I learned, from the example of my two older sisters, to take the two required PE classes as summer school. It was great. I caught the city bus to a local park where we all assembled and played tennis or basketball or softball for a few hours and then had the rest of the day to ourselves. It went about four weeks and then it was done. Much more fun than it was at school and I used those credit hours for other courses to be set for an easy senior year like you had.
"It was the most frustrating and unrewarding sport I've ever attempted."
That pretty much sums up my two lame attempts at golf, too, Marie.
PE wasn't offered for summer school at De La Salle, Dave. Summer school for us was hard core. AP Math, AP English, AP Physics, etc...
Hey, I love all the high school pictures and posts. Amazing how much we grow in those four short, interminable years. I made it a point of pride -- my way of being different, or maybe just perverse and uncooperative -- to keep my picture out of the yearbook. I succeeded except for the picture of the freshman baseball team and the one of the senior play.
One of my best friends got out of school in three years. I did not have my act quite so well together, but was determined to get out early and was finished after the fall semester. During the spring semester I got my first newspaper job.
One of the reasons I wanted out was that I was constantly on the brink of serious trouble with the school. I got suspended twice and had been threatened with expulsion for my habit of sharing my opinions with various teachers and administrators using overly colorful language (once, this habit got me kicked out of a PE class for the semester, meaning that the following semester I had to take back-to-back gym classes. I loved it).
Pictures and trouble aside, I actually had a pretty good time; I've stayed in touch, more or less, with my closest friends from that era. I guess I'm thankful to the schools in a way for throwing us all together.