High School

June 27, 2007

I graduated from Fort Pierce Central High School in Ft. Pierce, FL. back in 1980. So much time has past since then and I rarely recall any memories from my high school experience. I had supposed that if I tried I would have trouble remembering many of my former classmates. To my surprise, as I paged through my 1979 Hamadryad (our yearbook) and looked at the faces and names I seemed to remember almost everyone. Not just remember as a distant recollection, but as a hi-def clip of how each person looked, spoke and acted. Since I left town upon graduation I have never had any contact with any of them and so no mental picture other than that from the period of the late 70’s. At least in my mind, they all exist just as they did, as kids with only vague expectations of what would lie ahead and no knowledge of whatever travails they were yet to face. Though it might be interesting to meet up with some of them today, I know they wouldn’t really be the same people I knew then, in personality or appearance.

On the other hand they may feel that they are today just as they were then. For me, I not only believe that about myself, I’m sure of it.

Looking at the comments that people wrote in my yearbook, my memory isn’t so definite on what some of them are referring to. Still it is fun to read them again. I decided that enough time has passed that no one who wrote anything should care if I posted the comments online as a permanent record of what we used to think of back then.

The comments can be found from the 1979 yearbook link on the schools page.

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Posted by John

It's me

June 23, 2007

There have been so many people that I have known or been acquainted with through the years with whom I am no longer in regular contact. I look for some of them on the internet and sometimes I think I find them. This kind of searching makes me think of the likely possibility that some of them are making an attempt to find out whatever happened to me. Unfortunately, “John Johnson” returns about 806,000 results in Google and even I have no idea how many of them may include a reference to me.To make it easier, I am using this site to let them know that yes, I’m the one that they remember and I’m still doing stuff. I will be posting the link in places that people will likely look in to find me.

Besides the people I remember, there are people that I think know of me, although I don’t necessarily think I know them. I’ve never been a background person, so my name is out there wherever I have gone and whatever I have done. Of course, it helps to have a memorable name.

Occasionally, I consider this when I come in contact with someone who clearly knows me and who calls me by name, while I am struggling to try to remember who they are. I play along, hoping something they say will cause me to remember, but sometimes I never do. I always assume at first it must be my memory that is faulty. So no matter what, I will at least reply excitedly, “Hey, [reading aloud whatever is written on your name tag], how are you doing?”

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Posted by John