Ithaca High School - Annual Yearbook (Ithaca, NY)

Page 12 text:

it - That year fled too. We forget how surprised we were to learn that being a senior isn,t so very different. We realized, almost suddenly, that we cou1dn't possibly live up to the standards that were to be required of us. We forget how depressed we got. Everyone was asking us to plan our entire lives, and we were having trouble deciding what to do next week- end. We forget the interminable series of exams, forms, applications, questionnaires, essays that we completed at the last minute. We kicked around listlessly. Wie got so fed up that we played grade school games to escape. We got high on our own false ecstasy. We tried to figure out what life is, and why.

Page 11 text:

We forget the utter dismay and reverence we covered by giggles and shouts the very first day when we were the very first people to sit in the auditorium. We forget the necessary adjustments to unlimited homework, to alphabetical homerooms, to six report cards, to new friends our hopeless schedules demand- ed, to being the youngest. We were unbeliev- ably enthusiastic that year. We usually didn't know what was going on around us. We moved gaily in our own little orbs. We gawked at upperclassmen, smiled shyly at teachers, acted confident even when we weren't. .17 gf. as aw. . . -V gas? .. ,W 5?-:ei fi 2 fi .. .f i Before we had a chance to savor it, the first year was gone. We forget how we came back from summer Vaca- tion and felt several eons older. We no longer had to pretend to be bigg we were. We forget how hard we worked. That was the hardest year. Between our junior Themes and the Industrial Revolution, we didn't have much time for us. But we made time where it didn't exist, and put it to characteristic- ally bad use. We forget how we thought we owned the world. We made a point of flaunting authority. We tried hard to grow up. And we didn't let any of the disturbing things in life matter. 9

Page 13 text:

We forget that we needed a quiet haven for our metamorphosis. We thrashed out problems inside ourselves and tried to make the solu- tions work. We had to start to find ourselves before we could face everyone else. We forget how hard we fought to try to understand. Every day was like all the others. A boring succession of waiting for and wasting week- ends. We were too involved to notice the subtle evolution. We forget the change effect- ed here. We think' we were always as we are now. But each experience, exhilarating praise or depressing quiz failure, each book from Tropic of Cancer to Lord lim, each friend, each teacher, pushed us ahead. We stumbled forward through life just as we plowed through federal lunch lines. Exhaus- tion seemed to be the only result. Our mad search seemed to have stopped short in a huge vacuum. We forget the despair we felt when we hit that vacuum. We discovered and felt and groveled in our new selves. We forget the bliss that seeped into our bodies through the roots of the court- yard grass each spring when it seemed im- possible to go back to class after lunch. Some days were good. ,lust plain good. They sparkled and we felt like soaring from the ground to the top of the pine tree. We forget how we created joy. We smiled and laughed and roared. We didn't try -to keep from exploding. fi