Tempus Fugit (Countdown to the Big Six-Oh Edition): Songs, Schedules, & Off-Campus Lunches…My High School Experience in February 1983

“I blinked my eyes

and in an instant,

decades had passed.” ― John Mark Green, Taste the Wild Wonder: Poems

With less than 18 days before my 60^th birthday – the first such recurrence of a “landmark” birthday since my mother’s death nearly eight years ago (and the ensuing physical as well as the emotional parting of ways with my older half-sister Vicky) – remaining, my thoughts keep circling back to the past, wheeling through my mind like a flock of startled seagulls flying over equally startled beachgoers at Crandon Park Beach.

I can’t honestly say that it seems as though the year 1983 – much less 1973 – was “only yesterday” or ask “when did the time fly by so quickly?” Of course, there are times when I do look back at some of the key years of my life – especially those before the topsy-turvy anno horriblis of 2015 – and perceive them as if they were not that distant in the rearview mirror of life. Stuff like my first French kiss, my one-and-only trip to Europe, or my first time with a woman seems like it happened recently.

That only happens when I’m pleasantly buzzed after consuming a tall glass of beer or a bottle of Seagram’s Escapes. Most of the time, I feel the weight of the passage of time pressing down – somewhat unpleasantly – like a ton of bricks upon my shoulders.

It Was 40 Years Ago Today – South Miami High School, Class of 1983 Edition

“It’s like high school holds two different worlds, revolving around each other and never touching; the haves and the have-nots. I guess it’s a good thing. High school is supposed to prepare you for the real world, after all.” ― Lauren Oliver, Before I Fall

In the year 1983, February 15 fell on a Tuesday, so at this time on that date I would have been finishing my lunch at the cafeteria in South Miami Senior High School. Either that, or I would have been on my way back to campus after eating a slice of freshly-made pizza at a nearby pizzeria whose name I’ve forgotten. It was, after all, my senior year at South Miami, and by then I felt confident and comfortable enough to venture out and not eat in the cafeteria, even though I still ate there most of the time.

My class schedule – as I remember it some 40 years on – looked like this:

• Homeroom/1^st Period: Drama
• 2^nd Period: Mixed Chorus (SATB)
• 3^rd Period: English 4 – Regular
• 4^th Period: Newspaper Reporting/Production
• 5^th Period: Art
• 6^th Period: Algebra I

If you’re wondering why you don’t see any social studies classes listed on my class schedule, I can explain: I took the required U.S. Government (two units) and Economics courses during the summer session between the end of my junior year and the beginning of my senior year to carve space in my schedule for four electives. I still had to take English as a mandatory class, even though it was a “regular” course not geared for either advanced placement (AP) or college-bound students.

“I wouldn’t have minded school if they taught you important things like how to have good sex and what brand of wine is the best… But for some reason they were hell-bent on teaching me algebra” ― Ben Mitchell

And although you might think that Algebra I was a requirement in the 1982-1983 academic year, it turns out that my senior year was the last one when we only needed two years of math coursework (10^th and 11^th grade) to graduate. I didn’t know this then, or if I did, I thought that because I – barely – passed my pre-algebra class with a C (and I wager that it was a low C), I could learn algebra, albeit with some difficulty. So I signed up for the class, even though I did not have to. (The State of Florida Board of Education and the Legislature made math classes mandatory for all high school seniors the following academic year, and as far as I know, four years of high school math are still mandatory if you want to earn a high school diploma.)

“If everyone started off the day singing, just think how happy they’d be.” ― Lauren Myracle, Shine

40 years ago today, South Miami’s various choral groups – there were at least four separate choirs: the Men’s (or Boys’) Ensemble, the Women’s Ensemble, Mixed Chorus I, and Advanced Mixed Chorus (these were the singers that sang at the choral competitions at the county level; I was not one of them) – were practicing for the Spring Concert, which was scheduled for either mid-April or late May of 1983.

Our chorus teacher, Ms. Joan Owen, was still going through the process of choosing several songs for the Spring Concert program; this involved trying as many as seven different songs – I remember we practiced Elijah Rock, a “scat” version of The Pink Panther Theme, and a song by John Dowland titled Come Again, Sweet Love Doth Now Invite – and eliminating the ones that didn’t quite work out and keeping the ones that did.

We also did vocal exercises to improve our performance, both as individuals and as a group. I still remember one morning when Ms. Owen, unhappy with how the bass section (where I was assigned then as a baritone) was singing, snapped her fingers at us and said, to my horror, “Sing like you have a pair, men!” in an uncharacteristically stern tone.

Granted, we were not projecting our voices – I think we were trying out either Henry Mancini’s The Pink Panther Theme in its scat version or the Dowland song – as well as we should have, but this was the first time I’d seen Ms. Owen flustered and even angry.

There are, of course, a bunch of other stories I could tell about what high school was like for me during the last four months or so of the school year, but this post is getting a bit long, so I’ll close here. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe and healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.