Industrialist year book, South Gate Junior High School, S'64

I was not in journalism in the spring of 1964; however, in the fall, I came up with the motto for our graduation class: "Memories of the Past to Dreams of the Future". Nowhere in the yearbook do I find that I was given credit for that little ditty of a graduation motto.

Also, in contrast to the W'64 edition, I have only two signatures in my yearbook, one from a girl I briefly dated, Nancy, whose family lived neared us on Orchard, and the other from my friend Michael Leonard. Both would move away, along with my other friends, Cheri Earl and Richard Watson, before high school. I have no idea now, looking back, why I had so few classmates sign my yearbook. Also, since I was no longer in journalism, and never had been a member of any other school clubs or organizations that entire year, I did not have my picture in our graduation yearbook. I'm not even in our class picture because I failed to return a signed form on time to my homeroom teacher. He decided that adequate punishment was that I could not participate in the class picture. My name is on the roster of our graduating class inside the yearbook but no picture.

It all seems rather unfair, looking back at his decision all these years later. But that paled in comparison to what I experienced when I returned home that afternoon of the last day at school. I arrived at 2875 Orchard to find that all of our possessions had been stacked outside the apartment on the upper landing at the top of the stairs--I felt suddenly homeless. I would later learn from mom that we were paid up through the end of the month, which would have been through that weekend; however, our landlord wanted to get the place ready for a new tenant, so he had moved our things out prematurely, and mom was furious when I reached her on the phone. She already had rented a new, two-bedroom, one-bath house, a few blocks away on Cypress Avenue. And she had already bought used furniture which had already been delivered there. (The apartment on Orchard had been furnished.) Mike Leonard helped us move that evening, just as I would help him and his mom move later that summer. After we finished moving in, mom took us out to dinner that night.

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