The Central High School Class of 1959 was unique in several ways. We were, of course, the last class before South and East opened, meaning the last class to include most of those living south of the Arkansas. I think the unthought rivalry with Centennial had to have diminished after us. I still relish it, but wish I’d been adventuresome enough to have dated a Centennial girl, but I doubt any were any more mysterious or alluring than the Central girls I didn’t date either. (As some of you know I dated Joann Mahaney few times in high school and I don’t mean to imply that she wasn’t alluring or mysterious. We’ve been friends for at least forty years, and we still don’t understand each other. I also had one date with Regina Garlich, and I doubt anyone understands her, including Regina.)
We were the first class to have Sollie Raso as our principal for all three years. Unlike the Class of ‘56 and those preceding them, we came from two different junior high schools. Whether you were a Kommanche or a Cyclone probably had a bigger role in determining who your high school friends were than you might want to admit.
We lived in a period of prosperity, though many of our parents wouldn’t admit it, even to themselves. The mill was the biggest employer in the state and at least one classmate, Marlin Liles, has confidently told me that Pueblo County had the highest per capita income in the state. That doesn’t mean that some classmates weren’t poor, and nearly all of us thought $5 was a lot to spend on a date.
We went to high school in a period of sexual repression. In most of our families both parents had only been married once, to each other. Most mothers worked at home. We read that we were all afraid of the bomb. I can’t remember any of my friends being afraid of that. We had plenty of fears – of being rejected for a date, or of even asking for one, of our parents finding out any one of several things we’d done.
Gasoline sold for 19.9 cents a gallon, and if we had a car, it probably cost less than $200, but many of us walked to school anyway. Some from the Heights took the city bus. Movies at the Avalon cost five cents for those 12 and under and I could easily pass all through junior high.
Whatever our times were, they were ours, and they were a very long time ago, and will never come again. To paraphrase Charles Frazier in Thirteen Moons, anyone who has lived long enough to share even a part of our youthful experiences is a treasure.
I think we’re ready to continue this conversation, and start others. Please write.
Jeff Arnold
October 30, 2007 at 3:48 am |
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November 12, 2007 at 3:35 pm |
Jeff writes, “we lived in a period of prosperity…” I agree, but only when you compare it to what came before. Our parents lived through the depression only a few years before, and for many, including my mother who grew up on goat hill, the depression was only a continuation of the poverty she had always known. Also, prosperity is relative. My guess is that most of us live in far nicer houses than those we grew up in. That certainly includes my friends from wealthier families whose houses were in the Aberdeen. The Thatcher house, that I thought was a mansion, would be similar to a typical two-story in El Camino subdivision where I now live. The Keen house probably had less than half the square feet of my current home. The Taylor house on Ditmer, which I felt was the epitome of fine living, is not much different than today’s standard rancher.
Shortly after the first of the year, 1950, I remember a teacher at Carlile (sadly I can’t remember her name) telling the class that we had reached the milestone of the midway point of the 20th Century, and although she wouldn’t see it, we would live to experience the beginning of a new century. I was 8. She was partially right. Most of us have survived, although some in that class did not come close to living until the year 2000. Now we think that some of our children and most of our grandchildren will experience the middle of the 21st Century. I wonder, at the time she said it, if that unremembered teacher, thinking back over the cataclysms and calamities of the previous 50 years, wondered if the world would last until the year 2000. And I wonder, also thinking back, if the world will last until the year 2050. My guess is that it will, but honestly, I’m glad that I won’t be here to see what it looks like.
November 14, 2007 at 5:14 pm |
Jerry, your illustrations are interesting and I agree that houses are bigger and in many ways nicer than the ones “rich people” had when we were growing up. I haven’t been in Taylors’ house but I bet I’d still think of it as a very nice house. I certainly wasn’t thinking of this when I wrote”I Think We Did It.” but the bigger house pendulum has swung too far. Think of the energy consumption impact of a 4000 square foot house, no matter how well insulated and efficient the appliances..
Anyway, I think those of us who are more prosperous than our parents were are so partly because our parents lived through the Depression and raised us to be careful with money. I think there were benefits as well as a few drawbacks to growing up if not poor, then under fiscal constraint. I meant my point about prosperity to be that more young families in Pueblo were firmly in the middle class when we were kids than now. If Pueblo seems prosperous now, it’s because there are many retirees who very careful through the years, and lots of people living beyond their means.
Jeff
March 18, 2008 at 5:18 am |
Thanks for your insight, guys. I’ve missed reading your venting…
Please don’t stop contributing your thoughts.