Images of Days Gone By

My daughter, who is co-editor of the yearbook at school, pulled out all our old yearbooks this weekend. She wanted to see “how far yearbooks had come.” You know, since the olden days.
 
Back when, I explained to her, the yearbook staff took their pictures with real film and even, in some cases, developed those pictures themselves in dark rooms on the school campus. No weeding through thousands of digital pictures for that perfect one to splash on the yearbook page. No, “archaic” yearbook staffs had to make do with the pictures they took, never knowing until well after the event how they had turned out.
 
But beyond the scrutiny of the yearbooks’ layout and content, my kids got a kick out of the “senior awards” in both my husband’s and my senior yearbook. In his, he was voted “Mostly Likely to Make a Million.” Over the course of eighteen years as a lawyer, he probably has. I, on the other hand, was given the “Nervous, Klutz, Reckless Driver” award.
 
Of course, to make counteract such an auspicious award, I held up my final high school transcript, which happened to fall from the pages of that yearbook. My ACT score was quite respectable, as was my GPA. So while I may not have garnered much respect socially, I was stellar in the classroom.
 
The trip down memory lane was fun, though. I can’t believe we are embarking on her last year of high school. It has gone so fast. But she is excited to know that the memories to be made in this milestone year will find their way into a yearbook created by her direction. That will be an accomplishment she can cherish for years to come.