Memories both Good and Not so Good

In 1969 we had a pretty good girls' basketball team with Jackie Amodio, Gerri Burns, and the Jenkins twins. After they graduated, the next year's team was terrible. Peter Johnson was our coach. We lacked skills and several team members didn't really have any drive or motivation at all. Practice warm ups included laps around the wooden track in The Bubble. I don't remember this teammate's name, but she barely ran around the track at all. Peter devised a successful motivation for her that consisted of him running at a moderate pace in front of her. He held a roll of toilet paper and she held the end of it which was about 10' behind him. If the toilet paper broke, she had to do extra laps. The rest of us would finish our laps and then watch the two of them finish theirs, snickering but being thankful we didn't have to participate. Good memories included Mountain Day, particularly the one when Mr. Vickers rented a big boat we all went on instead of climbing a mountain, the year the girls stopped having to wear hats to Sunday chapel service, and the summers I spent there with the Plummers after my father died. "Running track" between dorms at night, my senior year when someone (only years later did I find out who) stole Mr. Warburton's grade book just before report cards were due to come out, late Saturday night pizza at Keyes Cottage, the lady in the kitchen giving me her long, raccoon fur coat (warmest coat I ever had) and I can't remember what else but many, many events were memorable and still bring a smile to my face. Sad memories came as well. One was my sophomore year when Mr. Vickers told me he wanted to see me after dinner. He put me in his car, drove us to the front of the Chapel, held my hands and told me my father had died that morning in a car accident. That same year also had me find the girl across the hall with both her wrists slit, and several classmates being expelled for getting caught having sex or possessing drugs or alcohol. Hated the sick feeling in my stomach when a boy got caught smoking and had to choose between going home or getting his head shaved. I think the worst thing of all was graduation day when we should have been happy and celebrating and all I could think of was how all of my friends who had become my family were leaving, likely never to be seen again. We've come a long way, Baby! Look at us now, coming back together catching up on all those pretechnology years when this really wasn't possible. Thank you to Nate for putting this together and for everyone else for reaching out and making this happen! For those of us longing to fill in the blanks, we now have a way to do it! Whoo hoo!