Down Memory Lane

My high school graduating class may not be on Facebook, but a couple of old classmates make sure the remaining members of the Class of '59 get e-mail updates of all the reunions, news from Breckenridge, etc. Recently one of them sent out a recreation of an old poster that read:

The Breckenridge Junior Chamber of Commerce
Presents

A Minstrel

Featuring the Breckenridge Men's Chorus
Assisted by the Breckenridge Women's Chorus
And Guest Artists

My children probably do not know about Minstrel shows - more accurately "Negro Minstrel" shows where white performers blacked their faces and sang and performed vaudeville-type acts, caricaturing Negroes in general and Southern slaves and freedmen in particular. The thought of such a program today boggles the brain, but this was a very popular form of entertainment beginning about 1830 and lasting over 100 years. This particular program was in the summer of 1944 - perhaps it was one of the very last of it's ilk.

The primary point of interest in sending this poster to me and my classmates was the list of the businesses that helped sponsor the program, and the names of people who sang in the choruses. It generated a lot of "Do you remember so-and-so" and "Yes, I used to eat at such-and-such Cafe" responses.

But I was struck by what was then an accepted and popular form of entertainment and my how times have changed. That led to a discussion with Mom about when our high schools were integrated; in my case well after I had graduated. Hispanics, yes. Blacks, no. And before you know it, we had the High-School Yearbooks down and if ever there was an instrument that could show you in an immature and foolish light, it is the Yearbook. Oh, my!

So we went wandering back through time this afternoon. Some things you find back there make you wonder about the good ol' days. And some things just make you wonder. Was I really that skinny? Could I have looked any more like a nerd?