Breckenridge High School - Class of '59 (Part 1)

I previously mentioned (several times) the upcoming 50th class reunion. I also suggested that I had mixed emotions about attending it. Well, the reunion was this past weekend and I did indeed attend, and I'm still processing  everything in my mind. However, some things are pretty clear at this point:

• Those folks are getting old! Thank goodness for name tags.
• Grand kids, health, operations and Medicare are the primary topics of conversation.
• There's still no one in Breckenridge who can cater a decent meal.

Twenty-six of us gathered - out of a class of 70, 74, 100, 107 or 115 students. Take your pick; we couldn't ever agree on a number. A half-dozen or so still live in the area. Everyone else was pretty scattered geography-wise, with Texas the primary state of residence.

Part of my reluctance to attend was based on the fact that I no longer have anything in common with any of those folks. I thought it would be about like the business seminars I used to attend where you were hooked up with a small group of strangers and forced to work together to achieve the seminar's goals. I was right. A small group of people met with the goal of rehashing old times. I'm sorry, those were not the good days - these are the good days.

But there were some interesting aspects to the weekend. Like one of the guys in the band (and part of the group I hung with) showed up with his life partner. Back then, we sort of knew he was different, but we simply chose to ignore it. In truth, he may have been ignoring it at that point, as well. He and his partner were not flaunting their relationship, but if you engaged them in conversation for long it became obvious (I sat by them for both sessions). Even so, I suspect many in the group this weekend never realized the friend was anything but that. I think this because I frankly think there were some there who would have made a big deal - a very big deal - of it had they realized the situation, I base that on the very liberal use of the "N" word and other racial pejoratives I heard over the weekend. Racism and homophobia tend to hang out together in small Texas towns.

It was also interesting to focus on that era and realize what a unique and different time it was. In a real sense it was an age of innocence; not because my classmates didn't know about sex and booze and larceny (they did!), but because we led sheltered lives. Most of us enjoyed relatively the same socio-economic status. There were very few students that we considered to be "rich kids" and they didn't act any different than us - they just had cars and bigger houses. There were no blacks in our school (and only 3 Hispanics) and we didn't interact with blacks in any other circumstance (such as church). Only one football team that we played regularly had black players (and a big deal was made of that at the time, and this weekend as well). Interestingly, the 2000 census listed just .01% of the population of Breckenridge as black. The tradition continues.

We listened to Rock and Roll on radio stations from Dallas and Oklahoma City, and occasionally New Orleans. We bought records at a local record store and occasionally by mail-order from Sam Goody's in Nashville. Almost no one had after-school jobs; few had their own cars - we borrowed the family vehicle. Doors were never locked and with a few notable exceptions the worst crime we were acquainted with was drag racing the family sedan.

Fort Worth was the "big city" in our world (though we did go to Abilene for shopping and doctors), and our lives were largely circumscribed by a loop of Walker street between the Dairy Delight (now the defunct Anchor Drive In) and the western edge of town about even with the infamous water tower - a loop known as the drag. How many times did I drive that loop? There were side roads, of course, that ended in hopefully lonely and sparsely populated parking places (one of the trivia questions passed out to the attendees at the reunion was "Can you name at least one place used for "necking"?). Rob pointed out that the correct answer to this question is "No."

In general, it appeared that those who went off to college found their mates there; those who stuck around Breckenridge married their high-school sweethearts. Sort of like a Dixie Chicks song:

Mary Anne and Wanda were the best of friends
All through their high school days.
Both members of the 4H Club
Both active in the FFA.
After graduation Mary Anne went out lookin'
for a brand new world.
Wanda looked all around this town
and all she found was Earl

It was a small world in Breckenridge Texas in 1959. A very small world.

Next - Football in the 50's. Go Buckaroos!