Another Life

Earl wondered aloud what I might have been like in high school. I told him I was a pain in the ass. Every. Single. Day. So what's changed?

Here's the evidence. And oh ya. I had chemically blonde hair in high school.

Exhibit 1. Grade Nine Graduation, 1984: This is the only picture I or anyone in my family has of my leaving junior high. (There are no photos of my high school graduation except the official one taken at school.) The photographer was my mother, who was the only family member attending this ceremony. The scene is the school gym on a Wednesday afternoon in late June, and the tall man is my home-room teacher, who told me a couple of days later that had my marks been lower, I would have been held back a year because of absenteeism. Unfortunately, I seem to have lost my "diploma" and my honours award.

Exhibit 2. Klondike Days 1984. I've always liked dressing up, so why not be a dance-hall girl? This picture was taken between 100 and 102 Streets, south of Jasper Avenue, overlooking the river valley; it's a Sunday afternoon, the Klondike Promenade, which was discontinued a few years later. The photographer is the man I was dating at the time. There are so many things wrong with this picture that I don't even know where to begin.

Exhibit 3. Violin Concert. The only pictures I have of playing in any of the innumerable concerts I took part in are due to Nicole's mother, who took this picture and was kind enough to share a copy with me. (Well, I guess there are some in yearbooks, too, but that's not the same thing.) I'm pretty sure the setting for this picture is QE High School, but I surmise that based on the companion picture to this, which was definitely taken outside QE. This picture was taken in the spring of 1986. I've known Nicole for a long time! We're laughing/smiling, I think, because Nicole's mother said something amusing, but we spent most of our lesson times laughing, or snickering, or snarking, rather than playing our violins.

Exhibit 4: Wedding. I'm in this photo, standing behind Nicole. Signing whatever documents the JP is responsible for is my patron of honour, Tim. This is a Friday evening in August 1986, in a backyard in Sherwood Park. I'd finished high school about six weeks earlier. Off to university and lots more trouble! — and class skipping, of course.

So. That's a brief history of what it would have been like to know me in high school. Or the photographic evidence, anyway.

Once again, my thanks to Earl for the inspiration.