The Zenith (High Point University Yearbooks) 1946-1948

I. LOVE. YEARBOOKS.

Second only to scrapbooks (a nasty ebay habit I've been trying to quit since...probably when I started). But seriously? How is that 18 year olds in 1946, '47, and '48 (the academic years from which these photos were meticulously culled, in their digital editions) looked so grown up? If it were 1946, and I practiced the basic beauty regime of your average college Freshman, would I look like Rita Hayworth come picture day? Isn't the laughing girl in the rose skirt, front right, like something out of a stock photo? Below, Jeannette McBain and Lorraine Chapman show you how it's done...lipstick perfect, eyebrows perfect, hair perfect, and so very elegant.

Granted, there were also plenty of average featured Sues and Sals in the yearbooks I perused, but anyone would notice a pointed lack of sloppy personal grooming in each and every one of the classroom peers overwhich I pored. Ladies' hair-- curled, clipped, coiffed! Gentlemen's ties-- sufficiently sporty! The fanned lace across the bodice of Miss Chapman (right) makes me positively yearn for a time when "formal" meant "evening gown" rather than"not jeans".

What lovely gals...what voluminous skirts and curls. Directly above, "Exquisite Senior Blanche Myers" of Thomasville, NC. Above left, the very pretty (if improbably named) Adrienne Angel, a High Point local with a major in Music. Doesn't she sound (and look!!) like a superhero's girlfriend? I forgot to keep note of the lady in the upper lefthand photo (if she's your grandmother, do let me know), but look at the sequin work on her dress, and the star shaped necklace at her throat. Elbow length, fingerless gloves? I believe I will.

Click on the picture above and see a real live line up from a real live soda shop! Above the top of the backshelf is a monstrously large Coca-Cola display...three collegiates to either side and a soda jerk in the middle admonishing his gaggle to "Join the Coke Club!" Wonder what it looks like in color? I did.

Can you just see the Antiques Roadshow dollar signs rolling over in the whites of my eyes. How cool! HOW COOL. These were apparently just cardboard cut outs that could be tacked wherever needed. These mint ones were worth somewhere in the thousand dollar range. Ephemera! How I love you!

While marching on to victory

Our Panther pride shines through

So, Fight! Fight!For the purple and white

And dear old H-P-U!

Meet Owen, Doris, Neil, and Tommy-- your 1948 High Point University freshman class officers. I have yet to master the art of socks and loafers without looking like someone's blowsy hausfrau mother, but I know it can be done! Look at Doris. AND I've seen contemporary examples I liked. Maybe it's something to do with having feet that resemble large wooden planks, and that's where I'm missing the mark. Le sigh.

Does not the gentlemen in the left hand corner SINCERELY resemble none other than Gary Busey? I, myself, was immediately struck by the likeness. Handsomer, in that he is younger and not Gary Busey, but the features are so alike! To the right, what you would get if Jimmy Stewart and Loretta Young had a kid together. The angelic Grady Herman Whicker (Honor Roll, English Dept. Assistant, Ministerial Association) has a twin sister right next to him in the yearbook, Miss Pansy Henderson Whicker (middle right). In spite of her awesome hair, I would be jealous if my twin brother had such blonde hair and clear, striking eyes as young Grady.

Below Busey and Stewart-Young, a selection of gentlemen with interesting hair. Note the wide variety of rooster combs, pompadours, and slicked back styles. Also, how is the guy in the lowest right (Harry M. Matthews, manager of the basketball, football, and softball teams) a college Sophmore? He looks like he owns a small business. Betty Trollinger (right) was not only voted "Lovely Sophmore", but was also selected "Miss High Point University" by Cecil B. Demille! I'm diappointed more colleges don't have beauty contests judged by famous impressarios/Hollywood figures (remember the post about Frances Espy?).

Some High Point beauties (I was once again too lazy to note their names! For shame).





And two more High Point gents:

Nice hair, lefty. Seriously. In a kind of retro, tamer Eraserhead-y way, you have great hair. Man on the right, you look a little like Tyrone Power. I doubt, in 1948, that would work against you. Actually, I doubt in 2011 that would work against you.

Girls whose names I did remember:

Blanche Myers (Home Ec, left) and Carolyn Neely (Business Administration, right). I think Carolyn Neely is the prettiest girl in the book.

Hazel Frances King, Ellen Ruth Lewis

Doesn't the girl on the left actually look a little like Miss Hayworth?

Vivan Alene Cheech (Home Economics), Doris Lee (amongst her extracurriculars?? "Vocalist with Swing Band"!!)

Gloria Yvonne Bingham (left), Marie Sue Butner (Home Ec, middle),Wincie Victoria Cagle (Science!!, right)

While I'm glad to have settled on this braided hair style that is both old fashioned and practical and whimsy, I'll have to say that the girls of High Point do have me singing a song of shears. And curlers. Possibly a permanent. I'm so terrified of getting an 80's style, far too tight helmet that I haven't dared yet, but how else can I get the effortless ringlets and waves some of these girls have going on? Without having any particular skill in hair dressing or setting, that is.

Thisssss.(Ruth Payne, Brasstown) And not this. (Sorry to call you out, Reba, you know you're my girl).

Don't you wish you'd taken more time with your high school portraits now? Mine were not nearly this glamorous. But the marked inspiration I'm mulling over now, thanks to these books!

Dig up a decade yourself at Internet Archive.

Til next time.

Open Highways (1966, 1971)

One of my favorite things about McKays Used Books, CDs, Movies, and More is the buying policy. Specifically, the good purveyors-of-books' decision not to take textbooks, visibly worn or yellowed books, or books mildly damaged in any way, in favor of (rightly enough) stocking their shelves with more sellable items. These rejected books are often left at the location by the person who has unsuccesfully to hock them, at which time McKays tosses said selections into three huge wooden bins outside marked "FREE BOOKS".

You do not have to tell me twice, Free Books sign.

Last weekend, I had a pretty lackluster "vintage movie star bios/50's suspense stories anthologies/old cookbooks/rare MGM movies not yet on DVD" run (which they're usually so good about having!!), but as I left, I thought I'd take a quick peek into the bin, which turned into a heartstopping moment of luck. Twenty or thirty early 60's young adult books! Donna Parker! Some knock off Hardy Boys esque titles! Nancy Drew! As I sidled up between two women who were having some long, loud conversation directly in front of the box, ABOUT the books in the box, I began to surrepetitiously pick books out of the mountain and hand them to Bab, who soon had a fifteen volume high stack to which I was still adding. The women caught wind of this, eventually, and began grabbing books for themselves, but I'd already taken the lion's share and passed them into Bab's helpful hands (he really is the best accomplice). Greedy? Yes. Happy? Also yes.

Amongst the titles I scored was a fifth grade textbook, originally published by Scott, Foresman and Company in 1966, but reprinted for this edition in 1971. The result was a strange melange of MCM illustrations and early 70's illustrations, the highlights of which I'll take you through story by story.

Above and below, these illustrations went along with the text of "Ernestine and Substance X". Unusual feminine versions of masculine names! Why aren't there more Ernestines and Bernadettes and Claudines these days? Ernestine Rosario and her friend Rosalie attempt to earn extra credit in fifth grade science class by inventing an "invisibility formula". Dialogue:

"For our experiment, let's try to find a substance that will make things the color of air!"

"But air has no color at all!" said Rosalie.

"That's right!" said Ernestine. "Now let's get started on our experiment."

Puzzling, but I guess true? I'm obsessed with the color and print of Ernestine's dress, by the way (the girl to the right). AND THE FLIPPIN WALLPAPER. Give me this wallpaper.

Ernestine's mother, Mrs. Rosario, comes home, and obviously Substance X, made up of household items of every kind, was not quite the hit it was meant to be. Slathered as it as all over a kitchen chair, the chair itself was still pretty visible. Mrs. Rosario, your tapered skirt, matched cardigan to trapezoidal purse, and lovely chignon are a perfect 10! I'm sorry about your kid's lack of scientific skill. Chalk this one up to experience.

A zoo theme carried through several selections... above, a boy and elephant bond of a shared love of an audience. Below, the illustration from an article about how zoos acquire animals (loan/trade from other zoos, buy from other zoos, buy from animal collectors). Included in the article, a 1965 price list for animals:

Royal Bengal Tigers, 1-2 years old.......$1200 each
Baby walruses..........................................$5000 each
Baby giraffes.............................................$4000 each
Polar Bears................................................$1200 each
Elephants (full grown).............................$4000 each
Hippopotami...................................$1500-2000 each
Dromedary Camels........................$1200-1400 each
Kangaroo males (full grown).............$700-800 each
Jaguars.................................................$400-450 each
Spider Monkeys (golden and black).$40-50 each

So, as a zoology investor, I guess spider monkeys would be your best deal, whereas a giraffe, elephant, or walrus can really set you back a few. How much is an ocelot or an otter? Inquiring minds want to know. Which one would you shell out the most for?

Speaking of Walruses ($4000 = $26915.30 in today's money, btw...worth it?), take a look at "Ookie", the subject of a short feature on his species.

This...gal's....mug....is....so....UG. It comes back around again to be cute. Almost. "Ookie is a walrus who likes people," the article begins. Beware, apparently, for if this is one of her defining personal characteristics, what does it say of others of her brethren? That they hate people? Ookie was scooped up at the tender age of "a few weeks old" in the ice fields of Alaska by a Dr. Carelton Ray and some Eskimo fishermen he had hired for the purpose of collecting specimens for the New York Aquarium. As this is a true story, you can see Carelton Ray's University of Virginia faculty page here (he's still working! Forty five years later!).

Settling in at the aquarium, Ookie was noted for her love of, you guessed it, mealtime. "Ookie drank almost three gallons of clams, cream, and vitamins each day. No wonder she gained more than a pound a day!" This goes on for some time until they try to wean Ookie from eating with a a trainer to eating by herself. She wasn't having it, at first. Listen to this weird passage: "Ookie didn't eat anything all day. But she was already so fat that the aquarium people knew it wouldn't hurt her to go without food. So they just left her alone." What! I'm glad you guys are aquarium-ists and not child service specialist. Jeez Louise.

Some pretty weird photos of poor Ookie trying to get into the seals' pen for some company. She jumps out of her pool, waddles up the wall, stands on her flippers, and flings herself over. The aquarium people keep making the wall higher, and Ookie keeps jumping higher, until finally the wall is built seven feet high and Ookie's climbing days were through. This is okay though, because of the coda added under the last photo: "But Ookie isn't unhappy. Lots of people come to see her, and Ookie is a walrus who loves people." Good to know.



Just like today, textbook authors in 1971 were obviously trying to "hip" up their source material by adding two passages written and illustrated in comic book style. The story about Frank "Bring Em Back Alive" Buck was done particularly well... love the colors and the action shots. Hold that tiger! As with any of my posts, click on any of the pictures to see a larger version.

Wasn't that thrilling?

"Earthquakes in Anchorage" had photos of the fallout from an earthquake that took place March 27, 1964. May I point out to the gentle reader that the school building below is split IN HALF. It's as if the ground beneath it were a huge blanket someone took by the corners and just shook in the air. Look at that car inside the house on the right!! Exciting stuff for a fifth grade textbook.

Cuuuute midcentury modern scribbly illustration of Indian maids and misters. From the first sentence of this selection: "Once there were six pretty Mono Indian wives. Each wife had a husband who was a mountain-lion hunter." Now THAT'S a day job. Eesh. The men are holding their noses as the story detail their wives' discovery of the cooking applications of wild onions. The women just keep compulsively eating onions, to the great dismay of their menfolk. "That night the husbands made their wives stay outdoors because the onion odor kept them awake." At one point, the odor is so strong from being AROUND the women that the men scare away the mountain lions with their onion stank. Later, the women lasso a cloud and traipse around in the sky, letting their onion loving flag fly high. Eventually, the husbands wanted them back, onions or no, but the women wouldn't come out of the sky. "All agreed they would rather be alone in the sky". Nice. Then the men and the women turned into stars, the grouping of which is today called "The Pleiades". WHAT. KIND. OF. STORY. IS THIS. I understand that folk tales can be way out there, I'm a huge fan of magical realism, but how in the hello did we get from eating onions like they were going out of style to flying up in the sky and getting star-divorced? How did the 1966 fifth grader take this?

Some particularly pretty space illustrations, probably leftovers from the 1966 version. I love the watercolor look of these. The bubblegum pink one on the right is from a story about kids in space in the future. As it was written in 1957, it comes with a 1966-1971 space age caveat in the introduction: "Look at the bottom of the page and see when this story was written. Since then, many facts about space have been discovered. After you read the story, ask yourself if any of the things imagined by the author are accepted as being true now. Are there any things that you know are not true?" A thoughtful question about space and science fiction for a fifth grader.

Hope you enjoyed the excerpts and the scans, there will be more where that came from, if I get up the gumption to process this mother lode of material.

Are there any stories from your elementary school textbooks that you still remember? My favorite was a sixth grade literature book that included the entire script from the Twilight Zone episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" (the link provides the self same script in pdf, possibly from that text book). Did my parents and I construct a kid sized cardboard car for the penultimate scene, complete with flashlight headlights? Did I get the important role of Charlie, as originally portrayed by Jack Weston? Was this or was this not COMPLETELY up my alley, in terms of all time greatest classroom assignments?

You be the judge. :)

See you next time!

Clothes Off My Back (6)

I realize it's been a long time since I've done a clothing post! I assure you, I've been wearing clothes-- but the time to photograph them has eluded me lately. Nonetheless, here are a few from this and last month that I managed to squeeze in between work and karaoke and estate sales (is there anything else...?).



This dress is from an estate sale a couple months ago ($1), a neat, graph-papery kind of pattern... I love the button detail on the wearer's left hand side, but the waist was far too generous for me. Solution? Popped off one of the lower buttons, replaced with belt. I sewed the button into the hem of the dress, in case I ever need to replace one of the others, but I think the general effect worked. The tuxedo jacket is from Target (clearance, $6.24), sunglasses from some long forgotten thrift store trip, the tiny fish pin you probably can't see was my mom's, and the boots are my ever reliable Rocket Dogs. Wore this to a much deserved morning-after-Corner-Bar breakfast at Waffle House. Carb war or no, for a treat, those hashbrowns and that raisin toast was OUT OF THIS WORLD. Put a bunch of Motown on the jukebox and just enjoyed swilling coffee and pigging out with my Bab. Truly awesome.

One of my f-a-v-o-r-i-t-e dresses, this one came from Southern Thrift, which rarely has vintage clothes at the Donelson location, but almost ALWAYS has easily-taken-for-vintage-new-dresses from labels like Talbot's or so ($12.98...big spender!). As I often have to do with any dress meant to be above-the-knee-skimming on an average sized gal, I've added a froufy sort of skirt under the dress to extend the hemline from "majorette short" to a more acceptable "mildly go-go". Tuxedo jacket makes a reappearance (it's become the staple jacket to end all staple jackets). Bab found this goes-with-everything Banana Republic wool zip up at the same Southern Thrift (new with tags, $19.98... possibly the only time my man has spent more than me at a second hand store). No one recognized me with my hair down at Corner Bar later that night. I'm so neurotic about keeping it in place that to have a curtain of it just hanging down drives me nuuuuuts. It does look pretty in the picture above, though. :)

Chinchilla collar! I was home alone before running out to meet Bab at the Belcourt to see Brief Encounter, so excuse the not-exactly-Avendon quality of the photos. Plus, my hair was being a buzz killer altogether... can you see the 80% flyaways? That would explain the wool cap (garage sale, $3... they had an entire boxful, and I kind of wish I'd bought two). The bee pin is from an estate sale ($2). The jacket I've had since high school... I think most of the wear on it has been my own. Must have been less than five dollars. It always reminds me of a rattier version of the one Marilyn Monroe wore when she married Joe DiMaggio, which became an unlikely plot device in the movie Wonder Boys (I so love that movie).

Sunday-work outfit. Red blazer, Music City Thrift, $3. Black skinny pants, somewhat visible in the first photo, a candid in which I'm approaching Bab, no doubt with the words "Let me see the camera". Very paparazzi of me. A sunnier photo to the right, in which you can see the "Charlie the Tuna" esque pin I found at an estate sale in Goodletsville ($1). Same sunglasses from earlier.

Remember my complaining so about the inclement weather two or three weeks ago? It's so gorgeous out right now I almost forgot the winter hell that was a few weeks ago. Would that it stays! Here's some snow-footage, from my long walk to the bus stop. It doesn't look too bad, and then you think about how it's all ice. And we're in Tennessee. Not well-prepared for snow driving, oh, EVER.

Will try to be more vigilant with the clothing posts, if only to keep myself accountable for my daily threads. Have a few killer karaoke gowns I need to share, but we'll have to wait until my much put-upon fiance/shutterbug and I have enough to time to catch our breath...and then take a picture of it.