I was a Senior Hottie….

I’m loving this Twitter theme #seniorhottie, dream child of Liz a.k.a. A Belle, A Bean & A Chicago Dog.  Post pics of yourself at your glorious Senior Hottie best–brilliant.

Originally I was bummed because most of my high school  evidence photos and whatnot are buried somewhere in the depths of our storage unit.  Tonight I realized that procrastination has paid off yet again and that I had photos I brought back from my sister’s to scan.  Voila!  Senior Hottie goodness.

I lived in a godforsaken remote town in the heart of the Ozarks, Ozark County in fact.  700 people might seem like a lot at a party, but when it is your reality it means that everyone every where knows everything about you.  We moved there when I was ten when my father retired from the military.  I went from attending a school that looked like the UN–my three best friends were LaTonya (black), Gene Rose (Filipina) and Stacy (white)–to Oz. My school not only had no brown people (except for a couple of really tan folks) but everyone was related in some way and most people’s grandparents had known each other as children.  We were, as the local folk say, “from off.”  Meaning: not one of us–”you’uns ain’t never gonna be us so don’t even try.”  Culture shock is a vast understatement.

Flash forward to Senior Year.  Time to get the heck out of Dodge and flee to the Big City.  By that time I had weathered all the humiliating drama of junior high and early high school.  I had evolved from “what the heck just happened?” to “to hell with this”.   This was 1986–what was then called a “bi-level” hairdo had not yet been demoted to the “mullet”, we were glimpsing all those big bangs and metal hair just a few years off.

Living in a hillbilly town I aspired to preppy.  I loved Adam Ant when everyone around me rocked to Dokken and two-stepped to Bocephus. I was going to college and some of my friends were already married and/or pregnant; by junior year one was already divorced and the mother of toddler.  I like to tell people that my home town is a robust mixture of “Footloose” crossed with “The Dukes of Hazzard” with a splash of “Deliverance”.   The first high school dance in the school’s history was held my freshman year in our cafeteria as was our prom.

Here I am in all my Senior Hottie glory:

This was the beginning of senior year. My hair was shorter and curly-ish. I look pretty happy for a girl with a raging bad attitude. (Note the pearls–A gift from my Grandmother at 16, they were a gift from her father at 16 too. It was kind of my signature look, you know being preppy and all.)

This is another one that captured my “playful side”–the popped collar was a staple of 1986.

We hated the ones that were taken at school and regrettably ended up in the yearbook. These were taken at the local newspaper. You can do things like that in a small town.

This photo was taken not long after graduation. My hair had grown out and was permed. That was mandatory in 1986. One girl in my class was permed on a strict 8 week schedule. Those reading this from the Class of ‘86 won’t need a name to identify her. Many of us permed the back but not the bangs so they would feather correctly. In college we had learned the benefits of the spiral perm and our lives would never be the same. Cute and Sexy Full of Tricks, We’re the Class of 86 was our informal yet catchy class motto. Our real motto was “We Came, We Saw, We Conquered”–a classic since ancient times. I was a proponent of “This Ain’t No Party, This Ain’t No Disco, This Ain’t No Foolin’ Around”–clearly I was not among my people. Plus, the only thing most of us conquered in our short lives was figuring out how to get older people to buy us wine coolers and Boone’s Farm Tickle Pink.

I’m on the left.  Pearls have been replaced with a shell necklace I bought on our Senior Trip to Florida.  I wish that the 17 year old me could look at these pictures with my 40-something eyes. See how bright and fun she is, how NOT FAT she is, how much wonderful stuff is ahead but also how much wonderful stuff was happening right there where she is at that time. How many people were there waiting to be friends if she could put down her snotty attitude for just a minute. How things didn’t have to be as hard as she made them. (I’m sure the 60 year old me will look at pictures from 2011 and tell that woman the same exact thing!) I confess: I was a Senior Hottie!