Why it is dangerous to Google your past.

One of my Diaryland friends today was very upset that there was no new entry to greet him when he logged onto his computer this morning. I apologize. I wasn�t inspired, and I have decided that I will not simply post diary entries anymore unless some kind of inspiration strikes. But that friend and I did have a very lively conversation about many things, including what schools we went to, even looking for links to websites to show off the edifices of education of our past. While so doing, I discovered that the building where I attended secondary school is no longer used for such a purpose. It now houses a daycare centre and not much else. Alas, how low the mighty have fallen.

When I graduated from B.H.S.S. in 1974, there were approximately 1,800 students in attendance. This number started to decline sharply as the baby boomers (that�s my generation) headed off to university, community college and the workforce and there was a sudden drop in enrollment. Not only that, but this particular highschool, which had been smack dab in the middle of a Jewish neighbourhood, found its demographic changing. Directly behind it could be found �the project�, a low-income housing development with a rather bad reputation for violence and drug trafficking. The academically-inclined kids eschewed B.H.S.S. for Sir Sanf0rd FIeming, just to the north, and the school�s vocational courses soon outnumbered the others. The home economics classrooms were once more in use, something that had not been the case when I was in attendance, the autobody and machines shops were filled to capacity, and the music, drama and arts programmes dried up.

While finding out this sad news, I also happened upon a website where I could register as an alumna, so I did. When I clicked on my decade of graduates, I found only five had registered before me, only one of whom I actually remembered, and then by name only. How strange. It has now been 30 years since I graduated from high school and there is practically nothing to show for it, almost as though a chunk of my past has been blotted out, just the outlines remaining.

I fear that this will happen more and more as time passes: the people I grew up with fading into the background, aging family members dying and the younger cousins strangers to each other, colleagues retiring and moving on, severing all ties with their former lives. I look at my own family and see my kids distancing themselves from their parents as they strike out for independence, and I think with sorrow on my own estrangement from my brother. All we have in this life is each other. I think I need a hug now.

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from ladybug-red :

{{Hugs}} I do know what you mean - my high school is now gone and my middle school was apparently destroyed by a volcano several years ago.

from coldandgray :

::hug::

from eggsaucted :

So in keeping with your entry today, my HS alumni mag arrived today. In some unfortunate ways my school which I attended for Kindergarten through HS will never ever go away, it�s been around for over a hundred years and is a part of a university that will be with us for a long long long time. It is just a few blocks from where I currently reside. But I am getting off the track. I read through it as always and settled on the page of missing alums that they are trying to contact for our reunion this summer. I was extremely saddened to see the name my very best friend from year one through to the bitter end on the list. He and I remained close through our first year of college when he announced to the world that he was gay and dropped out of school to pursue a world of illegal drugs. The last heard was a call from his mom 5 years after a cocaine overdose that had hospitalized him although he said he didn�t have a problem. You are correct sometimes it is a bad thing to google or in this case read about your past!

from zitagsd :

wow...bhss is an old folks� home??? anyways...here�s your hug!!!

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