Step Back in Time The U-2 Spy plane is shot down by Russia. Castro nationalizes all American property. The artificial kidney is introduced. The birth control pill goes on sale in the US. Kennedy is elected president by a narrow margin. Clark Gable dies of a heart attack at 59. The A's are losing no matter what color uniform they wear. The Chiefs are just starting to play in Dallas under the silly name "Texans". The Royals are a basketball team in Cincinnati. People still go downtown to shop, eat and take in a movie. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!IT'S 1960!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE ARE THE HOTTEST PEOPLE ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH--WE ARE HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS!!!! WE ARE NOW SMARTER THAN OUR PARENTS, OUR TEACHERS, AND EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD! IT'S REALLY A WASTE OF OUR TIME TO GO TO SCHOOL. WE KNOW EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW! Have you noticed as we get older there is more we don't know. Some of the top music for our year will be: "Oliver", "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini", "Let's do the Twist", "Never on Sunday" and "Theme from Exodus". Best movie: "The Apartment". Best actor: Burt Lancaster in "Elmer Gantry". Best actress: Elizabeth Taylor in "Butterfield 8". Arnold Palmer will win the US Open. The Pittsburgh will win one of the wildest World Series ever played. The Yankees with Mantle, Maris, Berra and company will destroy the Pirates in three of the games by lop-sided scores. But you need four wins and Bill Mazeroski will hit a home run in the tenth to win it for the Pirates. (I know we are already in college when this happens but it is still '60 and I am a Pirate fan at the time.) Floyd Patterson is the Heavyweight Champ. The Indy 500 winning speed is up to 138.767 MPH. So what has happened so far since we were born? The world with us in it has witnessed: "World War II", "Korean Police Action", the "Cold War", The "Atomic Bomb", Jet Aircraft",a US budget that will be under $100. Billion for the "last time" in '60 &"space" exploration. In our short lifetime, the average income has tripled, as have house prices, while car prices have gone up three and one-half times. A loaf of bread is still 20 cents and a gallon of gas is 26 cents and soon "gas wars" will take it down to about 15 cents/gallon. Gold is STILL $35./ounce. In our life span, the Dow Jones average has gone from 141 to 626. (Of course that change could take place in a day now.) Income tax is no longer just for the "privileged rich", we all get to pay it. Music has gone from the; "Big Band" sounds of the forties, to the "Ballads" of the fifties, to "ROCK and ROLL". Some of the best "Musicals" ever to be written by been produced for stage and movies. Movies have gone from the;"Patriotic" and "War" films during the war; to John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda and Alan Ladd "Westerns"; to the introduction of "Realism" with the "Apartment". TV is born during our years. In the forties, only a few homes had the new invention. You had to have good eyes because the screen was small (it would fit on a hand-held TV of the future and they usually had a blue filter over them to protect your eyes. Of course, you always had to turn the lights off while watching it. At first, they will show old westerns and cartoons and anything else to fill the time from noon to about ten at night. We will sit and watch the test pattern, with the "SMN Indian" in the middle, before the shows come on hoping something might happen,we don't know what just something. We then sit and watch as the American flag waves and a band plays the "Star Spangled Banner" as the station signs off for the night. We will then sit and watch the "snow" again hoping something, anything will happen but it never does. TV will begin moving radio stars such as; Red Skelton, Burns & Allen, Jack Benny and Bob Hope to the new media. This will be good for TV but will "kill" radio as we have known it with these shows and shows like "The Green Hornet", "The Lone Ranger", "Sargeant Preston of the Canadian Mounties", "Fibber McGee & Molly", "Our Miss Brooks" and the list went on and on. Some will make it to TV, some will try but not make it. The fifties will be the "Golden Age" of television and we will be right there. "I Love Lucy", "Milton Berl" and "Sid Caeser" will be the shows that have the "ins" (those with TVs) inviting the "outs" (those without TVs) over to watch while us neighbor kids stand outside and peer through the window. Later in the fifties the WB produced hour shows like "Seventy- Seven Sunset Strip" and "Maverick" will rule. A show from Philadelphia will start out as a local hit, then they will change the host and go national (one of the earliest shows to do that) with Dick Clark and "Bandstand" becomes the show kids hurry home to watch. It will be copied in every city with a TV station but none will last. A show will start on Sunday nights called "Toast of the Town". It will do all right but they will put a newspaper man with no talent in as host and the show will later change it's name to the "Ed Sullivan Show". Do you remember going to the show, getting your popcorn, walking in during the movie and staying as long as you wanted. People would then say "this is where we came in" and get up and leave. "Physco" would start the trend that no could could enter after the movie started and when it was over, everyone had to leave. At SMN, our football team will go 5-4 but the story will be the "East" game. Gary Lee will lead the same team that had been run over as sophomores and lead them to a 26-14 win not only making up for the sophomore loss but also for the "last second" loss to East our junior year. (Gary, one of those people so full of life, the type of person everyone wants as a friend, will have a freak accident in football practice in college and have his life cut all too short.) Carolyn Richmond will be crowned "Homecoming Queen"-- with Lois Rhodus and Sherry Zillner as her attendants. Our basketball team will struggle through a season of ups and downs with Bob Ash, Dave Bueker, Bill Frick, Stan Gifford, Dick Loidolt and Gary Youngblood leading the way. Jeanne Maxwell will be our "Track Queen"--with Anita Bradley and Karen Corson as her attendants. Our cheerleading will be led by Lois Rhodus, Anita Bradley, Mary Lloyd, Linda Sell and Sherry Zillner. Steve McNees will be our student body president, Bob Cathey our vice-president (means he will serve if for any reason Steve would have to step down), Mary Bradbury our secretary and Jim Crummett our treasure (what money-- we've got money?). "The King and I" with Jeanne Maxwell as "Anna" and Jim Bagg (as himself--oh I'm sorry) as the King is our musical done so well that we still remember it. Who can forget our chorus line of Mike Beckner, Pat McDuffie, Glenda Holdner, Ardean Kauffman, Cheri Keltner, Sue Quigg, Sharon Koch, Linda Sell and Carol Pflumm. That is pretty "racy" for our day. Our class officers will be Sam Bruner, Doug Gates, Peggy Coe and Marilyn Allen. Honorary Cheerleaders will be Bob Hinton, Doug McDonald and Max Jordan. We will study, party and participate in all kinds of activities as we prepare for a new era in our lives. We have great expectations as we graduate and head to our scattered colleges and/or careers. We have no way of knowing, as we sign our year-books, that in a few short years we will have classmates fighting in a country most of us haven't heard of before. We don't know that Rex Craig will be "killed in action", that Charlie Plumb will be a "prisoner of war", that Dick Myers and others will start fine military careers. We don't know the paths life and God will lead us. We don't know in most cases, who our life long mates will be. We don't know which of our classmates will "pass on all too soon in life". ALL WE KNOW IS WE ARE HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES--THERE IS NO BETTER!! TONIGHT WE WILL GRADUATE AND WE WILL PARTY--TOMORROW WILL BE ANOTHER DAY. Don Davis