Reunion Reflections

The 1971 class of William B. Murrah High School will converge on Jackson, MS on June 24-25 to celebrate 40 years since graduation. It’s hard to imagine that I have not seen most of my classmates for over 40 years, with the exception of a brief visit at the 10 year reunion. 

It’s been fun looking at all of the old pictures, annuals, newspapers, stories and other memories that have been shared even though I was only at Murrah for a year and a half. We had a great time and didn’t even realize that the times were difficult in many ways.  We experienced many memories during the first 18 years of our lives in elementary school, jr high as well as high school that kids of today probably could not even comprehend. 

We lived through the Vietnam War and Draft Cards that led to Draft Lotteries. 

We learned of President John F Kennedy’s assassination together along with Medgar Evers, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

We used typewriters and princess phones, never even dreaming about computers or smart phones.

We watched the first manned flight into space, John Glenn orbiting the earth, Neil Armstrong walking on the moon all on TVs brought from home into our classrooms.

Fast food was born and 18 year olds gained the right to vote.

We trusted Walter Cronkite as he entered our homes on a daily basis reporting the CBS Evening News with honesty and integrity.

Music included everything from The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, The Temptations, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Simon and Garfunkel and hundreds of others, often times listened to on 8 tracks or the two radio stations in Jackson at that time (3 if you counted the soul station).

Growing up we played with Troll dolls, Barbie and Ken, GI Joes, Lincoln Logs, hula hoops, and nerf balls. 

We caught lightning bugs and played outside so long and hard that we got “grandma beads” of dirt around our necks.  

Zip codes, Smiley Faces, Peace signs, Bomb shelters, tornado drills, and the polio vaccine on sugar cubes were all a part of life.

At the movies we saw everything from musicals to comedies, from the past to the future--Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Easy Rider, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 2001: A Space Odyssey , West Side Story, Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, M*A*S*H, Love Story, Patton and let’s not forget Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.

We read the TV Guide Magazine to see when our favorite TV shows could be seen--Andy Griffith, The Flintstones, Bonanza, Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, Leave It to Beaver, Ed Sullivan Show, As the World Turns, Gunsmoke, Dr. Kildare, Candid Camera, Peyton Place, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Smothers Brothers, Laugh-in, My Three Sons, Hawaii Five-O, All in the Family, Sanford and Son.

Fashions included mini-skirts, bell bottoms, hot pants, platform shoes, and ironing our hair to make it straight.

The unveiling of the Ford Mustang and Pontiac GTO, along with Cougars, Firebirds and VW Bugs changed our ideas of what we should be driving.

Civil Rights, busing, school desegregation, and the “I have a dream” speech by Martin Luther King challenged the opinions of Southerners and transformed our generation.

Items in the news included the death of Marilyn Monroe, heart transplants, Charles Manson murders, the Boston Strangler, Ted Kennedy and Chappaquiddick, Woodstock, 6 Day War, Castro and Cuba.

Casey, Spann, McWillie, McLeod, Boyd, Watkins, Powers, St Andrews, Bailey, Chastain (Prep, Council Manhattan, Jackson Academy) were the schools that brought us all together and ultimately separated us. 

The years growing up in Jackson Mississippi were great years with lots of fun and good memories. They were also painful for me; I was shy and wasn’t always a part of the “popular crowd.” I wanted to be, but I wasn’t. There were people that I wanted to ask me for a date, but they didn’t call. I longed to be a Murrah Miss, but I didn’t make the cut. There were parties I wanted to attend, but wasn’t invited. But God used all of it to make me into the person I am today, no longer shy, but confident in who I am in Christ. 

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

By the way---does anybody remember parties at Dr. Byrd’s apartment… water skiing at the reservoir… Friday night football games… Icees at the Tote-Sum…hamburgers and nickel cokes at Brents… cruising through Shoney’s in west Jackson… Homecoming dances at Cedars of Lebanon… the revelry on Lakeland Drive when it was under construction? Oh the memories!

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