Tuesday, February 09, 2010

The Lincoln High Alumni (post-) Valentine's Day Dance coming up, and a Memory Test.

Just a short reminder to all who have an interest in seeing some faces from the past again- it's almost here, the Alumni Association's Valentine's Day Dance after the fact- it will be held on Saturday, February 27th (still under the wire to be in "February"), set to begin at 6 p.m. and going to midnight. $40 ticket price.

See the sidebar link for a flyer with details- unless you are already receiving Mike Ibarra's reminders in your email everyday that ends in "Y". There's a list of the attendees circulating, so you might see a few people you know, and that's a nice thing for a social activity. Food, buffet style and music, DJ style, will be provided.

There will be two things happening on that topic before the dance event is here: First, Valentine's Day itself is on Feb. 14th, and then the February Alumni meeting a week later on Feb. 20th, Saturday at the Student Cafeteria at LHS.

Here is the part on testing your memory, or just, "Do You Remember?"
Nostalgia items- Do you rembember when they actually did some cooking in the cafeteria? Now it's an "unpack and serve" or "unpack, heat and serve" for the most part. And there's the free lunch and free breakfast programs that may have become an institution, replacing that old notion of packing your own lunch for school.

Let's go even further back- Do you remember the freshly baked cinnamon rolls sold at nutrition from that little shed of a building near the big drinking fountain in front of the cafeterial building? That's all history now as both that shed and the decorative fountain are only memories, with the entire area replaced with the concrete shelters for lunch seating. And there was another choice there, too, as I recall now, the buttered slices of French bread or rolls. What were they costing us then? 10 or 15 cents each? Another fountain that survived everything except one of the modernization campaigns was the fountain at the end of the Administration building on the Auditorium (now th "Andrus Theater")side. That was a smaller twin to the one in front of the cafeteria. It was made with greenish tiles and dark ones, too, and had the old knobs on the fountain head. I remember somebody saying that there was not any real reason to remove it as they did, and maybe it was the recently-retired Mr. Shapiro who said that, but I am not sure.

I have to take into account that there are many LHS Alumni that have no idea of all of this. It is an older generation, that's getting even older and smaller each year that can remember what campus was about before the buildings that housed the old shops, arts and vocational classrooms were torn down. That big Sylmar earthquake in 1971 damaged those buildings, as I recall, but maybe it was a later one. You can tell you're getting older when you can't keep your earthquakes straight, but I do remember that I was not in L.A. in 1971 for that one, and only heard about it on the news in San Diego where I was in my senior year at college- talk about a long time ago. (I did experience some of the aftershocks on the weekend return visit home, and that was something, but not close to a full earthquake.)

But younger alumni still have a few more earthquakes under their belt now, as do I- the 1987 quake after 7am and the last really big one that happened in the early morning hours when all the power went out, leaving everyone in the dark. I think that there was another one about 10 years ago. Somethings for everybody to recall over the years.

If you want to go to the dance, try to get yout ticket order in now to make life easier for the planners to coordinate things. Maybe the delay is intentional. You don't want anyone to know you're coming and waiting to the last minute will avoid having your name show up on that guest list. It's all up to you now.