High School What?

When I was a lad, back in the wild North West of England, High School or Secondary School or Comprehensive School was a place where men were fashioned out of mere boys and girls were set up for a lifetime of abuse and disappointment. It was here that you learned how to make a bog roll holder in woodwork class, a keyring in metalwork and under protest, a swiss roll in home economics class. It was in these hallowed halls that you either kicked the shite out of someone or got the shite kicked out of you.
We didn't have a "senior prom", we didn't even have a "leaver's do" thanks to the previous year's celebration breaking out into a mass brawl and several thousand pounds worth of damage to the local British Legion. On my last day at High School, I brazenly walked into an off license and bought 12 cans of Swan Light ( a non-alcoholic beverage of Australian origin) for myself and my mates. I didn't know at the time of purchase that it was non-alcoholic..... As embarrassing as it was for me, it was nothing compared to the embarrassment of a couple of my mates who were pretending to be drunk until the discovery was made that there was in fact no alcohol in said beverage. My last day in High School was, to say the least, something of a let down. Luckily, I had more than made up for it with my last year in High School which was a non-stop riot of debauchery and teenage delinquency of which I may tell you someday.

Because of all this, the concept of High School Yearbooks, Proms, Rings and all the other bullshit that accompanies graduation in the USA is completely alien and therefore of great interest to me. I just do not understand all the fuss. What many people describe as the best years of their life were really the worst years of their life. Why the fuck would you want a constant reminder of teen angst and confusion, anger and self loathing? Or is that just me?
I actually consider myself well grounded but I didn't have to deal with the pressure from peers and family to over achieve during these all important years. Mediocrity was/is considered a success in my part of the world. A job is a fuckin' job and any old slapper will do as long as she can reproduce.

When I tell people here that "I graduated High School" at 16, I am greeted with gasps of amazement and bewilderment. I must, in their eyes. be some kind of genius. Here in the USA, you graduate High School at 18 (with the equivalent of a 10th grade UK education). I am more than willing to let them believe what they want to believe. Coupled with the fact that to their uneducated ears I speak "proper English", I am nothing short of Royalty. This is, in part one of the reasons why I stay here.

So, High School Yearbooks in particular intrigue me and I have started to collect them, old ones I mean. I love the smell of them more than anything. The musty old smell that you can only associate with old book shops. So far, I only have two and they amuse me to no end. The pictures and captions are fuckin' great. Here, I present to you, some of my favourite pictures from "Little Giant 1963" of Highland Park High School, Illinois...... Names may have been changed to protect the guilty.

Voted Most Likely Transevites
Ronald Rathsam & Helen Rizzo

Voted Most Likely Wife Beater
Albert Panther

Voted Most Likely Crackhead
Herbert Katz

Voted Most Likely Bunny Boiler
Marilyn Crocetti

Voted Most Likely Wanker
Randy Bletsch

Voted Least Favourite Member of Staff
Girls Locker Room Attendant - Mrs. Arnold Pfister

There are, of course, many more pictures that I would like to share with you, and maybe I will but instead I invite you to share with me your favourite High School story. Where did it happen? Who did it to you and how long did it last? Come on.......you know you want to.....