It's fascinating to read about what it was like at my high school a decade before I arrived there (my family moved from Queens to Manhasset Hills in 1967, and I graduated from Herricks in 1976). Nobody in high school ever paid attention to the color of my socks, and the student body was about equally divided among those of Irish, Italian and Jewish ancestry (although there were exceptions, the basic dynamic was the Irish and the Jews hated each other, the Italians hated the Irish, the Irish ignored the Italians, and the Italians and the Jews got along just fine). The Community School was still around, though I wasn't in it. I had no use for the Top 40 songs of the Ford administration and listened to '50s and '60s hits on oldies radio (WABC, I think, though my memory is fuzzy). I was heavily into the drama club and the idea of writing for money never occurred to me until a fellow student suggested it to me during my senior year. You write very vividly about those times and I'm glad you lived to tell the tale. My generation always thought we missed out on the high times of the '60s (in more ways than one), coming of age when the party was already over, but in the end one makes one's own way, one way or the other.
It's fascinating to read about what it was like at my high school a decade before I arrived there (my family moved from Queens to Manhasset Hills in 1967, and I graduated from Herricks in 1976). Nobody in high school ever paid attention to the color of my socks, and the student body was about equally divided among those of Irish, Italian and Jewish ancestry (although there were exceptions, the basic dynamic was the Irish and the Jews hated each other, the Italians hated the Irish, the Irish ignored the Italians, and the Italians and the Jews got along just fine). The Community School was still around, though I wasn't in it. I had no use for the Top 40 songs of the Ford administration and listened to '50s and '60s hits on oldies radio (WABC, I think, though my memory is fuzzy). I was heavily into the drama club and the idea of writing for money never occurred to me until a fellow student suggested it to me during my senior year. You write very vividly about those times and I'm glad you lived to tell the tale. My generation always thought we missed out on the high times of the '60s (in more ways than one), coming of age when the party was already over, but in the end one makes one's own way, one way or the other.