Back in the Day

I went high school in Tacoma, Washington during hte late 60's and early 70's. No rural, small classes where you knew everyone, FFA, 4-H clubbing for me. At Lincoln High there were over 650 kids in my class alone. We all found our group of 15-20 buddies, had nodding acquaintances with maybe 50 more and beyond that you had no clue who the rest of those kids were.

In my senior year, I began taking my camera to school everyday. That actually took a little effort considering my camera was an old Yashica twin lens box camera, but she took good photos. Most of the shots were of girls in short skirts and hot pants, and my buddies just being, well, my buddies. Most of the shots went no further than a click of the shutter release and a session developing the film. Very few of the resulting negatives were ever printed.

Stuffed into sleeves those old negatives went long forgotten. I'd stumble across a strip or two now and again when searching for another shot, but they would quickly become buried in my ever increasing, totally uncatalogued landslide of railroad and farm images. And then I bought a scanner....

I've rediscovered these old images. Photos that have never seen the light of day have been brought to life through the wonder of the digital world. More than once a negative is scanned, the image pops up on this very screen, I lean forward for a closer look and then utter a "well I'll be damned."

But photos are meant to be shared, are they not? And, armed with these old images, I've been slowly, very slowly, tracking down some whose faces you see below. It's been fun. These days all the old high school insecurities, the cliques, everything that made high school a traumatic experience for us all have long since faded. These days, all who I've contacted are glad to know we are still alive.

So here's a quick look at us...back in the day.
















(Photographer's self portrait)