Yearbook Windows

The Yearbook

A few of the faces, staring up at me, are old

friends. I have known them since childhood. Others I

met in grammar school or church or on various athletic

fields in the tight-knit, Irish-Catholic community that is

South Buffalo, New York.

Their faces are unlined and smiling. The vigor

and promise of youth looks up at me engagingly. Each

picture, in the well ordered photo gallery that is my South

Park High School yearbook, is a small window that looks

out upon a universe all its own.

When I look through the tiny window of the

photographs, I see an entire galaxy of memories and life

experiences. Each of these young people is now a mother,

a father, a brother, sister, aunt, uncle, work-mate or one

of a hundred other roles laid out for us on the stage of

life. The world was our oyster then and we thought that we

were invincible.

Through some of the windows, I recognize the

faces and the scenery. I have walked those streets with

these people and shared their families and lives over the

span of thirty years. It is that long since last we sat as

students in the venerable educational institution, on South

Side Parkway, that we know as South Park High School.

But, it is the others that most intrigue me. Who

is that well featured young face and why didn't I take the

time to get to know him or her in school. True, there were

almost 6oo of us in the graduating class. But, that is no

excuse. I wish I had taken the time to get to know them

all. How much richer my life would have been. Each of

them has thoughts and talents and ideas that I think I

would now find fascinating. Not knowing each of them is

my loss.

Through a few of the windows, I see the high

canopy of a steaming jungle. Fine young men, like Tim

Nightingale and Bobby Smith, never came back from the

far battlefields of Southeast Asia. Their loss, and the joy

that they might have contributed to all of us, momentarily

saddens me. But then, I imagine an infectious grin on

these photos and I remember the warmth and humor that

once blossomed there. They, and the others that have

fallen along the way, will always be with us, permanently

captured in the full vigor of their youth.

The kaleidoscope of memories spins faster now

as a whirlwind of classrooms, teachers, pep rallies and

athletics events swirl by in a fine mist of "the red and the

black." "Dear Old South Park", I muse. Scrooge only saw

three ghosts, I see hundreds. God, were we ever that

young and carefree? It seems like so long ago and far from

now.

Many of the names have changed as the girls

married and raised families of their own. Others have

wandered to the far flung corners of the earth. I hear of

them every now and then, as some precious tidbit of

remembrance is passed along by a former class mate, in a

chance meeting in a parking lot or store. "Do you

remember Billy, or Suzie or Jean?" will be the entree to

some story that will summon back for us, momentarily,

those wonderful days of long ago.

When ever I hear of some achievement or award

by one of ours, I feel proud of their success. The sight of

a name or face in the news or on television, brings me

warm thoughts of how nice that person was and how well

deserved is their success. These kids all came from blue

collar, working-class families and had to climb their way

up the ladder one rung at a time. They deserve their hard

won successes. I hope that they are happy, with their

families and friends, in their chosen lives.

I wonder too if they look often through the same

windows that I do. Do they see my young face looking up

at them? I wonder what impressions I created on them so

long ago? I hope they were favorable. Sometimes we can

be insensitive and hurt people without even trying.

Time, I think, is a wonderful rose-colored filter.

I have only good memories of these young faces. The

laughter, the excitement, the expectation, I can see it even

now in this fading gallery of youthful photos. I am glad

that I held onto this yearbook. It is a link for me of many

memories that I never would have summoned forth

unaided, by the picture windows of my youth.

Joseph Xavier Martin