Fallsburg High School 1974-1978
May 6, 2009 4:43 PM   Subscribe

 
Nice. I'm only 1/4 the way in, but I wonder if he ever told her how much he liked her?
posted by jabberjaw at 5:03 PM on May 6, 2009


I'm always a bit puzzled by people who want to remember high school. It's been 17 years since I graduated, and really all I can remember is parts of grades nine and thirteen (i.e. the first year and the last year). It's my hope that given another ten years or so I won't even be able to remember the name of the school.

That said, this is a nice little window into the past, and there are some interesting shots on there.
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:03 PM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


This is reminding me of the most bittersweetly depressing music video ever..

:( sniff sniff



No its not a damn Rick Roll.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 5:21 PM on May 6, 2009 [2 favorites]


This is great, thanks.
posted by Rumple at 5:24 PM on May 6, 2009




yup, that was the 70s. 3 US presidents, the nation suffering PTSD from not winning the war in Vietnam (which was arguably an order of magnitude worse for everyone involved, compared to Iraq so far), in the gap between the hippy 60s and the computerized 80s.

Back then owning a calculator was impressive and if you wanted to look up something you either reached for the encyclopedia or the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature. If you were lucky you might have the local cable of 5 channels and maybe HBO.

From my perspective, life was building toward the Peak Cool of the late 80s -- the Mac, the JAMMA arcade game boom, and the golden age of Atari Games.

It's amazing how little we had 30+ years ago compared to now. I wonder what 2036 will be like. I'll be an old fart then, if I'm still around.
posted by mrt at 5:49 PM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


Man, why the hell did the afro have to fall out of favor? For some of us, it isn't a hairstyle. It's just what our hair does.

Amen, brother.
posted by nasreddin at 6:02 PM on May 6, 2009


This is awesome. I especially enjoy what appears to be a photo of a time-travelling ColdChef!
posted by dersins at 6:03 PM on May 6, 2009


Also mrt, the world was in it's Pre-Star Wars state, and as such, was not worth living in.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 6:19 PM on May 6, 2009 [2 favorites]


I'm always a bit puzzled by people who want to remember high school

And I can't figure out people who say "high school" with the same inflection that normal people use for "Nazi Germany." I wasn't particularly cool in high school, but it wasn't exactly akin to my father-in-law's tours of duty in Vietnam either. If I recently discovered meticulous photos that I had taken 30 years ago, I'd be a little tickled, too. Of course, I was barely toilet trained 30 years ago.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:36 PM on May 6, 2009


Just like I remember high school---suspended.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 6:39 PM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


I was a boy in those years, but I remember them.

In retrospect, that Internet-less world seems so information-impoverished.
posted by Joe Beese at 6:52 PM on May 6, 2009


I started high-school in '78 and that looks pretty close to what my years looked like. I even had these glasses.
posted by octothorpe at 7:03 PM on May 6, 2009


The amazing thing is that I bet over ninety per cent of the clueless, dorky guys in these pictures considered themselves cool. I know because I was one of them.
posted by digsrus at 7:28 PM on May 6, 2009


As the Japanese say, ♫Ja-jan!

4K! If you wanted to save the program you were writing you hooked up a tape player and had the computer emit a couple of minutes of squeals and you could only hope cload would bring it back into memory the next time.

But playing Lunar Lander and Hamurabi was SO worth it.

Looking up Fallsburg I see it's a rural area about an hour north of NY right in the Catskills. Nice to place to live it looks like.
posted by mrt at 7:38 PM on May 6, 2009


It's like the prequel to Freaks & Geeks. Excellent.
posted by steef at 7:57 PM on May 6, 2009


never had a better sense of a place without being there.
posted by seagull.apollo at 7:59 PM on May 6, 2009


> And I can't figure out people who say "high school" with the same inflection that normal people use for "Nazi Germany."

High school wasn't Nazi Germany or a tour in 'Nam, but it was five solid years of featureless, annoying tedium. For a while I kept a diary, but there are only so many times you can write variations on...

"Dear diary, got up and went to school, which was boring as usual. Nothing really happened. After school I came home, pretended to practice piano for half an hour, had dinner and then went down to my room, did my homework and listened to tapes until it was time to go to bed. I wish I had a girlfriend."

...before you get bored of reading it yourself. I know there are lots of people who enjoyed their time in high school, or at least got through it without too much trouble, but man...I don't know how I kept from going crazy.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:02 PM on May 6, 2009 [2 favorites]


Far out, man. This is so totally weird. I just saw the first episode of "That 70's Show", 2 nights ago. For me, it is like gazing down from a ladder, 30+ years high. A little dizzying, frighteningly fascinating. The thought occurs to me that this is how life ends: A fatal fascination with the depths of one's own time.

This morning, prompted by this FPP, I contemplated my decades. I can not really claim much of the 60's, they ended when I was 12. The 70's, 80's, and 90's all ended with my life in a place unimaginable, given the beginning. Only the 00's have a chance of ending with things not that different from the beginning, as far as my personal life goes, and that in itself seems weird (since it never happened to me before).
posted by Goofyy at 8:04 PM on May 6, 2009 [2 favorites]


Ah... Red X High!
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 8:15 PM on May 6, 2009 [1 favorite]


yeah, i really don't remember all those red x's - either my memory's shot or something happened with the web site
posted by pyramid termite at 8:31 PM on May 6, 2009


Man, why the hell did the afro have to fall out of favor? For some of us, it isn't a hairstyle. It's just what our hair does.

Afroblanco, it didn't.

Cool people never follow trends. If your hair is in favor, it's behind the times.

Your hair is timeless.

Like my bald spot.

Only cool.
posted by IAmBroom at 9:46 PM on May 6, 2009


If this comes back online, I'd like to look at it. I guess. Bah.
posted by maxwelton at 10:09 PM on May 6, 2009


It seems we killed it, the index pages failed for me at page 3, 4 hours ago.
posted by Goofyy at 1:23 AM on May 7, 2009


Those completely empty, black pages were awesome.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:34 AM on May 7, 2009


Broken images links FTW?
posted by chunking express at 6:48 AM on May 7, 2009


Coolest kid in school. Then. Now. Forever.

Bonus: non-annoying interface.

Well, I am kind of annoyed by the lack of page numbers at the bottom of the page. When I scroll down to the end of the page, I really don't want to have to scroll back to the top.
posted by pardonyou? at 7:08 AM on May 7, 2009


The art teacher and one of the history teachers at my highschool would take photos of us kids all the damn time, as they helped out with the Yearbook. (The history teacher would do an annual photo-slide-show thing of the past year, with candids of various kids.) It'd be interesting to see their collection of photos, as they would span 20+ odd years of life at my old school.
posted by chunking express at 7:11 AM on May 7, 2009


Don't you mean Failsburg...?
posted by Webbster at 10:00 AM on May 7, 2009


Unfortunately, the photos have been migrated to zenfolio. Now there's an ugly zenfolio watermark smack in the middle of every picture.
posted by plastic_animals at 6:32 PM on May 7, 2009


yup, that was the 70s. 3 US presidents, the nation suffering PTSD from not winning the war in Vietnam (which was arguably an order of magnitude worse for everyone involved, compared to Iraq so far)

but we WEREN'T involved - by the time we turned 18, it was all over - (class of '75 speaking here) - and although the gas lines and the factory closings had us somewhat concerned - and the thought of a president being forced to resign in disgrace was utterly shocking to our elders - well, it seemed like the world was a place just waiting for us to change it ...

yeah, i finally got to see the pictures - and that's pretty much how it was back then, although i think he didn't take as many pictures of the jocks and the "goodies" - i miss those hairstyles of the girls ... and paisley shirts - the 70s excelled at paisley and polyester

now we're all insurance agents and factory rats ... *sob*

---

High school wasn't Nazi Germany or a tour in 'Nam, but it was five solid years of featureless, annoying tedium.

you never went to MY high school, jack - it was a failure as a semester if there wasn't a riot of some kind

and then there was the ritual throwing of the nerd into the pond across the street - i'd tell you more about it but i'm trying really hard to forget about it ... except to say that the christian charity of campus life leaders ends when you ask them for a ride home and they tell you they don't want you to get their car seat all wet ...

---

Back then owning a calculator was impressive

yeah, we still used slide rules then - and i honest to god tried to learn computer programming by writing out COBOL on green and white paper and having it put on punch cards and fed through

i sucked at it
posted by pyramid termite at 9:46 PM on May 7, 2009


TECHNOLOGY
posted by mrbill at 10:09 PM on May 7, 2009


Poor Pyramid. I didn't suck at the COBOL. Or the RPG II, or Fortran IV, etc. Yes, the punch cards were annoying, but we also had this really advanced technology called "terminals" where we could make corrections that went directly to the file on the computer! Of course, 1980 found me gainfully employed working on those new-fangled "micro computers", before IBM got into the game and changed them to "PC's". New decade, new story.

From all the stories I've heard, I get the strong impression that my high school was actually quite mild, except maybe towards new kids (school faggot I may have been, but I wasn't labelled 'narc', which a friend was...totally, completely opposite of truth, as he was dealing to a number of us outsiders). But it was just high school, and boring, so I left.
posted by Goofyy at 3:17 AM on May 8, 2009


Dude, afros NEVER go out of style. I'm jealous of those who can grow it afrolicious.
posted by grubi at 12:10 PM on May 8, 2009




Shit, "at" even.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 11:06 AM on May 12, 2009


Man, you could get rich selling that "zucchini" t-shirt to hipsters.
posted by dersins at 11:12 AM on May 12, 2009


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