Or should I say “triplet-ies”?
Bert Nelson, Ramona Larson, and Rosella Lillehaug enjoyed a typical high school day in Hettinger, North Dakota in 1953, although methinks they’re dressed for bowling league night. Pedal pushers, saddle shoes, and white button-downs–could they be any cuter?
Summer 1953, Cates, Indiana. Sherrie and brother Danny Barkley eating watermelon with their limber aunt Rosie, while the grandparents look on.
Summer 1961. Ventura, California. Cousins cooling off with Popsicles before a dip in the plastic pool.
And if you’re not into so much sugar, you might prefer fresh fruit, like the melons shown below.
1936. Rosedale Park, Detroit, Michigan. Rosedale Fenkell Market. Brunette sisters.
With so many men overseas during WWII, women filled the vacancies in a number of jobs, including painting power poles for Florida Power and Light. In Reminisce: Pictures from the Past, the husband of Virginia Kompe (right) explains how Virginia and her sister, Shirley, spent the winter of late ’44 into early ’45 “raising ladders and hoisting the housings for the bases of the poles. They also served as grunts for the linemen.”
I bet the Quill and Scroll clubs died out about the same time as loafers and bobby socks. In this 1952 Midland High School portrait, it appears that only the teacher was allowed to wear strappy shoes. The girl on the far right seems to have bucked the trend and gone with saddle oxfords.
Among the many clubs at this high school was the Model Airplane Club. I doubt that one’s around anymore either.
Without a doubt, no one under 40 has ever heard the term “slide rule” or seen one in the wild.
You could use them for math questions before calculators were readily available.
Have you ever used a slide rule?
How about the Pan American Club? What did they do in there?
I see flags of many nations.
But by far the oddest thing about clubs in this yearbook was the illustration preceding them.
We didn’t have these kind of clubs in my high school. A saloon with dancing ladies?
All aboard Grandpa’s 1955 Chevy pickup for Greg, Kevin, and Paula, joined by Rex atop bales of hay. Walter and Barbara Mohr’s family farm near Millington, Michigan provided many great photo ops throughout the 1960s.
And who wouldn’t want a kiss from Rex?
Now THIS is a party! Colored lampshades, white tuxes, bobbed silver hair, moonlight at sea…
Most folks weren’t having a great 1933. While the unemployment rate reached an ungodly 25%, the idea of enjoying the luxury of an offshore cruiser was largely unattainable. But perhaps you could win the affection of a ruddy-complected captain.
Some high schools allow seniors to come up with quotes for their yearbook. By that fourth year, teens are tired of learning, and they fancy silly sayings. But these Midland High School quotes are in a whole different realm.
By the way, geophagy is the practice of eating earth or soil-like substrates such as clay or chalk. A perruquier is a maker of wigs.
I like how Lil Slowpoke was already looking 40 years into the future!
Honey, I wish I knew what was going on here. I can’t fathom a reason to stack perfectly good tortillas on a fellow’s head. But it was 1979, and honestly, this yearbook is plumb full of things I can’t explain. Like this frisbee-contorting carb-deprived student.
Or this wand to his lips. I like the faces on the couple in back.
Or why grown men would be piggy-backing. 
Or doing that to their hair and bodies. Just another confirmation that clowns are evil.
This seems like a dozen too many hula hoops.
This last one shows a group of Zeta Beta Tau dudes building sets for a party at Pat O’Brien’s. But that doesn’t explain the duck. 
Perhaps it is only dusk or overcast, but the lights pop and glow so shimmery, that it looks like evening to me. This is one of my favorite Christmas images, though I confess (living the entirety of my life in Texas), I’ve never ridden a sleigh nor skated on an actual lake (just a rink). In this scene, the kids to the left are dressed for a frosty night and yet the couple on the ice seems to have tossed their coats aside. Perhaps they have worked up quite a sweat.
What about you? Have you ridden in a sleigh? Was it one-horse and open? Have you skated on a lake? Did the ice break and you fell through and someone reached to grab you and administered CPR before you came to an untimely death? No, wait, that was a Hallmark movie…
I Don't Get It 