HIGH SCHOOL LEGACY Larry Oldham

Reaching back to the days of high school brings to my mind, who was I? What kind of legacy did I leave as an impression to my teachers, to my fellow students, to my friends? My wife, who was in some of my classes in high school, thought that I was in a gang in high school. I wasn't, of course, but since she and I didn't date in school, her perception of Larry Oldham back then was my gang reputation. Actually, I stood in the smoking area with other students who smoked, thus putting me into another class of people, smokers. We weren't a gang. Girls who smoked also joined us daily. I wasn't voted in as one of the superlatives, cutest, friendliness, or voted as a student most likely to succeed. I didn't play sports, so I wasn't held in high esteem by my fellow students or worshiped for scoring the last point of the game. I wasn't elected to serve on the student council or elected to be class president, even though I had been elected school president in elementary school. So then, what kind of legacy or perceived legacy did I leave? I attended two high schools. The first high school was an old established school with a perceived student body comprised of star athletes and a majority of the students being from the right side of the tracks, or better described as the rich kids. Even though I was from the lower median income family , I was humorous. I made jokes in class, I made fun of others, trying to be funny at their expense. I once said the wrong thing to a girl in a class, causing her boyfriend to call me out for a fight. Neither of us won, but we both got expelled for three days for fighting on school grounds. That is part of my legacy, but not the proud part.
I could dance, and I would dance with the wealthy girls when their friends or boyfriends wouldn't. We won dance contests on Friday nights at the local community center. The rich girls would drive all the way across town to slum for a few hours with the "dance boy." I wasn't looked at as poor, just the guy in our class who loved to dance. This elevated my standing in high school, at least with these certain class of girls who loved me for my dance skills or willingness to dance with them in public. This was my legacy in this high school.
When the new school opened in our city most of our school group joined together to form the less than wealthy group but significantly friendlier and more cohesive collection of like minded students.
I drove a school bus my last two years of high school. That means arriving later to school in the mornings and leaving earlier from school in the afternoons to pick up the elementary students. All the drivers wore blue jean jackets, emblazoned with the high school name and we all hung around each other at school. This definitely puts you in the lowest position of the high school hierarchy, there again making this part of your life, a part of your legacy. I wasn't ashamed of driving a school bus, and most of the time thought of it as providing a service to the school and the students. When you are growing up and trying to find your way in the world, you are not thinking about leaving a legacy, you are just living your life, one day at a time.
I never knew what my legacy was perceived as or how I was looked at during my high school days until I graduated from high school. There were two incidents that provided me with some insight into just how my fellow students perceived me. Fourteen years after graduating, I ran into one of my old classmates from English class. I introduced myself to her, asking her, if she was that girl from my class
She said no, and she gave me her new married name. I told her who I was and she said no you're not. I know Larry Oldham. She thought I was hitting on her and I had to show her my drivers license to prove to her who I was. I left out the part in high school that I weighed one hundred fifteen pounds and I was short with scraggly hair. The day I met her, fourteen years later, I had put on weight, gotten taller, grew a mustache, was wearing a suit, and ran into her at a country club setting. I was married and had a child and was successful. This was certainly not the legacy I had left in high school. The second event was at our high school class reunion. Our student class president had been killed during the Vietnam War days. The class president usually has the task of putting together the class reunions. Since he had died, the classmate that I met at the country club, and I put together the first class reunion. No one wanted to serve as the M.C. so I took on that job. At the reunion after I was finished speaking, two girls came up to the podium and stared at me. One of them spoke to the other girl and said," That is Larry Oldham, can you believe that"? I was told later that neither one of them could believe that I had grown into a full size man, with responsibilities. I should also mention that I won "the most changed student" as the superlative at the reunion. I also should mention that I am now married to the girl voted " the most beautiful girl in high school", who happened to be my English classmate that I had ran into at the country club. Not a bad legacy I would say today.