Shortridge, in the land of milk and honey

Thought I'd write something about my alma mater, as I looked through pictures that might help tell a story on a rainy Sunday morning with both wife and dog fast asleep. Either that, or get dressed and wake the dog to take him out, so a blog entry seemed a better way to start the day.

That's my old high school, which is the same school that graduated a literary luminary named Kurt Vonnegut and a U.S. Senator named Dick Lugar. My mother and father went there as well, though not nearly as famous as those first two names.

I graduated from here in 1965, one of the final years of prominence for this old school, before it went through the usual decline of neighborhoods, suburban flight, and ultimate school board politics. Today, it has experienced a "re-birth" as a school for law and social justice, oh so politically correct, but at least once again holding the minds of young teens captive while sneaking knowledge past the ear-buds of their I-pods, during a lull in the cacophony of what passes today for music.

Back in the day, it was THE academic high school of the IPS (Indianapolis Public Schools) system, and had more National Merit Scholars than any other high school. It was also located at 34th and Meridian - aptly named as this street separated east and west sides of town, 3.4 miles from the north-south demarcation line of Washington Street. Indianapolis was laid out by L'enfant, the same fellow who designed Washington, D.C., using a grid square system where things made sense. But urban populations often move outward, and take with them the various social ills that lead to school decline, like unwed motherhood, single parenthood, and far less focus on graduation rates where parents who never graduated have little skin in the game to insist their kids do graduate. By the 1970's, Shortridge had been eclipsed by schools outside the Center Township of the city. Another neat concept - nine equal townships, sort of a Hollywood Squares board, where each Township would have its own high school, and they'd all have Central in their name. By the middle 70's, the school had devolved from academics to a combination of technical school and ultimately detention bin for contentious seventh and eight graders moving from one system to another (often with bars). It would take over forty years to go to hell and back, but hopefully it has been restored to former glory in its new incantation.

Anyway, back to the story - the class of 1965 was a good class, and while I was part of it, I was never "in" the dominant social whirl. In fact, I was not in athletics, the French club (I took it, but not seriously by my grades), not part of student government, etc. If anybody knew me to be associated with anything, it would have been the Stage Crew. I ran both the sound board and the carbon-arc spotlights for three years, during student performances such as Jr. Vaudeville and the various school theater presentations. In fact, I believe I was only able to pass Algebra because I signed up for the section being taught by the stage crew sponsor. He passed me so I could be the damn fool willing to stand next to those two carbon rods burning brightly and very hot in that little room at the top of the auditorium. We're talking 220 volts of power, arcing between two rods generating several hundred degrees of heat, in front of a shiny mirror and through several lenses - OSHA was not strong in those days, and we high school types were not union. I cringe when I think of the danger today.

Other extra curricular activities included a radio station, WIAN FM. Interestingly enough, I never participated in the student radio station, though I certainly knew my way around an audio board and microphone. In high school, my most dramatic lines were "test....test, can you hear me, test....testing". I did have a crush on a gal in Jr. Vaudeville, but gave up without trying when I heard she was involved in the National Thespian Society..........I was a confused youth, to say the least.

Oh well, forty five years later I ran into her when our class of 65 invited the class of 66 and 67 to join us. She's got a PhD now - never would have worked out, as my GPA in high school was nothing to write home about. I liked to think I made the upper half of the class possible. The school is once again open to smart kids, but our glass wasn't all that bad, back in the day. The new high school has a mock courtroom, where there will be recognition of honored members of the classes of 65, 66 and 67 who went on into the law and became judges - one a Kentucky Supreme Court Justice. I must have learned something while there, but had I really studied..........I could have been a contender.