I was going through a box of long-forgotten photographs recently, when I came across some class pictures from my days at West Portal Elementary School.
My darling daughter, Rebecca, on seeing the class pictures instantly came to two conclusions.
"Dad, these kids are soooo 1950s," which came as no big shock, because they were after all, and, "Dad, you are soooo old," which also wasn't necessarily something I needed to hear, but it was unavoidably true.
I look at this collection of widgets and smile.
Up in the corner is Ted. He was half of one of the most non-identical sets of twin brothers I ever met. Glasses, goofy, and adorned with the kind of haircut inflicted by a loving but inept father, Ted is probably the CEO of a Fortune 500 company today, but in 1957 keeping his shoes tied was a major achievement.
On the front row was one of my own personal nightmares. I can't be sure about his name, I suspect the memory lapse is part of some deep set emotional denial. I think his name was Ronny, and Ronny was tough, at least as tough as a runty first grader could be.
He had a stiffly waxed, blond crew-cut, wore brown lace-up boots, a white T-shirt, and blue jeans with folded up cuffs that must have been six inches deep.
Everything about him spoke of 6-year-old swagger, and as I remember he scared the stuffing out of me.
Sitting one row in front of me was the first focus of my preadolescent affection, Nancy.
Nancy was perfect in every way. She was blonde and blue-eyed and was so very cute with her missing front teeth. As far as I can remember she never so much as said, "Hi," to me, but even without encouragement I was utterly twitterpated.
Sitting cross-legged on the front row, at the opposite end from Ronny, was Javar. I lived in a modest San Francisco tract home, but my neighborhood was right up against Forest Hills, which was definitely rich man's country. It was also a neighborhood where lots of foreign diplomats lived. Javar was the son of the Indian consul general.
He once promised me he would take me tiger hunting. This was back in the days before anybody heard of the concept of endangered species, and the idea of hunting some beast that could swallow a 6-year-old in a single gulp was heady stuff.
Javar never took me hunting, but if I see him again, I'm going to hold him to his promise, though I'll carry a camera instead of a gun.
Standing in the back row of the photo is Margie.
At age 6, Margie was taller than most of the boys, and had near waist-length "strawberry-blonde" braids. Nobody with a reasonable sense of self-preservation ever called Margie a red-head, because strawberry-blonde or not, Margie had a stereotypical red-head's temper, and a right cross that could stop a charging bull.
Margie and I went all the way through high school together, and she grew into one of the most breathtaking beauties I ever met. For a long time we stayed close and I even attended her wedding, but friendships, like old photos, can fade with passing years.
As I look at the aging picture of Mrs. Biggs' first grade class, most of the faces no longer work their way up to faint memories.
Rebecca declared the kids in the photo were "so cute," and they were, but they lived in much more than a different decade. They lived in a different world, where June and Ward Cleaver were largely real, and Beaver was a kid we all knew because he was us.