High school loyalty: that strange emotion that sustains you for the duration and then lingers all your life

Searching for my favorite red or green shirt to wear to the Anderson High School basketball game in Indiana on November 28, I stumbled across a box of old newspaper clippings. It included stories about the fire that destroyed the old school in 1999.

I sighed as I remembered the call about 4 p.m. that day …

“Monica,” my friend said, “our high school ...”

I can’t remember if she said, “is burning” or “is on fire.” The conclusion was the same: Our high school was gone.

While visiting my Indiana hometown just two days before, I had driven by the familiar structure several times. It stood empty, yet overflowed with memories. The proud Indian on the gymnasium made me hold my head up a little higher as it always had. That says a lot for high school loyalty, that strange emotion that sustains you for the duration and then lingers all your life.

I may live more than four hours away, but I’m still an Anderson High School Indian, proud of it even when that kind of mascot may be deemed politically incorrect nowadays.

Pardon me, but tough, please get over it.

We treated this symbol with great reverence and still do today.

Even the school song might be considered sexist today: “Let’s give a rah for AHS boys ....”

Pardon me, but tough, please get over it.

It’s an old song and that’s the way it was.

The world’s a different place than when I left in 1976, during the bicentennial of our nation and as part of Anderson High’s 100th graduating class. Talk about a year! We were overwhelmed with the patriotic red, white and blue, and the symbolic red and green school colors. The 25,000th graduate was a member of our class. It was an emotional time, personally and in the life of a building, of an institution. Though I had tired of 1776 bicentennial minutes that were part of the morning announcements, I loved reading our school’s history. That was something I could touch, something I relived in the trophy cases I passed every day, a new chapter of history I helped create during my years there.

I worked on the school newspaper in a cluttered, yet comfortable cubbyhole in the basement. Newspaper ink was injected into my veins early on and became my profession, thanks to the persistence of the tough, yet tender, Mr. Pursley. He taught me the value of truth and why that freedom must be preserved. I learned from the creative writing teacher, Mrs. Maine, the beauty of words and how they can change lives. She was right.

And it was to the literary magazine of my senior year that I turned the morning after the fire. It contained a red, flimsy record of the “Sounds and Scribbles of Anderson High School” that had been inserted into the 1976 issue. It had been quite an ambitious undertaking at the time, but has become one of my most precious high school memories, especially now.

It was then that the next stage of grief hit me, the tears, when I watched the red plastic spin the sounds of my life 23 years earlier. From being a lost newbie to watching the beautiful Indian mascot and maiden ceremony, all those powerful memories returned.

Along with the first day of my junior year when I met the lanky senior I would eventually marry.

Through my tears, I smiled. Holding hands on the way to class, being admonished by an administrator for kissing in the hallway. Hey, what did he know about young love! This was high school, man! It was more than books and learning, it was a place to have fun. It was more than bricks and mortar, it was a sense of belonging, a sense of community. I was grown-up. I was in high school. I was an AHS Indian.

I’m still an AHS Indian, as I will be the rest of my life. That high school pride is pretty powerful stuff. I was saddened by the closing of the school and then the fire. Both evoked precious and frivolous memories, the heart of who I was then and who I am today. That’s true for anyone, no matter what high school you attended.

Today, I’m still happily married to that senior boy, and we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary this year. Our son followed in his mother’s footsteps by graduating in a memorable year, 2000, though from Peoria High School, which reminds me so much of Anderson.

No matter how the walls have tumbled, what the flames have tarnished, or what the bulldozer swept away, a part of my heart will always reside at the corner of Lincoln and 14th streets in Anderson, Indiana. Add my portion to the loyalty of thousands of graduates who shared the heartache I experienced, and the invisible shrine will endure far longer than the brick and plaster that succumbed.

Yes, high schools are buildings, but it’s the people who bring them to life. We don’t see empty halls. We see crowds of individual students. We feel the cold metal of the lockers. We hear the rushed conversations between classes. We smell lunch being prepared or cookies burning in home ec. We taste the uncooled water in the water fountain.

Yes, it was a very good time, and a very bad time. Few of us would care to relive those teen years, but that’s why high school memories are so selective and so precious. Like the song says, I’ll be true to my school. My school song overflows with a message that never changes in that sentimental and spirited tune we imbed in our memories. My heart will continue to sing ....

Let’s give a rah for AHS boys,
And show a spirit seldom seen;
Others may like gold or crimson,
But for us it’s red and green.
Let all your troubles be forgotten,
Let high school spirit rule;
We’ll join and give a royal effort
For the good of our old school.

It’s AHS boys, it’s AHS boys,
With colors red and green so dear;
Come on you old grads, join with us young lads,
It’s AHS now that we cheer, RAH! RAH!
Now is the time boys, to make a big noise,
No matter what the people say,
For there is naught to fear, the gang’s all here,
So hail to the AHS boys, hail! RAH! RAH!