@dixonhill - We asked about like buttons last summer. Nothing came of it or any other suggestions forum members had.
Of course, their has been some change over at the admin level and we seldom see post from the current admin. The good point is she just leaves us alone. The bad is that they don't seem to have as much interest in running the forum as they first did.
A lot of people call me a hipster for the same reason, I do enjoy tradition and vintage things. I also appreciate good music, films, food, beer, etc, regardless of whether it is popular or not. If I like something that's not as mainstream, I'm immediately called a hipster. If I like anything mainstream, I'm called "basic." You can't win. Just like what you like and like it genuinely, let the chips fall where they may.
Unless someone is calling you some racial slur or bad mouthing your Momma ... labels like hipster, hippie, slacker, beatnik ... what-ever shouldn't really bother you. For the most part people who spout off at the mouth and toss around stereotypes are usually too stupid to know what they really mean - or how the term came into existence. They've probably heard someone say it then jumped on the bandwagon and parrot it any chance they get. I've dealt with stereotypes all my life - called every Italian slur you can think of (most of which are pretty funny), went through a phase during my Freshman and Sophomore year in high school where I was labeled a 'greaser', then transitioned to "long-haired hippy freak" somewhere around my Senior year, and retained that title by friends and family members for most of my life. Only now I alternate between "old long-haired hippy freak" and "mullet-head". During my time in a rock band it was automatically assumed I was a pothead ... when in reality I was quite the opposite ... known to kick out exceptional musicians because they attempted to smoke marijuana in my house. The band practiced at my house and I had no desire to have the police come into my house (neighbors were always calling the cops because of the noise) and then have me arrested because some jackass was smoking pot - and have my kids taken away from me. Nor did I ever want my kids to use me as their excuse should they turn to drug or alcohol use later in life. Names and stereotypes seldom bothered me - and if I could tolerate some old crazy redneck (now I'm stereotyping) who I worked with for about 25 years calling me "Sue" on a daily basis because of the f**king Johnny Cash song - I can probably put up with anything.
There was a table in the lunch room at my high school. It was for the girl with sensible shoes, the kid with cerebral palsy, the kids with coke bottle lenses in their glasses, the only black student in the whole school, several other misfits..... and me. I was ... well... short for a boy, and unwilling to take crap about it. Lots of fights, and many days spent escaping from school at dismissal, often taking the long way home to avoid the bullies, male and female. it didn't help that my father wouldn't let me drive when I was 18 and everyone else was getting their licenses. His philosophy was, "Teenagers don't drive cars, they aim them."
It wasn't until college and the Sixties that I became me.
I was the skinny goofy poor kid my freshman year in high school but it was okay because I had been in that school system for 7 years. Then we moved to Mississippi for a year and I was the skinny, goofy poor new kid who no one knew. It was rough at times until I got on the football team and the other plays got to know me. It also helped that for fun one day we put on head gear and gloves and the coaches would pair us up for one round matches. They learned I could take a punch and punch back even harder.
The following year we moved to a different town in Texas and it was "start it over again" time. I wasn't a great football player but I made the team and that helped but as the new kid in town I was pretty much not in any clique. It didn't help that I was also a quiet bookworm type when not at football.
The silver lining to all that is I learned to blend into the background and listen to people. Those talents became valuable when I became a photojournalist in the Coast Guard. I found that more and more people would just open up to me and give me the information I needed. I always blended in because I wouldn't hesitate to put the camera and pen down to pitch in and help when needed.
I went to a class reunion about 12 years ago and most of them didn't remember me. A few did and they commented on how much different I was from what they remembered.
@motie2 - I haven't been to another one. Found most of them just stayed in the same part of SE Texas except for vacations. Very few served in the military and I think I remember maybe one who retired from the military. We did have one woman who came down from Alaska and I spent a lot of time talking to her about Alaska because I made two trips up there - and she was familiar with the Coast Guard.
Overall, I found most of them to be boring and have the type of close-minded attitude of people who live in the same area all their lives. Even some of those who were considered to be "hippies" in 1971 had become more conservative than me politically.
And, of course, I found a couple who couldn't fathom spending 21 years in military.
I went to my tenth and haven't attended another once since. Ten years wasn't enough for some of the people to have matured. Many of the old cliques still existed, people still looked relatively the same, and those who had become successful flaunted it in the faces of a majority of us who ended up working in the Steel Mill. The best thing to happen at the class reunion was also the thing that embarrassed my wife the most and got her pissed off at me for the remainder of the night.
My Freshman year of High school I attended Lew Wallace High School in Gary city proper. But once it was discovered I actually lived one block out of the city limits I was forced to transfer to another school and ended up at Calumet High School ... where I eventually met my wife. But during that one year at Lew Wallace a girl (we'll call her Nancy ... because that was her name) asked me to a Turn-About Dance and I was pretty flattered, and of course accepted. Little did I know the only reason she asked me was because her girlfriend liked my best friend and figured I could arrange for him to go with her girlfriend. Everything worked out fine and he was thrilled to be going. So we all agreed to double-date. But on the night of the Turn-About, after spending money on Nancy's corsage and having my Dad drop us off at the school ... she meets up with her boyfriend at the front door and leaves me standing there like a fool. The whole plan was simply to get her girlfriend a date for the night with my buddy. She had no intention of going with me - and she, her boyfriend, and apparently half the school were aware of the plan from the beginning. I'd never been so embarrassed in my life. I spent the evening talking to the coat check girl - and we had a nice enough time. I know how Stephen King's character "Carrie" must have felt - and had I been endowed with telekinetic powers that place would have been a bloodbath.
Fast forward to the 10 Year Calumet High School Reunion and it turns out Nancy, that girl from the Lew Wallace Turn-About married a Calumet alumni from my Class of 68. In the 13 years since I last saw he she appeared to double her weight so I would have never recognized her had she not walked up to me and introduced herself. My wife was standing next to me when I spouted off, "Nancy, is that you? What have you done to yourself?" In that moment I had exorcised the demons from that embarrassing high school dance and the guff I'd taken from the Lew Wallace classmates in on Nancy's switcheroo who found it so hilarious. She looked devastated by my remarks ... my wife even more horrified by my crass remarks... and I came across like a total ass to anyone who overheard our conversation. But boy did that feel good. Maybe that's why I haven't attended another Class Reunion since then. Thought I'd leave on a high note ... because with the passage of time I now look ten times worse than Nancy could possibly look.
@ghostsofpompeii - I hate to say it but sometimes revenge is so sweet. There was one guy who thought he was the "Big Man on Campus" in high school. Turns out he flunked out of college after one year and went to work at a local refinery. He was still working there 35 years later but still hadn't worked up to a managers job. Apparently there were some other issues after high schools because no one stood and talked to him much. I almost felt bad for him.
"We asked about like buttons last summer. Nothing came of it or any other suggestions forum members had." @pappyjoe - I seem to remember that our charming admin told us that the propeller beanie folks - I used to be one, so I can use that slur - were working on a redesign of the site. If that is still underway, some of those features could be included.
Re. high school reunions...I went to my 20th (a number -- a BIG number -- of years ago). One takeaway, was how many people, who were among the "elites", talked about how stressful high school was for them and how they couldn't wait to leave.
Another takeaway: how so many of the "cool kids" peaked in high school.
I went to my 50th HS Reunion, not going to any more. I prefer meeting up with my old Hippie friends at a camp ground, and my friends of all ages and sources at the Science Fiction Conventions I go to.
Comments
I went to my tenth and haven't attended another once since. Ten years wasn't enough for some of the people to have matured. Many of the old cliques still existed, people still looked relatively the same, and those who had become successful flaunted it in the faces of a majority of us who ended up working in the Steel Mill. The best thing to happen at the class reunion was also the thing that embarrassed my wife the most and got her pissed off at me for the remainder of the night.
My Freshman year of High school I attended Lew Wallace High School in Gary city proper. But once it was discovered I actually lived one block out of the city limits I was forced to transfer to another school and ended up at Calumet High School ... where I eventually met my wife. But during that one year at Lew Wallace a girl (we'll call her Nancy ... because that was her name) asked me to a Turn-About Dance and I was pretty flattered, and of course accepted. Little did I know the only reason she asked me was because her girlfriend liked my best friend and figured I could arrange for him to go with her girlfriend. Everything worked out fine and he was thrilled to be going. So we all agreed to double-date. But on the night of the Turn-About, after spending money on Nancy's corsage and having my Dad drop us off at the school ... she meets up with her boyfriend at the front door and leaves me standing there like a fool. The whole plan was simply to get her girlfriend a date for the night with my buddy. She had no intention of going with me - and she, her boyfriend, and apparently half the school were aware of the plan from the beginning. I'd never been so embarrassed in my life. I spent the evening talking to the coat check girl - and we had a nice enough time. I know how Stephen King's character "Carrie" must have felt - and had I been endowed with telekinetic powers that place would have been a bloodbath.
Fast forward to the 10 Year Calumet High School Reunion and it turns out Nancy, that girl from the Lew Wallace Turn-About married a Calumet alumni from my Class of 68. In the 13 years since I last saw he she appeared to double her weight so I would have never recognized her had she not walked up to me and introduced herself. My wife was standing next to me when I spouted off, "Nancy, is that you? What have you done to yourself?" In that moment I had exorcised the demons from that embarrassing high school dance and the guff I'd taken from the Lew Wallace classmates in on Nancy's switcheroo who found it so hilarious. She looked devastated by my remarks ... my wife even more horrified by my crass remarks... and I came across like a total ass to anyone who overheard our conversation. But boy did that feel good. Maybe that's why I haven't attended another Class Reunion since then. Thought I'd leave on a high note ... because with the passage of time I now look ten times worse than Nancy could possibly look.
@pappyjoe - I seem to remember that our charming admin told us that the propeller beanie folks - I used to be one, so I can use that slur - were working on a redesign of the site. If that is still underway, some of those features could be included.
I went to my 50th HS Reunion, not going to any more. I prefer meeting up with my old Hippie friends at a camp ground, and my friends of all ages and sources at the Science Fiction Conventions I go to.