Surveying the Gen X landscape and the origins of geek
The Hesperia Junior High D&D Club is playing The Keep on the Borderlands in the school library. Love that camo boonie hat. The photos are from the Hesperia Junior High Yearbook from 1982-1983 via Keith Sloane, who posted them in the comments at Joseph Bloch’s Greyhawk Grognard. I posted Bloch’s D&D Club photo here.
Thank you, internet. Thank you so much.
The first photo is from Mira Loma High School in Sacramento, California, courtesy of Mira Loma Alumni and Friends. The guy on the bottom left is doing a pretty good Spock impersonation. The second photo is from Tumblr, and I couldn’t find any details when I traced it back to the source. It’s the same year or damn close. Note that the kid in the front row is holding a Tribble.
Absolute badasses. They ate Betamaxes for breakfast.
The photo is via Scott Hanselman, who is standing in the back row.
All of the photos were taken by Gary Fong as part of a 1982 fashion shoot for the San Francisco Chronicle. Peter Hartlaub resurrected them for a three-part “flashback project” at SFGate. Abraham Lincoln High School is a public school, obviously. “Local 69 Muff Dive” didn’t fly in prep land, where all the rich kids wore pink shirts with little alligators on them.
You want to know if I found all the t-shirts the kids are wearing, right? I did.
The sign is cut off (and `Dungeons’ is misspelled!), but we’re looking at an AD&D club, hence all the core books and Tramp’s Dungeon Master’s Screen on proud display.
That’s got to be a homemade shirt in the middle, right? It’s not any TSR dragon that I’ve seen.
Our teacher rep, the only woman involved in the proceedings, seems quite happy to be there. I wonder what she thought at the time.
(Photo via Story Games forums)
I never really think of the 1980s as having such an unmistakeable look, but here it is: a sort of flamboyant, sugary Art Deco. It may be tacky, but damn, it sure is fun.
Wang Chung is underrated, in my opinion. Starting with 1983’s Points on the Curve, they put out several catchy, sophisticated pop albums. I hated them in 1987, of course, and would have been going on Space Mountain over and over again when the music started. That’s what I did at my grad nite in 1990.
Check out pre-“My Prerogative” Bobby Brown! It’s hard to think that at one time he was a somewhat normal guy with a more than tenuous grasp of reality and common sense.
See a whole lot more grad nite material at the ultimate old school Disneyland source, Vintage Disneyland Tickets.
Imagine this. It’s Friday morning, May 27, 1977. You wake up and go to school, but it’s not really school anymore: finals are over and graduation is next week. It’s just a party at this point. After classes, you and your friends go straight to the local theater to catch a little movie called Star Wars that opened two days earlier. It looks pretty cool.
Two hours later, your mind forever altered, you go home to change and grab something to eat. You go back to school, get on a bus with your friends, and head to Disneyland, talking about Jedi Knights and summer and college and the wide open future. The park has been taken over by high school seniors: no kids, and only a smattering of chaperones. You’ve got it all to yourself.
There’s a new ride called Space Mountain. It just opened today. You can’t wait.
(Images via Vintage Disneyland Tickets)
Reedley High School (public) is in Fresno County, California. The illustrations are gorgeous, and telling. Historians generally cite 1955 as the year the Space Race began, and the phrase “flying saucer” dates to 1947 (“UFO” was officially adopted by the U.S. Air Force in 1952). The futuristic Reedley is a great example of the Mid-Century modern aesthetic.
Take some time to read some of the notes when you can. Here’s one from the first page:
I hope you get cheer leader, at least I voted for you. You’re a real cute kid with a personality to match keep it up – don’t get to conceited – have much fun
lots of luck
“Real cute kid” and “real swell girl” come up often, and both sexes use it.
(Photos via eileensbooks/eBay)
2 Warps to Neptune 