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Book Blog
The Most Harrowing Expedition of All
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The thing about writing a memoir is that if you want to use real names you need to make sure you have permission to use those names in your book. This is something that didn't occur to me when I sold my book about high school last year. At the time I sent out the proposal, I was having so much fun reliving every silly, embarrassing, humiliating, crazy adventure I had back in Richmond, Indiana, that I didn't stop to think about the other people involved in those adventures. The ones I would have to contact to say:
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Dear So-and-So, I know we haven't seen each other in twenty years. I hope you're doing well. I'm writing a book about our high school years at Richmond High School (I know--right? Someone is actually paying me to write this!), and remember the time we (insert insane, incriminating incident here)? Well, I would just love your permission to use your real name and publish it in a book for all your friends and family and neighbors and co-workers to see. Also, remember our big hair and bad 80's fashions? I want to include pictures, too, so while you're at it, I'd love to get your permission to use some really funny and embarrassing photos from back then. Thanks! Hope life is great otherwise! All my best, Jennifer
You can imagine how much fun it has been to contact my classmates. And what the response has been like, especially since they are all mothers and fathers and hard workers and business people and heads of companies and upstanding, responsible citizens now.
Some of my favorite replies:
From our student body president and valedictorian (whom I partied with on more than one occasion): "I'll be happy to help in any way I can. Just as long as you change my name."
From a friend: "Um. What exactly is going to be in this book? Just how risque are you planning to get?"
From one of the cheerleaders (re. the subject of "mashing" or making out): "Jennifer, do not put this in the book! I don't want my children to think their mother was a slut!"
From one of my ex-boyfriends: "Turned 40 yet? That dread can only be matched by finding out that a woman you dated in high school who became a well-known writer is now writing an autobiographical book!!"
From my own mother: "I've just decided that I would like you to change my name in this book."
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Is it any wonder that, when I proposed an in-person mini-reunion for the purpose of sharing stories and pictures and memories, it was almost impossible to a) choose a date, and b) get people together? Keep in mind I did not go to a small school. There were 2500 students at Richmond High School in Richmond, Indiana. There were 650 in our class, although only 414 graduated. The school itself was gigantic. My town was small, but we had only one high school, which we were all very proud of. For many in Richmond it was the center of the universe, the highest form of education they would receive. As students, we ruled the town. We got away with plenty. We grew up in a happy, safe, secure bubble.
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Richmond was a place where people knew their neighbors and went to church on Sundays, where the Joy Ann Cake Shop baked the World's Largest Apple Pie for the Rose Festival and each Fourth of July there were fireworks at Glenn Miller Park (not named for the bandleader), which one of the three local radio stations broadcast over the radio. They called it "Fireworks for Shut-Ins" and this is how it went: "There goes a blue one!" "There goes a red one!" At Christmas, the Ralston Purina Company lit up the lopsided tree that sat year-round on top of its grain elevator, and the First Methodist Church on National Road West-- next to the gun shop and across the street from Rax Roast Beef-- held its live manger scene, even in snow storms and below-freezing temperatures.
This is where we grew up, my classmates and I, running around like wild people.
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You know how you go back to places from childhood and they look so much smaller than you remember? That doesn't happen with Richmond High School. There are 109 classrooms and the main building measures 695,422 square feet--the equivalent of twelve football fields. This square footage does not include two gymnasiums, the cafeteria, the library, the counselors' areas, the art museum, the automotive shop, two daycare centers, the auditoriums, swimming pool, indoor and outdoor tracks, tennis courts, football stadium, or the Tiernan Center, the gymnasium which opened at the end of 1984, the winter of my junior year.
Indiana is home to nine of the ten largest high school gyms in the country. When it opened, the Tiernan Center was the largest and was featured in Sports Illustrated. The old gym, Civic Hall, only sat something like 4000 people, which, for Indiana, was considered downright shameful. The Tiernan Center seats 8,100. It has indoor track facilities, a weight training room, two indoor tennis courts, six basketball courts, and twelve volleyball courts. In addition to being the high school gym, it is the town's largest gathering place.
So RHS is huge and our class was huge, which means there are many, many people to contact before this book can ever see the light of day. But the mini-reunion (in Richmond, of course) was fun and everyone so far has been amazingly supportive. One of my classmates even rented a plane and flew it himself from Columbus, Ohio, to the Richmond Municipal Airport so that he could bring me some albums of high school pictures.
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At the mini-reunion, we relived the old stories. We laughed so hard my stomach hurt for days afterward. My classmates let me photograph them. They let me record them as we talked and laughed and talked and laughed. They shared stories with me that I had never heard. They agreed to let me use their names in the book. Even our former student body president and valedictorian changed his mind and agreed (albeit tentatively, warily), even though he had visited with his mother before coming to meet us and received the following advice: "Be careful what you say because she might write it down!"
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They have given me their full support, these former classmates of mine. For now. At least until they read the rough version of what I've written about them. |
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