A Life Lesson Remembered…….
HIGH SCHOOL MEMORIES---WHAT DID YOU LEARN IN HIGH SCHOOL?
Among all our cherished memories, we all have those unwelcome memories from High School that carry life-long lessons. They can come rushing back at unexpected times and, I trust, serve as a reminder once again that thinking first and saying second will serve everyone in a more useful way.
In some ways this may be an apology to some about sixty years too late, and being that old does not reduce the embarrassment of the admission. And its age in no way reduces the need for an apology.
Here’s how I remember it. As a Senior and Editor of the Kat Klaw newspaper, I published a review of the Junior Play, and panned it in the most malicious way. I don’t even remember what the play was. But, there is no other way to say it. I sought and found fault in every dimension possible. …the acting, the sets, the costumes, the direction. …didn’t miss a trick. Full of myself, thinking how clever and novel the review was, I let it all go.
By the time the paper advisor, Malcolm Walker and previous advisor, Nell Knight caught up to me…after the paper was printed and distributed…it was not too late for her to give me a scathing lecture but much too late to fix the wrong I had done. There was no repair. I don’t think of this message as a repair as the damage was and is done and still can’t be fixed.
So, there you are, all you class of ’54 who were Juniors in 1953, please accept my abject apologies for the unthinking act of mine a long time ago. …wish it were not so. …inexcusable!
The memory has served me well, however, in our current age of electronic messaging. I have not had to be told that what goes in the e-mail will immediately be in the public domain and once gone you cannot take it back.
In my life this has been a more valuable life long lesson than those quadratic equations or the Pythagorean Theorem.
John V. (Jack) Nyfeler, Class of 1953
Comments
I cannot remember our Junior
I cannot remember our Junior Play. Seriously doubt I was in it. I also don't remember the bad review you gave and I believe I would if I had been in the play, but as someone who has said and done things I regretted and as a member of that class, I forgive you. I had to do this once myself, on a much smaller scale but the one I apologized to didn't even remember. Then I wondered if I should have left it alone but your situation was very public and I admire you for making the apology. Patricia Alexander Leonard 1954