"Where Have All The Flowers Gone..."

"I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will eventually triumph. And there is purpose and worth to each and every life."     ~Ronald Reagan

“Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing...” An iconic folk song of the sixties associated with life, getting married, war and death. A song most will remember associated with the Vietnam War and the senseless killings of our American soldier. A song for remembering the era of hippies, flower power, Civil Rights movement and the Feminist movement. It's a song I heard on the radio today that invoked an outpouring of memories from my past.

I gathered my old yearbooks, the ones shoved in a box at the back of my closet, and paid attention to every face on every page. “Where have all the flowers gone” played in the back of my mind when I flipped through those pages. Then unconsciously, the lyrics spilled over my lips and I was singing the tune. With every turn of the page, I saw the faces of the kids I went to grade school, junior high, and high school, and couldn't help but wonder what happened to some of those people. I saw the smiling black and white faces of those who's young lives ended before they ever experienced the world on their own. I saw the faces of those who died a senseless tragic death. I saw a few who was wounded or died serving our country. I saw faces of those who have successful careers, and some who were not so fortunate. I saw mothers and fathers who are now grandparents. And I saw faces of people were were once my friends in a different time. Where have all those faces gone, long time ago?

Some of those people, I have reconnected with through social networking which I am grateful for the connection. Some of those faces never knew my name but only as a face in the hall with a sea of other kids when the class changing bell rang. Others might think, “Oh, her!” with some condescending phrase afterward. And that's all right because its human nature to talk about others. Some of the faces I recognized right off, then others I had to think about for a moment. There were many I liked, some I didn't, one or two I had a crush on, and some I wish I could forget. We all have those memories, good and bad associated with going to school. There might even be someone reading this I went to school with and can associate my former self in their own minds with one of the things I just mentioned. I was a wall flower, I didn't seem to fit in and I was the new girl. Some things you get over, and some things you want to bury. Glancing through many yearbooks and class pictures this afternoon, it all came flooding back.

You wonder about the aggressors, the agitators, the jocks, the class clowns and the cheerleaders. You wonder if they had children, and if they turned out to be the mirror images of the parents. Then you recall the painfully shy kid that stuttered, or the girl who was brutally terrorized in the locker room or the kid that had the worst acne in school. You think of the kid who walked funny or the one who always smelled bad. Then there are some people wouldn't wonder about such things because they were the “in” crowd. Most of those kids thought they held themselves to a higher degree of greatness. They probably wouldn't remember the kid's face who was abused at home, or the one who never had the pleasure of wearing new clothes, or the one that didn't have indoor plumbing. They wouldn't remember the kid who struggled to make it through the day without being bullied or the girl who's phone number or comments was written on the john wall which ruined her life.

It's a funny thing looking at old school pictures. Try it sometime. It conjures up a time some would want to return to live all over again as the best days of their life. In others, it dredges up unpleasant memories which defined the person they would be become for the rest of their lives. “Where have all the flowers gone...young girls picked them every one...when will they ever learn?”



Peter, Paul & Mary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QZq-wKaBWc&list=RD1QZq-wKaBWc#t=26