This morning, I was listening to the radio and one of the DJs recounted a conversation she had with her three sons. It was time to order their school yearbooks, so she asked them if they wanted one. More shocking to the DJs than the price of the yearbooks ($100!!) was the fact that all three boys said they weren’t interested in having a yearbook.
It’s the end of the school year, so perhaps you, too, have been faced with a similar situation. The cost does seem to be, in some cases, prohibitive, especially if you have more than one child in school. I understand that because fewer people are buying them, the cost is spread over fewer people. And the fact that most schools no longer have a yearbook club or class means that schools have to pay to outsource what students and volunteers used to do to get the yearbook ready to print.
But not even wanting a yearbook? To those of us, perhaps, of a certain age, that is unbelievable! I’m sure you remember getting your yearbook at school and then trading it all around with your friends so they could sign it and then working up the courage to ask your crush to sign it too. You had to act all casual like you weren’t asking only him to sign it, so you had to ask other boys too. Then that night after school, you and your close friends would get together at someone’s house and read all the little messages. Some were dull like “Have a great summer!” or “Have a great life!” if it was your senior year yearbook. But then you read all the more personal ones to your friends and tried to interpret what the guy you had a crush on meant (or what you hoped he meant) in his note.
I don’t know if I’m just a little too old, but I still prefer physical pictures. I do appreciate digital because it is so easy to post on Facebook or send to Grandma, and unless you are a master organizer, many of your physical photos are still in a box somewhere. But I have noticed people actually will pick up a book of photos and flip through the memories, but not so much digital ones. Unless I have a reason to go searching through my photos on my computer, I never do just look at them.
I know all the yearbook information is digitized and accessible, for now at least. I don’t know how you get a boy to sign it, but maybe there are ways. And I hope the technology needed for kids to view the images of their school years hangs around for them to use. I know you aren’t getting out your old yearbooks every week or even every year, but every once in a while, it’s kind of fun, and maybe even healing, to value your past experiences and stir up memories of your youth.
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God bless you. Stay hopeful! ❤️
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