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Another MHS Memory: Shopping for Clothes in Montclair
My high school years, 1965 to 1969, are suddenly 50+ years in the past (seems impossible!). Leaving Mount Hebron behind and heading to Montclair High — well, to the “Annex” in the former George Innes School across the road, which was the main terrain for freshmen — meant a lot of big changes.
(1) Riding the bus to and from school almost every day. (Before that, I walked.) It only takes a small whiff of bus diesel fumes today, to make me carsick allover again and start those migraine headaches that used to torment me on the way home!
(2) Buying all my lunches. (Before that, I usually brown-bagged them.)
(3) Mingling in a MUCH bigger crowd of same-age students, with older ones (so sophisticated looking!) mostly across the road. We saw them when we went across for AP Biology with Mr. Seelbach, and in assemblies and at lunch. Wow!
(4) Maybe the biggest of all: buying my own clothes.
You’ll notice I haven’t said anything about classes and studying. To be honest, they didn’t change a whole lot in that first year — I’d had a strong eighth grade, and this was “more of same.” (It would change drastically when AP History arrived, in eleventh grade.) The same goes for the library: The high school library, organized more for reference than for casual reading, took…
