This year is our 40th high school class reunion. I’ve lived out of state most of the time since graduating from high school and have never attended a class reunion. We have an open Facebook group called Mountain Brook High School 1974. Somebody added me to the group and I started getting notifications about posts to the FB group page.
Here’s an exchange that happened a couple of months ago:
Sue Wiygul Martin
As my mother and I exited Browdy’s in Mountain Brook Village we overheard two elderly ladies’ conversation. Lady 1: “Why, do you know? I heard he was eating their ivy!” Lady 2: “I do declare, that’s what I heard too. He was standing right there in the flower bed and just helping himself!”
The back story
One morning, 7th or 8th grade I think it was, I went up the hill behind the house to feed my horse, Buc. No horse. How could there be no horse? The gate of the pen was hanging open on one hinge. No idea, to this day, what happened. What mattered was that Buc was gone.
We drove around the neighborhood looking for him but no dice. Finally, I went on to school. During first period, history, I was paged to come to the office. They had found Buc. He had crossed 280 and somehow made his way to Libby Schuler’s house. And, yes, he was eating their ivy.
Mama came and picked me up and we hightailed it to the Schuler’s. We did not possess a horse trailer so I had to ride Buc home
Picture this. Woman on big chestnut horse walking down the side of 280 East with mother driving slowly along behind in the breakdown lane.
Elon Pritchard Allen
It was MY house on Cherokee, 2 doors down from the Schuler’s. We had just moved there and my mother was having a fit because she had just finished landscaping the yard and it was eating everything. I was beside myself with excitement and convinced it was an early Christmas present for me. I wanted a horse. It was hysterical because we were all at different schools so there were 4 different Moms driving car pool in our driveway. It was massive confusion. Everyone was trying to catch the horse. Camie and I emptied our drawers of hair ribbons and yarn trying to make a rope and tie it to a tree. Mountain Brook Police came and caught it and I guess held it until you got there. We were sent off to school.
Sue Wiygul Martin
Oh my gosh Elon! You’re right, I got the horse to the wrong place. What an absolute hoot! I guess I never quite knew the whole story. See there, that’s what reunions are for!
I have some talented and resourceful classmates! Over the past six weeks or so a series of “now and then” photographs have been posted to the FB page. It’s been a lot of fun to begin catching up with folks who I haven’t thought about for decades. And, yes, I’ll be attending this reunion for sure!
No comments yet.