Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your Favorite Songs in Your High School Graduation Year

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun theme certainly came out of left field.  I was not expecting anything related to high school graduation for the first weekend in October.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) Do you remember your favorite songs in your high school graduation year?  Please tell us all about it.  (Note:  Wikipedia has the Billboard Hot 100 list for each year; Billboard has weekly Hot 100 lists for every year since 1946.)

For example, the Wikipedia list of Hot 100 songs for 1961 is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1961.  There are links to every year at the bottom of this page.

The Billboard Hot 100 songs for the week of 12 June 1961 is at https://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100/1961-06-12.

(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

Okay, here's mine.

I graduated June 1, 1979 from Niceville Senior High School at the age of 17.  I, like Randy, was pretty much a social outcast at my school, and it wasn't helped by the fact that I lived 10 miles out of town, in the country, away from most of the people with whom I went to school.  I spent most of my free time at home, and a lot of that time was spent listening to the radio, although I tended to listen to country more than pop.  That said, a lot of the songs on the top 100 list for 1979 are very familiar to me.

I think I'll pick my favorite 10, like Randy did.  I'm pretty sure the first two on the list were my favorites at the time.  The rest aren't in any particular order.

• "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band

• "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers

• "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor

• "Ring My Bell" by Anita Ward

• "My Life" by Billy Joel

• "What a Fool Believes" by the Doobie Brothers

• "Suspicions" by Eddie Rabbitt

• "Too Much Heaven" by the Bee Gees

• "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire

• "Somewhere in the Night" by Barry Manilow

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your School Yearbook Photos

It's always fun to have a timely subject, which is what Randy Seaver has done this week for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Ancestry.com updated their School Yearbook collection and it is FREE to access until 2 September.  Use https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/yearbooksindex/.

(2) Show us your school yearbook photos from the Ancestry collection, or from your personal photo collection.  Tell us the school and year.  Add your spouse or best friend or children if you wish!

(3) Tell us about it in a blog post of your own, in a comment on this blog, or in a Facebook post.

Here's what I could come up with:

So first of all, I was surprised to see that my high school — Niceville Senior High School, in beautiful Niceville, Florida — actually is represented in the collection.  Unfortunately, none of the years I attended (1976–1979) is there, and I have no idea where my yearbooks are in the house.  I know I bought them and kept them, but they're in a box somewhere.  So much for high school photos of me!

I did find the USC yearbook for my senior year in the collection.  I graduated in 1983.

Janice Sellers, University of Southern California yearbook, 1983, page 174

Next I tried looking for my parents.  I didn't find my mother, but I did find two photos of my father in the 1954 Seminole High School (Sanford, Florida) yearbook.  I wish I had found these three months ago, while my father was stil alive.  I could have asked him about his experiences in the Pan American Club, Projectionist Club, Camera Club, and Glee Club (although I think the first three might have been in Moorestown, which was spelled incorrectly in the yearbook).

Salmagundi, Seminole High School yearbook, 1954, senior photos, page 28

Salmagundi, Seminole High School yearbook, 1954, Glee Club, page 59

I couldn't find any of my grandparents.  I looked for my best candidate for my paternal grandfather's biological father and struck out.  I did, however, find my ex, who went to Santa Monica Catholic High School in Santa Monica, California.

Hugh Singh, Compass, Santa Monica Catholic High School yearbook,
1966 (freshman), 1967 (sophomore), and 1969 (senior)

I also found the younger of my mother's two brothers (but not the older), about a dozen members of my aunt's family (but not her), and all three of my ex's brothers (but not his half-sister).  Obviously, one could spend many, many hours searching through these for family members.  They sure are fun!

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your School Graduations

Since I still have some energy left, I'll try to catch up a little on some posts.  This Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge was posted on June 22, a little more than a month ago.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music, please!):

(1) Most of us graduated from elementary school, junior high school, high school, and perhaps college.
 
(2) What schools did you graduate from (and when, if you dare!), and do you have a photograph?

(3) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook post.

Well, I don't remember having any kind of "graduation" ceremony for elementary school or junior high school, and I definitely don't have any photographs of either.  But I do have something for high school and college.

I graduated from Niceville Senior High School in Niceville, Florida (yes, that is really a place) on June 1, 1979.  This photo was taken at our home in Villa Tasso before we left for the ceremony.  My grandmother came to every graduation in the family that she could.  I don't have any photos of me in my cap and gown.

Back row:  My mother, my sister, my grandmother; front row: me, my brother

I graduated from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles on May 13, 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts.  Technically my degree was in Humanities with an emphasis in French; functionally I was a French major with minors in Spanish and Russian (I created my own program for a foreign language major).  We were told we were the 100th graduating class of the university.  The program is actually available online, although I haven't found my name in it yet.  My mother, stepfather, and maternal grandparents flew to California for my graduation.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Celebrate Mother's Day - Show Us Some Photos

I anticipated that for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun the day before Mother's Day, Randy Seaver would choose that as his theme:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music) is:

(1) Sunday, 13 May is Mother's Day in the USA.  Let's celebrate it by showing some of our photos with our mother.  

(2) Extra credit:  What did you call your mother during her life?  What did your children call your mother?  

(3) More extra credit:  Have you written a biography or tribute to your mother?  If so, please share a link if you have one.

(4) Share your photo(s) on your own blog post or in a Facebook or Google+ post.  Leave a link on this blog post to help us find your Mom photos.

1.  I am surprised that I can find only two photographs of me with my mother in my collections.  I need to ask my father if he has any others.  Concidentally, the only photos with me also include my two siblings.

a.  This is my mother with her three children — me, Stacy, and Mark — obviously not long after Stacy was born, which was in June 1964.

b.  And this is on my high school graduation day, June 1, 1979 (we look very 1970's, don't we?).  Back row:  my mother, Stacy, my grandmother (my mom's mother); front row:  me, Mark.  I had forgotten that my grandmother came to my graduation.

2.  I always called my mother Mommy, although I'm sure there were a few exasperated "Mother"s at times.  Only my sister had children while my mother was alive, and I believe they called my mother Bubbie, which is Yiddish for grandmother.

3.  I wrote a short tribute to my mother last year for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday