For some, the arrival of Spring means working in the garden. For others, it means the opening of the Essley-Noble Museum and reading old issues of "The Times Record" on microfilm. Instead of focusing on the best years of our lives, i.e., high school, I decided to take a look at our beginnings. Hence, here's a little bit of news from 1958. Yes, do the math...that was 50 years ago! We forget that our teachers were not always mature and scholarly, totally focused on providing us with a quality education. So here's a photographic reminder from that year that La Senora had another life besides AHS. (Second from left, junior class president) 
It seems that our elders were too terrified to donate blood in sufficient quantities, so 9 year olds were enlisted to demonstrate how easy the entire process really was. That's our very own Jane Brown on the left and she is the cutest nurse I have ever seen.
Life wasn't all fun and games in 1958. The Times Record reported on the changing weather patterns (yep, global warming) and suggested the causes might include the clearing of the atmosphere of the dust thrown up by the eruption of Krakatau in 1883, changes in sun cycles, or (here's a new idea) the increase in carbon dioxide in the air caused by man's burning of fuels.
Of course, we probably weren't reading the TR then so were not worrying about the weather. There was the time Mike Crawford found the baby rabbits in a tree trunk and was photographed holding one. His intention was to give them milk through an eye dropper. No word on whether they survived.
1958 was also the year we had to get licenses for our bicycles and we were still participating in the Halloween parade that must have stopped all automobile traffic in downtown Aledo. I saw a photo of costumed youngsters and there is a hobo that bears a striking resemblance to Ann McWhorter. (Let me know, Ann, if you were a hobo back in '58)
In September the hula-hoop craze apparently made it to Aledo. The newspaper reports that the stores stocked up for the weekend and were sold out by noon on Saturday. I remember mine, but I do not remember taking it over to the Hilligoss homestead where there was so much gyration going on that the trembling ground caused the worms to come out and the hula-hoopers filled several number 10 cans with worms. No photo of that event in the TR, but if you have one, Dan, we all want to see it.
Those are some highlights from 1958. My impression from reading an entire year of the paper is that things don't change much. There were some heated local political contests, what seemed like a car wreck a week, discussion of the new gas system, the fair queens, swimming lessons, the homecoming, and football. At least two of our classmates lost parents that year, changing their lives in a way I don't believe my 9-year old inner self could have understood.
What an amazing journey we've been on....
