Nothing in this life is certain, Benjamin Franklin said, but death and taxes. I’d add school reunions and columns about school reunions. This column about high school, inspired by an upcoming reunion, owes something to Franklin.
The draftsman of the American Declaration of Independence understood that freedom has to be earned by challenging unreasonable authority. If I were to stick to the highlights of high school, it would be a very short column. Around the time I entered year 9, some insufferable school-captain type (she’s now a PhD in gender studies, so still obedient to the prevailing fashions) came to give a talk at our school assembly.
One of my very few attempts at keeping a diary reminds me never to let my memory become so distorted that I start to believe the hokey “best days of your life, girls!” cliche she rolled out. Pick the ‘Little Miss’. “If this is as good as it gets, life will be pretty damn depressing,” I pondered.
“I must never succumb to that kind of lazy thinking.” I have heeded the warning from my younger self. But perhaps I scrubbed too much from memory.
It turns out that some of my hijinks were quite memorable, at least to others. Most recently, a story was dredged up because I was due to join the ABC Q&A panel. My careers adviser – who may or may not have forgiven me for refusing to consider doing law at Oxford “because I want to be a Balmain basket-weaver” – posted the promo for Q&A to a Sydney Girls High School “old gi.