Additional MCHS 1962-63 yearbook photos. Limbo Contest. Beatniks.

I will be attempting to add one or two photos per day to the MCHS ’60s Reunion Facebook Group. I will try to keep track of the uploads through blog posts such as this one. On this page are two photos that I posted at the latter Group recently.

The 1962-63 yearbook caption says: “Let’s Limbo!” Any help in identifying the name of the Limbo contestant will be much appreciated.

1962-63 yearbook caption: “Way Out, Man!” That’s Allen Jones on the right. We need some help in identifying the young man at the left of the photo.

Comments

I don’t remember many high school parties from those days, but I do remember a party where I won the Limbo Contest. With practice and the agility of youth, we sought to answer the Limbo Question: “”How low can you go?”

We do not know the name of the Limbo contestant in the photo. Please contact us if you think you know who the young woman is.

I had no trouble identifying Allen Jones in the Beatnik-era photo. He was in the same class with me at Morison, I believe, and likely also at Laurentide. I’ve also been in touch with him more recently, in connection with the ’60s Reunion.

The “Way Out, Man!” reference would be to the 1950s and early 1960s Beatnik era centred around such cultural figures as Jack Karouac and Allen Ginsberg in the United States. The Beats predated the Hippie era that began to manifest itself by the late 1960s, as I recall from my days at Simon Fraser University in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which I attended after dropping out from McGill University. For some of us, as I’ve subsequently learned, dropping out of McGill was a Rite of Passage in a Young Person’s Life. As I’ve noted in my MCHS Bio, after high school it took me a while to find my way but fortunately things worked out great as the years went by.

I recall at Simon Fraser, after I had distinguished myself as a student reporter, I was asked to meet with a selection panel choosing the next editor of the student newspaper The Peak.  Among the questions that came my way was: “How have you done, in your university career so far, in handling the demands of juggling classroom work and extra curricular activities. Tell us about how things were in this regard when you were at McGill.” I replied at once, “At McGill, I was not academically active.” Everybody on the selection panel had a good laugh and they selected me as the next Editor without much further discussion.

I recall, around that time, hearing that Stanley Roberts, who was responsible for public relations on behalf of Simon Fraser University in those years, breathed an audible sigh of relief when he got word that I had been selected as the new Editor, at a contentions time in the university’s history. A former newspaper reporter, Stan Roberts knew that my approach to student journalism was to stick to the facts, and to present a balanced perspective on campus issues. That’s been a key part of my approach to reporting and writing ever since I began with student journalism at SFU. Not that I don’t have plenty still to learn. So long as a measure of neuroplasticity in my cerebral cortex is evident, I always seek to learn new things and improve my game.