1997 might have been my favorite year of my adolescence. My dad called a family meeting early summer and when he started it off he was looking right at me. He told us about a job offer he had in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was asking what we thought about it, specifically me since I would be starting my senior year of high school that fall. Well I was thrilled much to my parents relief I’m sure. So we planned a trip my dad and I. We flew in to Tulsa International Airport and rented a car and took out on a tour of the town. Remember the towns I’ve lived in? Tyler, Mineral Wells, Blandon, Odessa… You get the picture, very small towns. Tulsa seemed huge to me! But I was so excited, it was going to be an adventure! We ended up moving to a suburb called Bixby. I was to start my senior year at Bixby High School that fall. My first year in public school since the 5th grade. I was scared to death. Here I was going to a public school in a new state. It was all so exciting, but still I was super scared. I walked in to school that first day and here I was a girl with a heavy Texas accent that you can still hear if I’m super sleepy or I let my guard down, and I picked up my schedule and headed off to class.
This is a story that my best friends like to tell everyone we meet. My family had visited a church before school started and I had met this girl in Sunday School who I saw at school that first day. Well I sat with her and her friends at lunch on the first day of school. I sat with them for about a week when one of the guys at the table asked me what instrument I played. I told him I didn’t play any instruments. It was like the bad movies. Everyone stopped eating and looked at me, and then he said, “Then why are you sitting here? This is the band table.” I picked up my tray, waiting for someone to laugh or say they were kidding, but no one did…. So I slowly turned to walk away. The stars were aligned in my favor though. There were four people at the next table who witnessed the whole scene and felt bad enough for me to ask me to sit with them… Of course they have held that over my head since that fall day in Bixby, Ok. Those four people would turn out to be my best friends that year. And I am happy to say still to this day, I still talk to each of them. They totally saved me from humiliation and ensured that I had the best senior year that a girl could have. So thank you Sarah, Wes, Miranda and Micah! Love you guys!
(I am super sick right now and I don’t have any pictures scanned for this year, I’ll post some hopefully tomorrow though. So look back.)
President: William J. Clinton
Vice President: Albert Gore, Jr.
Population: 267,743,595
US GDP: $8,110.90 billion
Federal spending: $1635.33 billion
Federal debt: $5498.9 billion
Median Household Income: $37,005
Unemployment: 4.9%
No 1 Song the week of February 12, 1997: Unbreak My Heart by Toni Braxton
Nobel Prize for Literature: Dario Fo (Italy)
Random Facts:
- William S. Burroughs, Jacques Cousteau, John Denver, Princess Diana, Allen Ginsberg, Mother Theresa, James A. Michener, James Stewart all died this year. Big year for St. Peter.
- Timothy J. McVeigh sentenced to death for Oklahoma City bombing.
- Ellen DeGeneres outs herself. She becomes the first openly gay woman to have her own sitcom.
