Here is a WayBack Machine memory for the class of 1969, freshman year. It might even be that some of you reading this blog were part of the group involved. If so, you have my respect and admiration; you performed brilliantly.
In 1965, we sophomores, class of 1968, all of us, ended up in the old auditorium for a lecture from school board member and medical doctor, Dr. Roberts, on the subject of --drum roll, please!-- The Facts of Life. (I capitalize the phrase because it was a pretty big deal back then.) It seems that Dr. Roberts, in his medical practice, was hearing from too many teenagers that they had no idea "how the pregnancy happened." So it was decreed that Dr. Roberts would present a Sex Talk (again, capital letters) to all sophomore biology students, en masse, in a secluded location. Days earlier, biology teacher Mr. Stewart had said that in past years, the reproduction topic ended with the frog and the cloaca, but this year we must include human reproduction, too. (He sounded a bit ambivalent about the idea , as was my mother, by the way. But that is, as they say, a different story for another time.)
So, there we were, in the darkened old auditorium, all sophomores together, getting the lecture from Dr. Roberts. The freshman study hall that normally met in the auditorium had been moved elsewhere. There were occasional giggles as the anatomy slides were shown. Dr. Roberts had to stop periodically, reminding everyone to act maturely. As I looked up and down the rows, I could not see who might be doing the giggling; we were all pretty subdued and inhibited sitting there. Oh well. The lecture ended eventually (mercifully?), the lights came up, and we prepared to leave. The gigglers then revealed themselves. That freshman study hall that had been "moved elsewhere"? Well, "elsewhere" turned out to be directly above us, in the balcony of the auditorium. So much for a "secluded location." We sophomores got waves and cheers and laughter and congratulations from the balcony as we exited.
Quiet as church mice when we sophomores moped on in for the lecture, you study hallers saved your giggling for when we sophomores would be blamed for it. Gotta admire that, even all these years later.
Any class of '69 members here want to confess to laughing at us hapless sophomores that day? Did the Sex Talk tradition survive into later years?
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I wasn't in the balcony, but we heard the talk when we were sophomores, too. I think Gawain (Roberts) may have been a little embarrassed, knowing that his father was the presenter, and that he referred to us as "boys and girls." We felt a little more mature than to be referred to as "boys and girls."
ReplyDeleteDr. Roberts presented a sex education lecture and slide show to my class when we were 7th graders in 1967, Apparently the slides were a little graphic since one of the girls fainted and was carried out of the room by Lefty Johnson. On Facebook, she tells how she remembers waking up in Lefty's arms and says she is still remembered and recognized for this event at BHS reunions several decades later,
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