A Dressing Down from my Salad Days

Last night offered a virtual walk down memory lane, with a former college professor and classmate posting some old photos of our days at Pace University’s JRN Center.

This was back when Journalism was still a viable career.

Ours was an experiential curriculum, requiring students to get out of the building, talk to people, write actual articles and put out a newspaper or TV broadcast. We did an Election Night edition during fall term, pulling an all-nighter to record the results, and then a spring edition based around a theme. In the process we created a dysfunction kind of community.

It was a blast, notwithstanding the time my photographer and I were thrown out of a White Plains City Council meeting for having the gall to ask a question. (It was hard to get the establishment to take us college kids seriously.)

I often stop to consider how I got from there to here … but I digress.

The pictures posted on Facebook last night showed various groups of us from our days at Pace. They were a hoot. I remembered just one of them, but in each case they were true conversation starters and not only due to the unfortunate fashion choices the late 1980s foisted on us.

This was the first one I saw, likely from 1985 or 86:

That’s me running my mouth at left with Jennifer and Bernadette. Darned if I know why I was sporting the fake pearls.

And there was this gem, which I remember hung on a bulletin board in JRN center for some time to mock me:

Judging by the hair, it was taken much closer to my 1988 graduation.

Naturally, the threads of comments under these and other photos from the era were full of remembrances and sacrcastic comments.

You know how sometimes you get an unvarnished glimpse of how others view you? There was that, too, under that photo of me overdressed for the occasion.

Mike, an underclassman who worked on the papers when I was editor, offered this: “Terri’s sullen look, pearls or not, was friggin’ terrifying.”

Denis, our professor at the time, seconded the observation: “Amen. She scared the crap outta me.”

Bold as the declaration is, I can’t deny they are right.

Anyone who knows me even briefly quickly realizes everything I’m thinking is emblazoned on my face, even if  especially if my thoughts are unkind and best kept to myself.

It’s a trait I’ve been working to fix for a long time, so it was with good humor that I reacted to this photo posted by Lisa from Election Night 1986 or ’87.

As I mentioned, these were all-nighters. I had to drive home in the morning, so was catching a catnap.

Must say I had no memory of this photo being taken, nor do I remember those pants or why I thought wearing them was a good idea.

I texted a copy to Catherine, who replied: “Of course I know that’s you. I’m not dumb.” (Little apple and tree thing going on there.)

Basil, however, spent a full five minutes AFTER finding his glasses to figure out that he’s been married for more than two decades to the person sleeping on that makeshift chair-bed.

I’ve been giving him the sullen scary look ever since.