I was the copy editor and head writer of my college yearbook, so they are part of my resume. I will probably never get rid of them.
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Posted 1 year ago #
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Well, I decided what to do with mine: I tossed it. I flipped through it, looked at some of those feathered-back hairstyles, took note of a great teacher that I decided I want to track down and send her a 30-years-later thank-you note (if she's still around!). I decided that I wouldn't try to sell it or give it to a hometown library, because there were some handwritten sentiments that I felt didn't need to be public knowledge. I don't regret it--yet! But it's been only 24 hours!
Posted 1 year ago # -
Please consider donating your yearbook to your school or to a museum. I've been trying to collect yearbooks to fill in gaps like the ones left by students who chopped out photos they cared about. My kids' high school is using my parents' yearbooks from 1935 through 1938 and 1947 to restore composite class photos. They have uses and meaning beyond our feelings.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I never owned any college yearbooks, but for some reason I had all four years of my high school annual. What I did a few years ago is rip out only those pages where I was pictured, neatly trimmed them, and pasted them to my personal photo album.
The rest of the pages I shredded (which was therapeutic), then recycled the paper along with the cardboard covers.
Win/win: I keep the meaningful pages :) of my four-year experience/looks, which now take up all of two pages in my photo albums, and the heavy books are GONE.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I would never get rid of mine. It would help if I knew where they were. LOL.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Once long ago and far away, when I was young and rather stupid, I lost my purse. It had everything in it: license, passport, SS card, student ID, you name it. (okay, I DID mention I was young and stupid, right?)
Anyway, I used my high school yearbook, with my photo and name clearly printed in it, as identification to get a new driver's license. So there you go. Those old annuals do more than waste space.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I have one High School yearbook (senior year) and one book from Junior High.
I was a very depressed teenager - I was secretly a cutter, borderline suicidal, was betrayed deeply by my first "true love" and a few years later by my first two "serious" relationships. I had poor skin, thought I was fat and insecure in just about every sense of the word. I was a poor student. I was hiding my sexuality. I hated my life and I hated many of my schoolmates.
But I could never get rid of my yearbooks and regret not getting more of them. Why? Because despite all of the horrible memories, I have many good ones in between. I continued to resent my school years well beyond graduation... until I went back and actually looked at what I had documented of my time in school.
I read the comments in my Senior yearbook recently and even stumbled across my old LiveJournal. Memories of adventures I'd had with those that were my friends came flooding back to me. I read about precious moments and friendships that I now barely remember and it gave me an opportunity to look back and go - you know... it wasn't ALL bad.
Posted 1 year ago # -
GirlOverboard- Now you know the reason you kept those books. Good for you for re-reading them! Always better not to dwell on the bad things. My high school years were ok, but no way would I ever want to relive them. Too much drama and angst, even for the kids you probably didn't think had a care in the world.
I used my high school yearbooks to hold up a broken shelf in our basement bookcase for the longest time. New bookcase, still have the yearbooks.Posted 1 year ago # -
finally got out the ladder, got down the box with the yearbook, and tossed it. Buh-bye.
It is SO GREAT to toss the past! (yet again, it was one thing that I thought I SHOULD keep, even though I simply didn't care about it) High school was fine. I liked it. I did well in school. I got awards. I had a crush on the basketball star. I kept my best friends. But the yearbook's time is over. Goodbye, Lady of Shalott, written in longhand over several pages. "Out flew the web/and floated wide/the mirror cracked/from side to side, the curse has come upon me! cried,/" the yearbook which is in the recycling bin now.:)
Posted 1 year ago # -
I still have my senior yearbook. But I've been thinking of getting rid of it. I don't want to just toss it though. My picture isn't even in it, so I don't know why I HAD to have it, but I did. I even made sure it was paid for like a month before the dead line b/c I wanted it so badly. B/c we were poor and my mom wouldn't let me get any other yearbook except my senior one. I did manage to find two middle school yearbooks when I was working at Goodwill, but I ended up giving those to a friend who went to the same school.
I remember passing my yearbook around to people I barely knew so I would have some signatures in it. The only person who signed it that I still talk to is one of my cousins. I need to let it go, its just taking up space.
Posted 1 year ago # -
My school year books are one of the things I don't think I would ever part with. They are full of memories and I always love flipping through the pages and reading all the messages left behind. I even have yearbooks from each year teaching, I have my students sign them. They are nice memories and something I actually look at from time to time.
High School, Junior High, and Elementary school (which I have yearbooks for all of them) held good and bad memories for me. I was really shy and did not make a lot of friends, but looking back at the yearbooks I get to remember all of the good times I had and could not imagine parting with them.
Posted 1 year ago # -
High school was not one of my most memorble periods in life, but it all wasn't bad. When opening them, it's really like stepping into a time machine. My yearbooks are at my mom's and she insisted on keeping them. Once I go home and pitch the rest of my things, the yearbooks are going out as well. FOr me, it's like hanging onto the past, one that will never be again and I've decided it's time to move forward.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I was the director of our local library until I retired earlier this year. We had all the yearbooks from our high school and I was surprised how often they were asked for (we kept them in a back room so they wouldn't be stolen/defaced). Consider asking your library or school if they would like them before you toss them. Same with college ones I guess, but like someone else, I went to a very large college and knew very few people overall. My husband went to the same school, different year, so we have two of these large books we never look at. They need to go.
Posted 1 year ago # -
pkilmain,
Thank you for that suggestion. I will definitely do that!
Posted 1 year ago # -
I want to second Jude2004 and ask anyone who considers throwing out their yearbooks to donate them to your alma mater. I was editor-in-chief of my college yearbook, and we were missing quite a few years. I participated in my high school alumni association, and they're still missing books from the 30s. We ended up buying many of them on eBay for some rather unpleasant sums of money (I went to a famous high school). Yours may not be so old now, but it will be in just a few short decades. So please, contact your alumni association. They will likely even pay for shipping if you send them a book they don't have.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I still have my high school and college yearbooks, but I have no idea where they are.
:-)
I saved them mostly to remember what my friends and I (and our teachers!) looked like back then when we were young. They don't take up a lot of space, so I am not hell-bent on tossing them when I finally find them.Posted 1 year ago # -
I have mine. They take up little space compared with the rest of it. I may decide in the future to get rid of them, but it doesn't bother me now. The set of 1990 Britannia Encyclopedias that my husband HAD TO HAVE ....
Posted 1 year ago # -
I wanted to keep my high school one, but I lost it the same day I got it... but only AFTER it had been signed by all my friends. Not a fun experience.
In my university, each department/faculty/school was responsible for their own yearbook, and mine didn't have one, so... I have no yearbooks of any kind, but not by choice.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I have all 4 from high school. Several of us went on to the same college and we still keep in touch today. Our college didn't create yearbooks.
I used to have scattered ones from elementary school and jr high. My family moved around a lot though and I don't know anyone from then. I scanned in my class and a few other pictures from each book and then called the school to see if they wanted it. If they did I sent it to them, if not I recycled it.
Posted 1 year ago # -
i gave them to my HS yearbooks to my local library. they only wanted one but i told them both or nothing. yippee! they are gone.
Posted 1 year ago #
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