Tonight is the celebration of the 40th reunion of Yorktown High School class of 1971, in Arlington, VA. This fall Yorktown students entered a new building. Ours was torn down and a state of the art one put in its place. The building is gone but our memories persist - with or without the bricks and mortar. I remember football games and post game dances. I remember soda straw wrappers hanging like tinsel from the ceiling of the cafeteria. I remember crushes and teachers - Portia Mears as a favorite comes to mind. I remember adolescent struggles and embarrassments and some victories. I remember the awakening of political angers and feminism. The Viet Nam war was raging, our older brothers were being drafted and our classmates were facing that possibility as well. The music of Woodstock and Motown played in our heads. It was a time of upheaval and crisis for us, for our parents and this played out at every high school across the country. We rode a curve of tumult across the political and social spectrum - protests, riots, idealism, desegregation, music, assassinations, war, drugs, and education.

Add your memories to this page. Help to tell the story of that time at Yorktown.