3 Pittsford Yearbooks

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Last week I was able to scan three yearbooks from Pittsford Central School:

The title of their yearbook is usually a variation of a spelling of Hi-Lights but for that 1958 yearbook it was called Infinity.

Bill Lehman in center

I don’t usually tell who originally owned the yearbooks. In this case, all three yearbooks were owned by Bill Lehman. He was on the track team (see picture). He also was on the student council. In the 1958 yearbook many people wrote in his yearbook because he was elected Vice-President of the council. That would have been for the 1958-59 school year. Then in the 1959 yearbook he was running for President  of the council but I don’t know if he won or not.

Nowadays when people think on the 1950s style for girls, they have girls in poodle skirts and with a ponytail hair style. I noticed that in fact most of the girls have real short hair and a few even have  “pageboy” hair. Maybe they got their hair cut for their senior pictures.

Hit Songs of 1976 – #31

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Elton John and Kiki Dee (real name Pauline Matthews) had a monster hit in 1976 with their duet “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart.” Elton was making hit after hits at that time. Kiki had been in the music business since the early 60s, mostly a a back-up singer. She did release some records in the UK but they only had minor success. In 1970 she was the first British female to signed with Motown’s Tamla label. Again only to minor success. She sang back-up on a couple of Elton’s records, The Elton signed her to his record label, Rocket.

Elton and Bernie Taupin wrote the song to have the feel of an old Motown duet. It worked very well. The song was on the top of the Cash Box chart for three weeks (Aug 1 – 21). It was at #1 on the Billboard chart for 3 weeks (Aug. 1 -28).

Kiki’s only other big hit was another duet with Elton. “True Love” in 1993. Still, she is active doing small tours in the UK and appearing in plays on the stage in London.

Three Yearbooks

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Yes, I did scan three yearbooks last week. The scanning of a yearbook only takes a couple of hours. I spend most of my time cleaning up the pages so they look as close to the originals as possible. All 3 of these needed minimal amount of clean up so I was able to complete these three:

The Arete has more pages of text than pictures of the seniors. Also there are a lot of pages of ads, which are just as historic. Wegmans has a small ad for their one location at that time. There is a larger ad for Fee Brothers which many people haven’t heard of. They sell syrups for drinks and foods. They have been in business in Rochester since the 1860s.

The two Brighton High School yearbooks are from before and during WWII. Probably a good share of the men would end up in the military.

The picture is from page 5 of the 1943 yearbook. I was disturbed by it until I did some research. The students are saluting the US flag by doing what was called the “Bellamy Salute.” It was named after Francis Bellamy (from Mt. Morris, NY) who promoted the Pledge of Allegiance starting in 1892. In June 1942 that salute was changed because it looked too much like the salute of our enemies during WWII.

The Pledge of Allegiance article on Wikipedia shows that the wording of the Pledge has changed over time.

Hit Songs of 1976 – #30

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The Beatles had a hit in 1976 even though they had broken up. The song was “Got to Get You Into My Life” which was recorded in 1966. It was on their Revolver album in 1966 but was not released as a single at that time. In 1976 a compilation album Rock ‘n Roll Music had 28 tracks. To advertise the album, “Got to Get You Into My Life” was released as a single. It got up to #7 on the Billboard chart for three weeks (July 18 – Aug. 1). On the Cash Box chart it got up to #4 for the week of Aug.  1 –  7.

The song is credited to Lennon-McCarthy but it was primarily written by Paul McCartney. He says it’s actually an ode to pot, not a person. This was the first time that The Beatles had used a horn section.

The Beatles are in the news again this year. There will be a release of a special edition of their 1965 Rubber Soul album on Oct. 2nd.  Check out their official website for more details.