Show and Tell Tuesday: My Hometown

One of my favorite parts of my job is listening to my students' stories of their hometown. I am just a sucker for hometown stories - especially small home towns so I am super pumped about this month's link up with Andrea. 

I am one of those weirdos that LOVES her hometown - I loved high school, I love going back to visit -  I just hit the jackpot on childhoods. This basically means that I could write forever, so I am going to limit myself to 12 things because 12 was my basketball number. 

#baller

1. Robinson, home of the Rockets... 

2. Located "right outside of Waco" but we HATE to be referred to as Waco-Robinson. 

3. Our school song is to the tune of Oh Christmas Tree

Oh Robinson, Our Robinson

We'll honor thee forever

We'll remember our colors true, remember purest white and blue

Our classmates are the finest found, though we may search the world around

Our alma mater, hail to thee, we'll love the through eternity...

(And it's every bit as amazing as you can imagine.)

4. Band was THE thing to do when I was in high school. 600 people in our school and almost 300 were in band. We never lost a single competition my entire time at RHS. One of my favorite photo series ever are these shots before and after the announcement our senior year. 

Top pic: Nervous kids waiting to hear who was 2nd because whoever was left was the winner

Bottom pic: We were the winner

5. Every Friday we went to lunch at the Rocket Cafe... football players in their jerseys, cheerleaders in our uniforms, band peeps in their striped shirts, and that basically covered everyone because see #3.

I mean, it's basically straight out of FNL...

 We also clearly always had a theme - the above picture was "Patch up the Pirates". #duh

6. Not one school that I attended exists in the same capacity as when I was there. Only our junior high and high school are left from all the schools we attended and they are used for middle school and junior highs now. Crazy cakes.

7. I had permed hair through high school.

I, sadly, am too lazy to scan in a picture but trust me, it was permed. And fabulous. 

8. Since we were the "Rockets" a mascot was hard to come by, so our Senior year, one of my classmates invented "Pride of the Blue Man".

This is now a legit position at our HS and I'm pretty sure you have to try out.

9. One of my dearest friends in the whole wide world is now the "First Lady of Robinson" ... her husband (also a dear friend) is our mayor. And I crack up every time I think about it because when did we become old enough/"adult" enough to RUN AN ENTIRE TOWN!?!?!

10. My favorite sandwich in the whole wide world is from Schmaltz, a local sandwich stop in our "neighboring town", Waco. 

11. Waco used to be known for this:

it's now known for this...

12. Robinson built me, loved me, supported me, challenged me, shaped me and gave me some of the best memories of my life. I am so glad that all those years ago my mom said yes to a BIG giant move and that landed smack dab in the middle of small town Texas. I'm even more thankful that my dad said NO many many many times later and that we stayed. I was given the gift of friendship that will last a lifetime, support through the halls of each of those schools, love from teachers, classmates, parents and coaches, and encouragement from everyone around. 

RHS is the BEST. 

(And so is Andrea for all her fun prompts!)...