Ann Lindberg:
CLASS OF 1976
Buffalo Grove High SchoolClass of 1976
Buffalo grove, IL
Ann's Story
The 2010 high school reunion was a delightful surprise. I met up with Mark Dentler and a couple of Weeds and realized how different high school could have been with friends like "Juice." What nice guys. I think Mark would give a friend the shirt off his back and he is just so warm and friendly and generous in his invitations to go down and stay with he and his wife for a few days.
Tim Mastandrea was also a delightful surprise. I hadn't seen him in 35 years and while he was a stud and just the sweetest, funny, crazy guy in high school, he's now a man of such gentleness and kindness, a continuation and growth of where he was going in high school, that I am just honored to be friends with him and reminded that a few memories in high school, mostly from him, are sweet.
Other memories-
Mike Molson. My boyfriend for three whole weeks when I was a Senior and he was a freshman. (Also the first guy who ever kissed me, except for Tim Mastandrea at a dance, but that was the one time I was drunk and I don't remember what it was like, darn it) What a nice guy and a gentleman! I hope life has turned out well for you! I'm so sorry your good friend, Dave, died in the rafting accident after he graduated.
Ben Orcutt. Nice guy. You always did the right thing, avoided saying mean things, even when the whole table you were with did so. You said Hello, when no one else did. I've always been grateful to you and wanted you to know that, if you ever read this.
Really, my favorite memories were almost all Mastandrea related and my least favorite memories were all Lori Snelson, Tim Stonerook and Mike Rhine..
Oh, wait! I know what my absolutely favorite high school memory is! It was the 2 week canoeing trip the summer between Junior and Senior year that anyone from BGHS could go to. There were several 2 week trips I think because I heard a funny story about the trip before us. It was awesome-Quetico National Park in the boundary waters between the US and Canada. We drove 13 hours on a Greyhound Bus to get there. There was already a bunch of kids on the bus from Quincy High school, so that was interesting. One of the boys, Jeff something, decided I was his girlfriend for the trip. I have a feeling he had made his way through the girls of his own school already. He hung on me every possible opportunity, including both bus trips and no one is welcome to hang on you for that many hours, especially going home when you feel dirty and tired and ready to be in your own bed! He Was pretty cute, though. If I can find a picture from that, I'll have to post that as my only high school picture I'm dredging up. The area was breath-taking and exhausting and none of us could seem to get enough to eat with all the physical exercise. Maybe because I used to sneak into the boys locker room after school to lift weights (remember back then, girls weren't allowed to lift weights? They thought our bodies couldn't handle it and would get hurt or deformed or something. Bah Humbug! Anyone who saw the first Miss Olmpia, Rachel McLish knows that a few weights won't hurt a woman) Anyway, I was deemed the only girl strong enough to carry the 90 pound canoe or swing it on to her shoulders, so EVERY time we portaged (carried) the canoe from lake to lake or river, I had to carry that AND a 60lb backpack! The guide carried 2 backbacks. I Really wanted to be able to match him. Oh, we had a pretty blonde haired teacher from Quincy, who took a liking to our very blue-eyed Viking guide and she spent a lot of time using a butane curling iron or blow dryer or something (I didn't even know there was such a thing!, putting on makeup and disappearing. i think they got well acquainted. The rest of us looked more like me, and those pictures will NOT Be surfacing! I wore some of my dad's old canvas fishing pants, my brother's rubber waders from when he was my size foot, a swim top and fishing hat. It was quite stylish and I was quite safe from our guide's attention with the way I looked. We did have a little free time and one afternoon I got to walk through a birch forest where the trees towered up to the sky, white trees, and a carpet of wintergreen underneath. As I walked on it, the smell of wintergreen was everywhere. I wish I could go back. The scenery was amazing. We saw the Northern lights (Aurora Borealis) looking first like a red forest fire far away and then with flames of yellow and orange. Then we heard wolves howl in the distance and wolves from another direction answered. The only light was from our campfires and the moon and stars that seemed so low it was like we were in a snow ball you could shake up and they would dance around us. We went days without seeing anyone (the boys had to go another direction) so one day we got brave and decided to go without our tops and have different parts tanned. That day, canoers suddenly came around a bend, with no one time for us to cover up. We tried to pretend the men weren't there and no one spoke. I think they almost swamped their boats. The group before us was even less lucky. They got so brave, they decided to go skinny-dipping, swimming out to a big rock away from shore and then sunbathed on it. As luck would have it, the guys from school came by then and none of the girls could escape. It wouldn't surprise me if there are pictures of that one. The only time we ran into the boys, one of them though it would be funny to swamp our boat, which they almost did. My best friend, Gail's sleeping bag was totally soaked as were the clothes she was wearing. Then it started to rain and got down into the upper 30's, even though it was July. We couldn't get Gail's sleeping bad dry in time, so there was nothing to do but share mine with her. Neither one of us happy about being that squished in one sleeping bag with another girl or maybe anyone for that matter, but really she would have gotten sick in that cold. Started some rumors I could have done without. Anyway, the berries were ripe and we ate them while watching for bears. We all got tanned as we paddled, saw moose, drank the wonderful water straight out of the lakes, gloried in the beauty and couldn't believe how strong we were getting. By the time we went home, those muscles near your neck (Delts?) were almost up to my ears. If only I could have stayed in that kind of shape. I felt like a feminine Hulk! I've been to a lot of places, but none that I recall have touched me with such beautiful wildness. (Which reminds me that everyone should read "Wild at Heart" and "Captivating!
Back to school, whoever put Gail's, '66 Mustang in the middle of the football field made her cry and ask her parents if she could leave BGHS in the middle of Senior year and go to boarding school!
I'm so glad I'm way past high school. Now, I'm remembering there were nice people at school, too, ones I didn't get to know well because I was too busy hiding and ducking. I'd like to make new friends, if I didn't scare you off with the "memories." I have lots more, but I don't need to tease everyone.
I've done a lot of growing up and like who I am and am comfortable in my skin. 51 is much better than high school or any other age ever was! I'm married to a wonderful man, Mark Lindberg, as of 2006, and we are members of Willow Creek Community Church where we are actively involved. We have 3 children: Nathan, who is 21 and attending Wyotech in Blairsville, PA. Bethany, who is 19, attending COD currently but eventually wants to be at University o...Expand for more
f Chicago and be a Nuclear Chemist at Fermilab. (would never have guessed this from the girl who was all Goth rebellion in high school) and Daniel, who is 16, a sophomore and just wants to have fun. We also have 3 dogs and 2 cats, so the house is full. We are looking forward to retirement and probably a warmer environment within the next 5 years. Then, we can hike and bike, see the world and do lots of volunteer work to give back to the world. God is good and so is life, even though it's often hard and a lot of work.
I wanted to be a Reading Specialist, with a Master's Degree in Special Education and anothr in Reading, but God gave me 3 bi-polar children with special needs instead who have required those same passions. God had different plans. I hope someday to use those passions in other ways, once the children are on their own.
I like being in today, right where I am. I don't believe in living in the past or thinking the best is over. My favorite poem, by Robert Browning, called, oddly enough "Rabbi Ben Ezra" has a stanza I love and believe in and invite all to share with me: "Come grow old with me, the best is yet to be. The last of life for which the first was made. Man sees but half, God sees the whole. See all, nor be afraid!" How can it be said better than that, when you know where you are spending eternity and that eternity begins now?
My best friend in high school was Gail Duncan, but we went very different ways. Last I heard, she had changed her whole name, moved to Seattle, doing very well in the computer industry and has the horses she always wanted.
INVITE ME TO BE YOUR FRIEND IF YOU LIKE MY PROFILE OR REMEMBER ME KINDLY. I'M KIND OF SHY AND STILL GETTING TO KNOW THIS SITE! THANK YOU!
I went to Stephens College for Women in Columbia, MO from 1976-78. My mother pre-registered me when I was born, so it was useless to even look somewhere else. Good professors, good classes, learned a lot, good GPA. When my mom went, it was ladie's "finishing" school. She thought it still was and she wanted me all ready to be a debutante so I could marry a politician and she could finally be in touch with the movers and shakers in D.C. Not my idea at all. One day, when I was at the bottome of the barrel, I was walking across the bridge from one of the buildings to my accounting class. Suddenly, the young man in front of me, threw himself overy the bridge. I looked over the edge in dis-belief and he was dying and twitiching on top of a truck. The worst part was that 2 girls from my accounting class were right behind me. They too looked overy the edge, and then started laughing, saying if he really wanted to kill himself, he should have picked a higher bridge. It took me a minute or so to realize the screaming piercing the relative silence was me, losing what was left of my hope. I ran to the registrar's office to call an ambulance, but he died. There and then, I knew I needed to get out of there, no matter how much it upset my mother. (By the way, it was no longer a ladies finishing school. It had become a radically feminist, lesbian school and safety was nowhere). I switched to a little Baptist Bible school in Jackson, MS and gave God one chance to prove He really existed or else..That school and the wonderful professors there saved my life and my soul. It was only a couple of blocks from one of my favorite great aunts, so anytime I wanted to, i could go over to her house, unvited and be welcomed. I was not used to the privilege of having "family" so close. It was such a good place and the students there were such nice, naive people. As conservative as I had been growing up, I was still considered "the Wild Woman from the North" there. And although I thought I had retained somewhat of the Southern accent from my childhood, I quickly realized I had not when I was called "Al" for the first 3 weeks. Finally, one sweet girl with a sudden bolt of lightening of recognition said, "Oh, I get it! Ay-ahn! Two syllables! I never knew that before
.The wildest thing that ever happened at that haven of safety was when some of the boys somehow got their motorcycles into the girls dorms and raced up and down the stairs and halls.
Oh and the most extraverted thing I ever did there was participating in the Miss Heartburn pageant. Our school didn't believe in beauty pageats or sororities or fraternities, but they had a Miss Heartburn pageant. Somehow, I was sweettalked into it. The winner was the ugliest one. Now for somehow who had been called ugly all through high school, this kind of touched a nerve. But then I decided to play with it. I remembered an ugly girl or woman is often called a "dog", so while the other girls were applying fake boogers and such, I dressed in a fancy off-the-shoulder evening gown, painted a spot around one eye, put floppy ears on and whiskers and then the winner was the black tail that curled up and followed behind me with a pink bow on top. As I swished by with a big wiggle in my walk, it took everyone a moment to get the joke, but laughter rang through the auditorium as they tail went by. We had to do a stupid trick, so mine was the Operatic Howl. I lost. They said I was cute and not ugly. I wish I had done it sooner in my stay at Belhaven College because I heard howls for the last part of my senior year. It was fun and I wish I had had the guts to do something like that sooner! After school, I went to work as a bank auditor but it didn't fit me. So, all my clients told me. They told me they liked me and I actually liked them and I needed to go into sales. Eventually, I did. Then kids, then more sales, then fibromyalgia and now home for the last year waiting to see what job fits someone who at this moment is in bed with pain 2-3 days per week. Not sure where I'm going at this moment. It was good to see more of my family, though. My single mom years were mostly work and sleep and parenting in between. I trust God to take me somewhere God, and of course, I am a very assertive person, so I am fighting to find out where that "somewhere" is, the sooner, the better!
I also made one of the biggest decisons of my life when I was 16. Ever since I was a small child, I would look at the smiling picture of Jesus that followed me from church to church as we moved and think that I wanted to marry him when I grew up, so that he would smile at me like that. When I was 16, I spent a long time thinking about life and what I wanted mine to stand for and be remembered for.; I was reading one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, I Corinthians 13, which is often known as the "love" chapter, describing the characteristics of real love. At the end of the chapter, it described things fading away except: "Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." I decided that was the key to my life, that in spite of whatever circumstances might come my way in life, I wanted to learn to love deeply and well, to invest myself in the people around me. Later, I accepted Jesus as my Savior, and continued that relationship in a different way, with the power to begin changing all my headstrong, selfish ways. I am a work in progress and still fall flat on my face a lot, but this is still my basic goal in life, that cannot be taken away from me. Some day, when I get to Heaven, I want to hear, "Well, done, good and faithful servant," and be welcomed in as His precious daughter and part of the church at large, that makes up the bride of Christ.
Register for Free to view all details!
Yearbooks
Reunions
Photos
Register for Free to view all photos!