The Conference Coach™

Carolyn Bradfield

I have the distinct privilege of being a Granger.  Now, for those of you who don’t know a Granger is the mascot of LaGrange High School in LaGrange, Georgia.  We’re a small town, just south of Atlanta whose claims to fame were carpet and textile mills.  It was one of the first schools that integrated in 1971, the year that I left high school for college.

Integration produced a lot of anxiety as we merged two high schools together.  The Grangers had two student council presidents, equal representation on the cheerleading squad, much debate about the school mascot, and a lot of anxious students and parents about how all of this would turn out.

The bottom line is that this was a great place to live and go to school both before and after the big event in 1971.  Although it didn’t happen the years I was there, the football team has posted a national championship.  We had a number of scholars who have gone on to have careers in law, medicine and business.  They turned out very good students who knew how to study, write, and communicate.  They knew how to treat other people well.

Many of the students who graduated didn’t stray that far from home.  They came back to work in the mills, work in their parents’ businesses, and live the idyllic life that only a small town can provide.  This weekend, several of those natives launched the Granger Gathering, a weekend event for the classes of 1969-1974.  250 of us crowded into the Best Western in LaGrange for food, fun and fellowship.

My posse of girl friends was there – Lynn, Clair, Connie, Jan, Gail, Peggy, etc.  For old girls, we really looked pretty good, but we were surprised how many of us had not aged well.  As we were thinking about this, it occurred to us that we were not as educated, informed and focused on our health as our children are today.

My mom, not the best cook, fed me butter and sugar sandwiches on white bread for lunch.  We didn’t have sunscreen and spent our days at the pool lathered up with baby oil and iodine for the best tan we could get.  Nobody lifted weights other than a few football players and there were almost no sports for girls.  We didn’t know about cholesterol, alcohol abuse, the evils of smoking or skin cancer.  And most of us are paying the price for this.

Many people were at the Granger Gathering were overweight, diabetic, had very large waistlines.  They just didn’t look healthy.  Others had significant wrinkles likely spurred from years of tanning and the lack of good skin care products.  It was quite disappointing and in fact, even shocking that the Grangers of old have just not aged well.  We all thought that people had sent their parents to the reunion as old as everyone looked.

We can only move forward from here and I would encourage this group to start taking better care of themselves.  Lose weight, exercise, stop smoking and eat better.  My hope is that the next generation will come to their own Granger Gathering living healthier lives, looking better, avoiding type 2 diabetes and living much better than our group.

My hope also is that if we have another Granger Gathering in the near future, everyone will take a lesson from this when they look at the pictures posted on Facebook.  There’s no time like the present to have that Granger Spirit!