Where Did You Go To High School?

Where did you go to high school?  That’s a St. Louis, Missouri question.  My goodness, there is sure controversy wrapped around the question.  It sure seems like a simple question to me, but to others, they see it as a negative, that we are trying to access a person’s financial or racial background.  That has never been my thought in asking that question.

First, let me get this straight.  Other than 6 months as a baby, I have never lived in the city of St. Louis.  When someone says they are from St. Louis, that can mean the city or a multitude of suburban communities around the city, many of them in the what is known as St. Louis County.  St. Louis city is its own county in Missouri.  So, when I say I am from St. Louis, or that my children live in St. Louis, don’t get the idea we are dodging bullets whenever we leave our front door.  

I was at a party here in Arizona a couple years ago.  I found out that one of the other attendees was from the St. Louis area.  I asked this attendee where she went to high school. She got highly indignant with me.  She wanted to know why I want to know her demographics.  She said she would rather I ask about her education of which she promptly stated that she has her bachelors and masters degrees both with honors and almost attained a doctorate.  Oh, so she wanted bragging rights about how brilliant she was, which made me think that she possibly wasn’t that brilliant after all.  She finally told me where she went to high school.  That geographically told me where she was raised.  I can relate to that.

A few years ago I took some of my grandchildren on vacation. One of the places we visited was the World of Coca Cola in Atlanta, Georgia.  We were waiting in line to be admitted, and a young man of a different race who was an employee saw my grandson had on a Mizzou shirt.  Mizzou is the nickname for the University of Missouri.  He asked him if he attended Mizzou, as this young man we found out was from the St. Louis area.  Jack was still in high school at the time and stated that he was still in high school living in St. Louis.  This young man proceeded to ask Jack where he went to high school.  When Jack told him, I could tell this young man knew no one or did not relate to where he went to school.  I proceeded to ask him where he went to high school. “ He proudly said Kirkwood High School.  I smiled at him and told him that I was a graduate of Lindbergh High School.  What was significant about that?  They are two neighboring school districts.  I said, “We are neighbors!”  He laughed and we hugged as if we were old friends reuniting.

Was he offended?  I think not.  A couple minutes later he came up to me and told me to follow him.  So I and my three grandkids followed him.  He took us to a side entrance and let us in the front of the line.  He told me it was so nice to meet some people from back home.

I loved that encounter.  I wish every time I asked that question people would see that it is to make a connection and not to make a judgement.

After the lady at the previous mentioned party got highly indignant with me and walked away, a lady sitting next to me turned to me and said, “I am from a small town in California, and we also ask that same high school question.”

Today on Facebook, I saw a question being asked on a group page of “What is something only people from St. Louis would understand?”  A man commented, “Where did you go to high school?”  A lady commented that “the only reason for that question is to see if you have an mutual friends you may have both known as teenagers or have any mutual acquaintances from those times.”  The original poster respond by saying, “I disagree.  It was a question to strictly size the other person up.  The answer told you their social status, income status, etc.  There was no other reason to ask it.  Not say it was right, it was/is just the St. Louis way.”

Wow!  That’s crazy.  I was raised in one of the suburbs on St. Louis, and there were really poor people and really rich people and people everywhere in between in this community.  Mr. Judgy wouldn’t be able to tell anything of my social status by me stating where I went to high school.  I know some of the more prosperous school districts in the area also have people living there that are not prosperous.  Why are we stereotyping people by high school attendance? 

I will continue to ask, “Where did you go to high school,” when I meet someone new from my area of the world.  I loved the young man from Kirkwood who knows the answer is for connecting, not judging.  

So, where did you go to high school?