As I wrote earlier this week, during Sunday’s mini-reunion of editors and writers from my high-school newspaper, one of the attendees brought along a disk containing scans of many back issues of that student newspaper, Shorelines.

The cover of the October 22, 1971 issue—published when I was 16—featured the photo of me that you see at right in which I’m standing next to my social studies teacher, Daniel Weitz.

No story accompanied the photo; I guess the staff just thought that the sight of a student towering over his teacher was amusing.

The jacket I’m wearing—decorated with a “War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things” patch on one arm, a peace symbol made up of studs on the back, and other hippie fashion accoutrements (I think that’s a “Frodo Lives” button on my chest, though the photo is too grainy for me to tell for sure)—can be seen in other photos of the time.

Sadly, that jacket no long exists—though I do still have one of my dashikis and a few of my headbands. And with Halloween coming up, who knows? It might be time to wear them again!