The picture above, at 22nd Avenue and Santiago, was taken in 1952, the year I was born. It shows the sand dune that became Lincoln’s sports stadium around 1960 and the boys’ gym under construction.

        From the time I was an infant in 1952 until I was almost 12 years old in 1964, we lived on 22nd Avenue, across from Lincoln’s upper yard. When I was very little, and later when I was home with the flu, I used to sit in my living room looking out at the school yard. I listened to the bells ring, watched the buildings empty, and the girls in their blue bloomers play volleyball.

        I also remember watching the girls practice drill marching. My older brother and I used to sit inside the girls’ gym while the drill team practiced. My brother had a crush on the drill captain, a beautiful high school girl with long brown hair. This was probably around 1958 or 1959. Was that you?

        My strongest childhood memory about Lincoln was watching the after-school dances in the cafeteria. If you were at Lincoln around 1959-1962, you may have danced to music on the jukebox in the school cafeteria on weekday afternoons. If you remember a few children sitting on the large steps outside the cafeteria, you may have seen me. I always thought, ‘Someday I’ll go to Lincoln. Someday I’ll be dancing after school like this.” 

        However, by the time I started  Lincoln in the fall of 1967, I didn’t live on 22nd Avenue anymore. There was no jukebox in the cafeteria, and high school life was much different. No daytime dances were held at Lincoln. Instead, we danced to very different live music in Golden Gate Park. (Think: San Francisco in the late 1960s.) The world changed for high-schoolers during that time.

        Lorri Ungaretti S70 is the author of San Francisco’s Sunset District, published by Arcadia Publishing in 2003. (Buy it online at www.outsidelands.org.) You can reach her at lorrisf@comcast.net.