When I was in high school, it was a 10th-grade rite of passage to take a semester of Health class.
State curriculum in New York mandated it way back then, and it still requires it today.
In my day, there were two Health teachers -- one cool, one weird -- and I was ecstatic to find the cool teacher's name listed on my schedule.
My high school memories are like old photographs, much like the ones taken in those days with a disposable camera. When you took photos back then, you didn't get to see what the pictures looked like until you developed the film, which usually took days. When you finally got the pictures back, it was a crapshoot as to what you might have in that envelope. Some images were fuzzy, others too dark, some were decent, and a very few were great.
And that, for me, is what it feels like trying to remember the content of specific high school classes.
Health was on the spectrum of half-decent recollections, but it wasn't because we had epic moments of learning. Mostly, it was the teacher, that cool teacher, who made the class memorable.
Her name was Candace, and that is what she wanted to be called. It was an immediate sign she was anti-establishment, not someone who blindly followed the rules of the regime.
She liked to tell us stories. We heard about her college days at the University of Vermont, how she and her then-boyfriend, now husband, befriended two guys named Ben and Jerry, who would eventually start making ice cream.
Candace taught us how to cure menstrual cramps (two Advil, a chocolate bar and a can of Coke) and to stay away from drugs.
We must have discussed sex, but I don't remember it being anything too wild. We had already taken Health in elementary and middle school, boys in one class and girls in another, navigating awkward lessons about anatomy and physiology.
The 10 grade version of Health was for the almost grown-ups, the last chance we would get per the New York State K-12 curriculum to stay on the right path, whatever that looked like in the early '90s.
And while many of us did stay on that carefully outlined track, some did not. They ignored the warnings about the addictive risks of cigarettes, didn't stay in control with the booze, got carried away with drugs. There were always rumors flying about people going away to rehab or dealing with an unwanted pregnancy.
Things have changed.
My daughter is in 10 grade Health class now, more than 30 years after me, in the same building where I soaked up Candace's wisdom.
In the modern version of Health class, she's got assignments about nutrition and current events, long research and writing projects that she needs my help with.
Academically, Health has gotten a lot harder.
Health is a lot more complicated in the real world, too.
Today, we have nicotine products marketed like candy dispensed by discreet devices. Alcoholic beverages in sexy cans promise low calories and taste like soda.
The war on drugs continues, but it's hard to tell who is fighting who -- marijuana is somewhat legal, but what's out there isn't the same weed grown years ago. Fentanyl could be in anything, and opioid addiction is destroying lives at staggering rates.
Sexuality isn't even something that can be defined without igniting a political firestorm.
Mental health is getting more attention than ever and still it is not enough.
Health right now is much more complicated than what could ever fit into one semester of high school. We should make it part of the conversations we have in our lives every day.