Did I say 1960? No, from the 4 years when I went to high school.
You mean you are even older than that? You went to high school before 1960?
I was kidding you to some degree. No you didn't say 1960.
What I was attempting to point out to you which I will now spell out in single syllable words is this--I assume when you tell me that you have all your annuals, that you graduated from high school sometime in the last fifteen or twenty years--maybe twenty-five. So it is not surprising that you have yours.
In my case, mine were all gone 17 years after I graduated because by then I had two homes; my parents had cleaned out their primary home; I have no clue where mine went or when I parted company with them but my high school period was less important to me then--it was ancient history.
And that is what happens to most people and to most copies of the annuals. For most people, the significant events and periods of their lives are after high school--sometimes quite a while after high school; the annuals cease to be relevant until you have been out for fifty years and have reached a point of reflection. By then, your high school years may seem more important but the documentary records are long gone.
So when Fred attacks on the theory that it is unreasonable to hear that most public copies of the annuals from Mercer Island in 1960 (51 years ago) are gone, I argue that it is not unreasonable at all--it what you would reasonably expect.
At some schools, there is some institutional memory department (the Library; the Administrative Office; etc.) that is responsible to maintain copies of the yearbooks but those books get loaned out (to the local newspaper) when a graduate becomes managing partner of one of the major downtown law firms twenty years after graduation etc. And don't get returned. So by the time you get to periods thirty or forty years after graduation, even in the slowest least accomplished classes, the annuals are all gone.