THE FLIG AND THE 45th HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

     

       It certainly didn’t seem like five years had passed since the last reunion of the 1968 graduating class from Slippery Rock High School.  I suppose the older one gets, the faster the years go by.  I imagine retirement has something to do with that as well (my retirement coincided with our last reunion).  The date had been set many months ago but now it was time to begin making plans.  Driving the 1,300 miles versus flying is always a serious consideration.  Obviously flying is easy but ones’ dates must be firm.  Driving allows more flexibility and also enables us to take McDuff along as opposed to boarding him.  All this makes driving a more affordable and sensible option.

            Departure day arrived, the mail and paper had been stopped, Kaye next door would water the flowers, the AC had been set to 80, and the car was waxed, gassed and loaded with two sets of golf clubs, suitcases, snacks, drinks and various sundry items.  Unfortunately the departure time had to be EARLY – 0600 to be exact, in order to beat the morning rush through Dallas.  The only problem with leaving at that time was that we hit the evening rush hour through Nashville dead center.  This was compounded by the fact that Nashville has several construction zones with lane closures with no noticeable construction; however, lessened by the fact that Nashville is not Dallas.  We made it to our designated first night stop in Bowling Green, Kentucky by 1830 (6:30 PM for the non-military personnel).  All in all a good day of almost 800 miles in a little more than 12 hours, with a dog in your lap.

            By design the second leg of the trip is shorter as one has to pass through Louisville, Cincinnati, and Columbus.  In the rolling hills of Kentucky the trucks have a nasty habit of passing one another on every hill.  When one truck is going 65 and the overtaking vehicle is going 66 this maneuver can take several miles to accomplish (I swear they do it on purpose but Ed Bick would dispute that).  Thus ones’ average speed is reduced considerably.  Also you lose an hour going east.  The weather was once again cloudless and we arrived at Lynn’s brother’s house (our home away from home for the next week) without a hitch before 1700 EDT.

            The next day (Friday) dawned beautifully for a western Pennsylvania homecoming.  Slippery Rock High School would be playing their rivals from the nearby town, Grove City.  This game was always well attended and we were advised to get there early for a good parking place.  We had no problem parking but I guess we didn’t have to be there early because when we returned to the car there were illegally parked cars all around us.  I’m sure they were late-arriving Grove City fans.  High school football in Pennsylvania is just a little different than it is in Texas.  In Slippery Rock there is no need to be a season ticket holder to get into the game.  The stadium still has bleachers and no luxury boxes.  Plus there is no section reserved for major college scouts.  The larger Slippery Rock University stadium across town would pale in comparison to most Texas high school venues.

            We found our gang of classmates in the stands behind a large banner announcing the reunion courtesy of Bonnie (Arblaster) McCool who owns a local print shop.  As we approached, everyone waved as some recognized us and others could be seen waving as they asked their neighbors, “Now who are those guys?”  Some of the former cheerleaders and majorettes waved red and gray pompoms.  We took our places in the stands among some folks we hadn’t seen for five years and others we hadn’t seen for 45 years.  Many of the people I graduated with had been my classmates since kindergarten.  Kids who have been my friends since I was five – Patty (Keller) Craig, Sharon (Dunkle) Stanford, Karen (Cooper) Douthett, and her twin Sharon (Cooper) Braden, husband and wife Judy (Grossman) and Dan McCarthy, Linda (Mayhew) Yetter, Barry Rose, Al Fradenburgh, and Pauletta (Locke) Fallabel.  Some had changed little and some had changed a lot but it was great to see them all.  So many memories came flooding back to me.  Crazy made-up childhood games, a first kiss, dares and double-dog-dares on the playground, breaking into the college gym to play basketball, breaking off a tooth on a failed somersault to impress a girl, biking to swim and fish at the Sportsman’s Club, I could go on and on.  (I have written several stories about such early childhood and high school events on “The Slippery Rock Kid” Blog.) 

            The game was great.  Our alma mater won big and we even caught glimpses of the excitement while we swapped stories and shared photos of grandkids with old friends.  Sharon (Dunkle) Stanford’s husband, Dave, was refereeing the game and I assured Sharon when we booed the officials we weren’t targeting him.  It was great to see some other folks we knew from classes before and after ours.  While we were prepared for the cold, we didn’t need the hats and mittens we brought.  Before we knew it the game was over and we joined the traffic jam to head for the North Country Brewery for drinks and snacks.  On the way downtown we remarked of how the town had changed since the days of my youth.  No alcohol was sold in Slippery Rock until a few years ago.  The town was “dry” until sometime in the 1990s and the only restaurant was the tiny Camelot on the corner of Main and Franklin Streets.  With the advent of beer and wines sales there were now several restaurants/bars to choose from and even at a late hour on Friday night the town was bustling and parking hard to find.  This was not the sleepy little town of my childhood.

At the brewery we had our own private room upstairs so the noise was at a tolerable level to pick up where we left off catching up with classmates.  I busied myself taking pictures between drinks and snacks.  The biggest problem that most people had was the lack of time to complete meaningful conversations with old friends.  You would just get into discussing the most important aspects of one’s life over the last 45 years when someone else would come along and join in or interrupt to greet you.  It seemed I could have spent hours catching up with each classmate but that would have been impossible.  Gary Allison and I talked about what was most important to us growing up – the hot cars we drove.  We stayed at the brewery as long as we thought reasonable and bid those remaining farewell until the next day.

On Saturday we were blessed with another clear and mild day.  A good thing because golf was on the day’s agenda.  We arrived at the Shamrock Golf Course early to find the Cooper twins busily organizing the outing.  They had snacks and drinks and a little orange bear memento for participants.  It was to be a mixed two-person scramble with a man and woman on each team.  Unfortunately we had more men than women so George Flynn had to be “Georgina” and Barry Rose was added to our team (Karen Douthett and myself).  Maggie (Laughner) Martz was not playing but drove Barry around the course.  The other teams were “Georgina” Flynn and Ed Tonelli; Bob Allison and Sharon (Cooper) Braden; Lynn (Ketzel) Fleeger and Gary Braden; Don “Caveman” Snyder and Barb Hogue; and Tim Benton and Patty (Keller) Craig. The format was that everyone played their own ball until they got to the green and then you chose the best ball and replaced it with an orange ball.  Whose ever ball it represented watched while their partner putted.  If the putt was missed, the other partner putted second, and so forth until the orange ball dropped into the cup.  When they explained these rules I asked what would happen if we lost the orange ball.  The twins looked at me incredulously and said, “You will only use the orange ball on the green!”  So I repeated my question, “So what if we lose the orange ball?”  Somehow my attempt at humor failed, based on the looks on their faces.  There would be long drive holes for both men and women and a closest to the pin on number seven.

I can’t speak for the other teams but Karen, Barry, Maggie, and I had a great time.  Very little was serious on the course.  I made fun of Karen as she bend over in her stance.  I told her that she was showing cleavage that distracted me.  Her response was that it shouldn’t make any difference at our age.  I told her that I was “old but not dead.”  Our high school football coach and gym teacher, Bill Beatty, stopped by and drove around the course greeting his former players and students.  If our ball went under a tree he encouraged a “foot wedge” to improve our lie.  Bill never was much for official rules.  We didn’t challenge the others on the long drive holes but I reached the green on the seventh hole and Karen made the birdie putt (our only birdie of the round).

When we arrived at the final hole, another strange directive came into play.  When the team reached the green the players had to don a pair of crazy-looking spiral glasses that seriously impeded one’s vision and then putt with a two foot long putter.  This was a problem for everyone except Lynn who never saw a putter short enough for herself.  As players finished we stood around the ninth green to watch those behind us putt out.  Our team had a fairly short putt for birdie but the combination of glasses and putter lead to a three-putt bogey.

At the conclusion of the event everyone remarked what a good time they had.  We were told that awards would be given at the evening banquet and the twins were off to begin decorating.  It seemed like we were back in high school and a decorating committee was necessary before each cafeteria or gymnasium dance.  Once again we lingered to talk about old times with our friends until it was time for us to go “decorate” ourselves for the big night.  It takes awhile for 63 year olds to make themselves “presentable” to people they haven’t seen in 45 years.

We did the best we could to prepare ourselves and headed for the Slippery Rock Township Building.  Even though we thought we were plenty early we were surprised how many classmates were already there.  Mr. Beatty was standing outside with another older gentleman I didn’t recognize.  When I introduced myself he said, “Wil Mapes.”  I told him I remembered a “Mr. Mapes”, (another coach/phys ed teacher/drivers ed instructor from our past).  I had not seen him since graduation and it was good to see him again.  Funny, he and Mr. Beatty looked “old”.  But it occurred to me that they had looked old when I was 18 and they were in their forties.

We greeted a few of our classmates who were sitting outside and then drifted inside.  I was amazed that some of my old friends’ names came back to me the minute I saw their face, (even the nicknames like Moss, Caveman, Hollywood, Badge, Panzer, etc. were on the tip of my tongue.)  But there were others that I really struggled with.  Lynn is great at remembering people and she was a big help until she would say, “I don’t have a clue who that person is.”  I gave her a break since she hadn’t moved to the SR school district until tenth grade.  The nametags helped a great deal.  I did my best not to be too obvious in concentrating on the nametag and then saying, “Hi, Don, I just knew that was you!”  I regret that I was a little distracted before the meal by preparations to be the emcee.  I needed to check the sound system that Dick Day had brought along (a simple karaoke machine but it worked), get Al Fradenburgh to help me put the banner on the wall for the class photo, ask Sandy (Badger) Phillips if she was going to have a moment of silence before her invocation for those classmates who had passed away, find out from the Cooper twins when they would have the golf outing awards, and the most important – figure out which table would hit the buffet line first.

Before supper we had to gather everyone for the class picture (under the aforementioned banner).  Sharon (Dunkle) Stanford’s grandson was the photographer.  And just like forty-five years before it was almost impossible to gain complete cooperation from the Class of ’68.  I felt sorry for the young man who didn’t want to upset his grandmother by yelling and screaming at her classmates.  The group tried to self-police by having short people get down front and tall people line up in the back.  Unfortunately we either needed risers for the group or a ladder for the photographer.  I knew what the result would be and it was confirmed months later when the photo arrived in the mail.  Beyond the first three rows about one of every three people were invisible.

          After the picture was taken and folks were back in their seats, Sandy did a great job on her prayer.  Then it was time to eat.  We designated a table to start but thereafter it seemed like “every man for himself.”  Our table waited until last, which, in hindsight, was a bad move.  By the time I was ready for my remarks the others had been done eating for sometime.  It really didn’t matter though because the idea of the evening was to spend some quality time with at least a few classmates.  After you stood up and began to circulate both quality and quantity of time seemed over.

I wanted to keep my remarks to the class short but meaningful.  I began by recognizing the reunion committee.  These folks did a tremendous job over the period of several years.  They were - Sharon (Cooper) Braden and Gary Braden, Karen (Cooper) Douthett, Bonnie (Arblaster) McCool, Sandy (Badger) Phillips, Sharon (Dunkle) Stanford, and Joyce (Ross) Tonelli.  I mentioned (with tongue in cheek) that Gary had really worked his ass off on the committee.  Next I asked for volunteers to help plan the 50^th reunion in five years.  (This would likely be the last reunion for this class as after 50 folks normally think more about general reunions for multiple classes.)  As to what sort of gathering this might be, I told the group that I once read about a man who won the lottery and used part of his winnings to take his entire HS class on a cruise.  That said I asked if they would all consider buying a lottery ticket on their way home.  Then there were awards for the golf outing and Dick Day surprised us by raffling off his record collection as well as the CD of oldies he had made for the evening.

Next I discussed how many over the last couple days had agreed that we didn’t feel nearly as old as we were.  I mentioned that, while I was 63, I still felt I was “middle-aged”.  I opined that meant I would probably live to be 126.  I also would probably have to be that old to finally shoot my age on the golf course.  I told about how I had recently been to the doctor and he told me that I would never live long enough to be as old as I looked.  Lynn and I had been driving from Texas to Pennsylvania and got into a backup where a car was driving slowly in the left lane.  When we finally passed the car I looked over and said to Lynn, “It’s a couple of old people.”  I suppose they looked back and said the same thing.

Finally I talked about the explosion of social media and especially my favorite – Facebook.  I mentioned that I currently had 34 classmates as Facebook friends and that I hoped to have more after the reunion.  I found that I knew much more about these 34 people from the facts gleaned on Facebook than I did from our relationships in high school.  After all, our class was made up of students from small towns that surrounded Slippery Rock, like Prospect, Portersville, Mount Chestnut, Harrisville, Forestville, and Boyers.  Each of these had either elementary schools or one-room schoolhouses for grades through sixth.  Thereafter they all came to SRHS for high school.  So there were lots of smaller groups that had grown up together melded into our class.

Thanks to Facebook I now know:  how my classmates look now compared to when we last saw them in person (some pretty much the same, some different); what their grandchildren look like and the sports they play; what foods friends are eating (can’t they just leave those food photos to pinnterest?); what teams they support (Pirates, Pens, and colleges, but not so much the Steelers this year, bringing boos from the crowd); what their dogs and cats are up to (including grandchildren sleeping atop large dogs); their joys over new births and their sorrows over the death of a parent; where their travels are taking them; when they get a new car; what books they’re reading; what movies they’ve seen; what they see on the internet that they want to share with others; their political leanings (yes, it’s pretty easy to tell right from left on FB);  what they value most in life; whether they are retired or still working; what they have to say on their blogs; and I know what Rex Jamison is doing at any given hour of the day.  Specifically I know - Terry Kniess has over 3,100 FB friends (far more than he did in HS).  Steve Hartzell got a new tractor, a new silo and tipped over his dump truck.  Bob Allison classifies himself as a “golf addict”.  Ed Bick’s CB handle was “Gadabout” and he also just returned from the shooting range.  Sharon (Cooper) Braden spent last summer in an RV.  Linda (Mickley) Fleeger spends almost the whole year in a new RV (and by the way, she blew us off this weekend for a once in a lifetime balloon festival in NM).  Barb (Shiring) and Chaz Bennett just returned to Niagara Falls (their honeymoon site) after 41 years of marriage.  Did we know any of these things about our classmates in high school?  I then encouraged my classmates to use Facebook to talk up this reunion and stir up interest in the next one.

Remarks out of the way I felt a little more relaxed.  The rest of the evening would be devoted to sharing high school stories and meeting people again I hadn’t seen in almost a half century (scary when you put it like that).  There was a display of old Sarns (our HS yearbook).  Several folks were hovering around it looking at pictures of themselves as eighteen year olds.  Linda (Mayhew) Yetter had brought some unpublished pictures from our senior play, “The Fireman’s Flame” (a three-act melodrama featuring two competing volunteer fire associations, the Red Hearts and Blue Birds, as well as the Fire Belles).  I talked about the solo I sang called, “Poor Old Ma” and how I forgot the words to the second verse but Kathy Taggart just kept playing the piano.  I adlibbed my way through until I picked up the song again on the third verse.  It is amazing how some old photographs can tweak your memory and take you right back to high school.

I hadn’t seen Mark “Hollywood” Johnson in years.  When I told him we currently lived in Texas he said he would be flying to Dallas in a couple days to tour the site where JFK had been assassinated almost 50 years before.  That prompted a discussion of whose eighth-grade classes we were in at SRHS when we got the news.  I told Mark to stop by when he was in town but it turned out he’d be back in PA before I got home.  Pat (Taggart) and Dave Castor told me they had a conference in Dallas each year and I asked if they would stop by next time they attended.  Other than those mentioned above I tried to touch base with others in attendance – Ella (Dick) Hicks, Carol (Kale) Kennedy, Barbara (McKinnis) Yaklich, Lenny Allen, Sharon (Miller) Isacco, Paula (Moore) Craw, Tom McPherson, Denny Studebaker, Lois Thompson, Ruth (Sarvey) Fisher, Roger Druscel, Jim Shaffer, Susan (McCool) Bonafeste, Joyce Ballew, and Linda (Karns) Arblaster.

 
           There were many more memories shared before the night was over and it was time to reluctantly head for home.  Before several couples called it a night we put away tables and chairs and reset the room the way the twins had found it earlier in the day.  I asked why the specific arrangement and they told me that the building was utilized as a “senior center” most of the time.  My only comment was, “How appropriate.”