House&Son Reunion Photos Are Up

At long last, we've discovered that the many photos that our official reunion photographer and classmate, Rick House, and his son Jeremy took on July 24-25 are now up and available for viewing. A lot of you had inquired about the site and the problems you experienced accessing it, but it seems to be working now. Any questions that you might have about particular photos, send them directly to Rick ( fotoman1985@yahoo.com ) or contact the Houses through the site and hope you get a response. It takes a couple of minutes to get used to navigating the site and the 275 photos, and you can do it by either establishing an e-mail log-on/password, or "as a guest." As Ellen Annunziata Van Skiver said, she spotted "pictures of people I didn't even know were there!"

The Web site is here: http://housemix.lifepics.com/net/Pro/Default.aspx

The code to enter: CR072509

Wasn't It Great To See . . . .

I know the answer is probably EVERYONE! But maybe there's a classmate you'd not seen for years - since graduation. Maybe there's a great buddy with whom you lost touch. Maybe its the person who could always make you laugh until Coke came out your nose, or knows some small secret no one else knows! Perhaps someone you weren't close to then, is closer than you could imagine now.
It was great to see Barbara Scales our friendship goes back to kindergarten at St. Joe's. I always feel the world is an OK place because Barbara is in it. She's like my reality check - always tells it like it is. Why beat around the bush? Barb's here? Yup, life is good.
I was so happy to see Amy Eckert Mian! She always made me laugh til my sides hurt. I still remember her describing sneaking out of detention in a musical instrument case from her previous Catholic school. French horn? Tuba? Cello? Can't remember, but you can imagine her in there being drug, Bugs Bunny fashion, down stairs by her conspirators.
It was so good to see EVERYONE! Class of 74 and friends, you look MAAHVELOUS!

This Started My Reunion Weekend

While sorting out and putting away reunion stuff, I came across this note, given to me on Friday in the high school parking lot, before the tour, from Tom Annunziata Giordano. I sorta knew right there that I was in for a few days of fun.

Carolyn Trout's Newspaper Column

Our high school teacher Carolyn Trout, who came a long way with her husband, Tom, to attend Saturday night's party, is the retired director of the Joplin Public Library in Missouri, where she lives. She writes a monthly general interest column for The Joplin Globe, the local newspaper there. She asked me to give everyone a sneak peek at her August 2009 column (she says she swears she didn't see Ed Rzonca's blog reference to speed dating before writing it):

Going Home Again

By Carolyn Trout

Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again. He was about half right.

You can go home again. However, you’ll get lost finding it because the highway has been rerouted, and when you finally get there, you’ll find the house painted like an American flag and a dog kennel where the back porch used to be.

We’ve just returned from a trip to scenic northern New Jersey, which we left in 1979 and haven’t seen since.

The little white cottage where we first lived was still there, only it is now a patriotic red with blue trim.

Our second home was vaguely recognizable, but our once-treeless yard is now a jungle of trees and greenery that virtually engulfs the house.

Our third New Jersey house, however, turned out to be the heart-breaker.

It was a company-owned house on company property. The plant is now closed, the houses abandoned.

We parked on the side of the road and contemplated the ruin where we once lived. Shedding shingles and siding, studded with broken windows, the house is a derelict. Wild turkeys roam the yard.

In this particular case, Thomas Wolfe was right on the money.

The houses, however, were just the side dishes to the main entrée reason for the trip.

In a previous incarnation, I taught high school English for the decade we lived in New Jersey. After I finally decided that when I grew up I wanted to be a librarian, I never darkened a high school classroom door again.

So, when the Newton (NJ) High School class of 1974 planned their 35th reunion and invited all their teachers, my husband and I decided that the invitation provided the perfect reason to return to a place where we’d accumulated a decade’s worth of joyful memories.

Everyone who has gone to a reunion knows about the pre-reunion jitters.

As a teacher, I was spared some of those apprehensions – the ones about seeing old crushes or reliving how it felt to be an outsider in the clique-ridden world of high school.

However, I wasn’t spared the biggest jitter of all – the knowledge that I look one heck of a lot different than I did 35 years ago. Back then I was a cute little twenty-something with long dark hair to my (tiny) waist, and my hemline was a conservative 6” above my knee.

It was the Seventies. What can I say.

I was sure my former students wouldn’t know me. And when they figured out who I was, their expressions would reflect horror and dismay.

My apprehensions vanished after the first three minutes.

I’ve never participated in a happier or noisier love-fest. Or a warmer one. Two hundred people can generate an awful lot of heat and decibels.

Thank heavens for name tags. The reunion organizers had thoughtfully put our 1974 student or faculty yearbook pictures above our names.

It was a trifle awkward at first, meeting someone and then leaning in to gaze at his or her nametag.

I overheard one woman comment that it was discomfiting to look at someone’s chest first. The man with her assured her that men were used to doing exactly that.

The whole evening was sort of like speed dating on steroids. Peer at nametag. Shriek. Hug. Jump up and down. Gibberish at high volume for a couple of minutes. DING! Move on to next person. Peer at nametag. Shriek. Hug. Etc.

We spent a weekend surfing on waves of nostalgia, and it was just grand. So, Mr. Wolfe, going home again is indeed possible, even if they’ve moved the highway that takes you there.

Post-Reunion Program Changes

I didn't hear a lot of reaction about Saturday night's reunion program, which makes me think that the Barry Manilow and Michael Jackson photos scared the hell out of everyone.

Anyway, here are some guest list changes, based on a handful of people who decided to come at the last minute, and another handful who didn't come at all.

The total stayed right around 208, because just as many newcomers made up for the ones who -- for whatever reasons -- couldn't make it to The Barn.

LATE ADDITIONS IN THE FINAL WEEK:

Class of '74
John Ford and Penny Ford
Lynn Rosenkrans Meyer and Ed Meyer
Carol Campbell Wydner

Beth Reeves
Roger Steele

Teachers
Madame Milena Miladinovich Lombardi

and Mr. Floyd Lombardi
Miss Emily Robbins

LATE SCRATCHES

(Did Not or Could Not Show):

Class of '74
Mike Scabet and guest
Jan Springer Mulroy
Debra Cooke

Class of '73
Kathy Huff Member and Robert Member

Saturday hike at High Point

This intrepid group of outdoor enthusiasts braved the warm temperatures and blood-sucking insects to take a leisurely 3.7 mile loop hike at High Point's Monument Trail on Saturday. Cheap as we are, we parked at the Ranger Station outside the park and we all crammed into Dave's little car to pay our $5.00 entance fee. Driving past the lake, and up toward the monument, we parked and sought out our trail. Did it start behind the monument - or at the end of the parking lot, hmmm? We saw lots of ripe berries, scouted out some magnificent vistas, and met Stella's final resting place and marker. My personal favorite was the swamp trail, with it's boardwalk and flowering trees and shrubs. Pictured here are Peggy (Dolan) Cordell, Dave Larson, Andrea (Margaret Herman) Harmon, Phil Herman, and Michele (Edison) Leonard.

Friday Night Pub Crawl

Some pub crawl - we never made it past the first one - O"Reilly's on lower Spring St. in Newton! It was a remarkable get-together, but sadly, I have no photos - anyone else out there have some? (I think maybe I've seen some on FaceBook.)
Tom Annunziata dazzled the crowd with his crooning, "After the Lovin'." Cheri (Coe) Kerr had a former student (from the second grade) singing karaoke as well. Does that make anyone else feel a little old?
The bar regulars added some local color to the event as well - that's all I'm sayin'.

Reunion NHS School Tour

This was the first event of the NHS 35th high school reunion weekend. We gathered in the parking let nearest the main office on Ryerson Ave. to meet our tour guide extraordinairre. We saw the old senior lounge (no smoking anymore...), the cafeteria, the science wing, gymnasium (where we gathered for this photo), F level, auditorium, and the renovated library. There are now lifts on all the staircases leading to and from each level (ADA accessibility). There were a number of our classmates and friends honored on the NHS Wall of Fame outside the auditorium: Mark Cummins, Mark Avondolio, Patty Gray Redline, and George Morville to name a few. My initial impression of our class when we first met is that we are a LOUD group. Seeing all those vaguely familiar faces and reconnecting with friends in a slightly smaller setting to begin the weekend was great. More installments of reunion weekend to come, but please comment on your impressions of the school tour here...

Well, That Was Fun

Good times, good memories. Most of all, fantastic friends and overall wonderful people. Thanks to all 200+ (a few didn't show, a few others did show) who made a much-fretted-over Reunion Weekend for me an off-the-charts hoot!

P.S. -- Hope we'll all keep in mind to keep this blog fresh with frequent memory boosters, humorous topics, and just general what-we're-all-up-to postings.

A little angst anyone?

O.K. - so the big day(s) draw near. What is it you are dreading the most about our upcoming reunion?
For me, it would be people not wearing their name badges and approaching me and saying "remember me?" For one thing (as many of you have confessed) I too, have CRS. For another thing, I've lived so far away for so long that my memory just doesn't get jogged that often, and I've left my crutch (the yearbook) at home.
There has been excellent build-up for the reunion in various formats... and that has been both fun and informational.
So, what's your biggest fear or potential pet peeve? Let's get 'em all out on the table before Friday, so we can all play nice!

Most Vivid High School Memory

I'm not sure if this is what you're gunning for, Andrea, but I'll start:

A February Saturday in 1974. We had snow throughout most of the previous night and into the day, but our N.H.S. baseball team still ventured out by bus to Bloomsburg State College that day for a baseball clinic, in which the ex-major leaguers Hoyt Wilhelm and Buddy Harrelson were there as special guest instructors. Hoyt was the nicest guy you could ever meet, and showed us his major league knuckleball inside that gym. Buddy might have been the meanest guy, as he yelled at coaches and kids who asked the most simple questions. He was having a bad day.

Anyway, that night was the senior prom in Whippany, and because of the weather, it was not known throughout most of the day whether it was on or off. It stayed on -- people tuned in to WNNJ radio to get the updates; nowadays, we'd just text or e-mail -- and I recall driving with my prom date, Michele E. (in my father's Chrysler Cordoba; he had waited in a gas line earlier in the day to get enough for gas to be able to travel that far). We slid off the road and spun around, almost hitting a tank at an out-of-business gas station in Springdale. We got there, and it turned out to be a great night and a fun prom. But what a (long) day and night.

Andrea Harmon Photos: Guess Who?(1)

Andrea Harmon has some photos to share from high school. Name the people in them, and guess whether or not they're going to be at the reunion NEXT weekend. (No prizes, because these are kinda easy.)

Andrea Harmon Photos: Guess Who?(2)

Andrea Harmon has some photos to share from high school. Name the people in them, and guess whether or not they're going to be at the reunion NEXT weekend. (No prizes, because these are kinda easy.)

Andrea Harmon Photos: Guess Who?(3)

Andrea Harmon has some photos to share from high school. Name the people in them, and guess whether or not they're going to be at the reunion NEXT weekend. (No prizes, because these are kinda easy...though this particular one might be a bit of a puzzler, for many.)

Planes, Trains and Automobiles

How will you be traveling to the reunion? I've caught wind of some folks seeking ride-shares from various airports, so I know some are arriving in New Jersey via air travel. Anyone taking the train? Driving, perhaps?

This was my vehicle loaded for bear during my sabbatical year (2007-2008) at a rest stop in the Bad Lands of North Dakota. I am choosing to drive again this year (sans the toys), so I have the freedom to visit friends along the way. The first day of driving, I won't even make it out of Montana - that's how big a state it is! (And I have to take in the National Folk Festival in Butte right before I leave...) I'll be taking the northern tier and staying in Minneapolis, MN and Fort Wayne, IN along the way. I'll spend a week on Long Beach Island with my brother Mike and his family before driving to North Jersey to meet up with all "youse guys."

So, this will be my last "post" before taking off. Please keep it up while I'm enroute. I'll be thinking about you - and wishing you all God speed to arrive safely at your destination.

What's YOUR travel story?

1921 Aurora

I know - I couldn't believe it myself! Not only do I have my own Aurora yearbook (yes, 1974), I found my mother's (1946), my father's (1944), AND my maternal grandparent's (1921).

Harold Yetter has no write-up, but Constance Roe sure does. And, do you know what it says about her? (You won't believe this...) "Constance Roe is a charming lass, the noisiest girl in the Senior Class." That acorn didn't fall far in the noisey department - even a generation removed, eh?

In the Aurora staff photo, she is in the third row (girls standing), and sixth from the left (near the center).

And just so you know, you'll have to pace yourself... I have reunion notes in my mother's yearbook. She made it to her 40th!

Kids? Grandkids? Marriages?

How many do you have? (Or, how many HAVE you HAD?)
I didn't ask this information on the reunion reply form, and it won't be in the reunion program, so let's do it on this blog. If "marriages" is too confining or obscure of a notion or topic, then answer as you wish, or not. Like, how many times have you been "with your soulmate, but now want to fall back in love" with your spouse? ... paraphrasing the South Carolina governor, not me. Does this make sense? You report, we'll decide.

Musical Tastes

What are the albums (remember vinyl?) you had WAY back then, that you still enjoy today? Are you still listening to the same genre of music that you enjoyed back in the 70's? How have your musical tastes morphed over the years?

This is still one of my favorites. My tastes tend to run toward the bluegrass, folk, country-rock genres; although I now also enjoy more jazz and rhythm and blues than I did growing up.

My iPod will be running constantly during my cross-country road trip to our reunion - and mostly music (although I promised myself I would give audiobooks another try).

My favorites? I'll be singing along with Asleep at the Wheel, the Byrds, Commander Cody, Greatful Dead, Jackson Browne, John Prine, Leon Russell, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Ry Cooder, Van Morrison, and Waylon & Willie, among others.

Who are your musical heroes? Does Tony's band take requests? Enquiring minds want to know!

Who's Your Favorite N.H.S. Teacher?

As I hear from various teachers in the reunion replies -- many of whom I never had as teachers -- I'm amazed over how I seem to know many of them better now, 35 years later, than I did in high school.

Who was your favorite N.H.S. teacher? For me, it's hard to pin it down to just one. But if pressed, I'd have to say Mrs. Kathryn Bedell. In both her history and English classes, she put things in my head that eventually went on to help me both professionally and personally. The way she taught shaped the way my thought process worked, and that might be the best compliment for a teacher.

(Honorable mention goes to Señor William O'Neal. His Spanish classes were simply fun for me, and even now I have distinct memories of them. Because of him, I can still scratch out a bumbling, basic conversation with someone I encounter who speaks Español.)

Sad News About Mr. Christopher Duane, Language Teacher

I just received a note from John Lontos, our teacher and class adviser, about the recent death of Mr. Duane. Many of you, I'm sure, will be saddened by the news of your Latin and French teacher's passing. He had been living in the senior residences, Bristol Glen, on the end of Ryerson Avenue. He was 93.

I know that Mr. Duane was one of the most respected and well-liked teachers at Newton High.

FROM MR. LONTOS:

Mr Duane passed away last Wednesday the 17th.

You recall he taught Latin, among other languages, at Newton. Many of the class may have had him for a teacher.

Funeral service is at 9am Wednesday the 24th, at Smith-McCracken Funeral Home, followed by a 10am mass at St Joe's catholic church. Visitation Tuesday, 23 June, 2 to 4 and 7 to 9. Might be nice to have some former students drop in.

New Jersey Herald obituary is here:
http://www.legacy.com/njherald/Obituaries.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=128777659