50th Reunion Banquet Presentation

by Class President Eliot Rich

Good evening to all my classmates, their spouses, companions, and significant others.  It was an honor years ago to be elected your Class President, and it is an additional honor, this evening, to be asked to address you on memories of DHS, and Portland Maine.

But first, I, too, echoing the praise of John Learson, and of Barbara Troubh, would like to recognize the outstanding work of our 50th Reunion Committee members, a number of whom have been active in many of our past reunions.,  If it were not for them, we would never have had such a great fun or successful gatherings over the past 50 years.  Thanks to the leadership of the co-chairs, of our webmaster, of our treasurer, and of each member of the committee for creating this glorious Reunion Weekend.  We are all in your debt!

As Barbara LaDow has reminded us, forty two of our classmates have died, some of whom passed away not long after we graduated; others, quite recently.  If I have lost good friends, you, to, have lost good friends.  I am sure that we are all truly saddened that they are not here to share in what we, in our way, are recreating and reliving this evening - our shared high school experience.  To quote the author Edward Beardshear"

"We can join a lot of groups, but not of them are as memorable as this one.  High school's the mother lode of group memories.  It's the imprint and paradigm because that's where the roots are: all for all time, that's the real connection.  Face it, where we went to high school, well, that's home, the site of our coming of age, and where adult life started.  And the people?  These are the indelible faces of those you started life with"

To forget your high school years is to amputate a major part of yourself.  Tonight is a night for remembering: the scent of the lonesome pine and the tang of the salty sea has called many of us back to Maine, and our native Portland.

So, I invite you to stroll with me for a few minutes... to close your eyes and go back, even back a bit before high school to get our bearings straight.  Let's go back before the Internet, before suicide bombings, aids and herpes, before semi-automatics and crack.  Let's go way back, before Wal-Mart and other inconceivably huge stores, before Sega or Super Nintendo, or cell phones.

Back then, when our only phones were black dial ones tethered to the wall.  Back then, when nearly everyone's Mom was at home when we kids returned from school, when a quarter was a decent allowance, when all of our male teachers wore neckties, and female teachers never wore slacks.  Do you remember when Dick Clark's American Bandstand was a must-see, and when you'd not step on a crack or you'd break your Mother's back?

Memory, as a process, is by definition selective.  And, time and memory together, particularly memories of 1952-1956 from the perspective of 2006 can be distorted, highly inflated in importance, or negatively undervalued.  Authenticity is on trial when memory is at the bar.

But the memories I'll speak of in a moment effortlessly came flooding back when I brainstormed.  Each of my classmates here could easily have come up with a different constellation of memories with, I'm sure, some overlapping here and there.  Please come with me now for a brief dip into the great cultural pool of the past...

Do you remember going to the Cinema theater at Woodford's Corner - or for that matter, any theater, and seeing, in some kind of combination, cartoons, the Movietone newsreel, either a Superman, or Batman, or Buck Rogers short feature, plus two full-length features and paying the royal sum of 12 cents?

For those of us who enjoyed a beer (a beer under the radar, so to speak), it cost 15 cents for a tall glass with a frosty head; there were even a few places, one at Morrill's Corner I remember, that sold "dimeys" - ten cent beers.  One hallowed place some of us called home, a place whose slogan was "the clams you eat today slept last night in Casco Bay." was Anthony's which was owned by the very popular Tony DiMillo whose floating restaurant many of you were on this afternoon.

Is there anybody in this room who has not been to the submarine races, and, to mix a metaphor, used baseball lingo in a coded manner to describe romantic activity?  Or, is there anyone here who has not felt apprehensive and thrilled at the same time to be close, dancing with a partner in the gym, maybe at a sock dance, or maybe at one of the huge dances at the Armory on Friday evenings when we might wear saddle shoes.

How did we get to those sub races, or those dances?  Quite possibly in that dream car of the fifties, the Chevy Impala, that could do anything: cruise, peal our, or lay rubber; or maybe we got there in a Gordon Simond's super funky, hearse-turned-car that was always parked in front of the high school

Of course, we remember buying our clothes and shoes at Benoit's, Porteous Mitchell's, and Rines, and our jewelry at Days, and Rogers; and recollect going out for a special occasion to the Roma Cafe, or to Danny Wong's Pagoda where fresh kumquats were served, or to the Puritan Restaurant for ice cream in gorgeous silver dishes.  But, the primus inter pares (the first among equals) of fine dining places was Judy Valle's family' restaurant, Valle's, the magnet that would draw us in before or after any Big Event.  If you were really hungry, and wanted as my beloved father would say, to put on the feedbag, and you had a hankering for deli, then 55 cents would get you a killer "Hot Pastrami Special" at George's.

Pre-eminent among all eating spots, spots where we liked to hang out, to see, and be seen, were Meyer Marcus' Miss Portland Diner, and Angelone's.  The hamburgers at the diner were "delish", and Jack Angelone's smiling face and skillful schmoozing were as eagerly expected as his wonderful pizza.

Hey, friends, speaking of food, do you remember those field trips we took in elementary school, particularly ones to Cushman's Bakery, where the fantastic aroma was overwhelming, and where we were given sample bags to take home?  And, who of us has not marveled at the exciting array of penny candy treats awaiting us a Patch's, or Winship's, or as well at Gertz's, that great hangout store across the street from Deering High School...

Leaving food, and moving to sports, I have three memories, in ascending order of importance, to share with you.  First some of us bowled at the YMCA to pick up gym credit.  We would us softball-sized balls against candlepins, and I'm told that that might still be an option as some alleys today, but the real curiosity, pre-automation, was the use of human beings as pin setters. We students would be the setters, and would literally have to dodge balls!!  And, secondly, you skated at the Oaks, didn't you?  We all skated at the Oaks, with its duck house, and ducks and geese, and glided along the ice to the lilting rhythm of "Frankie and Johnnie Were Lovers".

Oh, Yes, some bowled, some skated, but all of us, 1952-1956, who lived, breathed, and walked the earth, went to the Deering-Portland football games on Thanksgiving Day.  No matter how much our Portland High rivals used that exciting duo of Willy Greenlaw and Frank Nappi, their efforts were very often thwarted by the likes of some great gridiron men who are present with us this evening, and are ready, I'm quite sure, to suit right up at the drop of a helmet.  We all salute members of our 1956 team, please stand in place when I call your name: Bobby Conlogue, Bobby Blair, Russ Brown, Don Miller, John Plummer, and Dougie Stone.  In our eagerness to watch these guys play, many of us will remember a certain hole in the fencing that we conveniently used to sneak into the Stadium...

Not that I've whetted your memory appetite, let me offer you a handful of snapshots of our days in the "hood", aka Deering High.  I see that it is "Moldy Monday", a short lived, ill-advised wise guy stunt that had a bold clique of seniors, on Mondays, wearing rolled-up tee shirts and perfecting their sneers a la Marlon Brando in "The Wild One".

Guess what?  I just passed Russ and Judy in the hall and congratulated them for being our new Mayor and Miss Deering.  Right behind them is the majestic Miss Frances Hueston, herself, who some of us believed had actually known Shakespeare personally.  She is accompanied by an equally imposing teacher, the commanding presence of Miss Elizabeth Ring - she of the most dreaded multiple choice quizzes, inimitable in personality and dress.

As I leave the hallway, I see a sight familiar to all Deeringites, that international-level corridor couple of Mike Littlefield and Nancy Kapp giving each other a smoochie.  And, speaking of romance, I catch the slightest glimpse of Pop Manly and Fancesca Peruzzi secretly acting like dignified lovebirds, I won't tell...

That class I am heading for is Geometry with Mr. Magnion, also our Senior Class Advisor, whose favorite method of communicating with inattentive students (even attentive ones) was by tossing a piece of chalk at them.  He was very accurate.

And now, dear classmates, two more snapshots from my gallery remain, and one of them is of Linwood Elliott - a unique presence in so many of our lives and to whom we dedicated our 1956 Yearbook.  "Death to Tojo!" and "War is Hell!" he might exclaim after exuberantly making a point, but the phrase I will always associate with him, and that he'd often repeat, is "Your more fun than a barrel of monkeys!"  And, Mr. Elliott, I'd say that applied to you as well.

My last picture, enjoying the pride of place, is our Senior Class Trip to Washington were we gave our chaperones, Coach Caminiti in particular, one hell of a run for the money.  This was a time where (to tweak a phrase) what happened on the bus, and in Washington, stayed on the bus, and in Washington...  And this was the moment in history of the "Goldfarb Maneuver".

One of my dearest friends, and someone quite dear to our Class, Matt "Bunny" Goldfarb, cleverly arranged to have his picture taken twice in our official Washington Trip photo.  The first time, he initially appeared at the furthermost end where the 180 degree, time-lapse photo began, and then by racing, he beat the camera as it arrived at the opposite side where, for the second time, his picture was taken.  It was a magnificent moment in our class' history and we owe it all to you, Matt!

Matt's prank was a youthful one.  It is often said, with a wry smile, that "Youth is a precious commodity wasted on the young."  There is no denying its powerful attractiveness to us as we advance into our late sixties.  But, I believe we can always draw on our Youth, and that, along with the poet, we can easily conjure up that time when we were youngsters, can savor the freedom of aimlessly walking the streets on balmy days whistling a tune and smelling the freshness of the new day before us.

Appropriately, I trust you'll agree, I conclude my remarks by reading the last two stanzas from the poem "My Lost Youth" by Portland's own Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Strange to me now are the forms I meet,

When I visit the deer old town:

But the native air is pure and sweet,

And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,

As they balance up and down,

Are singing the beautiful song,

Are sighing and whispering still:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. 

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,

And with joy that is almost pain.

My heart goes back to wander there,

And among the dreams of the days that were,

I find my lost youth again.

And the strange and beautiful song,

The groves are repeating it still:

"A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts"

THANK YOU VERY MUCH...
---Eliot Rich---

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