By Sheila Orysiek
SAN DIEGO — Our Graduation in June 1959 took place on a typical hot humid Philadelphia day. I remember the lengthy discussion of what we (the girls) should wear under our graduation gowns, and I think the consensus was – full length slips. And, white heels for sure. There were so many of us – 476! We filled the bleachers on the stage of Northeast High School.
When we first entered that brand new school – some of us had been attending Lincoln High School while NE was being built. The neighborhood was overwhelmingly Jewish with the main street, Castor Avenue, having several delicatessens, bakeries offering Hamentaschen, Challah, bagels and all the other fresh baked goodies Jews expect. The center of activity the Oxford Circle Jewish Community Center.
Many of our teachers were also Jewish and on the High Holy Days the school was virtually empty, with the few Christian students brought together to occupy only a few classrooms. While we got those days off, it also precluded any of the Jewish students from winning attendance rewards.
Our new school was beautiful – but figuring out the floor plan built around two figure “8’s” kept us running. Some of the teachers were confused, too. I remember one boy who somehow ended up outside in one of those figure eight spaces and couldn’t get back in, to the general merriment of hundreds of kids who watched from the classrooms that surrounded it.
The lockers were not quite ready, as well as some parts of the cafeteria. There was a big question as to where to buy bus tokens – but as I recall it was finally located in a small room just outside the cafeteria.
We never saw a police officer on campus except to remind us during an assembly program to cross the street at the traffic light. The only drugs were an occasional aspirin for a headache. Chewing gum was a major offense, and smoking in the bathroom – well, that merited suspension. Talking out of turn could mean a detention, and disrespecting a teacher was virtually unknown. My biggest worry was not remembering my gym locker combination and facing the gym teacher with that grim news. I still dream about that.
I don’t recall any violence; certainly no weapons. I played hooky once with my best friend – we went to my house and ate pizza at ten in the morning and spent the rest of the day very bored. We also ate Philly steak sandwiches on the way to school – seven in the morning – and survived that gastric assault.
I couldn’t wait to graduate. I loved the thought of never again needing a hall pass, or having to ask permission to go to the restroom, or worrying about being late to class, or being told where to sit, or bringing in a note from my parents to excuse an absence or having to eat my lunch with a spoon! (Whatever happened to all the forks?)
When we all gathered in the girls’ gym to put on our caps and gowns – on that hot Graduation Day – our class advisor spoke briefly about having class reunions in the future years – she mentioned a 25th reunion. I couldn’t even imagine it. Twenty five years in the future when I would be forty three? No, not me – not any of us. We would always have those young bodies we took so for granted.
And here we are celebrating our 50th. Who could imagine it on that hot day in June when we all stood together for the last time? So many different futures, so many layers of success and yes, disappointments; careers, travel, families, dreams realized balanced by dreams that didn’t quite make it. How many of us traveled the path we originally thought we would? How many of us ended up on paths we couldn’t imagine? Doors that opened, and some that didn’t – which often wound up being a blessing in disguise.
Would we like to relive the last fifty years? Well, as much as I enjoyed most of it, no I wouldn’t – too much energy consumed and sometimes wasted. Once is enough, I think. However, there are a few days I would like to have back and that hot day in June – to be once again in the girls’ gym – all of us together – innocent, happy, excited to get on with life after school – is one of them.
By now most of us are probably retired, have grandchildren, and have said a last goodbye to our parents. There are some classmates who are no longer with us and at least one who never had the chance: sweet Wendy Smith who died in an automobile accident on a slick road at the age of 16.
On that June day the path ahead was exciting, misty and perhaps a tad frightening. But looking back it was oh so quickly traveled. I sit here reading the souvenir book of the 50th reunion just recently held and am sad to see the growing list of those for whom the adventure of life has been completed. Among them the very handsome young man with whom I enjoyed all the activities of graduation week and the name of a glowing young woman who wrote a loving message in my yearbook.
I surely hope that the majority of our dreams came true, and the majority of disasters averted – or at least safely negotiated. And that what is left of the road ahead is as tranquil or as exciting as each of us would wish.
Happy 50th to Us: the 112 class of Northeast High School, Philadelphia
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Orysiek is a freelance writer based in San Diego