from Kathleen Clement :
Class of '65, Alumni Day at Westtown School, May 14, 2005.
Graduates from myriad classes gathered on the campus. The grassy parking lot was huge and sparsely
filled when we arrived for the General Meeting at 11 am. We walked to the auditorium through dappled sunlight
under trees we remember.
The Westtown Wind Ensemble played 3 pieces that got the program started with youthful exuberance.
John Baird enumerated our school's special attributes and asked for more support for Westtown, financial and
otherwise. Westtown has only 21% of graduates that contribute dough. Improved faculty salaries seem to be the
most pressing need.
Gifts were presented by the classes of 1955, 1980, and 1945.
The family of the Westtown graduate who invented the Slinky generously presented Slinky Jr.s to everyone, and
provided light-hearted fun.
Breezes blew the side curtains at the auditorium doors into the room, a festive and airy note.
The Roll Call of the Decades was taken. Onstage the beautiful elderly woman in the redbird jacket represented
her class of 1925 and drew the most enthusiastic and appreciative applause as Westtown's oldest alumna. N.B., she
was attending her 80th reunion!
On the Alma Mater, luckily we got to sing twice the chorus that many of us know. That middle part separated the
lambs from the chops as always.
On to lunch and happy milling with our classmates, smiles and greetings all round. A couple of us showed up for
the first time since leaving school, and it was especially good to see you. We are old enough to prefer shade.
We exchanged family and personal news and enjoyed talking with the spouses. Spouses who come to Alumni Day deserve
something extra in the way of appreciation.
People scattered over the campus to see whomever and this and that.
Westtown looked beautiful of course. The dorm improvements have kept the flavor of the floors as I remember them.
Balderston House for 9th grade girls perhaps adds a symmetrical experience to that of 9th grade boys at Stone House.
Then to dinner at Debbie and Graham's. For me this was absolutely the high point of the reunion. A large parking
area was freshly mowed. The house was open and welcoming, the temperature most comfortable, and the food excellent.
Best of all we settled into a long evening of relaxed visiting with each other. You who were not able or inclined to
attend missed something very special. Do come to the 45th!
After a lot of visiting over delicious food and lubricious libation, a group of fellows played music. They were
Bill Eaton and Tom Manning on guitar, Dave Bailey on mandolin and Dave Burgess on piano. Tim Craig rocked the house
when he played guitar while gyrating through the crowd like a 60's rock and roller. Steve Curwood played 'We Shall
Overcome' that EVERYONE sang, and it brought back something important that seems to be in hibernation these days.
After the great music, and it's too bad a tape recorder was not secreted somewhere for that, standing circles developed
on the porch and in the house where various tellers regaled us with stories.
As far as I know there was a minimum of political discussion. Probably we mostly agree. Two people concurred that
our president is the political anti-Christ.
Dave Burke told one about Teacher Rachel. A student was brought to school by a parent from Montana. He entered Central
wearing cowboy boots. Rachel said you can't wear cowboy boots in Central. Reply: Well, I'm not going barefoot.
Dave Cope told how he, Larry Carter, and their roommate tormented Master Einer in Stone House. They would leave their
lights on after hours. When Master Einer would whip open their door to chastise them, a Rube Goldberg device consisting of
ropes, a dangling chair and various other parts would flip the light off before Master Einer could get the door open and say
anything, leaving him in the dark in more ways than one. Larry's scientific expertise was apparently instrumental. We
found this hilarious late at night with Dave's gift of comedic delivery. [Dave, you told a great story; I hope this is
the one!]
Likewise, Dave Burke and Bill Eaton egged each other on while describing a post graduation canoe trip they took with
Hawkins and Tatum to the Minnesota Boundary Waters. The van's engine burned up while Hawkins was driving, and there was
delay and expense to install a new one. The trip over waters and portages was long and at some point during their return,
Hawkins realized that he had left his wallet on a picnic table WAY back (was it in Canada?). Upon drawing straws to see
who would accompany him back for the wallet (which was there by the way), Bill drew the short straw, and was sure he was
the 'loser' because he had to do all the extra paddling with Hawkins. Burke and Tatum were meanwhile portaging 50 lb.
tents and an 85 lb. canoe, ETC, and only just finished that job when Eaton and Hawkins returned from 'a nice little canoe trip'.
Dave pronounced Bill the winner after all.
OK, my anecdotal reporting lacks the late night hilarity that we experienced at the time, but if you had been there
your neck muscles might have hurt from laughing and smiling. We'd love to hear Hawkins' and Tatum's side of the story.
We finally left Debbie's and Graham's, escorted to our cars in the dark by flashlight.
After a gorgeous day and evening
of perfect comfort, the sky clouded over, and a sprinkle of rain fell before midnight. By then, the rain added to the
cozy camaraderie. The Miles are the best of hosts and they better not move to Patagonia, (either Arizona or Chile),
and deprive us of our reunion headquarters.
Thanks again, Debbie and Graham.
Attendees:
Dave Bailey, Susie Bissell, Betsy Brett, Dave Burgess, Beth Guthrie Burke, Dave Burke, Penny Claghorn, Kathy Clement,
Dave Cope, June Cope, Tim Craig, Steve Curwood, Bill and Janet Eaton, Livy Heathcote, Chris Normart Hoenstine and
John Hoenstine, Joe Landers, Liz Kettenring Maier and Jim Maier, Tom and Eleanor Manning, Debbie Brown Miles and
Graham Miles, Lynn Carll Moffett and Bill Moffett, Anne Balderston Peery, Chuck and Pat Rhoads, Bill Telfair,
Peter Woodrow and Linda Hornig.
Forgive me if I forgot your name. KEC, May 20, 2005
from David Bailey :
We had a fun music session Saturday evening at Graham and Debby's. David Burgess did quite a good job on the piano and
plays well by ear, Bill Eaton was playing fiddle tunes (St. Ann's Reel, Little Beggar Man, Whiskey Before Breakfast, etc.)
on the guitar, Tom Manning played the guitar and sang a few of his own songs (one that he wrote for George), Steve Curwood
played the guitar and led us in some old folk songs, Tim Craig played his little travel guitar and did a rousing
rendition of Hey Good Lookin', Peter Woodrow led us in some of the many songs he knows, and I played along with my mandolin.
from Peter Wooodrow :
Westtown Class of 1965 40th Reunion: A Personalized Report
Caveat emptor: Well, you get what you pay for, right? So the buyer (reader) beware, 'cause you didn't
pay anything for this one. Walter twisted my arm and, what with my tricky rotator cuff, I had to say yes.
I am thinking that a report on a highschool reunion has to be a subjective thing. I mean, apart from
accounting for who was there and alleging that a good time was had by all, what more can you say, without delving
into realms of individual psychosis, or bittersweet nostalgia? In effect, what happened in May 2005 was a
direct reflection of what happened in May 1965 and the previous however-many-years-you-attended Westtown.
After forty years, people turn out to be remarkably the same-but also different in some strange and mostly
wonderful ways. But enough of philosophy (sophistry?); let's get on with it!
It was one of those picture perfect Alumni Days: bright sun, but not steamy hot, Westtown showing off
its best environmental attributes to good effect. Sure, it was "a dark and stormy night" later on, but for most
of the day we were treated to flawless weather. This turned out to be a problem, as those of us of the fair-skinned
variety are supposed to lurk in the shadows-and our designated lunch tables were placed in the full sun on the
South Lawn. 'Course, we empowered types, who came of age in the sixties, simply picked up the tables and moved
into the nearest shade, invading the space of those having their mere 35th Reunion.
Reunions are-almost by definition-all talk and precious little action. Should we think about a hike or a
canoe trip or a work day on our old lake shelter or ____(fill in your idea here)_____ for our 45th? Well, people
talked pretty much without cease, both at the school and later at Graham and Debby's: "What are you doing now? Your
kids are HOW old? Really, six grandchildren already? How were you able to retire at age 45? Oh, you live only ten
minutes from me; how come we never get together? Too bad you live on the other side of the country (another planet...)
or we could do this more often, right? How many millions are YOU inheriting (or not!)? Whatever happened to (fill in
name of long-lost classmate)?
I would provide the responses to those questions, but my sense is that "ya had to have been there." Others
may feel moved to share interesting tidbits from their reunion experience, or we could send out another questionnaire,
asking, "What was the most shocking/moving/irritating/soooo typical/boring thing you heard on May 14th?" The result
would NOT be worth publishing, but might serve as raw material for extortion.
Other Things That Happened...
There was a memorial service for Teacher Rachel Letchworth in the morning. At least one member of our class
attended (out of respect or prurient curiosity, I cannot say), while several others boycotted. Apparently, this was a
generalized pattern, as RKL was a controversial figure (understatement?), and other members of the school community
chose to attend or pointedly not. Reports suggested that ministry during the service covered the gamut of Teacher
Rachel stories, including incidents when she was touchingly supportive and others when she was downright aggravating.
For some she was refreshingly direct, while to others she carried "plain speaking" to an abusive extreme. To
illustrate the latter tendency, later in the day, one '65 classmate related a very recent episode that would curl
your hair, if you had any left. I will skip the details, but suffice it to report that, upon meeting the gentleman
friend of the aforementioned-but-not-named classmate (then aged 55), RKL looked him in the eye and asked, "And where
are you sleeping tonight?" Ah, well, they don't make them like that anymore!
During the evening at the Miles' place, there were several musical interludes. For some reason, it seems that only
male members of the class are allowed to play instruments-or at least the limited sample from that evening would support
this thesis. Anyway, the boys with their toys (Bailey, Eaton, Miles, Burgess, Craig, and occasionally Curwood) played
mandolin, piano and assorted guitars. Occasionally the band deigned to let others sing along, in which case women and
non-instrument-playing men joined in as well-mostly the old sixties tunes we all know so well and can perhaps remember
one verse and the chorus.
Please be forewarned that something in the Canadian water has turned Tim Craig into an extrovert on occasions like this.
You will see pictures on this website of him strutting his stuff with guitar in hand. I only wish you could get the
full audio/visual effect! No doubt next time we will do video clips for the web.
I will set aside the slightly ironic tone to say that it was, indeed, great to see people again-some of whom I
had not seen in forty years. In particular, it was good to reconnect with Ann Balderston Peery. You may remember
that she disappeared our senior year, and went off on adventures, about which I think she has remarked a little on
the web page. This was the first time any of us had seen her since then, and, speaking for myself, it closed a
long-open loop.
On a crass financial note, one small clutch of classmates did some plotting and scheming about the expected
class gift at our 50th Reunion. At the Alumni Association meeting in the morning, the class of '55 announced that they
had scraped together close to $200K. One dreamer among us alleged that we could raise a million! Do I hear two million?
In any case, we have a scant ten years to figure it out.
Finally, I should report that my trophy girlfriend (her expression, not mine), survived the whole occasion with
her humor intact. However, this may have been due to a certain aged liquid provided by President-for-Life Eaton, in large
measure-or perhaps the measures she took of it were large.
Barely respectfully submitted, Peter Woodrow
|