From our Class President...

The Class of '58--Together Yet Again, Together Still [April 2019]

In the spring of 1991 I was invited into a ceremony at Schurz and offered "the freedom of the building." I was given, that is, the privilege to wander through those halls, without a "pass, to go anywhere in that memorable building, to see it again in all of its angles and turns. My wife, the former Judy Sonn, was of course going with me. But we were delighted when two of my boyhood friends, Paul Villano and Chuck Brown, agreed to come along with us.  The most sobering differences struck us as soon as we entered  the building: First, there was a metal detector. It was there obviously to  deal with the risk of guns and knives brought into the school. And second, there was  a day-care center--and you heard that right: a center to take daily care of thebabies borne by the students, the teenagers who were going to classes in Schurz.

As we passed classrooms and shops and lockers, so many memories were triggered. The building seemed as structurally sound as ever, the floors and walls were clear and clean; but there was an air of beauty faded. Paul caught the sense of the matter here, as he so often did. He said that he hadn't been hoping for something dazzling, but "I just want to see it back the way it was." We could imagine a quiet building, with Jim Dean and a friend sitting in chairs as hall guards, requesting to  see your pass as you walked by.  You  needed to explain why you happened to be walking about the halls when you were expected to be in class. That was quite far from a scene of guns and babies in  the building.  I recall a  study from  years ago saying that the main complaint about disorders in the schools in the 1950's involved such charges as: jumping out of place in line, yelling in  the  halls, and chewing gum. To  ask  to "see it back the way it was" was to ask for a shift in what they would call today another "culture." It was plain to anyone with eyes to see how that culture had changed, and while it had, no doubt, its redeeming parts, there was a sense of things just at the edge of coming apart.

I took a picture of Judy that day in front of the building, for we had  come to know more and more of that building since the days we nearly resided there. The building can be found in books on architecture as a  notable example of the Prairie style, designed by one of the respected architects of the period,Dwight Perkins. In one of my  books (The  Return  of George Sutherland) I  drew an analogy to the design of the building and the mind from which it had sprung: This was a building that essentially framed our lives, as lived, for four years. It would keep serving up surprises as we would encounter friends coming in and out the Triangle. We lived  there for four years, and yet few  of us found ourselves wondering: Who had done this? From whose mind and sensibility did this lovely, appealing building come? I used the analogy to say that every day, without quite realizing it, we were living in a framework of law that George Sutherland and his colleagues on the Supreme Court managed to preserve for us; and we lived without any awareness on the part of most people of what he looked like--and what he had done. But Judy and I did track down a picture of Dwight Perkins.

In the bio sketch I dashed off for our booklet, I recalled that Judy and I were married in our senior year at Illinois (Urbana), and we had been married  for 53 years when she died suddenly at her office in Washington in November 2014. It took a long while of course to get over the jolt of her death and her absence, and I have to  admit that the sense of her absence hovered overhead as we suddenly came upon the possibility of organizing a 60th Reunion for our Class. I found it hard to see this as something I could savor without Judy there.

But then I looked back at the photos I snapped when were together for the 50th reunion.  I have pictures of Judy truly lit up when she was suddenly in the presence again of Margie Campanella and Judy [Kaufman] Sadler. There were pictures of Jo Pesch [Kopplin] and Lois Kolber [Samuels], just sparkling and even more handsome with the years. There was a melancholy photo of Al Kagan, looking so joyous, for he was newly remarried. He would have a heart attack only a  year or two  later, and I  couldn't believe he was lost to  us.  And lost too was our beloved Rick Ayesse, Paul Peterson, and others. They died too young, and so I find myself even more grateful for the friends who are still with us. About a year ago I was giving a talk in Lubbock, Texas, and Larry Love drove out from Amarillo to take me back home with him. Paul and Larry and I were in kindergarten together and I felt that it was such a blessing that I can reach out and still find them there.

When we came together in our 25th reunion, I think Jim Vinci was the earliest grandparent in our Class. By now Jim is probably the leading Great Grandparent, and I would love to see a photo of the whole ensemble together. But we are reminded that, since that time also, we have absorbed the losses  and the wounds and disappointments that come along with time. Judy Sadler and Gerry Petak have lost spouses, as I've lost Judy, and there are so  many  tears to be shed and stories to be told here.  And yet, the remarkable thing is that people "choose life"; they're willing to summon the energy to make a trip and see again the friends who have become, over years, strangers--only to see everything awakened again when the faces and the names come back into sight! It was Gerry Petak's love and energy that got us moving here at a time when I was still held back, in uncertainty, because of Judy's death. But as I took up the tasks of the project, I began to write letters to classmates on the list--to Ron Wozniak, Sharlene Stevenson, and others, hoping they would be able to come. I had a lovely note back from Sharlene, who is quite busy with her husband settling into another house. But once in touch, we may be in touch again, and that too may be part of the alchemy of the reunion. I haven't seen Gerry in years--I can’t wait to see him, along with the friends who have shown such gladness at making the trip. And I can't believe I'll see Joe Marzec again! And Randy Doney! But the problem is: I want to hear all the stories, and see some of the pictures of the families, and there won't be time. Which means: that some of us may have to try to stay in touch through the wonders of email and the terrors of Facebook.