The AIRPORT HILTON is a little SE of 494 & 34th Avenue.
JOHN BERNINGHAUSEN'S SPEECH HE PRESENTED AT THE REUNION
To the Class of 1960, Roosevelt High School:
50 Years Later, Still Going Strong
It’s a special night! How lucky we are to be reunited here. Reconnecting with old friends but also getting to know people we now wish we had gotten to know a lot better back in those high school years now half a century ago.
Probably each of us experienced those three memorable years, the fall of 1957 to the spring of 1960, in a variety of ways. Some of us arrived excited and happy, found his or her niche, quickly made friends and joined in, perhaps felt right at home within a few weeks. There were others, I was one, who arrived feeling a bit less sure of themselves, maybe a bit gawky, too skinny, worried that I probably wasn’t going to be all that cool, not sure just how well I would fit in. Others started up their high school years already preoccupied with taking care of some grown-up obligations at home or holding down after school jobs that meant there was little time for clubs or sports or other after-school activities.
That first sophomore year, 10th grade, was something of a mixed bag, was it not? For many of us, it was not exactly the easiest year of our lives.
That very first day of high school actually turned out better than expected, despite getting lost and flustered trying to find one’s new homeroom, having trouble with coping with the lock on the newly assigned locker, eventually feeling the relief of spotting some familiar face of a classmate from Nokomis, or Folwell or Sanford Jr. High Schools. Looking up to the tall and imposing and impossibly grown-up big seniors, those august 12th graders. They seemed to know everyone and everything, they were never nervous or flustered or lost, oh no, not them. We had been the big cheeses and school leaders in 9th grade, but suddenly there we were at the bottom of the ladder all over again. But hey, don’t think twice, it’s all right. We were only 16 and high school was just starting up.
Sixteen candles make a lovely light
But not as bright as your eyes tonight
(1958 The Crests)
We learned how to not go up the down staircase and down the up, how to get a pink pass in order to be out in the hallway after the bell had rung.
The Russians launched the first satellite into space in October that year, Sputnik, and suddenly there was a supposed missile gap, the Russian military threat was seen as menacing, those damned reds seemed to be catching up with us, and US high schools were abruptly under pressure to kick into high gear and produce lots more scientists and engineers. The Civil Rights movement was heating up in down south and we began to hear of a young preacher named Martin Luther King.
American ingenuity and innovation led the world, how could we have been so lucky?----there we were growing up in the era where our country had emerged from the devastation of World War II as the richest, the strongest, the most influential and respected country in the world----but growing up in that America we were. By the late 1960s our scientists, engineers and aviators were to land an astronaut on the moon. But back then in 1958 or 1959 could any of us even begin to imagine back then the world of today? Lasers and knee replacements, digital cameras and CD records, personal computers, cell phones, the internet, MP3s, DVDs, face-book and texting? We have mapped the human genome. Babies can be cloned. Simply amazing!
The 1950s was first decade of Rock and Roll, we listened to top 40 radio, we were going through an unprecedented rise in the standard of living, for the first time ever most of America’s teenagers actually had enough pocket money to constitute an important market segment.
Remember the hay rides and sleigh rides, the bon fires, the slumber parties, talking on the phone to a friend until your ear was aching and your parents were threatening to disconnect the phone, remember that? And there was, of course, all that endless gossip, who liked whom, who was going to ask whom out, who was breaking up, did you hear that so and so is GOING STEADY? Oh, my god, she’s so lucky, he’s a hunk and a half!
Riding around in cars having fun, going nowhere, doing very little but burning up gas and time, listening to the radio, hoping that something exciting was just around the next corner only it never was. Hanging out at Beek’s Pizza and Charlie’s drive-in, the constantly evolving networks of friendship, we called them cliques if we weren’t feeling included, then gradually starting to date or not.
The smell of burning leaves in the crisp fall air as we walked in small noisy groups to cheer for the Teddies at the Friday football game. The movies we went to at the Nile and the Riverview.
Then there were the dances, major events in a sixteen year old’s life. Slow dancing, oh boy did I like slow dancing, but there were times when it was with someone you weren’t all that crazy about, all the while watching the one you really did want to dance with over there across the dance floor as he or she danced with someone else. Then trying to be cheerful and smile laugh away those bittersweet feelings that were heightened while listening to the sound Elvis’s rich velvety voice crooning:
Are you lonesome tonight
Do you miss me tonight
Are you sorry we drifted apart?
Does your memory stray to that bright summer day
When I kissed you and called you sweetheart?
There were, of course, classes to attend, homework assignments to get done, tests to take. Some of the teachers seemed friendly and warm, others were cool and distant and strict. But for a lot of us there was at least one or two special adults at Roosevelt, the teacher or coach or counselor who somehow got through to us and made a difference, who showed us that he or she cared enough about us to try to help us get ready for something beyond high school. Quite a number of us would later become teachers ourselves and then we learned just how tiring but rewarding teaching can be.
{Recognize any of our former teaches who might be present}
Mr. Jack Newton, our former English teacher, is here with us tonight. Mr. Newton, please stand up so we can recognize you.
There was student council, the Board of Governors, the sports teams (and let’s not forget the athletic teams were generally a serious contender for high honors in most sports most years), the pep fests, the talent shows. There was working for the school newspaper, on the Sagamore staff, for the audio-visual crew, the Pep Club. There was homecoming and winter sports day, Hi-C, FHA, the work program, the pilots club, Blue Tri, Silver Tri, The sportsman club, the various academic clubs such as Spanish and French, German, Latin or Russian, the creative writing club that Mr. Newton advised, world affairs, debate, chess and the rest.
And who could ever forget the Rockettes and the Drill Team? Ladies, I trust you’ll forgive me if I hereby recall and acknowledge that from the teenaged male’s perspective, those gorgeous bare legs of yours were as riveting for us as was the precision of your choreography.
And then there was the music, we really had some great musical groups with the choir that was led by Clayton Hutchens, the choristers, the male choir and the women’s choir, how they could sing! There was the orchestra, the concert band which filled the auditorium with great music while out on the football field our toe-tapping, foot-stomping marching band played and marched and did us proud.
My old friend and our classmate, Russ Peterson, a tremendously talented musician, was president of the band and the orchestra and lead sax in the dance band. Let’s give Russ and Reuben Ristrom and Dick Ramberg a grateful round of applause for the wonderful music they contributed tonight.
I can still recall so vividly those warm Minnesota summer evenings as we drove through the hot, humid air, riding in the car of a friend since an unsympathetic father or mother wouldn’t let us take the family car out that night. Of course from time to time we squabbled and flared up at our parents, we were teenagers. That’s what teenagers do, right? We listened to our generation’s new music, naturally our parents couldn’t stand most of the songs we liked such as Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen and Johnny B. Goode, Little Richard singing Lucille, and…wait for it…..
Take out the papers and the trash,
Or you don’t get no spending cash,
If you don’t scrub the kitchen floor,
You ain’t going to rock and roll no more.
Yackety Yak, Don’t talk back!
Don’t you give me no dirty looks,
Your father’s hip, he knows what cooks,
Just tell your hoodlum friends outside,
You ain’t got time to take a ride.
Yackety Yak, Don’t talk back!
[The Coasters. 1957]
Back then, we guys sometimes dreamed of wearing a white sport coat and pink carnation, getting all dressed up for the dance, maybe even taking to the Prom Sherry Baby or Diana or Barbara Ann, Claudette, Maybelline or Pretty Pretty Peggy Sue. To me going to the Prom with “Runaround Sue” sounded great. But no no, that wasn’t any of you.
.
And then our three years together all came to an end, it was ending, for some the end of high school was arriving way too soon, for others it had seemed way too long.
There’s a time for joy
A time for tears
A time we’ll treasure through the years
We’ll remember always
Graduation Day.
[The Beach Boys]
We split up and went our separate hundred different ways.
Sixteen candles did make a lovely light,
Sixty-eight candles still brightly glow here tonight.
The important thing is that we have come through, we are warmed by the light of all these sixty-eight candles, there is still this bond among us. What does it matter that we’ve grown older and changed, grown bald or gray, added some wrinkles, put on some extra pounds, had to abandon or grow out of some youthful illusions, taken some blows, made some bad decisions and had to work our way out of them? Maybe, just maybe, we gained some wisdom, mellowed and grew a bit kinder, a little more tolerant along the way?
Reading through the profiles and the obituaries on the website that Leo Kurtz was so kind as to set up for us, I’d say that the Class of 1960, Theodore Roosevelt High School, has not done too bad. No, in fact, I’d have to say we’ve done more than all right. All that service to community, to church, to volunteer organizations and charities, in local government and on school boards, not to mention the service to our country rendered in military uniform. That’s not to be sneezed at.
{Regrettably I omitted reading the following tribute to our reunion committee in the interest of trying to cut things short: And speaking of service, on behalf of all of us here tonight, I’d like to express our collective gratitude and appreciation to each member of the reunion committee who organized this terrific event and without whom none of this would be happening; ask them to stand and be recognized by all of us, their grateful classmates: John Ramberg, Lynne Maher Foster, Jackie Bluml Moriarty, Karyle Hanson, Leo Kurtz, Margaret VanHeel, Nancy Dejoy Erickson, Lou Reich Schany, Bruce Bachler, Carol Hansen Gibbs, Phyllis Sandvig Halvorson and Sharon Quist Siegrist.}
Our parents and our grandparents lived through some pretty tough times. They've been a hard act to follow. Most of us were born during the first and scariest year of World War II. It was not an easy time to be bringing a child into the world, but they did and here we are almost seventy years later. A lot has changed since then. Our grandparents and our parents left us pretty large shoes to fill. It will be up to our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren to try to decide how well we filled them, how well our generation maintained all the good traditions of our forebears and the past century’s achievements.
Be that as it may, we didn’t go riding off with the hoodlums of Yakety yak (or I don’t think many of us did so), we did go on into responsible jobs, got some more training and education and on-the-job experience, a lot of us got married (even if not a few of us needed a second or even a third try before we finally got it right). We have cared for aging parents, some of us were still raising up our children while dealing with a parent in failing health. Others of us helped out with nephews and nieces and neighbors’ children, reaching back again and again to lend a helping hand to someone going through a tough time or confronted with a challenging need.
The members of this class have made a difference. We include people with the guts and perseverance and vision it takes to start up and/or keep going a business, large or small. Others have produced, operated or repaired complex machinery, served our country in the military, gone into construction and built buildings. Among our ranks are to be found ministers, communicators and technicians, wholesalers, scientists and engineers, realtors, doctors, dentists, lawyers, electricians, bankers, policemen, civil servants, plumbers, artists, manufacturers, nurses, dieticians, librarians, corporate executives, music producers, office managers, consultants, athletes, transportation and logistics experts, computer scientists and programmers, insurance experts and stock brokers, psychologists, social workers, restauranteurs, chefs and travel agents, accountants, financial advisers, tree farmers and florists, musicians and performers, craftsmen and antique dealers, architects, photographers and designers, import-exporters, writers, teachers, the list goes and on and on…I know I’ve left out many other occupations and roles we’ve filled and I apologize for failing to mention them all. Are you wondering if we’ve overlooked another important occupation: we must not forget to recognize and appreciate the often unsung heroines and heroes, the homemakers, the domestic engineers, those invaluable members of society who do a lot of the heavy lifting in raising children and keeping family life healthy, solvent and happily intact. Ditto for all the involved and dedicated grandparents and great-grandparents.
Sixteen candles made a lovely light, seventy eight candles may burn less brightly but if they’re still burning ten years hence, they will surely make for another special night.
I know this has already been mentioned but I do think it bears reiterating: there are our many classmates who sadly didn’t make it to the sixty eighth candle or even more sadly whose flame has just recently gone out. We do not forget them and what they meant to their family and their friends. The fickle and capricious whirling winds of fate may have blown out those precious candles prematurely, have extinguished their flames, but wherever you are, please hear us, into the empty places you left in our hearts we still whisper, your legacy endures, your presence abides, we honor your memory, we shall hold tight to your names.
With half a century now behind us,
Our sixty-eight candles go on burning bright,
We’ve come through, we’ve done all right
we believe and have the faith,
we still have useful lives to live.
we have more light yet to give.
[Cut from the section on past history in the middle of the talk for the sake of time: Former European colonies in Africa and Asia became independentcountries. Jet airplane travel shrank the world…many more of us got passports and traveled overseas than had our parents before us. More of us went to college or technical school. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson and Simon and Garfunkle, The Grateful Dead, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, the Supremes and Motown. Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Loretta Lynn and Bruce Springsteen and Merle Haggard. We went through the long and painful decade of the Vietnam War era, important American leaders were assassinated, people wore a flower in their hair and went to San Francisco, Woodstock, Bonnie and Clyde and Star Wars. The opening up of many more professions to women, the increase in the two career family, the eternal balancing act of career and work with family life and responsibilities. Japan became the world’s second largest economy. The Berlin Wall came down, the Cold War ended, the Shah of Iran fled and died, we began to import cars and televisions and high tech products from East Asia. ESPN and satellite broadcasts. Tiananmen Square has a massacre but not long after China begins to rise as a major export economy. Walmart and Target, Walgreens and Costco, Home Depot and Best Buy. The European Union and NAFTA and NATO grew. Fidel Castro led a communist revolution in Cuba that took power while we were in 11th grade at Roosevelt, he’s still alive and his brother now is in charge. But elsewhere in Latin America many political systems have turned increasingly democratic. Global trade expands, container ships and oil tankers. Biotechnology and genetic engineering, hybrid food crops. The Public Broadcasting System and Fox News, talk radio. Casinos spring up on Indian reservations all across the country. Megabucks and Powerball and all manner of State-run lotteries to raise money for statewide expenses. American Idol and reality TV. Digitalized medical records. On-line investing and on-line gambling, sometimes hard to tell them apart. Second or even third homes. Private airplanes.Ski vacations in Utah or Switzerland. The rise of environmental consciousness, hybrid cars, global warming and offshore oil drilling became hot button issues as the polar ice cap shrank and the oil spilled out into the Gulf of Mexico.The sub-prime mortgage crisis.Over-fishing and deep well drilling pose threats to sustainable sources for food and water. The typewriter and the long-playing record joined the portable radios we used to take with us to the beach, now exotic objects our grandchildren can view and laugh about in museums of obsolete technology.]
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