CHS 63 Forum

Trish Quinn Lanphier's Forward to the 2013 Reunion Program is worth another read:

Memories of Cathedral

"Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you can hardly catch it going."

Tennessee Williams

It is a most difficult task, to reach back into the far reaches of our memories, and resur­rect some interesting, meaningful, fun facts about our lives fifty years ago. The first thing that I'm sure all of us wonder - how the heck did we get from there to here? Where did the time go?

I had occasion recently to visit our old high school. Just how old do you have to be to have your high school turned into a museum? They have a mannequin there dressed like a nun - that feels a little weird. But go upstairs, and I could almost find my old locker, and work the lock with my thumb. It all felt so familiar and actually quite agreeable. Very hard to believe so much time had passed because so little had changed. Can you not remember, like it was just yesterday, walking quickly down the halls, the feel of the hard tile underfoot, the slight echo off the metal lockers and tile walls, the hustle from one class to another, bobbing around a slower walker because you were late, a sea of really ugly green uniforms, the look of the nuns, in their black and white, that, no matter how kind or smart or interesting was the woman under­neath, still produced feelings of dread?

But when I think of Cathedral High School, and the class of 1963, I am most proud that we tried to all be friends, that we were adverse to the ideas of "clicks", that we liked smart as much as athletic, and that we were amazingly creative in our efforts to have some fun. I remember that our efforts were not appreciated by the administration. One thing we were very much aware of was the rules, and there were many. But ap­parently, unbeknownst to us at the time, we thought much like Thoreau who said "Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it." And we were no fools.

What memories!

What memories indeed. For more classmate memories, visit the page "My Favorite CHS Memories."