Memories...

Remember…

By Connie Ward Satterblom
Written for the HHS59 Ten Year Class Reunion
Saturday, June 21, 1969

…1955-56, and being freshmen?

The first day of school, and Hammond High loomed large as we sauntered up the walk with desperate casualness. Most of us were early; fearing the typical ignominy of the freshman, being late because of being lost, we used the extra time skulking inconspicuously (we hoped) around the halls looking for our homerooms.

Stomachs tightened as the halls filled -- and then came squeals of relief as we met junior high cohorts. Trading names of notorious homeroom teachers with accompanying shudders and moans, we began to relax. We were also comforted by that familiar school-opening smell of fresh wax, disinfectant, and chalk.

We lived through the first day of filling out forms, forms, forms, survived the scorn of homeroom teachers who discovered that most of us had forgotten pens, even bore up under the humiliation of some teachers' pointing us out, right in front of everyone, as dum-dums who filled out the "Where born?" blank with hospitals instead of cities, and learned to cope with combination locks and crowded lockers.

We became part of things. We joined the thousands of teenage parents of Kim, HHS's Korean son who was eleven that year. We learned how to give the illusion of walking down the halls though we were actually running; those of us who were slow learners got acquainted with HHS's court. We found out that fourth-hour lunch left us starved by day's end and that fifth-hour lunch made for a symphony by stomach-rumblers all through fourth-hour classes. We wore flat-tops, page boys, pony tails, Jantzen outfits with skirts at mid-calf in winter, piles of crinolines at mid-calf in spring, thick white bobby sox, oxfords, loafers -- and we belonged!

… 1956-57, and being sophomores?

We were old hands by then. Fall was glorious. The crisp air created a passion for the outdoors, and the same phrase was on everyone's lips - "great football weather." And it was… HHS's team, with respectable representatives from our class, captured the Northwestern Conference Championship. Sophomores took most of the major roles in the touching fall play, "The Curious Savage," earned many of the lead chairs in the Concert Band, and bagged all but one place on the debate team.

Then there were the "scandals." There were little ones, created by stricter enforcement of the "shirt-tails-in, belts-on, no DA's" rules. Someone would get nabbed in the hall, and the word would go out -- hasty shirttail stuffing would begin, and the frequent low-pants violators started keeping belts in their lockers. The big blow-up, the Alamo-Pergi purge, may look small from the distance of a decade, but it mattered a great deal then. It gave the Hammond Times something to write about, principals of other Hammond high schools something to crow about -- and to the participants, it gave a lot of grief. The club jackets disappeared, as did some of the club members, and HHS's halls were restored to pristine purple and white.

But we were sophomores and we had learned to cope. We were proud of that purple when our principal, Mr. Rapp, became Dr. Rapp. We were even prouder, with the bittersweet pride of those vanquished only after a fierce fight, when our boys, two of them playing with injuries, lost the last game of the basketball sectional to Bishop Noll.

…1957-58, and being juniors?

The vicissitudes of the previous year were forgotten as we became juniors, and the world of HHS was ours. We were upperclassmen at last and not to be held back. Some of us chose to go on the Washington, DC trip as juniors, and the year got off to a swinging start. We upheld Washington trip tradition by breaking all the rules we could -- despite chaperones spending the nights on stair landings, there was a lot of between-floors visiting, fun because it was dangerous. A record number of all-night poker games were held; the boat trip down the Potomac was spiced up not only by the usual porthold-hopping, but also by a couple of rapidly-circulating copies of Peyton Place, marked at the beach scene; five-day romances flourished and died.

The year went on, and it was still very much ours. Bermuda Day, a roaring success, was nothing compared to the excitement created by the campaign for Association officers. Posters, tags -- all the campaign hoopla led up to the assembly for candidates' speeches, which convinced us that our class was indeed a talented one. When we picked our class rings, we were sure that juniors were supreme. We were even… let's face it… a little insufferable about the Class of '59.

Trailing clouds of glory, we launched into prom plans. The year hadn't been perfect -- we lost a heart breaker by two points to Crown Point in the tourneys -- but its ending was great for us juniors. Hosts to the seniors at our "Mood Indigo" soiree's, we climaxed the excitement of all the pre-Prom parties, the main event, and Chicago afterwards, with a one-day sun soak at the Dunes -- a glorious goodbye to our junior year.

…1958-59, and being seniors?

Then it was fall '58 and we were right at the wire: seniors! We wore hose, leotards, or knee socks with our suddenly shorter skirts, even the guys wore desert boots; and everybody wore blazers. We looked different; we were different. We went to College Night and the business Speakers Programs. Some of us filled out college entrance applications; some of us filled out job applications; and we all worried and prayed and hoped.

Some sad events marked our coming of age. In the fall, Mr. Wagonblast and Mr. Clark were injured. Mr. Clark's recovery was slow and painful. In the winter, Bob King's retirement from coaching was announced; few of us will forget the Dunes picture of Mr. King, standing alone on the empty Civic Center floor, surrounded by folded bleachers, and afternoon sun wafting down… In the spring, Mr. Lee L. Caldwell died. Superintendent of Schools for more than thirty years, Mr. Caldwell was largely responsible for the justifiable pride Hammond residents took in their schools.

But the year wasn't all sorrow and seriousness. The seniors who took the Washington trip had a riotous time. The Blue Ridge Mountains in the fall were magnificent -- and rumor had it that the Potomac trip was even more swinging that usual.

The Association officers pushed -- and HHS had its first Homecoming Queen. Our football team -- a largely senior team --was one of the best in years; so much that Hammond boosters made an unprecedented trip to Evansville for the HHS-Reitz game. The natives weren't friendly, the game was a tie (13-13), and a simple but deadly drawing kept us out of top slot -- but we knew who the State Champs really were!

The year was filled with unprecedented events -- one was the shutdown of HHS. For two grand days, we romped bookless in subzero weather, literally blazing trails through the crusted snow. A new high in both entertainment hit the Mardi Gras -- Jim Kalan and his combo at the Café de Parisienne packed them in until there wasn't even standing room left. "Good Housekeeping," the hilarious senior play, also made good entertainment.

Basketball season brought an emotion-rending coincidence -- in a sudden-death double overtime, Crown Point knocked us out of the sectionals by two points for the second year in a row. Many of us went back that evening and we cheered for Hammond Clark High School in their futile fight against East Chicago Roosevelt. HHS was better known for fierce rivalry with other city schools than for supporting them; the looks of surprise and then gratitude on the faces of the Clark fans were worth seeing -- and remembering.

Then it was spring, and it was Munster vs. Hammond in lunch-hour baseball at Maywood Park -- and it was ordering announcements, and getting those Bodie pictures which made us all look so dewy and unflawed, and going to the Prom, this time without the worry of planning it, and picking up our Dunes at the Signature Swing.

Suddenly it was there -- time to graduate. They herded us through rehearsal like so many half-grown giraffes, we sweltered through Baccalaureate on an incredibly hot day, attended round after round of open houses, and at last we had those diplomas and were marching back down the aisle to "Pomp and Circumstance" and a shower of parental smiles -- and John Muri played for us for the last time.

And it was goodbye -- goodbye to all the things that set us apart as the Class of '59, yes, but goodbye especially to the things all HHS graduates cherish as memories -- Maid-Rite hamburgers and vanilla Cokes; shoving for stools a the Red Rooster; getting a pizza for lunch hour at Giovanni's just in time to burn your mouth gobbling it and run … the HHS cafeteria's most popular menu: potato chips, ham salad sandwiches, and odd-shaped sundaes… Fat Boy's, Paul's or House of Pizza after the games…

...that first sight of HHS's magnolia tree in bloom… ...the glories for a girl of being a lower floor monitor during seventh hour when athletes roamed the hall… the opening of Jurgenson's Dairy Queen every spring… buying Red Cross candy in the main hall after school… the between-doors crush before school…

...going steady… the pageantry of the Christmas assembly… our beautiful ceiling-high Christmas tree… the sun casting colored rays through Easter "stained-glass" windows on the central landing… everyone reading Great Expectations and Silas Mariner, and no one understanding the first or liking the second…

And those special moments, different for each of us and probably inexpressible, that created the quality of each person's private memories of HHS.