Old acquaintances never forgot
By Gene Robbins, Managing Editor
Accept that Hillsborough was a different place in 1964.
There were only two stores — a diner and ice cream stand — the stretch of Route 206 between Amwell and New Amwell roads.
Hillsborough was more a collection of villages surrounded by farms. There were two newfangled housing developments.
Just one police officer patroled the township. "You could phone your friends on the other side of town and say, ‘The coast is clear,’" said Jo-Ann Onka Delasko, a lifelong resident here and an organizer of the weekend.
But connections between people never die, and may in fact grow stronger, as evidenced by the 60 members — about 40 percent of the total of 147 — in the Junior High Class of 1964 who traveled from near and far for a reunion weekend last week.
They shared drinks and easy laughs, a lot of hugs and long conversations about memories of their childhood. It had the atmosphere of a high school reunion, with an asterisk.
This was, in essence, a ninth grade reunion for a group that all got their Medicare cards this year.
"We’re 65, healthy and happy and celebrating the town and district that made us who we are," said Midge Guerrera, a Flagtown resident who helped organize the event.
The Class of 1964 should have spent the 1963-64 school year at Somerville High. (Hillsborough didn’t have its own high school until 1969.) But crowded conditions forced that freshman class to spend an extra year in the Hillsborough (now Elementary) School on Route 206 and Amwell Road.
The following year, when they got to high school, they found a crowded school running in three shifts, presenting another impediment to a new set of friendships.
Bonds formed in Hillsborough from kindergarten through ninth grade remained strong and important.
Last year Somerville High School held a five-year reunion for the period encompassed this Hillsborough class. Some of the Hillsborough friends who attended decided they wanted a hold a Hillsborough-only reunion.
Refreshments may have been involved with the decision. They pulled it off this weekend, though, reliving their 9th grade graduation dance.
Johnny and the Jaguars was the band that had the Class rockin’ and a boppin’ back then. The original Johnny — classmate and band leader John Bennett of Flagtown — was back in 2014 with his band "Due South" as the featured entertainment.
Tables had blue and-gold ribbon and dried flower arrangements, but over-the-top decorations weren’t a priority. ("At 65, who wants to climb a ladder to hang crepe paper?" rhetorically asked Ms. Guerrera.)
Ms. Onka Delasko provided a lot of memories from her personal collection of graduation signature cards, diary entries, lunch memos (30 cents bought a full meal), notes saved from passing under desks, snapshots and clippings. She prepared a 270-slide visual treat that featured each attendee’s yearbook photo and bio sketch.
For dinner, classmates pushed trays through the lunch line.
People were grayer, balder and softer around the middle. But they were friends seared into each other’s consciousness, the people they had played with, took fearful steps with, absorbed losses and bandied successes.
Present school administration was cooperative in encouraging the reunion, said Ms. Guerrera. Two classrooms were open for tours, and a couple had murals prepared by present-day students with questions like "how may teachers did you have?" that the oldtimers answered with Sharpies.
"Coming into the building and discovering three giant murals created by second graders really helped us to feel re-connected to the district," said Ms. Onka Delasko.
The school looked the same, classmates said, even though water fountains looked they were just two feet off the floor, one classmate said. Ms. Onka-Delasko pointed down the northern hallway and said that was for the ninth grade, and south of the entry doors was for the younger kids.
She said that when the class changed classes, students were made to stay in lanes that went the length of the hall — even if your next class was just steps across the way, she said. (She wasn’t sure why, but thought it might have been to prepare them for Somerville High School.)
" I didn’t want to go to Somerville reunion, but I wanted to come to this," said Nancy Williams Hill, up from Virginia. "I’ve knew these people from kindergarten to 12th grade."