Misty water-colored memories of 20 years ago
By:Mary Ellen Zangara
The date was June 18, 1980, and that was my graduation from Manville High School. July 22, 2000 – my 20-year high school reunion.
This past Saturday we had our 20-year reunion. Wow, 20 years already! It really hasn’t seemed that long ago that I was in Manville High School. The time did fly by. Of course with each reunion comes a lot of work to do. I had a few classmates who helped with all the decisions to make this day happen.
As before for our 10-year, the three officers of our class put together another event. Vice President Dave Kohler, Secretary Dawn Bradley Mathewson and myself, the treasurer of the Class of 1980, along with my husband, Andrew, who was also a classmate, made all the arrangements.
Late in the fall of 1999, everyone kept asking me if we were going to have another reunion. Why did they ask me? Probably because I did the 10-year.
We started right after Christmas trying to track down and find all of our class. Back then our graduating classes were a lot larger than they are today. We were a class of 162.
Each night I spent a few hours on the phone using old records, phone books trying to locate everyone. Some were easy to find, they were still in Manville. Others moved from where they were 10 years ago and their parents no longer lived in town. Those were a harder task to find.
Luckily we were able to find all but 49 classmates. Names appeared in the newspapers and online but there was still no response. To this day, we still don’t know where they are.
Because it is the Year 2000, a lot of the banquet halls and restaurant halls were booked with weddings and other events. The prices were also so high that it seemed unreal to pay during this millennium year.
So what we decided to do was have a family picnic at a park. Sounds like a great idea? That’s what we thought.
We looked around and booked the Eagles in Bridgewater. The Eagles has a beautiful picnic grove with a pavilion (in case of rain). Instead of having the usual barbecue of hamburgers and hot dogs, we had the Red Door in Manville cater the affair.
Now all the details were set and we could send out all the letters to our classmates. All information was out and each day I went to the post office box anxiously awaiting all the responses. I felt like a little kid waiting for a special surprise or something to arrive.
It was thrilling every time one came and I opened it to see the response; yes or no. The first response came and more followed up until the week of the reunion, last week. Some were able to attend, some were away and couldn’t be here to join us.
At one point the committee was trying to decide if we should cancel it or not. We only heard from 22 classmates that they would be attending with their families. After speaking with all the members who were coming from out of state, we decided to go ahead with it anyway.
So now we just had to pray for a nice day. I started to get a little worried in the beginning of the week watching the weather and seeing the possibility of showers on Saturday. Then the rain came late Friday night and luckily it ended.
Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day, not too hot, just right. We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. I arrived early with my family to get situated and make sure everything was OK. A clown was hired to entertain the kids. Moogie the Clown from Bridgewater very colorfully dressed painted faces and created balloon hats and animals.
One by one classmates and their families arrived. They checked in to receive a name tag, just in case you did not recognize them, along with the booklet with all the current information about classmates.
As most of them came up, the first thing they looked at me and said "Hi Mary Ellen." So that can tell you that I have not changed at all from high school; I just got older.
And that was before I put on my name tag.
Everyone was socializing with classmates some whom we have not seen in 20 years. We ended up with about 83 people in all. The kids made new friends quickly and ran off to play a game of wiffleball or soccer.
The little ones went over to the sandbox, where their creativity took over for a while.
It was interesting to see what they looked like after all those years. I recognized everyone, but it was fun watching other classmates try to figure out who they were. You wondered how they would look, what their spouses looked like, their children and everything else about your former classmates.
We ate, listened to music provided by one of our own classmates who is a DJ now. Julius Tulner of TT Sound played the songs of the past and the tunes of today.
Moogie the Clown performed a magic show and our very own vice president was a part of it. When I was asked by her for an adult volunteer, she asked if I would take part and I said I had the perfect assistant.
Dave at first was hesitant but we convinced him to help out. (He had no say in the matter.)
The afternoon was spent with classmates sitting around catching up on what happened over the last 20 years. We were reminiscing about the old times and one of our classmates Susan Cason Dempster brought a bunch of old photos with her and we had a good laugh about some of them.
Looking at the hairstyles and the clothes you would like that we were living somewhere else.
Some were of our senior trip to Florida. We were the only class in the history of the high school to go down to Florida on the Amtrak train for 22 hours.
You know what it was like traveling on a train for all that time with a bunch of high school seniors? Use your imagination. By the time we got there, we saw sides of our classmates that we’ve never seen before and those are all the best memories to have today.
Those photos brought back a lot of memories.
There were games for the kids with prizes and we had a few prizes to give away ourselves. We gave a prize for the classmate who traveled the furthest-Lisa Balay Wytanis; she came up from Georgia; Lisa also received the Most Children having 5- 4 boys and 1 girl. Married the Longest was Mike Agans who has been married for 16 years and the Most Recently Married was Dave Kohler who is married for 6 years.
The Newest Baby belonged to Dawn Bradley Mathewson at 8 months old and the First Response Back came from Maureen Hart O’Reilly.
Two of the awards were voted on at the picnic for the Most Changed Female and Male. Anna Balint Clougher and Gary Skirkanish received those. We added in a classmate who hasn’t changed and that went to Mike Agans.
I had a few votes for that one too but I voted for Mike and he said he voted for me.
It was really nice to see all the classmates who attended: Lisa Balay Wytanis, Anna Balint Clougher, Mike Agans, Dave Kohler, Nick Rogalski, Sandy Dinsmore Charneski, Frank Sujansky, Gary Skirkanish, Dawn Bradley Mathewson, Maureen Hart O’Reilly, Karen Zielsdorff Wisnosky, Cheryl Shepley Taggart, Dave Doremus, Wally Romanoskie, Cathy Haberland, Barbara Lecko Schneck, Julius Tulner, Charlie Tomaszfski, Susan Cason Dempster, and Andrew Zangara.
I’m glad it’s over as any function. It was a lot of fun planning and holding the reunion and thanks to Andrew who was a big help we provided a fun day for all who attended. Hopefully we’ll have more classmates attend next time.
So now we get to sit back for a few years until the 25th, and start all over again!
Mary Ellen Zangara is a lifelong resident of Manville.